Scott Neely serves as minister of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Spartanburg, South Carolina. He also directs the Faith Initiative To End Child Poverty, a coalition of congregations working to end child poverty in Spartanburg County. 

 

A graduate of Wofford College and Harvard Divinity School, he has helped to develop several community initiatives including: Speaking Down Barriers, an organization that uses art and facilitated dialogue to build our life together across the differences that divide us; the Fund to Support Latinx Immigrants, a statewide coalition of immigration advocacy groups that provided direct assistance during the COVID-19 pandemic to immigrant families of Latin American origin in every county in South Carolina; and LGBTQ Theologies, a coalition of people of faith—individuals, congregations, and clergy—building a network of support for the LGBTQ+ community in Upstate South Carolina. As part of the Speaking Down Barriers team, he presented a TEDx talk on race and racism entitled “What Will I Teach My Son?”

 

Neely has taught religion and the humanities at the University of South Carolina–Upstate and Wofford College. He is author of A Good Road To Walk (Holocene, 2001), editor of This Threshold: Writing on the End of Life (Hub City, 2007), and co-author of Into the Field of Suffering: Finding the Other Side of Burnout (Oxford University Press, 2023), written with David Schenck. A practicing artist, his work may be found at www.neelyprojects.com. He is honored to share studio space and show work at Blue Spirit Studio and Gallery