Jerusha T. Lamptey is Assistant Professor of Islam and Ministry at Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York. Her research focuses on theologies of religious pluralism, comparative theology, and Muslima theology.
Dr. Lamptey earned a Ph.D. in Theological and Religious Studies with a focus on Religious Pluralism at Georgetown University in 2011. She also received an M.A. in Islamic Sciences at the Graduate School of Islamic and Social Sciences, and an M.A. in Theological and Religious Studies at Georgetown University. Before joining the Union faculty in July of 2012, she was Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Theology at Georgetown University.
Dr. Lamptey’s first book, Never Wholly Other: A Muslima Theology of Religious Pluralism (Oxford University Press, March 2014), explores the Qur’anic discourse on religious ‘otherness’. In this book, she draws upon feminist theology and semantic methodology to re-interpret the Qur’anic discourse and challenge notions of clear and static religious boundaries by distinguishing between and illuminating the complexity of multiple forms of religious difference.
Her current book project focuses on comparative feminist theology. In this project, she aims to articulate a comparative Muslima (Islamic feminist) theology in conversation with various Christian feminist theologians. While Islamic feminism has typically distanced itself from other ‘feminisms’ due to their entanglements with colonialism and imperialism, in this project she argues that comparative theological engagement is essential to the development of a Muslima theology that moves beyond exegetical and legal reformulation and toward constructive theology.
Her other publications focus on religious pluralism, Muslima theology, ecumenical relations, Vatican II, and African traditional religions. include “Embracing Relationality and Theological Tensions: Muslima Theology, Religious Diversity, and Fate” in Between Heaven and Hell: Islam, Salvation, and the Fate of Others (Oxford Univ. Press, 2013); “Lateral and Hierarchical Religious Difference in the Qur’an,” in Understanding Religious Pluralism (forthcoming 2013); “John Paul II and Islam” in The Interfaith Theology of John Paul II (forthcoming 2013); “From Sexual Difference to Religious Difference: Toward a Muslima Theology of Religious Pluralism” in Muslima Theology: The Voices of Muslim Women Theologians (Peter Lang, 2013); “‘Mapping’ the Religious Other: The Second Vatican Council’s Approach to Protestantism,” (Journal of Ecumenical Studies 45:4 [Fall 2010]); and “Mysticism in African Thought” in New Dictionary of the History of Ideas (Scribner & Sons, 2004).