Sathianathan “Sathi” Clarke is Professor of Theology, Culture, and Mission and holds the Bishop Sundo Kim Chair in World Christianity at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, DC. An ordained Presbyter of the Church of South India (CSI), he also serves as Assisting Clergy at the Church of the Epiphany, Diocese of Washington, where for many years he facilitated a bible study among homeless friends. His vocation has been a unique blend of the joy of Church ministry, passion for working with communities of the poor and other religious faiths, and love of academic research and teaching.
Clarke has graduate degrees from Madras University (MA), United Theological College (BD), Yale Divinity School (STM), and Harvard Divinity School (Th. D). He has worked passionately for justice with the poor and oppressed and has travelled extensively to educate and encourage interreligious dialogue. He started his ministry in the Church of South India as a social worker and priest for the Diocese of Madras among Dalit communities in rural India. He is on the Religion and Violence Reference Group of the World Council of Churches (Geneva, Switzerland) and has been honorary adjunct professor at Australian Centre for Christianity and Culture (Canberra, Australia) from 2019.
Clarke bridges the world between establishment and the marginalized, the global and the local, and academy and the congregation. For the last twenty years, he has taught and lectured on contextual theology, World Christianity, postcolonial mission, competing fundamentalisms, and interreligious dialogue in various countries around the world. At Wesley, he teaches the following courses: Systematic Theology; Faces of Jesus in World Religions; Religion, Violence, and Peace; World Religions as Resource for Theology and Ministry; and M. K. Gandhi and M. L. King Jr.
Sathianathan Clarke is the author of Competing Fundamentalisms: Violent Extremism in Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism (Westminster John Knox, 2017) and Dalits and Christianity: Subaltern Religion and Liberation Theology in India (Oxford University Press, 1998). He has published numerous academic articles in international journals and has co-edited four books: Gandhi’s Truths in an Age of Fundamentalism and Nationalism (Fortress Press, 2022) The Oxford Handbook of Anglican Studies (Oxford University Press, 2015); Dalit Theology in the Twenty-first Century: Discordant Voices, Discerning Pathways (Oxford University Press, 2010); and Religious Conversion in India: Modes, Motivations, and Meanings. (Oxford University Press, 2003). He is presently working on a book titled Theology for World Christianity in Post-postcolonial Times (Oxford University Press, 2023).
