Stephen Ray: Shaping the Future of Theological Education

In this week’s episode, Rev. Dr. Stephen Ray shares his journey from growing up in Jamaica Queens, New York, to serving as president of Chicago Theological Seminary. In his role as an educator and administrator, Dr. Ray has always sought ways to contribute to shaping the future of teachers and students in the academy. 

Dr. Ray recently retired as president of the Chicago Theological Seminary and is the immediate past president of the Society for the Study of Black Religion. 

Portrait Illustration by: Triyas
Music by: @siryalibeats

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Transcript

Patrick: Welcome back to another episode of the Sound of the Genuine. I am Dr. Patrick Reyes, your host. The Sound of the Genuine is a show where we explore with leaders, scholars, pastors, educators, about how they find meaning and purpose in their lives. And today I'm especially overjoyed because we get Dr. Stephen Ray. Dr. Ray is a former president of Chicago Theological Seminary, professor at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary, and president of the Society of Study of Black Religion. But beyond all of that, he is a mentor to so many, including myself. One of the things that always inspires me about Dr. Ray, and you'll hear it in this interview is his commitment to education, his passion for leading in the classroom. I'm so grateful that Dr. Ray has shared his journey with us here on the Sound of the Genuine.

All right, Dr. Ray, we have you on the Sound of the Genuine. I mean, I will say this: You were the first person, when I came to FTE and I asked Matthew Wesley Williams, who was the vice president at the time, “Who do I need to talk to, to live into this call to what FTE is about?” He mentioned Dr. Stephen Ray and all the things you've done for the community, for this organization, for the academy, for scholars, black scholars in particular, but that's what I know now from the last seven years. I'm hoping you take me back to your beginning. Tell me about your family, the community grew up in. Take me back.

Stephen: Okay. Well, you know, it's a joy to talk with you and thanks so much for the opportunity. I think if I were gonna talk about my place, family of origin, what I have to talk about is sort of an Eden that was made by African Americans in the corner of Queens, New York. These were all people who had migrated from Virginia and North Carolina in the previous 20 years. Many of them had gotten jobs with the city, the state, the federal government, but they were solidly middle class and they all migrated to this place called Jamaica, Queens. And they built an oasis for us. Now you may recognize Jamaica because Tom Browne made it famous with Funkin’ for Jamaica. That's the place he was talking about.

Run DMC came from Jamaica. LL Cool J came from Jamaica, Bernard Wright…well, they were all part of this creative environment that was made back in the sixties and in the seventies. And the beautiful thing about that environment was it was a total environment. So for instance, I went to a school, elementary school PS 52, that was 98% black and we had the only black female principal in the entire New York public school system, Elaine Davis. And she was relentless in ensuring that we had absolutely the best teachers, the best resources that the city of New York could offer at that time. So growing up in that world and being shaped by that world, there was a way that I came into being, not simply comfortable with the idea of moving through the world with my blackness, but that it was simply normal. And that was a great gift. And when I pull that together with my church background, I grew up in the congregationalist tradition, but I grew up very specifically in the black congregationalist tradition. Folk who traced their lineage all the way back to the abolitionists.

And I don't mean they traced their lineage ideologically, but I mean genealogically in the same churches. So I grew up in these churches of these proud black people who really felt that we had a gift to give to the world, who really felt that we were contributors to the world, who really felt that we were value added in any space that we stepped into. So that was sort of what shaped me and who I am. And that's why whenever I step into a space, the first question I ask is what value can I add to this space?

Patrick: That sounds like such a wonderful upbringing, like a space where you can be like nurtured and just loved. So tell me about some of those people who loved you into being and what were their hopes and dreams for a young Stephen Ray?

Stephen: Well, I mean, the people who loved me were the ones on my street. You know, certainly there was my mother and my father, before he left, but I mean, I belonged to the entire street. Mrs. Williams, the Johnson's across the street, Mr. Jessburg across the street, the Browns down the street. You know, so all of us belonged to the whole street. And what that meant was that sense of belonging was palpably real. Now as a child, it became an issue sometimes because they would police you more than your parents would, but I will always be grateful for that.

And I had an extended family because I was a part of that chain migration so that when one person moved or one family moved, everybody moved. So my parents, who were slightly older than everyone, moved to that part of Queens. So my two cousins moved right around the corner. When my older cousin went to college in Massachusetts, there was no question that I was going to school somewhere in Massachusetts. And my younger cousin, he was cursed too, because after two of us went to Massachusetts, everybody was gonna go to Massachusetts.

There was that sort of belonging that was communal, but then was also very specific in terms of the street that I lived on and it was also the family. So, my godfather, Nathaniel penny. Until I was probably 40 years old, I thought that bus drivers were some kind of superhuman people, right? Because that's what he did for a living. So whenever I saw somebody in a TA uniform, it was like, I was seeing a demigod. And it wasn't until I was much older that I realized that the just human beings, like the rest of us.

Patrick: That's so cool. I mean, I know you're a brilliant person. You're a scholar. Where did the seeds for that start setting in? I just think of you as such a brilliant human. Was it in Massachusetts, when you're following your cousin out to school? Like when did this intellectual journey, this intellectualism start to emerge?

Stephen: Well, I think the place that I would say it started to emerge is the world book encyclopedia. Now you may have remembered people talking about those or seeing them in people's homes. By the time I was eight years old, I had read through the entire world book encyclopedia three times. And I think that what that did was it created a sort of boundless curiosity. You know, one of the good sides was that I carried that curiosity through school. One of the bad sides was when I left PS 52 and I emerged into the rest of the white world, that curiosity was not encouraged nor was rewarded. So I wasn't particularly interested when I was in school. You know, one of the things that, I tell people as a word of encouragement, the first college that I went to, I actually got kicked out of with a GPA of 0.75. And, you know, part of what the problem was was I could never understand why when I took the test and aced the test, I had to go to class? I mean, I didn't understand the connection between the two. Because I went to college when I was 16, so I was still, you know, very young and still maturing. But in terms of when it began to crystallize was when I went to divinity school. At Yale Divinity School, there was a way in which being, not just at the divinity school, but in the university, I felt like I was in this vast ocean of knowledge and learning, and I was being taken seriously as a learner.

That changed the entire dynamics, both of my orientation toward critical thinking, which I had done for most of my life, but also in terms of the scholarly life. Because I was being introduced to something not as the sideline of my own interests, but being able to just go and be buried in the library for days at a time. So that was the real, sort of turn for me. And it was all the things I had brought with me that was shaped by my childhood, et cetera, but being in an environment where I had permission to do nothing but get lost in the world of ideals. Cause I had never been in a place like that before where I had that permission.

Patrick: I mean, I'm imagining you in the Div school library reading, immersed in these books. That's you. Did you have faculty around encouraging that, affirming that this was a vocation you could pursue to be a scholar at that point?

Stephen: I had some faculty that was encouraging. I wish that there was more, but one of the things that I found that was deeply encouraging as well was I was a citizen of the entire university. And that's the one thing that I've always told everyone is that don't be a prisoner of your department or don't be a prisoner of your school.

So what that meant was that I was able to find people in other spaces who were deeply affirming, like John Blassingame, Hazel Carby just to name a couple of people, John Steptoe to name a third one - who were all in the African American studies department, cultural studies department. I was able to find people who were not specifically related to the divinity school, but who were deeply interested in and saw my promise.

Patrick: When you started doing this work, when was it that the vocation of a scholar like pursuing that PhD, that next step, writing, when did that start to really come into full focus? And who was there to kind of help shape it and say, yeah, you know, Stephen, you could do this for a living?

Stephen: Serene Jones, who's currently the president of Union Theological Seminary in New York, she and I almost started at the same time. She was just finishing her graduate program, when I came to the divinity school. So when I took the intro to theology class, she was getting ready to defend her dissertation at that point. So she was always a mentor to me, but she once told me, she said, you know, you should think about the life of the scholar. Because I'll be honest with you, sometimes it feels like you're a thief because you're reading books that you want, talking to people that you want to talk to, and you're actually getting paid to do it. So that was a light bulb moment for me, because that was the first time in the midst of being in this wonderful new world of ideas that anyone, had broached the subject.

And I think the very specific moment was when I wrote a paper in that intro to theology class and Serene said, “You know, you should think about writing a book about this idea.” I will remember that for the rest of my life and this was back in 1990. So this was many, many moons ago.

Patrick: I'm really curious about what that paper was about and did it turn into a book? But I'm also curious about, was there ever any doubt, like this was what you were gonna do or did you have alternative pathways? Were you thinking about other vocations or was it, “I'm gonna pursue this PhD, I'm gonna write this book, I'm gonna teach these classes?”

Stephen: Well, you know, I think that for me, in order to answer that question, I have to say that, throughout my entire ministry, and I went into ministry back in 1985, I've never been an ambitious person. I've had ambition to be the best I could be wherever it was that God called me to be, but in terms of just plotting out a career, you know, that's not something that I say that I focused on. I don't think that's the best way to move through a career. You know, I advise people about how to move through a career but for me once it became a possibility that I could do this and I could really do this in a way that I could bring to bear every side of me that I had having to compartmentalize, it was a no brainer. So when I went to Yale Divinity School, just to talk about how I followed the call of God is that I had been thinking about going to divinity school. I had said we'll, you know, we're just gonna put that off because I have to take care of my family.

So my job got phased out with the city of Hartford and I talked my pastor and I said, well, you know, what do you think I should do? Now this is Monday. He said, well I think you should go to Yale. I think you should apply and you should go. Now remember this is back in 1989 when there was no internet. So for my three letters of reference, I had to drive to three different corners of Connecticut. I had to drive to my undergraduate school, in Massachusetts, to get my transcript. I had to do all of this because the deadline was at 5:00 PM on Friday. So I had basically four days to pull together an entire application. I got there, it was 4:30 on Friday afternoon. They were getting ready to close the office, but I got there just in time. 

The kicker is that the director of admissions, Jim Garrett was married to Sue Garrett, who taught Bible. And I ended up becoming her colleague at Louisville Presbyterian. So one day cause I, at that point I was feeling kind of full of myself and whatnot, and I said, “So Jim, why did you accept me? What was it about the application that you saw some promise?” He said, well, you know, I'm gonna be honest with you. We had never accepted anyone from your undergraduate school, so we figured we'd give you a shot because you look like as likely a candidate as anybody else. You know, so for me, that sort of confirmed that I just follow where I feel God is calling me to be able to best serve.

Patrick: That's amazing. What a great story. So as you think about that, as your origin in the divinity school, you go on and do a PhD. Tell me a little bit about the teaching life and the life of a scholar. When you start moving into that, what'd that vocation look like to you?

Stephen: I think one of the greatest gifts that I received was that very early in my career, the Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning was taking life. We were in the second year of their workshops and it was very specific for African American scholars. In fact, it was back when we were staying in the dorms because they hadn't built the Wabash Center yet. So we were using Wabash College. And, you know, I made a tremendous amount of friends and colleagues that journeyed with me through my career, but that really opened up a portal for me to think about what I could do with my future and how it is that I could best make the contribution.

You know, going back to another story is that that had been an aspiration of mine so long ago that I had forgotten, because I didn't know how to get there. When I was looking for a job, and I was going and talking to an executive recruiter, this would've been ’80, 1980. And he said, well, what do you ultimately want to be? And I said, well, you know, ultimately I would like to be a teacher, a college teacher. Now, of course he said, well…that was the end of the conversation because I'm not hiring teachers. But you know, the reason I bring that up Patrick is because at that point in my life, I had no idea how to make that real. Right? I had no idea what it took to become a professor because nobody in my world…you know, I was of that generation where we were the first ones in my family who got college educations. And so when I got to Wabash, I felt something awakening in me that, like I said, I had forgotten so long ago, that it just clicked. That this was the way that I could really make a contribution to shaping the future. And so through my work with Wabash, through my work with FTE, I mean probably the majority of my career since that time, has been devoted to helping shape teachers, environments in which people can become teachers and supporting the teachers in whatever environment I serve. 

So whether I was a senior faculty colleague that had a tremendous amount of institutional power, so I could support and guide my junior colleagues, whether I was the dean - when I was doing the interim dean, that I could make the environment a better one for all my collegues. And when I was president at CTS, I mean a central point has always been one myself becoming the best teacher I can be, but then helping facilitate others in becoming the best teachers they can be because I actually believe that good teaching can change the world. 

Patrick: So I am curious about the span, that you are a teacher you've seen, gone through decades of in the classroom, of changing that. Tell me about, from those first years in the professorate, what teaching/writing/scholarship was like then and what you've seen specifically changed in theological education as you've led the way into a new way that the classroom is transforming, the academy is transforming. Take me a little bit through that journey.

Stephen: Two things have changed, but a couple of things haven't. The one thing that has changed has been the rapidity of technological change. Because I think that technology has changed, but when we understand it to be anything more than the delivery platform for good teaching, we actually lose sight of the value of technology. So from the time I started teaching when we still had course packets, right? And the course packet was when you would have a graduate student go and photocopy a chapter from this book, photocopy this article. And then there was always a printer in town who had bind it all up into one book. So I've gone from that to now working on Populi, which is a platform that, you know, I just upload all of my resources. Nobody has to copy anything. So there's been that change and, you know, one of the things I will note is that we all live in Apple world now, because back in the nineties, apple put their money on the academic market and not the consumer market.

That's one thing I very clearly remember. And so what that's meant then is that there was a very real and significant way in which we have in our learning environments been curated by a single corporation. And I think that has its effect because one of the significant effects has had on teaching and learning is people are looking for integration in ways that they presume because apple creates an integrated world, right? So in terms of their learning styles and in terms of how they're thinking they're gonna be engaging materials. And also in terms of our teaching styles. You know, one of the things you can learn from looking at people of my generation is you can tell who are the old PC people, because they're the ones who are most uncomfortable on these learning platforms.

The ones who have been in apple world for quite some time and were early adopters back in the nineties, et cetera. are the ones who are most comfortable on these various sorts of learning platforms that we have. That provides us great opportunity, but it also provides us challenge, right? Because one of the things I always chuckle about is when I hear people talk about sort of the dangers of Facebook and decolonizing learning while they're busy typing on their MacBook pro and looking at messages on their iPhone.

Patrick: I mean, on the technology side, I think you're absolutely right. I mean, I'm on my Mac as well. But I am curious about like, and not just shaping, but shaping the relationship. The student body has changed a lot. So when you're relating to students, tell me about this teaching moment, this connection between professor and student, mentor/mentee, that has shifted, but not just because of technology in good or bad, but really seeing that life of the scholar, the intellectual has shifted the way that you transfer knowledge. So tell me a little bit about that shift as well.

Stephen: You know, the biggest shift for me is that we went through a period of democratization in learning largely shaped by Howard Zen's approach to telling history. And how that infiltrated all of the social sciences is that during the nineties and on through the first decade of this century, there was a significant and substantial wave in which people talked about us being co-learners in the classroom. That we wanted to step away from doing a banking type of approach to teaching. And one of the things that I began to realize, I think is that that became the common sense, particularly in theological classrooms, of a particular liberal/progressive bent. But one of the things that really began to occur to me, I guess, maybe about 10-15 years ago, was that we were aggregating the very real place as holders of wisdom. And as a consequence, what ended up happening was that our curriculums became ones that were looking at practical competence, and those were important things because they were needed in nonprofits and in churches, et cetera.

But in terms of helping cultivate wisdom, in terms of how it is that one invites people to inhabit the faith that we share and to inhabit the communities that enliven that faith. I think that that became something that I became deeply invested in exploring and doing in my teaching. Because I saw that in the field that was something that was not becoming the common sense. And honestly, if I were going to point to something that affected American religious life, it would be that. Because when you talk about people being co-learners with you and you are presuming that they were shaped by the same kind of curriculums, by the same kinds of regimes of knowledge construction that you were shaped by, you can miss the boat entirely if people were shaped by different regimes of knowledge. So for instance, there was a lot of talk about the effect of no child left behind, about the effect of teaching to the test, et cetera. 

I remember my daughter, when she was doing the whole word curriculum, which was all rage in the 1990s.Well, the thing about all of those is that in none of them, is there a regard for or a cultivation of practical wisdom. And so when those people, those students got into our classes in the nineteens and coming into the 2020s, what ended up happening was we had people in front of us who were yearning for a connection to practical wisdom that would help them to make sense of what they were experiencing as a very fragmented world. And because we had moved to this particular sort of approach to learning and formation of knowledge, many of them weren't getting what they needed. And so that's one of the biggest changes that I will talk about, Patrick, is recognizing that we had a group of teachers who had been trained and who had been shaped by a particular regime of knowledge that led us to make assumptions about our students that simply were not true. And as a consequence, we shaped curriculums in classes in ways that we weren't speaking to their deepest yearnings.

Patrick: You made a shift from the faculty to administration that this regime of knowledge, and I think you've been leading the way, not just becoming president of CTS, for example, but also within the guild. I mean, at SSBR you've taken on significant leadership to try to shift some of these cultural norms that have been happening in theological education. Tell me about when did that start coming into your mind around like, oh, okay maybe this is an administrative call now not a classroom call?

Stephen: Well, I think it was always still focused on the classroom, right? Because part of what I understood was that what happens in the classroom is facilitated by, number one, the strength of the institution that you're in, but then in the second sort of way, the vibrancy of the organic relationships that you have with the communities from which these students are coming and to which they're going to serve.

So for me, my understanding of administration was always that. I never thought of the work as doing it so that the institution could survive because institutional maintenance is an important thing, but I leave that to other people. I wanted to ensure that we had and want to continue with whatever time I have left in my career, to help the field and institutions create the kinds of environments in which classrooms can thrive as places of being the birthplace of leaders, both thought leaders, as well as organizational leaders, as well as congregational leaders. So for me, shifting to the administrators office wasn't leaving the classroom, it was trying to facilitate and create strengths so that the classroom could be the place that the seminary could make its most powerful contribution to the world.

Patrick: Stephen, what I love about this is…so sitting on several boards right now in theological education and the conversation right now, the tying these two things that you just talked about together; the rapid pace of technology change, and then the classroom being this place of liberation and formation of the next generation of leaders, and so often this conversation - at least as I've been hearing it - has been a conversation of tension. How do these things go together or don't go together, especially in this fragile moment that we find ourselves in theological education? I'm curious as you live into your call now, especially in the vocation of the classroom, how are you leading to both demonstrate the power of the classroom and the power of the students who inhabit that classroom? And the kind of projecting a hope for theological education that this is still a thing? You said it beautifully, that holders of wisdom is still an important part for cultural formation for leadership formation.

Stephen: I haven't figured it out yet, Patrick. But one of the things that I think, I have the opportunity to do is to actually be an advocate and be a shaping force for the field itself. That's very difficult to do if you're lodged in one institution, that is a seminary or a divinity school. So both through writing as well as through perhaps trying to convene some conversations, as well as perhaps working on developing some projects. Because I think that, just in my experience, the people who have had the largest outsized voice in terms of shaping our field have been people who lead philanthropic organizations, accrediting organizations, or were people who were from a different time in theological education. 

So while I want to continue to be connected to the classroom, because that's where I find my anchor either through being a visiting professor, maybe doing some adjunct work, what I'm looking to make in terms of the biggest impact is in terms of doing some writing about all that I've learned over this last 30 years in the various different spaces that I've been as well as using what connections I have been able to garner to be able to convene some conversations with people who might likely not find themselves in the same sort of space, but are trying to imagine a similar kind of future and an impact on the future. And really begin to, through all of those means teaching, convenient conversations, perhaps trying to develop some projects, trying to find a way to move forward. That's just very difficult to do if your primary responsibility is the health and maintenance of a particular institution.

Patrick: What I love about what you're saying here is, it almost feels like this classroom or going all the way back to the beginning of your story the…to Jamaica, Queens, these zones, these pockets of cultural formation, of love, and the classroom being a space for that and cultivating that throughout one's vocational life is such a gift. The way that you're framing this is, I think, for so many young scholars who are coming up and thinking about what they might do to see that as a trajectory is a beautiful thing. I ask everyone, Stephen, this is my last question is how much of this vocation - of a holder of wisdom, of a scholar, as a communicator, a community builder comes from your sense of self, that connection to the divine, that call that you feel, the quiet of that Yale Divinity School library, where you're there with the books and in your happy place and how much comes from that community, going back to Jamaica, Queens and the classrooms and the faculties, you've been a part of? So how much of this is you? How much of this is the community? Tell me about where this vocation comes from.

Stephen: The way I describe myself as a way to start answering that question is that I am a preacher by calling and a theologian by trade. In terms of my communal formation understanding is that when I accepted a call to ministry, there was a way in which there was no part of me that didn't, right? It was the totality of my existence. The question was how is it going to unfold itself? And that's been what I've experienced with joy and with wonder, sometimes with fear and trepidation over the last, almost 40 years. So when I think about, what it is that is the impetus, that's the first for me. Because I accepted the call of ministry in my early twenties, Patrick, I have no memory of myself when I wasn't trying to live into the call. The way that I live into the call is by being as authentically the person that I am. Because I don't believe that God calls you into ministry because God doesn't have any use for who you are.

So all of the things, all of the passions, all of the joys, all of the shortcomings, the whole baliwick is caught up in that. What's been my impetus throughout this entire career is that when I was given the opportunity and the gift, and I really have experienced it as a gift, to be able to be given this ministry of teaching and formation, and helping others imagine a new world…you know, when God gave me the gift to be able to spend my entire life doing that, I mean, it still blows my mind. Because I grew up and I was shaped in Queens, by that group of African Americans who had migrated from Virginia and who had migrated from North Carolina, who had gotten jobs with the city, who had gotten jobs with the state, who had gotten jobs with the federal government, but who had very much gotten jobs. Jobs that they worked to make a living that they did so that they could provide for their family, so that they could build a community. But none of them thought of their jobs as something that was the totality of who and what they were. 

Because my mother, Edna Ray worked for the department of social services, she would've done other things, that she did that so that I would have a choice.

And when God gave me the choice to give my life to this work, I could do no other than do so joyfully. And so that's one of the reasons why even now, in whatever time I have left, I still want to make a contribution in that field. It's because of the deep feeling of what a gift it has been that God has given me this opportunity.

Patrick: I'll speak for the entire FTE staff and the folks that we share in common, what a gift it is to be in your presence and to hear your story and to be the beneficiary of your friendship and love. And you’re a keeper of wisdom. Every time I have a conversation with you, my heart is just full. I'm so grateful for this conversation Stephen. Thank you so much for sharing your story on the Sound of the Genuine. Thank you so much.

Stephen: Thank you. Thank you so much.

Patrick: I want to thank you for listening to the Sound of the Genuine. Do us a favor and leave us a review. It helps put this story and Dr. Ray’s story in the ears of more listeners. I want to thank our team - our executive producer Elsie Barnhart, Heather Wallace, and @siryalibeats for his music, and our communications team, the amazing Diva Morgan Hicks for putting this story out into the world. 

If you have enjoyed this story and are looking for more resources to help you find meaning and purpose in your lives, head on over to fteleaders.org and check out our experiences, our courses, and our many resources that you can download for free. And as always, we hope this podcast helps inspire you to find the Sound of the Genuine in you.