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Receiving his call to ministry in 1981, licensed in 1982, and ordained in 1988, Dr. Williams has over 30 years of ministerial experience. He has served as senior pastor of the Pleasant Hill Baptist Church in Dorchester, MA from 1992-1996 and as interim pastor at the Beecher Memorial UCC church, New Orleans, LA from 2000-03. He has also served as a supply preacher for several churches in the New Orleans area. In his pursuit of higher education Dr. Williams received a Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) degree from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in Comparative Religion in 1986, a Master of Theological Studies (M.T.S.) in 1988 and a Master of Divinity (M.Div.) in 1990, both from Harvard Divinity School. He completed in 1997 a Doctor of Theology degree (Th.D.) also from Harvard Divinity School.
Dr. Williams was formerly an Associate Professor in the Department of Classical Studies and Director of the Religious Studies Program at Tulane University, New Orleans, where he taught from 1996–2006. Since relocating to Milwaukee in 2006 after the Katrina hurricane, he has served as an Adjunct Professor in theology at Marquette University and continues to teach as an Adjunct Professor at the Central Baptist Theological School (Shawnee, KS) at its Milwaukee center. He also currently teaches at UW-Milwaukee in the Comparative Literature department and in the Religious Studies program. On January 2, 2009 Dr. Williams began his pastorate of the Community Baptist Church of Greater Milwaukee.
Besides service to the faith and academic communities, Dr. Williams has also contributed to the scholarly community publishing several articles in New Testament studies and in African American Biblical interpretation. His first book based on his dissertation, “Enemies of the Cross of Christ”: The Terminology of the Cross and Conflict in Philippians, was published by Sheffield Academic Press in 2002. His second book, dealing with and affirming women in the preaching and pastoral ministries, “An End to This Strife: The Politics of Gender in African American Churches, was published in 2004 by Fortress Press. In addition to his past and recent literary works, Dr. Williams was invited by Duke Divinity School to offer the Martin Luther King Jr. Distinguished Lecture Series (April 1-2, 2008), honoring him for his dual work and calling as both a scholar and a minister.
