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RJM Moment: Teresa L. Fry Brown . When Sacred Speech Shapes a Just World

Editor’s note: Author Rev. Kelli X serves as the Scarritt Bennett Director of Racial Justice Ministries (RJM).

At Scarritt Bennett Center, our commitments to Racial Justice, Women’s Empowerment, Transformative Education, and Spiritual Formation are not separate lanes. They intersect. They shape how we lead, how we speak, and how we cultivate beloved community.

The Rev. Dr. Teresa L. Fry Brown embodies that intersection.

Ordained in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, Dr. Fry Brown is the Bandy Professor of Preaching at Candler School of Theology at Emory University — a chaired professorship widely regarded as the premier position in homiletics in this country. She has taught at Candler since 1994 and, in 2010, became the first African American woman to attain the rank of full professor there. She also directed Candler’s Black Church Studies Program, forming generations of leaders grounded in Black ecclesial traditions.

Her scholarship spans homiletics, womanism, womanist ethics, socio-cultural transformation, and African diaspora history rooted in African American spiritual values. In works like Weary Throats and New Song and Can A Sister Get a Little Help, she centers Black women not as subjects of study, but as theological authorities.

Dr. Fry Brown teaches that preaching is embodied. It is shaped by history, culture, and lived experience. And it is never neutral. Sacred speech can reinforce injustice or participate in liberation. It can silence women or empower them. It can avoid racial truth or transform it into healing.

Her life’s work reminds us that justice without spiritual formation is shallow, and spiritual formation without justice is incomplete.

Spiritual Reflection: How are our words forming the moral imagination of our community?

Call to Action: This month, engage the work of a Black woman theologian and allow her voice to deepen your faith and strengthen your commitment to justice.