Sameer Yadav, Th.D.
Associate Professor of Religion
Education
- Duke University, Th.D. (Theology and Ethics)
- Yale University, S.T.M. (Theology)
- Boise State University, B.A. (Philosophy)
Biography
Sameer Yadav is a scholar of Christian mysticism and religious experience, race and religion, liberation theology, and theological method. His research is interdisciplinary, engaging the historical, sociopolitical, philosophical, and moral dimensions of Christian faith and practice. A common theme underlying Sameer’s fascination with all of these topics is a theological pattern of incongruous belonging, where elements that seem ill-suited to one another are in fact mysteriously ordered in surprising relationships of mutuality, whether an infinite uncreated God seeking union with finite human creatures, or human beings under social and political conditions of segregation destined by God for a form of life together marked by the intimate bonds of kinship.
He is the author of The Problem of Perception and the Experience of God (Fortress Press, 2015), as well as many articles in edited volumes and academic journals (such as Harvard Theological Review, Religious Studies, and the Journal of Analytic Theology). Currently he is working to complete a short book co-authored with Brock Bahler (University of Pittsburgh) entitled God and Race in Cambridge University Press’s Element series. Other works in progress include a project on Job and Christian pessimism, another on wonder and mystical theology, and a third on Christian social ontology and antiracist theologies of “peoplehood.”
Sameer also engages in public-facing or popular scholarship. You can find an essay by Sameer on abolitionist vs. slaveholding approaches to Scripture here (https://www.madeforpax.org/scripture/myth#sameer-yadav), a blogpost on what ants can teach us about divine ineffability here (https://dailyant.com/2017/08/18/philosophy-phriday-anthropocentrism), and a podcast interview with Yale’s Center for Faith and Culture on how social activism and mysticism belong together here (https://faith.yale.edu/media/active-mystic).
Academic Interests and Research
Systematic and philosophical theology, liberation theology, theology and race, theological anthropology, Christian social ethics, mystical theology, religious experience, theological method, theologies of Christian scripture.
Book
The Problem of Perception and the Experience of God. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2015.
Selected Peer-Reviewed Articles and Book Chapters
“A Joban Theology of Consolation,” Harvard Theological Review 117/2 (May 2024): 181-203.
“The Characteristic Damage of Analytic Theology: A Response to William Wood,” Religious Studies(2023): 1-8.
“Scripture as Signpost: The Spiritual Senses and Biblical Interpretation,” in Sensing Things Divine: Toward a Constructive Account of Spiritual Perception, eds. Fred Aquino and Paul Gavrilyuk (Oxford University Press, 2022).
“Willie Jennings on the Supersessionist Pathology of Race: A Differential Diagnosis,” in T&T Clark Companion to Analytic Theology, edited by J.T. Turner and J. M. Arcadi (T&T Clark, 2021)
“Toward an Analytic Theology of Liberation,” in Voices from the Edge: Centering Marginalized Perspectives in Analytic Theology, edited by Michelle Panchuk and Michael Rea (Oxford University Press, 2020).
“Religious Racial Formation Theory and its Metaphysics,” in The Lost Sheep in Philosophy of Religion: New Perspectives on Disability, Gender, Race, and Animals, edited by Blake Hereth and Kevin Timpe (Routledge, 2019).
“Mystical Experience and the Apophatic Attitude,” The Journal of Analytic Theology 4 (2016): 17-43.
Courses Taught at Baylor
REL 3351 Introduction to Christian Theology