Faith-Based Programming at the International African American Museum
presents Rev. Dr. Renita J Weems

The Faith-Based programming team at the International African American Museum presents Rev. Dr. Renita J. Weems, Hebrew biblical scholar, academic administrator, writer, ordained minister, and public intellectual, whose scholarly insights into modern faith, biblical texts, and the role of spirituality in everyday lives makes her a highly sought after speaker and writer.

The museum will host Rev. Dr. Weems on May 13th at 7 PM for “Listening for God in Challenging Times” via Zoom conference.

“Listening for the voice of God in the midst of the whirlwinds of change is a challenge. In our lives, our communities, and our nation, we have learned this again and again, and few periods have been more tempest-tossed than 2020. Although pandemic restrictions may be easing, political partisanship, racial reckoning, economic and health inequity are ongoing,” said Rev. Dr. Weems.

Interested participants can register at: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_Dih18cC8SlCof_Ahw1QYfw

The program will foster conversations among participants and according to Rev. Dr. Weems, “will help us listen for the voice of God and consider what we have learned, what we can do differently, and what God is asking and offering us as we move forward.”

About Rev. Dr. Weems

Bio Courtesy of Howard University’s Andrew Rankin Memorial Chapel

Rev. Dr. Weems is the author of several widely-acclaimed books on women’s spirituality and wholeness: “Just A Sister Away” (1987 & 2005), “I Asked for Intimacy” (1993), “Showing Mary: How Women Can Share Prayers, Wisdom, and the Blessings of God” (2003), and “What Matters Most: Ten Passionate Lessons from the Song of Solomon” (2004). She has served as a guest speaker for numerous national gatherings of religious, civic, and sorority organizations, local churches, community-wide events, and radio and television programs.

Ordained an elder in the AME Church since 1984, Dr. Weems has written about the waxing and waning of faith all believers endure on the spiritual journey. Her 1999 book, “Listening for God: A Minister’s Journey through Silence and Doubt” (Simon & Schuster), won the Religious Communicators’ Council’s prestigious 1999 Wilbur Award for “excellence in communicating spiritual values to the secular media.” As a scholar she has numerous books, commentaries and articles on the bible and prophetic religion to her credit. In 2008, Yale University invited Dr. Weems to give the prestigious Lyman Beecher Lecture, making her the first African American woman to do so.

Dr. Weems, formerly a member of the faculty of Vanderbilt University and former William & Camille Cosby Visiting Professor at Spelman College, is a much sought after speaker and preacher. She currently serves as Vice President of Academic Affairs at American Baptist College (Nashville, TN).

Dr. Weems earned her undergraduate degree from Wellesley College in Wellesley, MA, and her Master and Ph.D. degrees from Princeton Theological Seminary in Princeton, NJ. Her graduation in 1989 with a Ph.D. in Old Testament studies from Princeton made her the first African American woman to earn a Ph.D. in Old Testament. In the 2008 publication of the book, “Black Stars: African American Religious Leaders,” a collection of biographies of some of the most important Black Religious Leaders over the last 200 hundred years, Dr. Weems is featured among such impressive figures as Adam Clayton Powell, Elijah Muhammad, Sojourner Truth, Howard Thurman, and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

When she is not travelling and speaking, Dr. Weems is in Nashville with her husband and daughter writing and serving in ministry with her husband at Ray of Hope Community Church in Nashville, TN.