Prof. emilie m. townes featured in BU Today for mission to build a bridge between religious and secular scholarship
The following is an excerpt from BU Today’s article “STH Womanist Theologian Has a Dream: A Religion and Pan-African Studies Program at BU” by Sophie Yarin, featuring Martin Luther King, Jr. Professor of Religion & Black Studies emilie m. townes, published on February 13, 2026.
When emilie m. townes (who styles her name in lowercase) was a young religion scholar and the world of theology opened up to her, she quickly realized there was something missing.
“I didn’t see represented the religious world of the Black folks who raised me and taught me the basics of what it meant to be a spiritual person and a Christian; [in particular] the religious worlds of Black women and girls were not present,” she says. “And I thought, now that is really strange, because if you look at the majority of predominantly Black churches, most of the people there are women and girls. So why are they being left out of the academic study of religion?”
…