Anger and fear are anchoring our political and religious life. This anger fear has warped our sense of how to be national and religious community that is moral community. Political discourse is uncivil; religious discourse is confrontational. Whether members of Congress are holding their party’s line or members of denominations are holding a doctrinal line, there is partisan polarization. At the heart of this polarization is absolutist morality. Womanist moral imagination helps us to answer this question: How do we generate and facilitate authentic moral community?
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Dr. Marcia Y. Riggs has an undergraduate degree in religion from Randolph-Macon Woman’s College, a Master of Divinity degree from Yale University Divinity School and a PhD in religion/ethics from Vanderbilt University. Her teaching career began at Drew University Theological School in Madison, New Jersey; she joined the faculty of Columbia Theological Seminary, Decatur, GA in 1991. In April of 2006, Dr. Riggs was inaugurated as the seminary’s first J. Erskine Love Professor of Christian Ethics and retired as professor emerita on August 1, 2024. The Marcia Riggs Commons, a residential hall and space for communal gatherings, was dedicated on the campus of the seminary in 2022. Her 20 years of ordained ministry were served in the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church.
