Jonathan L. Walton

Walton was appointed dean of the Wake Forest University School of Divinity in April 2019. He assumed the position on July 1, 2019.

Walton's latest book A Lens of Love: Reading the Bible in Its World for Our World (Westminster John Knox Press 2018)[1], is an extension of his work from the pulpit and classroom. The book is the interpretative exploration of the Bible from the perspective of the most vulnerable and violated characters in scripture. A Lens of Love is an aid for Christians who seek to be rooted in faith while pursuing professional lives that are just, ethical and challenge inequity.

Walton joined the faculty at Harvard University in 2010, accepting a position as assistant professor of African American Religions, Harvard Divinity School, and resident scholar of Lowell House, Harvard College. Two years later (2012), he was appointed the Plummer Professor of Christian Morals and Pusey Minister in the Memorial Church, following the death of the Rev. Peter J. Gomes, who served in the position for 41 years.

Much of Walton's scholarship is focused on evangelical Christianity, and its relationship to mass media and political culture. His first book, Watch This! The Ethics and Aesthetics of Black Televangelism (NYU Press 2009), examines the theological and political traditions of African American religious broadcasters.

In 2003, he was appointed a lecturer at Princeton University’s Department of Religion and The Program in African American Studies. He accepted a position as assistant professor of Religious Studies at the University of California in 2006.

In 1991, Walton graduated from Lithonia High School and attended Wofford College on a football scholarship. He transferred to Morehouse College following his freshman year and graduated in 1996 with a BA degree in political science. Walton also became a licensed minister that same year and entered the Princeton Theological Seminary in 1999, completing his MDiv in 2002 and his PhD in 2006.

Walton was born in Frederick, Maryland to John H. Walton and Rose Marie Walton. His father was an air traffic controller with the Federal Aviation Administration and his mother was a homemaker. His family moved to Syracuse, New York before settling in Atlanta, Georgia in 1980.

Jonathan Lee Walton (born June 22, 1973 in Frederick, Maryland) is an acclaimed author, social ethicist and religious scholar. He is the Plummer Professor of Christian Morals and the Pusey Minister in the Memorial Church of Harvard University, as well as a member of the Harvard Faculty of Arts & Sciences and professor of Religion & Society at the Harvard Divinity School. He is the author of A Lens of Love: Reading the Bible in its World for Our World.