Cheryl J. Sanders

Cheryl J. Sanders, Th.D., is professor of Christian Ethics at the Howard University School of Divinity where she teaches courses in Christian ethics, pastoral ethics and African American spirituality. Her key areas of research and writing are African American religious studies, bioethics, pastoral leadership and womanist studies. Dr. Sanders has been Senior Pastor of the Third Street Church of God in Washington, D.C. since 1997.

She has ministered nationally and internationally for more than 30 years as a preacher for church services, camp meetings, conventions, conferences and revivals. In 2005, she was honored as one of the elders in the fall issue of The African American Pulpit: Those Preaching Women.

Dr. Sanders has lectured at colleges, universities and seminaries all over the United States, including the 2005 C. Eric Lincoln Lectureship at Clark Atlanta University and the Staley Distinguished Christian Scholar Lectureship. She has held visiting professorships at Harvard Divinity School and High Point University, and taught as an exchange professor at Wesley Theological Seminary and the Lutheran Seminary at Gettysburg. She is an author of more than 100 articles and several books, including “Ministry at the Margins" (1997); “Saints in Exile: The Holiness-Pentecostal Experience in African American Religion and Culture" (1996); and "Empowerment Ethics for a Liberated People" (1995).

She holds a bachelor's degree in mathematics from Swarthmore College and two graduate degrees from Harvard Divinity School: Master of Divinity, cum laude and Doctor of Theology in the field of applied theology. In 2002, she was awarded the honorary Doctor of Divinity degree by Asbury College in Wilmore, Kentucky.

She is married to Dr. Alan Carswell, and is the mother of two children, Allison and Garrett.