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 Domenack 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. His research focuses on critically investigating how 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. Domenack approaches the work of care ethics and decolonial theology by weaving interdisciplinary Afro-Latine epistemologies with decolonial theology and spiritual care, with its focus on pluriversal healing justice as a site from which to theologize and investigate how lived religion informs individual and collective healing. His work aims to shift and illuminate the ways memory, story, and relationality contour religious identities.