This interview was published in Faithfully Magazine No. 2 (Summer 2017).
Walter R. Strickland II teaches theology at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, N.C. He is also the seminary’s Special Advisor to the President for Diversity. Strickland was elected as first vice president of the Southern Baptist Convention at its 2017 annual meeting (after this interview was conducted). The Chicago-born, California-raised married father is also an author, with his latest project being Plain Theology for Plain People (Lexham Classics) by 19th-century theologian Charles Octavius Boothe. Plain Theology for Plain People “destroys reductionist stereotypes of [B]lack faith,” according to Strickland.
How did you get involved in writing the introduction for the new edition of Charles Octavius Boothe’s Plain Theology for Plain People by Lexham Press?
I was doing research for my dissertation and I stumbled across Plain Theology for Plain People and I just said hey, someone needs to do it justice and give it the air time it needed because (Boothe) is on point and should be heard just as much as any of the other people who are considered greats who’ve done theology and who have done pastoral ministry. But because he’s a Black man, there’s an injustice at the presses and so somebody had to do it justice, and I figured why not me.
