Advent Meditation: December 4, 2021

The Reverend Dr. Brandon Thomas Crowley (pronounced Crow-lee) is an African American scholar in religion, theology, ecclesiology, and queer theory. Since 2009, he has served as the Senior Pastor of the Historic Myrtle Baptist Church in West Newton, Massachusetts, one of America's oldest congregations founded by freed slaves at the end of Reconstruction and one of the only open and affirming historically Black churches in North America. Reverend Crowley earned a Ph.D. in Church and Society and a Master of Sacred Theology with a certificate in social justice from Boston University. He also earned a Master of Divinity from Harvard University, where he was a presidential scholar, and a Bachelor of Arts in Religion with a certificate in cosmopolitan religious leadership from Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia. Reverend Crowley is writing a book entitled <em>Queering Congregations: Contextual Approaches for Dismantling Heteronormativity in Black Churches. </em> He is also presently serving as an instructor in Ministry Studies at Harvard University’s Divinity School and the incoming 2021 Crump Visiting Professor of Theology and Black Religious Scholars Group’s Scholar-in-Residence at the Episcopal Theological Seminary of the Southwest. Reverend Crowley earned a Ph.D. in Church and Society and a Master of Sacred Theology with a certificate in social justice from Boston University’s School of Theology, a Master of Divinity from Harvard University’s Divinity School, where he was a presidential scholar and a Bachelor of Arts in Religion with a certificate in moral cosmopolitanism and multi-religious ethical leadership from Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia. Reverend Crowley’s first book is tentatively titled Queering Congregations: Contextual Approaches for Dismantling Heteronormativity in Black Churches. Reverend Crowley was ordained in the Progressive National Baptist Convention of America, Inc. in 2009.