Stephen Ray I
nstalled as
Neal F. and Ila A. Fisher Professor
of Theology
Stephen G. Ray Jr. was installed as the Neal F. and Ila A. Fisher Professor of Theology at GarrettEvangelical during an April 1 service in the Chapel of the Unnamed Faithful. He succeeds Henry Young in the professorship.
into a corner office in a Manhattan skyscraper and the affluent lifestyle that came with business success. He married Susan Parris, who worked for Aetna Insurance in Hartford, CT, and they lived in homes in New York and Hartford.
Before joining the Garrett-Evangelical faculty as Professor of Systematic Theology last August, Ray was Associate Professor of African-American Studies and Director of the Urban Theological Institute at Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia; Associate Professor of Theology and Philosophy at Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary; and Lecturer at Yale Divinity School and Hartford Seminary.
“I was enjoying my life,” he said during a recent interview in his third-floor Pfeiffer office, when he “got a clear call from God” that he couldn’t ignore. “My mother always said, ‘When God asks you to do something, you do it.’ “
He is an ordained minister of the United Church of Christ and has served as pastor of churches in Hartford and New Haven, CT., and in Louisville, KY. Ray received a Doctor of Philosophy in Theology and African-American Studies from Yale University and a Master of Divinity (summa cum laude) from Yale Divinity School. Among his awards are the Hooker Fellowship for Excellence in Theological Studies; Charter Oak State College Distinguished Alumni Award; Kentuckiana Metroversity Distinguished Teacher of Adult Learners; and The Associated Church Press 2006 Award of Excellence for Column Writing. He is the author of two books: A Struggle from the Start: The Black Community of Hartford, 16391960 and Do No Harm: Social Sin and Christian Responsibility. He is co-author of a third book: Black Church Studies: An Introduction. Ray stepped onto this theological path when he was 25 and already carving out a successful career in insurance and financial planning. He had settled comfortably
8 Aware Magazine
So he sat down to talk with his pastor about his call and before he left the office had agreed to serve as director of the church’s new Safeguarding Program, a place of last resort for the city’s poorest residents. After 3 1/2 years at Safeguarding, he worked for the City of Hartford, helping the chronically unemployed find work. He considers those years, 1985-89, when he lived and worked every day with the most vulnerable and disenfranchised people in his community, to be the most formative part of his ministry. “I saw how people had been passed over by the economy,” he says. “I saw how government policy and tax policy during the Reagan administration really affected those most vulnerable. The experience bent my work toward social-justice concerns. … It helped me get a sense of the way systems worked. I had to massage systems to try to weave webs that relieved distress. It also made me aware of how political and economic systems destroy people.” Ray had been considering attending seminary (“Bishop Thomas Hoyt told me at some point you’ve got to fish or cut bait”) when he learned on a Monday that funds for his jobs program had been cut. By Friday, the last day Yale Divinity School would accept applications for www.garrett.edu