Meet Reverend Dwight Webster
B.S., M.Div., D.H.L., Ph.D.
Born in Philadelphia, PA, Dwight Webster is the Senior Pastor of the Historic Beth Eden Baptist Church in Oakland, CA and is Pastor Emeritus of the Christian Unity Baptist Church in New Orleans, LA having served as its Senior and Founding Pastor from 1989 to 2017.
Pastor Webster previously served Beth Eden as Minister of Youth and Young Adults, while pursuing doctoral studies at the Graduate Theological Union (GTU) in Berkeley, CA. He taught at the Pacific School of Religion (PSR) and the GTU as Adjunct Faculty, He also served as PSR’s Affirmative Action Commission Chair, as well as the GTU Area VII Graduate Student Coordinator, Mail Courier, and as a Coordinator of GTU's Black Seminarians. He also taught Mathematics at Presentation High School in Berkeley. Rev. Webster credits Drs. J. Alfred Smith Sr. and Archie Smith Jr. for his early survival and success in the Bay Area.
Rev. Webster graduated from Howard University and Colgate Rochester Divinity School with a Bachelor of Science and a Master of Divinity degrees, respectively. While in Rochester, NY, he was the Minister of Youth at the Aenon Baptist Church. Rev. Webster completed the Ph. D. degree at the GTU in 2011.
He was the Interim Director and Interim Dean of the Program of Black Church Studies at Colgate Rochester Divinity School/Bexley Hall/Crozer Theological Seminary in Rochester, NY, and also taught at Colgate University in Hamilton, New York for two years.
Dr. Webster is an Elder and Faculty member of the Sankofa Institute at the Oblate School of Theology in San Antonio, TX and Xavier University’s Institute for Black Catholic Studies. He has taught at Tulane University, the Loyola University Institute of Ministry, and Delgado Community College in New Orleans. He directed the Center for African and African American Studies of Southern University at New Orleans for seven years. His first New Orleans appointment was as University Chaplain and Assistant Professor of Humanities at Dillard University. Rev. Webster later served as Pastor of Beacon Light Missionary Baptist Church in New Orleans.
In 2009 Rev. Dr. Webster was awarded the Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters by the Christian Bible College of Louisiana. He gave volunteer service to the Board of Directors of Efforts of Grace, Inc., the 501(c)3 nonprofit umbrella of the Ashé Cultural Arts Center of New Orleans, as its President and as its Secretary/Treasurer. In the community, he co-founded the Jeremiah Group and Justice and Beyond Coalition.
Licensed in 1973 and ordained in 1974, Dr. Webster claims spiritual sonship of Mt. Sinai Baptist Church in Lansdowne, PA and Jerusalem Baptist Church, Washington, DC and has been in the ministry nearly forty-five years.
Rev. Dr. Webster and wife, Trudell, have been married 35 years and have four sons and two granddaughters, Aubrey Gail Webster and Zora Wynn Audrey Webster, and a grandson on the way. Most of all, he is a born again, blood-bought, baptized believer in Jesus Christ.