Full name: Rev Dr. Thandeka
The Rev. Dr. Thandeka is a Unitarian Universalist theologian, journalist, and congregational consultant who leads the "We Love Beyond Belief" project. She was given the Xhosa name Thandeka, which means "beloved," by Archbishop Desmond Tutu in 1984. She is the founder of Affect Theology, which investigates the links between religion and emotions using insights from affective neuroscience.
Her publications include Learning to Be White: Money, Race, and God in America (2000), The Embodied Self: Friedrich Schleiermacher's Solution to Kant's Problem of the Empirical Self, and a contributor to books includingThe Cambridge Companion to Schleiermacher andThe Oxford Handbook on Feminist Theology and Globalization . Thandeka's numerous publications in journals include essays inAmerican Journal of Theology and Philosophy,The International Journal of Practical Theology, Harvard Theological Review,Process Studies, andTikkun.
Thandeka has taught at San Francisco State University, Meadville Lombard Theological School, Williams College, Harvard Divinity School, and Brandeis University, and has been a Fellow at the Stanford Humanities Center at Stanford University and a Visiting Scholar at the Center for Process Studies at Claremont School of Theology in Claremont California and Union Theological Seminary in New York City.
Before receiving her doctorate in philosophy of religion and theology from the Claremont Graduate University, Thandeka was a television producer for 16 years and is an Emmy award winner.