Tag: womanist theology

Painting Sojourner Truth By Angela Yarber

This month, I am reminded of the importance of Jacquelyn Grant’s work on womanist Christology.  In White Women’s Christ and Black Women’s Jesus, Grant reviews the white feminist discussion of the so-called problem of Jesus’ maleness, while beginning to construct a womanist response to this incarnational conundrum.  She states, “It is my claim that there is a direct relationship between our perception of Jesus and our perception of ourselves.”[1]

Beginning with Mary Daly, feminists have responded to Jesus’ maleness in a variety of ways.  Daly argues that because the person of Jesus is male, the male is recognized and celebrated as the superior being.  Because of this, the male Jesus is to be rejected or exorcised because Jesus’ gender identity contributes to patriarchy and does not hold salvific power for women.  Rather than rejecting Jesus altogether, Rosemary Radford Ruether asks the seminal question, “Can a male Jesus save woman?” Continue reading “Painting Sojourner Truth By Angela Yarber”

Body Talk by Kelly Brown Douglas

The more I reflect upon the complex and multiple ways in which various bodies are put upon and disregarded, the more I am persuaded that we have a body problem.

Our bodies communicate to us in many ways. They are a valuable source of knowledge in terms of our present realities and they are also valuable storehouses for memories. Long after the memories of the mind fade away, memories of the body linger. The mind may not remember, for instance, the details of a particular event, but the body remembers how it felt.  The memories of sadness, anxiety, hurt and pain as well as happiness, peace, healing and love are grafted upon our bodies. Feelings, sensations and instinctive reactions—things that are hard to explain—are oftentimes our bodies’ ways of communicating memories. These are embodied memories reminding us of what it means to feel torn apart or to feel whole. It is the body giving feedback at any given moment in time. Embodied memories certainly involve what Audre Lorde identifies as “erotic power.” This, Lorde says, is an “internal sense” and a “depth of feeling” “that is a source of  power and information” (Lorde, Sister Outside). Embodied memories are one of the ways in which our bodies speak to us and help us to know the good, right and just thing to do, from within ourselves and through depth of feeling. Continue reading “Body Talk by Kelly Brown Douglas”

The Black Church, the Blues, and Black Bodies by Kelly Brown Douglas

“Ooh, Ohh there’s something going all wrong”,   Ma Rainey sang.  There is indeed something going all wrong in the black church. This church, which is born out of the commitment to safeguard the life and freedom of all black people, has gained a reputation for repudiating if not demonizing certain black bodies, namely LGBT bodies.  While there are certainly significant black church leaders who have vigorously defended LGBTQ person’s struggle for justice and equal treatment under the law, including support of marriage equality, those black church voices against LGBTQ rights have been vociferous  and unrelenting. Continue reading “The Black Church, the Blues, and Black Bodies by Kelly Brown Douglas”