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Jonathan Lee Walton (born June 22, 1973) is an author, ethicist and religious scholar. He is the President of Princeton Theological Seminary in Princeton, New Jersey. He was previously Dean of Wake Forest University School of Divinity, Presidential Chair in Religion & Society and Dean of Wait Chapel. He is the author of A Lens of Love: Reading the Bible in its World for Our World. [1]
Walton was born in Frederick, Maryland to John H. Walton and Rose Marie Walton. His father was an air traffic controller with the Federal Aviation Administration and his mother was a homemaker. His family moved to Syracuse, New York before settling in Atlanta, Georgia in 1980.
In 1991, Walton graduated from Lithonia High School and attended Wofford College on a football scholarship. He transferred to Morehouse College following his freshman year and graduated in 1996 with a BA degree in political science. Walton also became a licensed minister that same year and entered the Princeton Theological Seminary in 1999, completing his MDiv in 2002 and his PhD in 2006.
Walton began his professional career as a minister while pursuing his academic studies. He served as the officiating pastor of Memorial West Presbyterian Church in Newark, New Jersey.
In 2003, he was appointed a lecturer at Princeton University’s Department of Religion and The Program in African American Studies. He accepted a position as assistant professor of Religious Studies at the University of California in 2006. [1]
Walton joined the faculty at Harvard University in 2010 as assistant professor of African American Religions, Harvard Divinity School, and resident scholar of Lowell House, Harvard College.
In 2012, he was appointed the Plummer Professor of Christian Morals and Pusey Minister in the Memorial Church, [2] following the death of the Rev. Peter J. Gomes, who served in the position for 41 years. [3]
Walton served on several boards and committees at Harvard. He was also on the Board of Trustees at Princeton Theological Seminary, and the National Advisory Board of the John C. Danforth Center on Religion & Politics at Washington University.
In 2019, he was appointed the Dean of Wake Forest University School of Divinity, Presidential Chair in Religion & Society and Dean of Wait Chapel.
In 2022, he was announced as the new President of Princeton Theological Seminary, a seminary in Princeton, New Jersey. In this position, he succeeded the previous president, Presbyterian minister M. Craig Barnes.
Walton is focused on evangelical Christianity, and its relationship to media and politics.
He has published articles in the New York Times, [4] CNN, [5] Huffpost [6] and Time. [7] Walton is an advocate for oppressed and vulnerable people in society. [8]
In reviewing Walton's book, A Lens of Love, Cornel West said Walton “is one of the very few grand figures in American culture who is both public intellectual and prophetic preacher. His brilliant work and visionary words are legendary at Harvard and throughout the country and world. This timely book is another testament to his calling rooted in the legacies of Martin Luther King Jr., Benjamin Elijah Mays, Reinhold Niebuhr and Fannie Lou Hamer.” [9]
Walton was appointed dean of the Wake Forest University School of Divinity in April 2019. [10] He assumed the position on July 1, 2019. [11]
Walton and his wife, Cecily Cline Walton and their three children live in Winston-Salem, NC.
Gordon–Conwell Theological Seminary (GCTS) is an evangelical seminary with its main campus in Hamilton, Massachusetts, and three other campuses in Boston, Massachusetts; Charlotte, North Carolina; and Jacksonville, Florida. According to the Association of Theological Schools, Gordon-Conwell ranks as one of the largest evangelical seminaries in North America in terms of total number of full-time students enrolled.
Princeton Theological Seminary (PTSem), officially The Theological Seminary of the Presbyterian Church, is a private school of theology in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1812 under the auspices of Archibald Alexander, the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA), and the College of New Jersey, it is the second-oldest seminary in the United States. It is also the largest of ten seminaries associated with the Presbyterian Church.
The Episcopal Divinity School (EDS) is a theological school in New York City that trains students for service with the Episcopal Church. It was affiliated with Union Theological Seminary from 2018 to 2023. During the 2023-24 academic year, EDS is in transition as it discerns its future. It maintains offices at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City and offers some programing in New York and online. Known throughout the Anglican Communion for progressive teaching and action on issues of civil rights and social justice, its faculty and students were directly involved in many of the social controversies surrounding the Episcopal Church in the latter half of the 20th century and at the start of the 21st.
Harvard Divinity School (HDS) is one of the constituent schools of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The school's mission is to educate its students either in the academic study of religion or for leadership roles in religion, government, and service. It also caters to students from other Harvard schools that are interested in the former field. HDS is among a small group of university-based, non-denominational divinity schools in the United States.
Howard Washington Thurman was an American author, philosopher, theologian, mystic, educator, and civil rights leader. As a prominent religious figure, he played a leading role in many social justice movements and organizations of the twentieth century. Thurman's theology of radical nonviolence influenced and shaped a generation of civil rights activists, and he was a key mentor to leaders within the civil rights movement, including Martin Luther King Jr.
The Meadville Lombard Theological School is a Unitarian Universalist seminary in Chicago, Illinois.
Rodney Lawrence Petersen is an American scholar in the area of history, ethics, and religious conflict.
Yale Divinity School (YDS) is one of the twelve graduate and professional schools of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut.
William L. McLennan, Jr., better known as Scotty McLennan, is an American Unitarian Universalist minister, lawyer, professor, published author, public speaker and senior administrator at Stanford University in Stanford, California. From January 1, 2001 until August 2014, McLennan served as the Dean for Religious Life at Stanford University, where he oversaw campus-wide religious affairs, supervised over 30 university student groups that constituted the Stanford Associated Religions, and was the minister of Stanford Memorial Church. He currently teaches about the moral and ethical aspects of business leadership at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
The Vanderbilt Divinity School and Graduate Department of Religion is an interdenominational divinity school at Vanderbilt University, a major research university located in Nashville, Tennessee. It is one of only six university-based schools of religion in the United States without a denominational affiliation that service primarily mainline Protestantism.
James Luther Adams (1901–1994), an American professor at Harvard Divinity School, Andover Newton Theological School, and Meadville Lombard Theological School, and a Unitarian parish minister, was the most influential theologian among American Unitarian Universalists in the 20th century.
Ronald Frank Thiemann was an American political theologian and Benjamin Bussey Professor of Theology at Harvard Divinity School. His research in large part focused on the role of religion in public life. He was dean of Harvard Divinity School from 1986 to 1998.
Andover Newton Theological School (ANTS) was a graduate school and seminary in Newton, Massachusetts, affiliated with the American Baptist Churches USA and the United Church of Christ. It was the product of a merger between Andover Theological Seminary and Newton Theological Institution. In recent years, it was an official open and affirming seminary, meaning that it was open to students of same-sex attraction or transgender orientation and generally advocated for tolerance of it in church and society.
Wake Forest University School of Divinity is an ecumenical divinity school located on the campus of Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The School offers a Master of Divinity degree as well several joint degree programs in cooperation with other graduate programs at the university in bioethics, counseling, education, law, and sustainability. The school has 19 faculty.
Letty Mandeville Russell was a feminist theologian, professor, and prolific author. She was a member of the first class of women admitted to Harvard Divinity School, and one of the first women ordained in the United Presbyterian Church. After earning a doctorate in theology at Union Theological Seminary, she joined the faculty at Yale Divinity School, where she taught for 28 years.
Emilie Maureen Townes is an American Christian social ethicist and theologian. She is currently Dean and E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Professor of Womanist Ethics and Society at the Vanderbilt University Divinity School. Townes was the first African-American woman to be elected president of the American Academy of Religion in 2008 and served as president of the Society for the Study of Black Religion from 2012–2016.
Ella Pearson Mitchell was a Baptist minister, preacher, educator, and author. She was one of the first African-American women to graduate from Union Theological Seminary, and was later ordained to the Christian ministry in 1978. She was the first woman to be appointed Dean of Sisters Chapel at Spelman College in Atlanta. A gifted preacher, Mitchell was named by Ebony Magazine as one of America's "15 Greatest Black Women Preachers" in 1997. During her career, she taught at Berkeley Baptist Divinity School, Colgate Rochester Divinity School, the Interdenominational Theological Seminary, and Union Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio. She edited multiple volumes in a series of sermons by women, entitled Those Preaching Women, and co-authored two books with her husband, Henry H. Mitchell.
Gail Radcliffe O'Day was an American biblical scholar.
Billy Jim Leonard is an American historian of religion, Baptist pastor, teacher and dean.
Jill Yvette Crainshaw is an American theologian and liturgical scholar.