A Passion for Justice and Christian Theology
July 22, 2022
Meet Demetrius L. Davis (G-ETS 2022)
Degree Program
Master of Arts in Public Ministry with a concentration in racial justice
What is your hometown and educational background?
I was born and raised in Chicago and the Chicago suburbs. I completed my undergraduate degree at Northeastern Illinois University, where I double majored in secondary education and history.
How has your time at Garrett-Evangelical shaped your ministry and calling?
My time at Garrett-Evangelical has been wonderful! I entered with tremendous curiosity about how to connect my passion for justice with Christian theology. I was in search of a theological lens that not only created permission to pursue justice, but also centered it as crucial to being a follower of Jesus Christ. I found that at Garrett-Evangelical. Nearly all the courses I took connected matters of race, gender identity, creation, class, and/or sexuality with theology, dismantling the bifurcation between social and sacred matters. As a result, I was able to better connect justice-seeking with Christian praxis through preaching and teaching in my role as lead pastor.
What is your most transformative experience at Garrett-Evangelical?
The most transformative experience that I had at Garrett-Evangelical was the public ministry project. This project created the space for me to bring together all I learned over the past two years. It consisted of nearly forty pages of writing, expressing the theory and theology for social change that undergirded a church-led cooperative economics initiative to address low Black homeownership rates. The work stretched me as a scholar and minister, but throughout the process, I began subconsciously synthesizing many things I had learned across courses. Through this experience, I came to appreciate the intentionality of the MAPM curriculum, as well as the construction of the supporting courses within the degree grid. I also left the project with an exciting, transformational initiative that our church is currently engaged in implementing.
What’s next? What are your plans or your hopes for your future?
The immediate next thing for me is rest. I hope to use the summer and early fall to find moments of happiness, which will involve traveling, spending time with my family, and hopefully, spending some beautiful days on the lake. I’m also looking forward to being more present with the church, as pastoring during the pandemic while attending seminary has been tough and has often caused me to only be partially available to the congregation. Over the next year, we will implement the cooperative economics project at our church, which is a product of my degree program. I look forward to the many new homeowners we will be able to create through it. Lastly, I plan to apply to several doctor of ministry programs next year with the goal of enrolling in fall 2023.