Dr. Willie James Jennings is the Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Theology and Africana Studies at Yale University Divinity School.

Born and raised in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Dr. Jennings received his B.A. in Religion and Theological Studies from Calvin College (1984), his M.Div. (Master of Divinity degree) from Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena California, and his Ph.D. degree from Duke University.

Dr. Jennings teaches in the areas of Christian thought, race theory, decolonial and environmental studies. He is the author of The Christian Imagination: Theology and the Origins of Race published by Yale University Press. It is one of the most important books in theology written in the last 25 years and is now a standard text read in colleges, seminaries, and universities. He is also the recipient of the 2015 Grawemeyer Award in Religion for his groundbreaking work on race and Christianity.

Recently, he authored commentary on the Book of Acts won the Reference Book of the Year Award, from The Academy of Parish Clergy. He is also the author of After Whiteness: An Education in Belonging, which was the inaugural book in the much-anticipated book series, Theological Education between the Times, and has already become an instant classic, winning the 2020 book of the year award from Publisher’s Weekly. It was also selected as a finalist for the 2021 American Academy of Religion Book of the Year in the Constructive- Reflective Studies category, and in 2023 won the Lilly Fellows Program Book Award. Dr. Jennings has been selected to give several prestigious lectures, including the Bampton Lectures at Oxford University, the Huslean Lectures at Cambridge University, the Cole Lecture at Vanderbilt University, the Parks-King Lecture at Yale University, the Ferguson Lecture at Manchester University, and the Hughes-Cheong Lecture at the University of Melbourne.

Now Dr. Jennings is hard at work on a two-volume work on the doctrine of creation, tentatively entitled, “Reframing the World.” Volume two is entitled Jesus and the Displaced: Race, Theology, and the Built Environment. In addition to being a frequent lecturer at colleges, universities, and seminaries, Dr. Jennings is also a regular workshop leader at conferences. He is also a consultant for the Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning in Theology and Religion, and for the Association of Theological Schools. He served along with his wife, the Reverend Joanne L. Browne Jennings as associate ministers at the Mount Level Baptist Church in Durham, North Carolina, and for many years, they served together as interim pastors for several Presbyterian and Baptist churches in North Carolina. They are the parents of two wonderful adult daughters.

Chine McDonald is Director of Theos, the religion and society think tank. She was previously Head of Public Engagement at Christian Aid. She has two decades of experience in journalism, media and communications across faith, media and international development organisations. She also speaks and writes regularly on issues of race, faith and gender, and is the author of God is Not a White Man: And Other Revelations (Hodder & Stoughton, May 2021) which was runner-up for the Michael Ramsey Prize for theological writing, and Unmaking Mary: Shattering the Myth of Perfect Motherhood (Hodder & Stoughton, March 2025). Chine is a regular writer, broadcaster, panel host and media commentator and has written for The Financial Times, The Guardian, The Independent, The Big Issue, Prospect, The Mirror and contributes to TV and radio programmes such as regularly presenting the BBC’s Thought for the Day on Radio 4’s Today programme and appearing on BBC Sunday Morning Live. She regularly speaks in and hosts panels including previously at Cheltenham Festivals and How the Light Gets In. She is vice–chair of Greenbelt Festival and a trustee of Christian Aid and Demos. She is on the Advisory board for Cambridge University Library. Chine studied Theology and Religious Studies at Cambridge University, and is a Canon Theologian at Chester Cathedral.

www.chinemcdonald.com

Dr Dulcie Dixon McKenzie is the Director of the Centre for Black Theology (CBT) at the Queen’s Foundation for Ecumenical Theological Education in Birmingham. She leads the strategic development of theological training for students from Black Majority/Pentecostal churches across the UK. Dulcie is a Black Pentecostal scholar who traverses the intersectionality of race and gender, making important links to Black church history, spirituality, and sacred music. She achieved her PhD in 2014 at the University of Birmingham, which was the first academic study about Black British gospel music. Dulcie channelled her historical enquiry through a Black theological lens, tracing the impact of the spirituality and liturgical practices of African Caribbean Pentecostal congregations as foundational to the rise of Black British gospel music. Alongside her leadership and teaching roles, Dulcie enjoyed a long career as a radio presenter with the BBC at local and national level. During her time as a radio broadcaster, she received multiple awards, including a lifetime achievement award for her role as a pioneer of gospel music radio in the UK. Although Dulcie has made an outstanding contribution to advancing Black British gospel music since the 1990s, she is concerned about what she sees is a lack of scholarship concerning African Caribbean Pentecostal churches and its music. There is a lot of work to do to galvanise more sustained interest in the historical growth and legacy of these churches to gain more theological insights. Dulcie is committed to combining her first-hand experience of the Black church with further research, and to encouraging others to discern the value in undertaking theological studies to enrich ministry and gain more theological insight for prophetic social engagement. Dulcie's research and teaching overall incorporate the voices, histories, and spiritualities of Black communities in general, and specifically, African Caribbean Pentecostal churches. Recently, Dulcie co-edited a book, Black British Gospel Music: from the Windrush Generation to Black Lives Matter (published in June 2024) and has a forthcoming book that explores the theology and cultural legacy of Black Pentecostal congregational worship as foundational to Black British Gospel Music.

Beckford is a BAFTA-winning documentary filmmaker who has created and fronted more than twenty productions for major broadcasters including the BBC, Channel 4, and Discovery USA. His films tackle diverse subjects, from interrogations of Britain’s imperial legacy to explorations of biblical narratives and modern popular culture. Beckford’s work is not limited to documentary; he has also written drama and contributed to the development of Black British urban music. His first radio play, Jesus Piece (BBC Regions, 2017), tells the story of a former gang member who reinvents himself as a Pentecostal preacher turned detective. Currently, Beckford is pursuing a theo-musicological project titled The Jamaican Bible Remix Project. Realised as a studio album, it brings together Black liberation theology with the sounds of grime, drum and bass, and UK soul.

In 1978, as a teenager on his way to a church convention in Birmingham, Robert witnessed a march by the Far Right National Front. The experience was nothing short of apocalyptic. It confronted him with the raw violence of racial terror on the streets of Britain and, at the same time, exposed the theological inadequacy of his then Black Christian faith to confront such hostility. The hymns, sermons, and liturgies he had grown up with carried deep spiritual meaning but seemed silent in the face of white supremacy, colonial legacies and the structural injustices they sustained. That moment crystallised in Robert the conviction that the Christian faith and theology must speak to the realities of Black life in Britain, not only in personal salvation but also in the struggle for justice and human dignity. It set him on the path of developing a contextual and constructive Black Theology that could articulate an explicitly anti-racist faith. Over time, this theological vision found its praxis in classrooms and through media productions—film, radio, music, theatre, and art—where theology could be translated into a public pedagogy and epistemological cultural resistances. Theology, for him, became inseparable from activism and creativity.