Damien Domenack

Credentials: MDiv, Vanderbilt Divinity School / ThM, Vanderbilt Divinity School / Ph.D., Drew University (present)

Denomination: Santero Priest (santeria), Unitarian Universalist

Specific Field: Ethics and Social Theory

Biography: 

Damien is a Peruvian immigrant raised in Southern California. He is a Santero Priest and a candidate for ordination in the Unitarian Universalist tradition whose ministry centers Queer, Transgender, Black, and Brown immigrant communities of which he is a part. The formative Evangelical immigrant communities of his childhood cultivated his commitment to radical hospitality. Damien is a longtime hospitality professional, prison abolitionist, and founding member of Audre Lorde Project’s TransJustice. His research focuses on critically investigating the ways in which Afro-diasporic spirituality, and Christianity in particular, encounter the identity and community-shaping forces of the flesh for LGBTQI+—especially transgender and non-binary—persons of color. Damien approaches the work of theology and social ethics by weaving interdisciplinary Black Atlantic religion work with decolonial and liberative theology, with its focus on lived religion as a site from which to theologize and investigate how religion is lived in community. His work aims to shift and illuminate the ways memory, story, and relationality contour religious identities.