Jonathan Lee Walton joins Suzanne Watts Henderson and Almeda Wright for a conversation exploring how faith and spirituality shape health, resilience and well-being. Registration required.
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Drawing from neuroscience, public health, and theological reflection, the panel will consider how faith can serve as a vital resource for healing and flourishing, particularly for young people and communities.
Open to students, faculty and members of the wider Princeton community, this public gathering will model how scholarship and faith-based leadership can intersect to advance a holistic and interdisciplinary approach to human flourishing, in service of the common good.
Dr. Suzanne Watts Henderson serves as Senior Director for Faith and Health at Interfaith America (IA). Previously, she was Irwin Chair of Religious Studies and Dean of Belk Chapel at Queens University in Charlotte, NC. While at Queens, Dr. Henderson worked closely with Interfaith America to foster cooperative religious pluralism on campus and beyond. During the pandemic, she helped secure funding for and led campus-based interfaith relief efforts across the Carolinas, eventually joining the IA team to build the organization’s work at the intersection of faith and health.
During her time at IA, Dr. Henderson has led efforts to foster interfaith cooperation and religious literacy in a wide range of health-related settings. Under her leadership, IA’s Faith & Health team has secured funding of more than $5 million to support this work. In 2024, the John Templeton Foundation awarded IA more than $3 million for its Faith in Health Professions project, which combines campus-based efforts such as curricular development and community partnerships with academic research and public scholarship. In addition the IA Faith & Health team leads trainings and workshops for health systems and public health organizations and hosts convenings designed to catalyze faith and health efforts across the health ecosystem. Dr. Henderson works across these platforms to support and elevate the work of those committed to engaging religion responsibly as a social determinant of health.
Dr. Henderson earned her bachelor’s degree in English at UNC-Chapel Hill (1987), where she was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa. Her Master of Divinity from Princeton Theological Seminary (1990) led to her ordination in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). After three careers (corporate writing, teaching, and parish ministry) and the birth of three children, she returned to Duke University to complete her Ph.D. in New Testament (2004). For over thirty years, she and her spouse Bob have delighted in their three children (and now their first grandchild), abundant outside activity (walking, running, skiing, hiking, biking, and golf), and domestic and international travel—sometimes all at once. She also maintains an at-home yoga practice and enjoys reading widely.
Rev. Dr. Almeda M. Wright is the tenured Associate Professor of Religious Education at Yale Divinity School. Dr. Wright’s research focuses on African American religion and education, Womanist spirituality, adolescent spiritual development, and the intersections of religion and public life. Dr. Wright launched Communitas, a young adult ministry innovation hub at Yale in 2022. This work centers Black, Indigenous, and People of color young adults and attempts to create working space for the creation of spiritual communities connecting young adult leaders with congregations and community partners. She is also the co-principal investigator for the Conectere Project, a partnership with Eastern Mennonite University, to empower parents and caregivers in their efforts to create more secure bonds with their children and to explore ways of sharing their faith and values with their children.
Professor Wright’s publications include: Teaching to Live: Black Religion, Activist-Educators and Radical Social Change (Oxford, 2024) and The Spiritual Lives of Young African Americans (Oxford University Press, July 2017); a coedited book with Mary Elizabeth Moore, Children, Youth, and Spirituality in a Troubling World; a special issue of Religions Journal; and various articles in scholarly journals. She has also contributed to several edited volumes, including Albert Cleage, Jr. and the Black Madonna and Child (Palgrave 2016); Faith Forward: A Dialogue on Children, Youth and a New Kind of Christianity (Woodlake 2013); Adoptive Youth Ministry (Baker Academic 2016), and wrote introductory essays for the Common English Bible-Student Edition.
Professor Wright has had the honor of delivering the Tate-Wilson Lecture (at Southern Methodist University), the Anna Julia Cooper Lecture (at Emory University), the Princeton Lectures on Youth, Church and Culture and to deliver keynote addresses at the University of Vienna’s Religions at School Conference, the Trinity Wall St. Institute, and the Faith Forward conferences. She has given research presentations at numerous conferences, including the annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion and the Society of Childhood and Spirituality.
Her research has been supported by the Lilly Endowment Inc., the John Templeton Foundation, the Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning, the Forum for Theological Exploration, and the Louisville Institute.
Prior to her arrival at Yale, Dr. Wright served as assistant professor of religion and youth ministry at Pfeiffer University, and before that as a visiting faculty member and teaching assistant at the Candler School of Theology at Emory University. At Candler, she also served as program director of the Wisdom of Youth Project and in various positions with the Youth Theological Initiative. She has served as a consultant to the Women’s Theological Center in Boston and has taught at several schools in the Greater Boston area, including Shady Hill School, the Young Achievers Science and Math Academy, and the Martin Luther King, Jr. Open School.
Dr. Wright completed her doctoral studies at Emory University. Dr. Wright also studied at Harvard Divinity School (M.Div.), where she concentrated on Religion & Culture and History of Biblical Interpretation; Simmons College (M.A. in Teaching); and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (B.S. in Electrical Engineering).
Professor Wright is an ordained minister of the American Baptist Churches and has served on the ministerial staff of various churches, including Union Baptist Church (Cambridge, Massachusetts) and Victory United Church of Christ (Stone Mountain, Georgia).
Rev. Dr. Jonathan Lee Walton
Jonathan Lee Walton became president of Princeton Theological Seminary in 2023. Dr. Walton is trained as a social ethicist whose scholarship focuses on the intersection of evangelical Christianity, mass media, and political culture. He is the author of two books: Watch This! The Ethics and Aesthetics of Black Televangelism (NYU Press, 2009) and A Lens of Love: Reading the Bible in Its World for Our World (Westminster John Knox Press, 2018).
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. Walton is a member of the Humanities Advancement Council at Morehouse College in Atlanta.
Dr. Walton earned his Doctor of Philosophy and Master of Divinity degrees from Princeton Theological Seminary.
We welcome guests to join us for refreshments beginning at 4:30 pm.
Presented in partnership with the Princeton Theological Seminary. Public Humanities programs are presented with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities: Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this programming do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
