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Dr. Danjuma Gibson is both a scholar and a licensed professional counselor with experience in theological education, congregational ministry, and administrative leadership. Before joining PTS, he served as professor of pastoral theology, care, and counseling at Calvin Theological Seminary, where he also designed, launched, and directed a new master of arts program in clinical mental health counseling. His research has particularly progressed study of how black and brown communities respond to racial violence and economic factors such as gentrification and disinvestment. Dr. Gibson is also the author of Frederick Douglass, A Psychobiography: Rethinking Subjectivity in the Western Experiment of Democracy (Springer, 2018), and co-editor of Justice Matters: Spiritual Care and Pastoral Theological Imaginations in Times of the COVID-19 Pandemic (Routledge, 2023).
About Through the Eyes of Titans: Finding the Courage to Redeem the Soul of a Nation:
Human beings tend to romanticize history or idealize historical figures. This is nowhere more
apparent than the civil rights era of the twentieth century. The problem is that when we idealize history, we fail to learn from it. The result is that history repeats itself along with its sins and atrocities. The January 6 Capitol insurrection and the current racial reckoning we are experiencing is unoriginal to the American experience. We have been here before.
Through the Eyes of Titans (Wipf & Stock, 2024) seeks to humanize people we have idealized. Readers are invited to challenge racial hatred and injustice in their own context by looking to the lives of historical figures who have faced the challenges we currently face. By examining the self-care practices of personalities like Ida B. Wells, Fannie Lou Hamer, Benjamin Elijah Mays, and Martin Luther King Jr., this book examines the practices of introspection and self-work these historical figures engaged in that enabled them to fulfill the body of work they are celebrated for today. By humanizing these historical titans, we can emulate similar practices of self-care and introspection in our own lives that can equip us in continuing the ongoing work of dismantling structures of racial hatred and oppression, and promoting freedom, love, equity, and justice to redeem the soul of a nation.
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Select Bibliography
The following titles are not currently available at Barbour Library. The links below will take you to either Bookshop.org (which supports local bookstores) or Amazon.com, where you can purchase the book.
Baldwin, Lewis V. Behind the Public Veil : The Humanness of Martin Luther King, Jr. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2016.
Lawler, Milton. Benjamin E. Mays: The Role of Character in the Prolonged Struggle for African American Civil Rights. Oxon Hill, MD: The Lawler Association, 2011.
Books in Barbour Library
Print books below may be checked out by PTS students, faculty, and staff, as well as local area patrons who have library accounts (requires an annual fee). Ebooks are indicated by asterisks, and are available to current PTS students, faculty, and staff only.
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*A Voice That Could Stir an Army: Fannie Lou Hamer and the Rhetoric of the Black Freedom Movement
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Call Number: ONLINEISBN: 9781626740334Publication Date: 2014-04-30 -
Crusade for Justice; the autobiography of Ida B. Wells.
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Call Number: E185.97 .B26 A3ISBN: 9780226893426Publication Date: 1970-01-01 -
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Frederick Douglass, a Psychobiography
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Call Number: *E449.D77 G53 2018 / ONLINEISBN: 9783319752280Publication Date: 2018-04-23 -
Have You Got Good Religion?: Black women's faith, courage, and moral leadership in the Civil Rights Movement
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What compels a person to risk her life to change deeply rooted systems of injustice in ways that may not benefit her? The thousands of Black Churchwomen who took part in civil rights protests drew on faith, courage, and moral imagination to acquire the lived experiences at the heart of the answers to that question. AnneMarie Mingo brings these forgotten witnesses into the historical narrative to explore the moral and ethical world of a generation of Black Churchwomen and the extraordinary liberation theology they created. These women acted out of belief that what they did was bigger than themselves. Taking as their goal nothing less than the moral transformation of American society, they joined the movement because it was something they had to do. Their personal accounts of a lived religion enacted in the world provide powerful insights into how faith steels human beings to face threats, jail, violence, and seemingly implacable hatred. Throughout, Mingo draws on their experiences to construct an ethical model meant to guide contemporary activists in the ongoing pursuit of justice. A depiction of moral imagination that resonates today, Have You Got Good Religion? reveals how Black Churchwomen's understanding of God became action and transformed a nation.
ISBN: 9780252087769Publication Date: 2024-03-26 -
The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr
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Call Number: E185.97.K5 A52 1998ISBN: 9780446524124Publication Date: 1998-11-01 -
*Through the Eyes of Titans: Finding Courage to Redeem the Soul of a Nation
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Call Number: E185.96 .G53 2024 / ONLINEISBN: 9781725284227Publication Date: 2024-01-10
Click on the links below to perform subject/author searches in the library catalog:
African Americans -- Civil rights -- History -- 20th century.
Articles in Barbour Library
Articles that are available online have links, and are only available to current PTS students, faculty, and staff. Articles without links are in the print journal collection or are available through InterLibrary Loan to current PTS students, faculty, staff, and alums.
Davidson, Leah. "Idealization and Reverence." Journal of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis, 29 (2001), 127-36.
Gibson, Danjuma. “Doing Soul Care from a Region in My Mind: A Baldwinian Interpretation.” Journal of Pastoral Theology 33, no. 1 (December 31, 2023): 5–21.
Gibson, Danjuma. “Rituals of Lament and Agency in the Aftermath of Anti-Black Racial Violence.” Liturgy 39, no. 2 (December 31, 2024): 55–64
Hall, Deborah L., David C. Matz, and Wendy Wood. “Why Don’t We Practice What We Preach? A Meta-Analytic Review of Religious Racism.” Personality & Social Psychology Review (Sage Publications Inc.) 14, no. 1 (February 1, 2010): 126–39.
Perlitz, Daniel. “Beyond Kohut: From Empathy to Affection.” International Journal of Psychoanalytic Self Psychology 11, no. 3 (July 2, 2016): 248–62.
Wegner, Benjamin R. “Status Foe: A Psychobiographical Investigation of Ida B. Wells.” International Review of Psychiatry 36, no. 1/2 (February 1, 2024): 18–30.
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Society for the Study of Black ReligionThe Society for the Study of Black Religion has been "formed exclusivelyfor religious and educational purposes,and in particular to engage in scholarly research and discussion about thereligious experiences of Blacks; topublish reports of its discussion andresearch; to encourage the teaching and discussion of the Black religiousexperience in the curricula of college and university departments of religionand theological seminaries; and to carry out other activities related to the study of Black Religion."
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Pastoral Theology at the Margins | Danjuma Gibson (The Forum Podcast, April 2025)The Museum of African American History and Culture and the Holocaust Museum are devoted to telling stories that risk being forgotten or overlooked or even ignored. They also deal with stories of trauma, loss, and profound grief. Dr. Danjuma Gibson took a class to Washington, D.C., to see these museums and wrestle with questions about oppression and suffering in a class entitled Pastoral Theology at the margins. He sat down with Geoff Vandermolen, Director of Vocational Formation and Co-Director of the Doctorate of Ministry program at Calvin Seminary. Together, they reflect on these experiences and their impact on those who participated.
A curated list of print and media resources from the collection of Barbour Library. These items will be on display at the library and available for checkout.