“Honoring Laënnec Hurbon at 85”

The most important and epoch-making monograph, “Dieu dans le Vaudou haïtien” (God in Haitian Vodou) on the function and idea of God in Haitian Vodou was published by Laënnec Hurbon—a brilliant Haitian theologian, interdisciplinary scholar, public intellectual, and sociologist— in 1972. This book stands as a classic in the field and is the first scholarly and rigorous theological assessment about God in Vodou, as practiced by the Haitian people. It’s a book that demonstrates the author’s theological originality, intellectual rigor, and cultural sensitivity. It’s probably the first book written from a decolonial-before la lettre—theological framework and perspective on God in Vodou. In other words, Hurbon employs decoloniality both as epistemology and method to theologize about God in the Vodou tradition. He engages all the major scholarship of that period, including prominent scholars and historians of comparative religion, ethnologists of African traditional religion and African diaspora religions, and Protestant (Protestant and Catholic) theologians.

To my knowledge, there are no contemporary studies or there have been any significant monographs that study God theologically in Haitian Vodou—after the publication of “God in Haitian Vodou” in 1972. All the major contemporary studies on Vodou focus on the historical, anthropological, sociological, cultural, and visual aspects of the religion. I should also mention the increasingly-focus on gender studies in Vodou. This year, Dr. Hurbon just released a new book on the role of women in Vodou. He has been criticized by scholars for not engaging women in his tour-de force book, “Dieu dans le Vodou haïtien.”

Professor Hurbon is now 85 years old. He is still writing, supervising doctorsl students at universities in France, Haiti, and other countries. A former Catholic priest, he is probably the most cited contemporary Haitian scholar in the world. In 2016, I was contacted by an editor to publish a biographical assessment about his work for “The Dictionary of Caribbean and Afro-Latin American Biography, edited by Henry Louis Gates Jr, published in 2017 by Oxford University. In subsequent years, I published two major articles about his writing and ideas.

Since 2016, I have been wanting to go back to Hurbon to engage his theological ideas, especially his concept of God in the book mentioned above. Several years ago, I wrote a draft article on the subject matter; now, I decided to go back to Hurbon. I tentatively title the article “Laënnec Hurbon and Re-Theologizing God in Haitian Vodou,” and I hope to send it to a journal during the first half of the new year 2026. When the arricle is published, Professor Hurbon will turn 86 years old.

Let’s celebrate Professor Laënnec Hurbon for his extraordinary scholarship and contributions to interdisciplinary scholarship and Haitian Studies.