Faculty Directory

A diasporic Puerto Rican by way of East Harlem in New York City, Benjamin Valentin taught formerly at Yale University’s Divinity School in New Haven, Connecticut where he served as Associate Professor of Latinx Christianity from 2016 to 2020.  Prior to that he taught at Andover Newton Theological School in Newton Centre, Massachusetts, for fifteen years, where he was Professor of Theology and Culture and Founding Director of the Orlando E. Costas Lectureship in Latino/a Religion and Theology.

An interdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary scholar through and through, Valentin’s work spans across and draws from such fields and frameworks as the history of religion, critical theology, Latino/a studies, Puerto Rican studies, social and political theory, cultural studies, critical place inquiry, critical race theory, and the discourse of decolonization. 

A leader in his field in many ways for some time now, Valentin is not only a member of but also serves on the executive board of the renowned American Theological Society and is a steering committee member of the acclaimed Constructive Theology Workgroup.  He has also served on the steering committee of the American Academy of Religion’s Theology and Religious Reflection Section (2014-2018) and Liberation Theologies Group (2013-2017).  Valentin served as co-chair of the American Academy of Religion’s Latino/a Religion, Culture, and Society Group from 2007-2013.  At Yale Divinity School he was one of the founding architects of a concentrated Masters Degree program in Latinx and Latin American Christianity.  Valentin continues to do work for the Hispanic Theological Initiative Consortium in various leadership capacities, a doctoral-level mentoring and scholarship program he has been involved with since 1999.  And he is a frequent faculty member in the Hispanic Summer Program, a graduate-studies academic program devoted to the study of U.S. Latino/a, Latin American, and Caribbean religion and theology.