Leadership Gallery

The Reverend Kortright Davis

Change is action: it is the radical transformation of oppressive structures; it is the overthrowing the tables of the money-changers in the temples; it is the singing of a new song in a new key that sounds cacophonous to those who think that music belongs to them; it is making the counterculture of the gospel come alive in a way that threatens the little kings but announces afresh the inbreaking of the kingdom of God.
- Kortright Davis, from the lecture, “Two Caribbean Theologies of Freedom"

  

Rev. Kortright Davis<br /><br />

The Rev. Dr. Kortright Davis, 2009. Photo courtesy of Howard University School of Divinity.

Davis was ordained to the priesthood in 1966, in the Diocese of Antigua. His upbringing in the West Indies, along with his years of service to parishes in Antigua, St. Kitts, Montserrat and Barbados, provided the foundation for the “emancipatory theology” that has characterized his ministry, instilling in him the deep belief that, although religion was a primary tool of colonial oppression, the Gospel message contains in itself the key to liberation. In the deeply religious atmosphere of the West Indies, in which “God was not a distant deity but a very present help in all circumstances,” Davis came to the understanding that it is possible to be free in God even in the midst of poverty and hunger.

In 1986, Kortright Davis accepted the call to the Church of the Holy Comforter, where he remains Rector Emeritus. He is also a representative on the Anglican Roman Catholic International Commission. Davis has left his mark on the Anglican Communion as one of the principal participants in the Conference on Afro-Anglicanism, founded in 1985, which resulted in the seminal Codrington Consensus, a statement bringing the insights of the African diaspora to the Anglican and Episcopal discussion on race. He has also been active in the Caribbean Conference of Churches, has served as a consultant to a variety of religious and academic institutions, and was a member of the Faith and Order Commission of the World Council of Churches. He and his wife Joan have three children and four grandchildren. [Sources]