Meet Dr. Smith
Scholar. Teacher. Preacher. Writer. Public Voice
Shively T. J. Smith, PhD is a New Testament scholar and public theologian who creates space for people of faith to encounter Scripture in ways that inspire the mind, the spirit, and human connection. Her work draws on the legacy of Howard Thurman and moves through questions of memory, spirituality, and social change, making biblical interpretation accessible and relevant across interfaith and ecumenical communities. She is Associate Professor of New Testament at Boston University School of Theology, where she also directs the Mellon-funded Civil & Human Rights Archives Initiative and serves as a Faculty Fellow at the Howard Thurman Center for Common Ground. She previously served as the inaugural faculty director of the PhD program at Boston University School of Theology.
A summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Fisk University, Smith earned master's degrees from Candler School of Theology at Emory University and Columbia Theological Seminary, and her PhD in New Testament studies from Emory University. She also studied abroad as an English-Speaking Union Fellow at Oxford University.
Smith is the author of numerous essays and books, including Reading Howard Thurman: His Practices of Interpretation through Womanist Eyes. Her forthcoming tradebook with Convergent, an imprint of Penguin Random House, explores the economics of Jesus's world and what they mean for how we think about money today. She contributes to documentary and public humanities projects on Jesus, the Bible, and religion for national and international audiences, including projects featured on the History Channel, Angel Studios, A&E Biography, and C-SPAN. She has lectured internationally, including at Sabarmati Ashram in Gujarat, India, and the National Museum of African American History and Culture.
Her scholarship has been supported by fellowships and grants from organizations including the Ford Foundation, Forum for Theological Exploration, Calvin Institute of Christian Worship, The HistoryMakers, the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship Program, and the Social Science Research Council (SSRC), among others. She served as Associate Editor for the New Testament for The SBL Study Bible, is a member of the editorial board for the Semeia Studies monograph series, and serves on the National Council of Churches Translation and Utilization Board of Friendship Press, which oversees the publication and utilization of Bible translations including the NRSVue, NRSV, and RSV. Across her scholarship and public work, Smith is especially interested in how interpretation shapes the moral and spiritual imagination of communities.
More of her public scholarship and writing can be found at readinghowardthurman.substack.com and shivelysmith.com.
Smith is currently the recipient of the Louisville Institute Scholar of Color Book Grant Award (2021). Smith has also been recognized as a leading scholar and a recipient of grants and fellowship from the following institutions:
The Writer
Dr. Smith is a multidimensional scholar whose breadth of work ranges from academic writing, to work for the ecumenical world, and religious writing for the public sphere. Most notably, Dr. Smith’s works include her book Strangers to Family: Diaspora and First Peter’s Invention of God’s Household, her article “Witnessing Jesus Hang: Reading Mary Magdalene’s View of Crucifixion through Ida B. Wells’s Chronicles of Lynching” in the 30th Anniversary edition of the iconic, Stony the Road We Trod: African American Biblical Interpretation.
Dr. Smith’s academic writing focuses on the New Testament letters from Hebrews to Jude, Howard Thurman, and 19th Century African American women.
Currently, Dr. Smith has a forthcoming book on 2 Peter and African American women writers like Anna Julia Cooper, Maria Stewart, and Zilpha Elaw.
She is also working on a book about Howard Thurman, building on her essay found in the book, Anchored in the Current: Discovering Howard Thurman as Educator, Activist, Guide, and Prophet, called, “Thurman-eutics: Howard Thurman’s Clothesline for the Interpretation of the Life of the Mind and Journey of the Spirit.”
Some of her other publications are listed below…
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“Witnessing Jesus Hang,” found in the forthcoming 30th Anniversary Edition of Stony the Road we Trod.
“One More Time with Assata on My Mind” found in Womanist Interpretations of the Bible
“Reading 1 Peter from The Perspectives of Zilpha Elaw and Virginia Broughton” found in 1 Peter Wisdom Commentary Series.
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Essays for ChurchANew
Odyssey Network, Study Guide for documentary The Rape of Recy Taylor
Values and Voices Campaign: 100 Letters in 100 Days
The Teacher
Dr. Smith is a vibrant, creative, and revolutionary educator, teaching at Boston University School of Theology (also known as “The School of the Prophets”). Smith is known for her eclectic teaching approach that cultivates communities of interpreters and conversations using not just biblical writings but art, music, film, poetry, meditations, and technology.
Known for her teaching and scholarship, Smith has been invited to serve on public panels and forums across disciplines as a subject matter expert. Some of which include:
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Wesley Theological Seminary,
Columbia Theological Seminary
Christian Theological Seminary
Morehouse College
Emory University
The Women’s Certificate in Theological Studies Program at the Georgia State women’s incarceration facility
Course of Study for the United Methodist Church
African Methodist Episcopal Church Department of Christian Education
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Womanist, African American, and African Diaspora Biblical Interpretation
Exegesis and Methods in the General Letters: From Hebrews to Jude
Howard Thurman as Interpreter
Imagining our Interpretive Practices and Hermeneutical Theories
Surveys in the New Testament
Introduction & Intermediate Biblical Greek
New Testament Studies and 19th Century African American Women Writers
The Preacher
Dr. Smith is a sought-after speaker and preacher for interreligious communities across the globe. From preaching in her own African Methodist Episcopal tradition to the United Methodist to Episcopalian to Jewish communities and Muslim communities. Smith, daughter and granddaughter of Baptist preachers, has been preaching since age sixteen. Rev. Smith engages in preaching as storytelling, highlighting voices unheard. Her ecumenical and interdisciplinary background is the foundation for her thought-provoking and entertaining preaching. Rev. Smith currently serves as Resident Scholar for the historic Metropolitan AME Church of Washington DC and has been visiting scholar of several other traditions in Methodist, Baptist, Pentecostal and non-denominational settings.
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The Balm in Gilead, Inc.’s Healthy Churches Conference (international)
Foundry United Methodist Church (Washington, DC)
St. Paul’s Episcopal Church (K Street, Washington DC)
Interdenominational Theological Seminary (Atlanta, GA)
Marsh Chapel, Boston University (Boston, MA)
Clark Atlanta University (Atlanta, GA)
Candler School of Theology’s Cannon Chapel, Emory University (Atlanta, GA)
Fisk University (Nashville, TN)
Lakeside Chautauqua Preachers of the Week series (Chautauqua, OH)
Bates College (Lewiston, ME)
Nebo Christian Ministries (Baltimore, MD)
Order Dr. Smith’s New Book: Reading Howard Thurman
Reading Howard Thurman introduces us to both Howard Washington Thurman and the art of interpretation. It accomplishes both through the experience of a Black woman interpreter's journey with Thurman.
Womanist hermeneutics centers on family histories beginning with Black women's voices, communion with Spirit, forms of storytelling and story sharing, and the aesthetics of art, music, and nature as vehicles for interpreting the Bible. The commitments of womanist interpretation include community, life liberation, inclusion, and voice. In Reading Howard Thurman Shively T. J. Smith unfolds a conversation about and with Thurman. Smith explores Thurman's practices of interpreting his personal journey, spiritual experience, and community-building. He models interpreting life as our first resource for understanding what is meaningful, significant, and representative of the ties that bind, which transcend social barriers of nationality, internationality, race, and culture.
In the end, Smith's reading of Thurman through womanist eyes reveals "Thurmaneutics," his particular use of life to read the Bible. Reading Howard Thurman thus becomes a new primer for the study of biblical interpretation.
Read Dr. Smith’s Book: Strangers to Family
To read the Letter of 1 Peter is to care about what it means to be a diverse people of the Dispersion. First Peter is the most developed “Diaspora Discourse” of the New Testament. And Dr. Smith shows how the letter puts forward a social strategy of survival for those on the underside of society. At its heart, 1 Peter encourages connection and multiple attachments of hospitality and kinship to people “all over the world” (1 Peter 5:9).