PUBLIC THEOLOGY
BIO
Rev. Dr. Whitney Wilkinson Arreche (she/her) is Pastor of Emmanuel Presbyterian Church in Bedford, Texas. She received her Doctor of Theology (ThD) degree from Duke University in 2023, where she researched the connections between language, wealth, whiteness, and reconciliation theologies. She belongs to the Fellowship for Protestant Ethics, working as part of a cohort of Protestant theologians and ethicists. She serves on her denominational General Assembly Committee for Ecumenical and Interreligious Relations (GACEIR). She represents the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) on the National Council of Churches Faith and Order Committee, engaging in matters of ecumenical engagement, race, and theology. She co-chairs the board of UKirk SMU, an inclusive Presbyterian campus ministry. She served on the leadership team of Liberating Church, a project that draws wisdom from the antebellum hush harbors of enslaved people to celebrate and seek wisdom from a Christianity often overlooked in the history of the United States. She has presented her research at national and international religion conferences, and has been published in The Christian Century, Political Theology Network, and the Presbyterian Outlook. She contributed an entry on Coronavirus for the updated edition of the T&T Clark Theological Dictionary. She was selected as a featured speaker for TheoEd, a dynamic and brief engagement with theological education accessible to all people. She previously served as a solo pastor in rural North Carolina for nearly six years, and as a mission associate in Belfast, Northern Ireland working with migrant communities. She is a scholar, a writer, a seeker, and a teacher, but mostly, she is a pastor with a heart for deep connection, deep thinking, and deep care of all of God’s children. She lives in Lewisville, Texas with her spouse Carlos and their dog, Otter. She finds joy in cooking, painting, barre classes, and drinking entirely too much coffee.
STATEMENT OF FAITH
I believe in God as community:
Creator, Child, Spirit.
I believe that belief is in and of itself
a gift of the Spirit,
nurtured in grace, fed with hope, appreciated through trial.
I believe scripture is the word of God, and as God’s first word we have
was “Light,”
I believe scripture is meant to enlighten, and bring life,
not death, or fear, or hatred.
I believe we humans are made in the image of God
bearing her goodness even in our
failures
And I do believe we fail (which is another word for sin),
mainly in mistaking God for our own
face, privilege, politics, indoctrinations, and comfortable
idolatries.
But mostly, I believe that grace has the
final word.
I believe Jesus was God’s child
born of a brave woman who sang a song of lifting up the
lowly and bringing
down
the proud and powerful.
I believe Jesus sang his mother’s song all his life, even in his death,
and that resurrection means he will never stop
healing, redeeming, and restoring.
I believe in a church I do not always see
where a wild Spirit is poured equally on all
where disaster is met with broken bread
and division is met with a common cup.
I believe this church has some help (God knows we need it)
and thus ministry is so much more than who’s speaking,
what the carpet looks like, or
marketing the church into artificial immortality.
The church is Spirit-breathed, fallible you and me, and about the
gospel work of
walls being recognized for what they are
and then coming down,
and one new, messy humanity to show that
on the other side of death and chaos
God speaks that word again and again:
“Light,”
and all creation is baptized with the radical hope that
God is with
us;
We
are with each other.
We are not alone.
PREACHING
Sermon (Facebook video) on Proverbs 31 entitled “Her Worth.” Preached at Bentwood Trail Presbyterian Church, Dallas, Texas on September 19, 2021 (begins at 22:38).
Sermon (written text) on John 6:1-21 entitled “Gather Up the Fragments.”
WRITING
Cultivating curiosity: Lessons from Samwise Gamgee, the Constant Gardener March 2025 The Presbyterian Outlook https://pres-outlook.org/2025/03/cultivating-curiosity-lessons-from-samwise-gamgee-the-constant-gardener/
Confronting Racism and White Supremacy in the US: 21st Century Theological Perspectives (contributing author and associate editor) October 2024 Frederick, MD: Friendship Press https://www.friendshippress.org/products/confronting-racism-and-white-supremacy-in-the-us
Looking into the Lectionary (on Esther’s cycles of violence) September 2024 The Presbyterian Outlook https://pres-outlook.org/2024/09/nineteenth-sunday-after-pentecost-september-29-2024/
When Preaching Becomes Performance: Confronting ‘the Preachies’
August 2024
The Presbyterian Outlook https://pres-outlook.org/2024/08/when-preaching-becomes-performance-confronting-the-preachies/
Being a mustard-seed church January 2024
The Presbyterian Outlook https://pres-outlook.org/2024/01/being-a-mustard-seed-church/
Mountain Theology
February 2023
Political Theology Network
https://politicaltheology.com/mountain-theology/
2023 Christian Day Planner with Prayers
November 2022
Simply Soulful Designs
https://a.co/d/iuVkd9J
Confronting Antisemitism and Islamophobia
November 2022
The Presbyterian Outlook
https://pres-outlook.org/2022/11/confronting-antisemitism-and-islamophobia/
Looking into the Lectionary
June 12, 2022
The Presbyterian Outlook
https://pres-outlook.org/2022/06/trinity-sunday-june-12-2022/
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and the Monster of Whiteness
(Print title: Promethean Dreams) April 2022
The Christian Century
Vol. 139 No. 8
https://www.christiancentury.org/article/opinion/mary-shelley-s-frankenstein-and-monster-whiteness
Liberating Church: A Hush Harbor Manifesto (Contributing author)
May 2022
Brandon Wrencher and Venneikia S. Williams, eds.
Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishing https://wipfandstock.com/9781666730043/liberating-church/
her coffee grounds (poetry blessing)
January 2022
Held: Blessings for the Depths
Enfleshed
https://enfleshed.com/additional-blessings-for-the-depths/#coffee
Looking into the Lectionary
August 8, 2021
The Presbyterian Outlook
https://pres-outlook.org/2021/08/august-8-2021-11th-sunday-after-pentecost/
Looking into the Lectionary
August 15, 2021
The Presbyterian Outlook
https://pres-outlook.org/2021/08/12th-sunday-after-pentecost-august-15-2021/
Life That Does Not Demand Death
April 2021
Political Theology Network
https://politicaltheology.com/life-that-does-not-demand-death/
Paul’s Propertied Incarnation
December 2020
Political Theology Network
https://politicaltheology.com/pauls-propertied-incarnation/
The Old, Evil Idea of Humans as Units of Production
June 2020
(Print title: At What Cost?)
The Christian Century
Vol. 137 No. 13
https://www.christiancentury.org/article/critical-essay/old-evil-idea-humans-units-production
Places of Power and Promise: A Pilgrimage into the Enslaved African Hush Harbor
May 2019
Liberating Church Project
http://liberatingchurch.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Places-of-Power-and-Promise.pdf
Fungibility: A Vocabulary Lesson for White People
March 2018
Fidelia Magazine, Young Clergy Women International
https://youngclergywomen.org/fungibility-vocabulary-lesson-white-people/
Grace in a Mason Jar
July 2016
The Presbyterian Outlook
https://pres-outlook.org/2016/07/grace-mason-jar/
The Rest is Commentary
October 2015
Mercy Community Church Publication
https://mercyonline.net/2015/10/05/the-rest- is-commentary/
The Power of Plastic
August 2015
Fidelia Magazine, The Young Clergy Women International
https://youngclergywomen.org/the-power-of-plastic/
“Divine Dining” Weekly Food Column
October 2012–August 2015
The Sanford Herald, Sanford, NC
http://www.sanfordherald.com/
get in touch!
Feel free to email me: whitney@emmanuelpc.org
Meet ewok Otter.
Meet Whitney. 