Talk Explores Racism, Anti-Greed Gospel

Malcolm Foley, special adviser to the president for equity and campus engagement at Baylor University, argues that race and racism are fundamentally not issues of pride but of greed in a lecture Wednesday, April 3, from 3:30-5 pm in the Global Leadership Center.

The talk, “Child of Mammon or Child of God?: The Anti-Greed Gospel,” is free and open to the public. The sociology and anthropology department, history department, Gaede Institute for the Liberal Arts and the Provost’s Office sponsor the lecture.

“What’s so bad about racism?” asks Foley, pastor at Mosaic Waco and religious historian at Baylor, where he directs Black Church Studies at Truett Seminary. “Is it about hate and ignorance? Is the solution education and diverse relationships? Or are the problem and solution deeper?

“The solution is not that we merely think about one another differently, but that we treat one another differently. The only truly antiracist Christian communities are the anti-greed ones.”

Foley graduated from Washington University in St. Louis with a double major in religious studies and finance. He earned a Master of Divinity at Yale Divinity School and a doctorate in religion from Baylor.

“Dr. Foley electrified the campus community last year in his public lecture and chapel message, and we are having him back by popular demand,” says Blake Victor Kent, associate professor of sociology. “In an age rife with uncertainty about how to talk about race, Dr. Foley is a tremendous communicator, one who points a way forward outside the typical talking points. As a pastor and scholar, Dr. Foley is an ideal leader to address Westmont’s campus community and wider constituency, and I am personally looking forward to learning from him once again.”