Lightsey Gives Keynote Lecture at Claremont School of Theology
In February, Associate Dean Pamela Lightsey gave a keynote lecture at Claremont School of Theology during its 38th Annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Celebration.
Lightsey, associate dean for community life and lifelong learning and clinical assistant professor of contextual theology and practice at Boston University School of Theology, met with students during the day to talk about her work as a scholar and activist.
Her address followed a sermon by Rev. Dr. Cedrick Bridgeforth, lead pastor at Santa Ana United Methodist Church. The day’s events also included tributes to the recently deceased Rev. Dr. Cornish R. Rogers (STH’55), professor emeritus at CST.
As the school’s 38th Annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Lecturer, Lightsey entitled her address, “After the Chants and Shut-Downs: Where Do We Go From Here?” and spoke of the connection between justice and love as it is described in the writing of Martin Luther King, Jr.
“Justice is dependent on love,” said Lightsey, drawing a connection to this concept and the principle of nonviolent direct action. “Justice is part of love’s activity. Justice is an expression of love.” She urged the audience to keep in mind the sacrificial nature of speaking truth to power and said incarnational theology requires that religious people confront and respond to injustice.
Lightsey, who has joined Black Lives Matter protests in Ferguson and Baltimore, played a video that showed her own conversation with an activist in Ferguson. Lightsey asked the woman, “What does justice look like?” The woman replied, “We don’t even know what justice looks like no more.”
Lightsey says she believes this feeling of justice as an elusive reality is shared by many Black Americans across the United States. Lightsey encouraged her audience to build justice-making coalitions and to practice daily “self-purification” and “personal truth-telling” by asking themselves if they are prepared to make sacrifices for justice. Finally, she said, “Stay woke. … We must remain active agents of change or be deafened by our own snoring as the tentacles of bigotry wrap around our bodies.”