Description
Ashley Smith was a reformed Jamaican theologian and minister of the United Church in Jamaica and the Cayman Islands. Well known for his unapologetic, anti-imperial, Afro-centric interpretation of scriptures, Smith’s contribution in shaping the post-independence theological discourse in Jamaica is significant. Without fear or favour, Smith acted as a critical voice on church and society from the 1950s to the time of his passing in 2020. Deconstructing the Western myth of hierarchical concepts of human races in which self-interest placed White Europeans at the top and Black Africans at the bottom, Smith argued relentlessly for a restructuring of the world away from a European interpretation and understanding to an incorporation of the worldviews of other cultures. A major public figure in the 1970s, Smith’s prolific writing on theology and development set him apart as a pioneering theologian from the Reformed tradition contributing greatly to the development of a Caribbean theology.
In Caribbean Prophet: The Public Theology of Ashley Smith, the contributors – leading scholars within Jamaica from different faith traditions – articulate the different ways in which Smith’s public theology utilized the experiences of African-Jamaicans to redefine their humanity and identity focusing on their resilience to build agency. The result is an exposition of Ashley Smith, the pioneer, his speaking truth to power, his contribution to Caribbean theology as an educator and scholar and his enduring legacy.
About Author
Roderick R. Hewitt is president of the International University of the Caribbean in Kingston, Jamaica. Formerly serving as the academic leader for theology and ethics and also for research and higher degrees in the School of Religion Philosophy and Classics, University of Kwa Zulu Natal, South Africa, he was a visiting fellow at New College, University of Edinburgh and is professor in systematic theology and lectures in African theologies in the diaspora, ecumenical theology, and missiology.
Hopeton S. Dunn is professor of communications policy and digital media, and graduate co-ordinator, Media Studies at the University of Botswana in Southern Africa. He is also a senior research associate at the School of Communication, University of Johannesburg, South Africa. A former director of the Caribbean School of Media and Communication (CARIMAC) at The University of the West Indies, he is also a former chairman of the Broadcasting Commission of Jamaica.
Jane Dodman is a retired educator and community development practitioner who came to Jamaica in 1983 as a mission partner from the Church of Scotland. She is a commissioned lay minister of the United Church in Jamaica and the Cayman Islands and was a vice president and then a consultant at the International University of the Caribbean.
Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction: Ashley Alexander Smith: Foregrounding an Iconic Caribbean Public
Theologian and Prophet – Roderick R. Hewitt and Hopeton S. Dunn
- Ashley’s Life and Work
Segment A: Fashion Me a People 1
Jane Dodman and Raymond Coke
Segment B: God’s Gardener – Ashley Smith as Lecturer, Publisher, and Broadcaster 7
Stephen C. A. Jennings
Segment C: Ashley Smith’s Troubling of the Waters in the Jamaican Society 14
Howard Gregory
Segment D: Eulogizing Rev. the Honourable Ashley Alexander Smith, O. J. 18
Norbert Stevens
- The Pastoral Significance of Ashley Smith
Henley Bernard
- Ashley Smith – The Public Theologian
Burchell Taylor
- Interrogating Ashley Smith’s Black Theological Perspectives
Roderick R. Hewitt
- Church and Politics: Race, Class, and Social Change in Ashley Smith’s Public Discourse
Hopeton S. Dunn and Paul Martin
- Real Roots, Potted Plants? Revisiting a Key Scholarly Contribution of Ashley Smith
Anna Kasafi Perkins
- First Human, Then Religion! Ashley Smith and the Theology of the Self
Martin J. Schade
- Ashley Smith: Prophet and Public Theologian
Garnett Roper
Bibliography
Contributors
