Faculty Bio

Dr. Roland Guzmán is a Puerto Rican, queer, gender-non-conforming Episcopal priest and academic. Dr. Roland serves as Assistant Professor of Church History. Dr. Roland has presented at conferences in the US and Brazil and regularly publishes for both church and academy. Publications include Unmasking Latinx Ministry for Episcopalians: An Anglican Approach (CPI, 2020), chapters, articles and reviews in various journals and edited volumes. She is editor of a forthcoming volume in a series on Anglicanism in the Americas.

As a historian Dr. Roland is focused on trans-Atlantic European entanglements (15th-18th centuries) and the encounter (discursive and otherwise) of the other. Specifically, Dr. Roland is interested in explorations on the construction of identity in Spain and Latin America as responses to discourses of the so-called Black Legend. This includes a chapter: “Dialectics Across Empires: Echoes of 16th Century Othering in Today’s North Atlantic Anglicanism” (May 2026) and forthcoming book titled Christianity, Race, and the Making of the Other: A Decolonial Perspective on Racialist Discourses (Spring 2027).

Dr. Roland approaches teaching, writing, and reading through, world, decolonial, and interdisciplinary lenses/methodologies; and works to delink from hegemonic epistemologies in the field, in theological education, and in the Episcopal Church. Ordained for close to 25 years, they have extensive practical and academic knowledge on the Episcopal Church and Anglicanism and their global histories.

Rev. Roland currently serves as Parish Chaplain of Grace Episcopal Church in Port Jervis, NY after previously serving at the Episcopal Church of St. Matthew and St. Timothy in NYC for 21 years. In 2018 they were profiled in NBC Out’s #Pride30. Dr. Roland has participated in various seminary advisory groups, currently is a member of the Episcopal Church’s General Board of Examining Chaplains and has taught at Pacific Lutheran, University of the South, and Union Theological Seminary (NYC).

Dr. Roland holds a BS in Industrial Engineering from Cornell (1994); MDiv from CDSP/MA in Church History from GTU (2001); PhD in Theology with a concentration in Church History from Exeter/Hartford (2017) and has received fellowships/grants from the Hispanic Theological Initiative, the Episcopal Church Foundation, and the Louisville Institute.