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Hello, friends. Welcome to OnScript. This is Amy Brown Hughes, a co-host for the podcast with Matt Lynch, Matt Bates, Aaronheim, Drew Johnson, and Chris Tilling. Today, I'm honored to speak

with the Reverend Dr. Willie James Jennings, Associate Professor of Systematic Theology and

Africana Studies at Yale University Divinity School.

He is the author of The Christian Imagination, Theology and the Origins of Race, and a new book on Theological Education due out next year, titled After Whiteness, Cultivating Erotic Souls.

I am delighted to have the opportunity to talk with Willie today. If you've not read

his work, then you might have heard him speak, as he's a frequent lecturer at various institutions.

I was at one of those, having heard him speak at the Wheaton Theology Conference several years ago.

It's been 10 years since the publication of the Christian imagination, theology and the origins of race with Yale University Press.

So today we're going to spend much of our time talking about this important work, as well as his current research on the doctrine of creation.

It's not an exaggeration for me to say that the Christian imagination was convicting and transformative for me, and I hope it will be for you as well

on script listeners. Welcome, Willie. Thank you so much, Amy. Glad to be here. So theology is still

new terrain for our on script listeners, not necessarily as a discipline, but as a subject for the podcast.

So I've been talking to each of my guests about the various disciplines within theology,

because especially outside of it, you know, who knows what the difference is between practical, historical,

systematic, right?

All these terms.

And you are a, at least by title, a systematic theologian.

Could you start us off today by talking about what systematic theology is and what your journey into theology look like?

Well, systematic theology is the discipline that studies the life of God, really, and is concerned with carrying on a conversation

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