Mitzi J. Smith

Early life and education Smith grew up in the west side of Columbus, Ohio. She was born to Flora Carson Smith and Fred Smith, Sr. Smith earned a Master of Divinity at Howard University School of Divinity with an emphasis on Biblical Studies; a Master in Black Studies from Ohio State University, and a BA in Theology from Columbia Union College.

Career Smith has been preaching in the Christian ministry since 1982, and she is an ordained itinerant elder in the African Methodist Episcopal Church.

According to Smith, Acts consistently props up the apostles by characterizing them as "filled with the Spirit" and possessing unique authority. Charismatics and Jews are described as lacking these qualities which suggests Acts makes charismatics and Jews "external others" and portrays the church as superior. For Smith, "external others" are those in Acts who are close in "religious and functional proximity" to the apostles but are portrayed as the antagonistic characters of that relationship. Women in the early Jesus movement were either not described as "filled with the Spirit," or their roles within the community were minimized by how Acts portrays them as subordinate to Peter and Paul. These contrasts suggest women in Acts function as "internal others" which maintains the patriarchal hierarchy within the early Jesus movement itself. According to Smith, "internal others" in Acts are those who are members of the early Christian community but are "in some way marginalized." Ultimately, the purpose of the external and internal others in Acts is to form the "self-identity for the apostles and other approved intermediaries" through contrast.

For Smith, re-reading Acts in this way helps challenge the tendency of being blind to the polemical and political "othering" in texts that are considered sacred and infallible. When a text achieves such a status, it becomes easy for its readers to perceive its treatment and description of "others" as "paradigmatic models for and prescriptive for social practice." Smith encourages her readers to use sacred texts, like Acts, as a way to become conscious of the "othering" process and to resist the temptation to do the same.