From the very beginning, Greg Thompson’s words and work have informed the Center’s vision for bringing two great traditions—formation and justice—into conversation. He was so instrumental in shaping the imagination of the Center that Bishop Todd asked him to be the Center’s Research Director.

Greg created cornerstone content for the Center such as Justice, Peace, and the Work of the Church, which describes the foundational vocation of the Church as an instrument of renewal in the world.

We are so grateful for Greg’s voice at The Center. To learn more about Greg, listen to his Peace Talks interview. 

10 Things You Need to Know about Greg:

1. Greg quit his longtime job as a pastor in 2016 because a couple of African American friends challenged him to come out from behind his books and “big white church” and join them in full-time justice work.
2. Greg now serves as Co-Director of Voices Underground, a non-profit creative consulting firm that helps communities tell their African American stories in ways that are true, transformative, and enduring.
3. He writes for Comment’s regular column, The Welcome Table (The Stories at Our Table: On Hospitality and Public Memory is a favorite of ours). 
4. Greg is a chef. He works as a line chef at Broadcloth, a restaurant in Charlottesville, Virginia. 
5. Along with Sho Baraka, Greg wrote Union: The Musical, a soul and hip-hop based musical about the 1968 Memphis Sanitation Workers’ Strike.
6. Greg is the co-author (with Duke Kwon) of Reparations: A Christian Call to Repentance and Repair.
7. He is the co-founder (with Pitmaster Russ Whitfield) of The Welcome Table Supper Club.
8. Greg is a producer of the forthcoming documentary film, Repairing America, and of Underground, a musical about the Underground Railroad. 
9. Greg is a Martin Luther King, Jr., scholar. He is currently writing a work on the role of love in the work of MLK.
10. Greg is the songwriter of “O Jerusalem” for The Porter’s Gate worship project.

To read more about Greg Thompson, sign up for Tish Harrison Warren’s newsletter in the New York Times. Her article on Greg is titled, “This Artist Has a Mission to Call White Americans to Truth.”