Brian Bantum

Writer. Teacher. & Theologian

About Brian

I have always been drawn to questions about identity. Who am I? Who are we? And how do we figure out who belongs and why do we believe some people don’t? Following these questions led me to Duke Divinity School for my M.T.S. and eventually my doctorate in theology. Now, I ask these questions as a professor of theology at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary and the Theologian-in-Residence at Quest Church. But the question of who we are is never just thought out, is it? We have to live this question, bump up against the unknown and the changing trails we follow as we meet new people and journey with communities. Whether it is questions about God, about our communities, race, gender (just to name a few), I’m trying to figure out my way around these mountains I find myself on, and hope that something of what I see might help the next person who comes along the path.

Approved Bio

Dr. Brian Bantum is the Neil F. and Ila A. Professor of Theology at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary. He writes and teaches on the intersections of theology and embodiment, particularly on questions of race and identity. He is a contributing editor for The Christian Century and has published three books: Redeeming Mulatto: A Theology of Race and Christian Hybridity and The Death of Race: Building a New Christianity in a Racial World and most recently, Choosing Us: Marriage and Mutual Flourishing in a World of Difference, co-authored with his spouse, Rev. Gail Song Bantum. He speaks throughout the country on how racial imagination shapes our identity and how our lives as disciples might live into the fullness of God’s life and create spaces of justice and flourishing and life in their midst, becoming slight glimmers of God’s present and coming kingdom.

Dr. Bantum lives in Seattle, WA with his spouse, Rev. Gail Song Bantum and their three (almost) grown children. There he can be seen riding his bike or walking his dog or making espresso for the family. While not a native of the Pacific Northwest, it has clearly sunk in. 

If the concept of God has any validity or any use, it can only be to make us larger, freer, and more loving. If God cannot do this, then it is time we got rid of Him.”

—James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time

Published Articles

Who decides what my body means?

“But recently I have found myself in strange territory. Not simply angry or frustrated, but lost—as though we were all looking out the same window yet describing different worlds. Again and again, conversations on these subjects conjure Babel. We want to see and to know God, but it all ends in chaos and confusion.”