Truett Seminary Faculty Member Receives Grant to Complete Biography on 20th Century African American Preacher

Baylor University’s George W. Truett Theological Seminary is pleased to share that Dr. Jared E. Alcántara, Associate Professor of Preaching and Holder of the Paul W. Powell Endowed Chair in Preaching, has received a $40,000 grant through the Louisville Institute's Sabbatical Grant for Researchers (SGR) program.

"I could not be more excited to be one of this year's recipients of the Sabbatical Grant for Researchers," Alcántara said. "I am so thankful to the Louisville Institute for supporting my project, and I am grateful for the Institute's ongoing investment in the church in North America. Thanks be to God!"

Funded by the Religion Division of Lilly Endowment, Louisville Institute awards grants and fellowships to those who lead and study North American religious institutions, practices, and movements, advancing scholarship to strengthen church, academy, and wider society. Louisville Institute’s SGR program enables ecclesiastically-engaged academics and scholarly religious leaders to conduct a major study that can contribute to the vitality of Christianity in North America. Grants support year-long research projects that address Christian faith and life, the practice of ministry, and/or adaptive challenges confronting religious institutions.

Alcántara's SGR-funded project is to publish a definitive biography of Rev. Dr. Joseph H. Jackson (1900-1990), whose significance to 20th century Black Christianity and U.S. history more broadly has not yet been understood or appreciated. Alcántara hopes that by making the life and legacy of Jackson available, North American church leaders will acquire new homiletical knowledge both in theory and practice, recover neglected Civil Rights Era church history, and reflect on the ways that leadership and power is a double-edged sword in their modern context. You may learn more about the project here.

"Dr. Jared E. Alcántara is a premier researcher, teacher, and practitioner of homiletics, and Baylor's Truett Seminary is blessed to have him serving on our gifted (preaching) faculty," said Todd D. Still PhD, DeLancey Dean and Hinson Professor at Truett. "We celebrate Dr. Alcántara having received the Sabbatical Grant for Researchers from Louisville Institute to support his ongoing, groundbreaking work on the life and ministry of The Rev. Dr. Joseph H. Jackson, to be published by Oxford University Press in due course, even as we express our gratitude to Louisville Institute for their investment in religious and theological scholarship in general and in Dr. Alcántara's important research in particular. Furthermore, Truett Seminary is grateful to be able to partner with Louisville Institute in seeking to address pressing issues and practical concerns regarding Christian life and faith, pastoral leadership, and religious institutions."