Almeda Wright will open Week Two of the Interfaith Lecture Series at 2 p.m. today in the Hall of Philosophy. The theme “Sin and Redemption: Practices and Possibilities for Reconciliation” aligns with Wright’s research in adolescent spiritual development and the growing distrust of religious institutions.
“One of the struggles now is to figure out which institutions we can still count on,” Wright said in an interview with Yale Divinity School’s journal Reflections. “For many, key institutions have been a source of hope — like universities, churches, and even families. But these institutions don’t look or feel the same right now.”
Wright is an associate professor of religious education at Yale Divinity School. Some of her published works include Teaching to Live: Black Religion, Activist-Educators, and Radical Social Change, The Spiritual Lives of Young African Americans and Children, Youth, and Spirituality in a Troubling World, co-edited by Mary Elizabeth Moore. She is the program director of Communitas, a program dedicated to and researching young adult engagement in congregations. She steps in for Boston University scholar Emilie M. Townes, who was originally scheduled to speak today.
Wright’s previous work also reflects her dedication to young adults. From teaching fifth and sixth grade and serving as a youth minister — Wright is an ordained minister of the American Baptist Churches — she had also previously served as the assistant professor of religion and youth ministry at Pfeiffer University.
Not only does Wright research young adults and spirituality, her research also focuses on African American religion and the intersections of religion and public life. She has given lectures nationwide and internationally. In 2019, she delivered the Princeton Lectures on Youth, Church and Culture and spoke at University of Vienna’s Religion(s) @ School, an international conference on religious education.
While Wright is a practiced public speaker, she finds that a key aspect of her research is listening. On the podcast “Public Worship and the Christian Life,” Wright told the host Kristen Verhust about how her book The Spiritual Lives of Young African Americans came to be.
“Part of what I have found and what I’ve been hearing and learning from my readers is first that people don’t often listen to the lives of young Black children and young adults, so there is a need for that kind of listening and care,” she said. “People were just grateful in some ways with the care and the time that I had taken to take seriously their stories, to take seriously their witness, their wisdom, to highlight their activism.”
She feels that teens have a lot to say, and she particularly admires how they hold their beliefs lightly — a skill she believes adults should mimic.
“I often think about what does it mean as congregations for us to hold lightly our beliefs,” she said on “Public Worship and Christian Life.” “And that’s going to sound really strange, because often we think that there are conservatives and progressives or any other, and that’s not true. I think at each end of, say, a theological or even political spectrum, people can hold on to beliefs very rigidly or very tightly and be unmalleable or never, ever, ever be open to the idea that they could be wrong.”
