Writings, Media, & Addresses

Dr. Jonathan Lee Walton has published widely across various academic journals, books, magazines, and newspapers. His insights have been featured in the New York Times, CNN, Time Magazine, and PBS.

Read President Walton’s Inaugural Address

Select Media & Public Appearances

President Jonathan Lee Walton’s 2024 General Assembly Address

Salt Lake City, UT | June 2024

God, I Quit!

The Riverside Church | September 26, 2021

How Attacks On A GA Senate Candidate Exposed Wider Misunderstandings About The Black Church

MSNBC | January 4, 2021

Billy Graham | The American Experience (2021)

“Billy Graham” explores the life and career of one of the best-known and most influential religious leaders of the 20th century. The documentary examines the evangelist’s extraordinary influence on American politics and culture, interweaving the voices of historians, scholars, witnesses, family, and Graham himself, to create a kaleidoscopic portrait of a singular figure in the American experience.

The Black Church: This Is Our Story, This Is Our Song (2021)

This moving four-hour, two-part series from executive producer, host and writer Henry Louis Gates, Jr., the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor at Harvard University and director of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research, that traces the 400-year-old story of the Black church in America, all the way down to its bedrock role as the site of African American survival and grace, organizing and resilience, thriving and testifying, autonomy and freedom, solidarity and speaking truth to power.

GOSPEL

From the blues to hip hop, African Americans have been the driving force of sonic innovation for over a century. Musical styles come and go, but there’s one sound that has been a constant source of strength, courage and wisdom on any given Sunday. GOSPEL, the latest history series from Henry Louis Gates, Jr., digs deep into the origin story of Black spirituality through sermon and song.

Books by Jonathan Lee Walton

Lens of Love: Reading the Bible in Its World for Our World (Westminster John Knox Press, 2018)

In order to engage the Bible in the spirit of justice, compassion, and love, Jonathan Lee Walton suggests reading the Bible in its world for our world. Perfect for individual or group study, A Lens of Love helps Christians to read and interpret the Bible morally and confidently as they engage society’s pressing issues. Walton provides interpretive tools to help understand the context of the Scriptures along with the Scriptures themselves in order to engage the richness of the Bible as they strive to live in the world in a biblically grounded, theologically sound, and socially responsible way.

Other Books by Dr. Jonathan Lee Walton

Watch This! The Ethics and Aesthetics of Black Televangelism (New York University Press, 2009)

Select Writing, Addresses, and Lectures

“Have the Sons of Africa Have No Souls?: Manliness, Freedom, and Power in the Cultural Roots of Afro-Phallic Protestantism,” in The Sexual Politics of Black Churches, edited by Josef Sorett, Columbia University Press, 2020.
“Luminous Darkness: Africanist Presence and the American Soul,” in Goodness and the Literary Imagination: Harvard’s 95th Ingersoll Lecture with Essays on Morrison’s Moral and Religious Vision, by Toni Morrison, edited by David Carrasco, Stephanie Paulsell, and Mara Willard, University of Virginia Press, 2019.
“Afterword: Dignity as a Weapon of Love,” in To Shape a New World: Essays on the Political Philosophy of Martin Luther King, Jr., edited by Tommie Shelby and Brandon M. Terry, Harvard University Press, 2018, pp. 339-350.
“The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Consumerism, in The Protestant Reformation of the Church and the World, edited by John Witte Jr. and Amy Wheeler, Westminster John Knox Press, 2018, pp. 240-253.
“Stationed in the King’s Court: Evangelicals in the Age of Obama,” in Souls: A Critical Journal of Black Politics, Culture, and Society, Vol. 16, numbers 1-2, 2014, pp. 79-98.
“Stop Worrying and Start Sowing! A Phenomenological Account of the Ethics of ‘Divine Investment’” in Pentecostalism and Prosperity: The Socio-Economics of Global Charismatic Movements, edited by Amos Yong and Katy Attanasi, Palgrave Macmillan, 2012, pp. 107-129.
“The Greening of the Gospel (and Black Body): Rev. Ike’s Gospel of Wealth and Post- Blackness Theology,” in Pneuma: The Journal of the Society for Pentecostal Studies, Vol. 33, number 2, 2011, pp. 181-199.
“For Where Two or Three (Thousand) Are Gathered in My Name! A Cultural History and Ethical Analysis of African-American Megachurches” in Journal of African American Studies, Vol. 15, number 2, 2011, pp. 133-154.
“Preachers’ Blues: Religious Race Records and the Reclamation of Authority on Wax” in Religion and American Culture: A Journal of Interpretation, Vol. 20, number 2, 2010, pp. 205-232.

Opinion: “Raphael Warnock’s Georgia Critics don’t understand Black churches,” in The Washington Post, December 30, 2020.
Opinion: “Hope in the absurd: Seeing ourselves in Sisyphus,” in The Dallas Morning News, November 29, 2020.
Opinion: “Split-Second Decisions that Leave Black and Brown People Dead,” in The New York Times (The Opinion Pages/On The Ground with Nicholas Kristof), July 11, 2016.
Opinion: “After Ferguson, When Will We Listen?” in The New York Times (The Opinion Pages/ On The Ground with Nicholas Kristof), November 26, 2014.
“Waking from a Dream,” in the Harvard Divinity Bulletin, Vol. 41. Numbers 2 & 4, Summer/Autumn 2013, pp. 10-13.
“The Shame of Behavioral Health” in The Harvard Crimson, 9/13/2012
Op-Ed: Three Words of Caution in the Wake of Another Mass Killing, The Huffington Post, 12/16/2012
“Staying Human in a Media Age,” in the Harvard Divinity Bulletin, Vol. 39. numbers 3 & 4, Summer/Autumn 2011, pp. 8-11.
“Tax Exempt?” Lifestyles of the Rich and Religious,” in The Christian Century, Vol. 125. Issue 2, 1/29/2008, p. 13.
“Empowered: The entrepreneurial ministry of T.D. Jakes,” in The Christian Century, Vol. 124. Issue 14, 7/10/2007, pp. 25-28.

Statement on Statements (January 2024)
Inaugural Address, Princeton Theological Seminary, 10/13/23
Geddes W. Hanson Lecture, Princeton Theological Seminary, Princeton, NJ, 10/16/19
Keynote Address: 50 Years Since MLK, Washington University, St. Louis, MO, 4/19/18
Midwinter Lectures, Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, Austin, TX, 1/28-29/18
Alonzo McDonald Lecture in Celebration of the 50th Anniversary of the Reformation, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, 4/3/17
Distinguished Lecture in the Humanities, The Center for Ideas and Society, University of California, Riverside, Riverside, CA, 3/23/17
Baccalaureate Address, Spelman College, Atlanta, GA 5/14/16
The Annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Lecture, Brown University, Providence, RI, 2/2/16
Daryl Schmidt Lecture on Religion and Public Life, Texas Christian University, Fort Worth, TX, 9/29/15
The Boardman Lecture, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, 3/20/2015
Keynote Address: Pentecostal and Prosperous: Empowering Marginalized Protestant Bodies,” International Society for Religion Media and Culture, University of Kent, Canterbury, Kent, 8/4/2014
Princeton Doll Family Lecture on Religion and Money, Center for the Study of Religion, Princeton University, 4/24/2014

Select Media & Public Appearances