Scott Williamson was promoted as the Robert H. Walkup Professor of Theological Ethics, with tenure, following the recommendation of the faculty and Seminary president and unanimous approval of the Board of Trustees.

Williamson joined the Seminary faculty and was appointed to the Walkup chair in 1997. Working in the field of narrative ethics, he has contributed, through his teaching and research, a new and critical appreciation of narrative as a source for moral reflection. Increasingly, he is specializing in nineteenth-century African American moral thought, stories, and sermons. He has spent the last several years researching Frederick Douglass, the focus of his book, The Religious and Moral Thought of Frederick Douglass: A Narrative Approach (Mercer University Press, 2002).

A United Methodist Crusade Scholar, Williamson is an ordained minister of the International Council of Community Churches and holds membership in the United Methodist Church. He earned his degrees at Bates College (BA), Yale Divinity School (MDiv), and Yale University (PhD), where he served as pastor of the Black Church at Yale while a graduate student there.

On the Louisville Seminary campus, Williamson has been instrumental in helping to advance the institution into a multicultural seminary, a center of theological education that values and embraces the diversity of perspectives as essential to faithfully reflecting the image of God at work in the world. His contributions to this vision are reflected in his leadership with faculty colleagues, such as the 2004 Teach-in on Resisting Violence; his work with students on the cultural diversity committee; and in many of his courses such as: “Christian Social Ethics,” “The Churches and Black America: Slavery, Reconstruction, and Civil Rights (1787-1989),” “Religion, Ethics, and Modern Moral Issues,” and “Feminist and Womanist Ethics,” with Dr. Amy Plantinga Pauw. But, ultimately, this goal will be realized through the design of a Black Studies Program, offered with other avenues for nurturing inclusive study, experience, and exploration that is informed by the wisdom of minority voices.

Williamson is a member of the Society of Christian Ethics and in 1999 was selected as one of Kentucky’s Leaders for a New Century, one of 40 individuals under the age of 40 who have a high potential to shape the future of the State in the new millennium. He contributes to the wider society through involvement as a member of the ethics committee at Louisville’s Home of the Innocents.