The Rev. Dr. Thee Smith

The Rev. Thee Smith

The Rev. Theophus "Thee" Smith, Ph.D., is a Priest Associate. Thee joined St. Philip's staff as deacon in 2001 and was ordained a priest in 2002. He was educated at the Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire, St. John's College ('Great Books' curriculum) in Annapolis, and the Virginia Theological Seminary in Alexandria and the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California.

At Emory University, Thee taught both undergraduate and graduate students in the Religion Department from 1987 to 2018 and is now retired as emeritus faculty with a focus on interfaith relations. His academic specialties include philosophy of religion, African American religious studies, liberation theology, and religion and violence studies. In 1994, he authored Conjuring Culture: Biblical Formations of Black America and co-edited Curing Violence, a collection of essays on sacred violence and the social scapegoat theories of René Girard.

Thee formerly directed the Atlanta chapters of the Community of the Cross of Nails (Coventry Cathedral, England) and the National Coalition Building Institute (Silver Spring, MD). He is a co-founder since 2003 of the social justice nonprofit, Southern Truth and Reconciliation (STAR, Inc.), that specializes in diversity training, racial reconciliation, restorative justice and intergroup conflict resolution. Thee is an experienced peer counselor with the international Re-evaluation Counseling Communities, and enjoys learning Spanish while traveling as often as possible to Ecuador.