Dr. Donald H. Matthews, Ph. D. is a noted scholar of African American Religion and Culture. He received the Doctoral Degree from The Divinity School of The University of Chicago in Religion and the Human Sciences where he studied Religion, Theology, Ethics, Psychology and Anthropology. His first book, Honoring the Ancestors: An African Cultural Interpretation of Black religion and Literature, was published by Oxford University Press, (1998; 2012). He has written several other books and articles and has taught at several major institutions and theological seminaries, including Washington University of St. Louis, University of California at Santa Cruz, Temple University, and at The University of Missouri at Kansas City where he was the Director of the Black Studies Program. He is an ordained minister and has completed a Certified Residency in Pastoral Education at the Bay Area Center for Pastoral Care (ACPE). He received the Masters Degree in Communicative Disorders from Northwestern University; and the Master of Divinity Degree from the Pacific School of Religion, Berkeley, CA.