Dean Powery’s Becoming Human Prompts Public Conversations

Since its publication in November, Chapel Dean Luke Powery’s book Becoming Human: The Holy Spirit and the Rhetoric of Race has been an impetus for discussions of theology, race, and shared humanity, among scholars and lay people alike. Selected as the winner of the 2023 Book of the Year award from the Academy of Parish Clergy, the book has been the focus of discussion groups, workshops, panels, and interviews.

Published by Westminster John Knox Press, Becoming Human gets its title from the 1968 eulogy for the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., given by the theologian Dr. Howard Thurman. “[Dr. King] was killed in one sense because [hu]mankind is not quite human yet,” Dr. Thurman said. “May he live because all of us in America are closer to becoming human than ever before.”

In the book, Dean Powery contrasts a view of humanity that sees race as essential and valuing some bodies over others with a theological understanding of humanity, shaped by the biblical account of Pentecost, that sees the diversity of human bodies as one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

“One of the hopes [for the book] is—as I draw on Pentecost as a metaphor—we would find a new language [for] talking about one another and talking about this idea, this social construct, of race,” Dean Powery said in an online panel discussion of the book in March. “The prayer undergirding this book is that we would discover and become more fully human with each other and ultimately that can only happen through the work of the Spirit.”

One of the groups engaging the book is the Congregation at Duke Chapel, which organized a half-day seminar and two four-week online discussion groups around the book. A member of the Congregation, the Rev. Dr. Christian Wilson, T ’67, D ’70 and ’72, G ’77, read Becoming Human for the book group.

“As a retired United Methodist pastor, I have read a lot of books on preaching and I’m pretty well conversant with the literature on race,” Rev. Dr. Wilson said. “[Powery] puts these two things together, along with the Holy Spirit, in a way that gave me a number of new insights.”

“The Pentecost event with the Holy Spirit enabling each of these many different ethnic groups to converse with one another—he applies that in terms of our situation today when a lot of our race conversation is going past one another,” Wilson said. “He sees the Holy Spirit as connecting us.”

Another person who participated in the book group was Deborah Eaton, a member of Mount Level Missionary Baptist Church in Durham.