>>Just ahead on American Black Journal, our series on the black church in Detroit takes a look at womanist theology.

We're gonna examine how the lived experiences of black women play a role in religion.

And we'll talk about the important voice they bring to the black church.

It's a conversation you absolutely don't want to miss, stay right there, American Black Journal starts right now.

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(funky theme music) >>Welcome to American Black Journal, I'm Stephen Henderson.

Today we're continuing our year-long series on the black church in Detroit, which is produced in partnership with the Ecumenical Theological Seminary and with the Charles H. Wright Museum of African-American History.

Today we're looking at womanist theology.

Now that term, womanist, was coined by Prize-winning author Alice Walker in the 1980s to describe a black feminist who's deeply committed to the wholeness and well-being of all humanity.

Womanist theology amplifies the voice and experiences of black women in the study of God and of the world.

I sat down with three women to talk about the concept's role in today's black church.

Here's my conversation with fellowship chapel associate ministers, Reverend Dr. Constance Simon and Reverend Dr. Mayowa Lisa Reynolds, along with Ashley Lewis, who is a student at the Ecumenical Theological Seminary.

I'm really excited to have this conversation because I think this is a subject that many people, including many people in the African-American church community don't really know very much about.

So let's just start here, womanist theology.

What is that and where does it come from?

Dr. Reynolds, we'll start with you.

>>Hmm, all right, womanist theology is the biblical study, the theological precepts based on really womanist theory.

Womanist theory was given to us by Alice Walker.

So, she wasn't a theologian.

She's a prize, award-winning author and some theologians, Delores Williams, Dr. Brown, and many others that were studying under Dr. Cone with black liberation theology, carved out for them a definition of womanist theology using the tools that Alice Walker had already created, just to describe what a womanist is, right?

So Alice Walker was not intentionally trying to create a theology.

It's just that these women who found themselves in seminary as theologians, as biblical scholars, began to use her framework to define their own religious experiences and in academia.

So with Alice Walker, what she gives us is the idea that womanism is to feminism what the color purple is to lavender, right?

That a womanist world view is black women's sense of wholeness, sense of community, sense of belonging, sense of defining ourselves against the backdrop of oppression, but not necessarily needing it or sort of coming to it to define who we are.

So these scholars under Dr. Cone and others began to interpret the biblical text and the theological understandings of theology, of God, of religion, of church, from the lens of the black woman.

And what womanist theology does is it says that the black woman's experience is valid, is credentialed, it's academic, and it's experiential, and that it is just as important as any other theologian throughout history to define our relationship and understanding of who God is.

>>Yeah.

>>Amen.

>>So, Dr. Simon, place that in the context of- >>Well, I'm, oh, go ahead.

I'm sorry.

>>No, no, you go ahead.

>>Oh, 'cause I wanted to add theology, which if you don't know, is the study of God.

And when Alice Walker made her description, she was talking about things that made black, gave black women agency, defined us.

But when Katie Kan, and Jacquelyn Grant, and Delores Williams were in school under the guise of Reverend Dr. James Cone, who was known for liberation theology, they pointed out the fact that, although we're talking about God, it was though black women were invisible.

It's though we were left out.

We were not part of the discourse or the conversation.

Yet, I've had to tell people that, you know, if black women left church, church would be closed.

If black women didn't head things up, it would not happen.

And one of the statements you made about people not knowing what it is, when I opened my class, and I've been teaching womanist theology for the last, since 2016 at ETS, but I've, I think I've always been a womanist theologian.

I have them go out and find 20 people, 20 black women.

And all they have to do is ask them, "Have you ever heard of womanist theology, and if you have, what is it?"

99.9% have not.

Maybe 1 or 2% have heard the word, but they don't know the meaning.

And it is the theology, the lens of God for black women, by black women, about black women.

Who can better describe us than us?

And we're not monolithic.

So, we're not the media's idea of who we are.

We're very, we are very varied in a lot of ways.

We are sexualized, historically.

We're invisible.

However, when you look at it, you look at a black woman who's not only gonna do for her own and her family, they'll extend and do for others because we know that lifting everyone up is gonna make everyone whole.

It's a thankless position but it's a very powerful position, because I tell women that you have to pay attention to what black women do and not, and listen to it from our voice.

So my example is Roy Moore in Alabama, the representative who's running for office, the man who had had several political offices but had been kicked out of almost all of them and had such a reputation that he was banned from the local mall.

And if you remember, a couple years ago, they were running a heavy campaign.

Well, unbeknownst to the world, 'cause it's not gonna be publicized, black women got together.

And when black women voted Roy Moore, who was considered, who is a known pedophile.

I mean, that's, that was in, that's in the works.

I'm not saying something, this I'm making up.

They voted him out.

He did not win.

He did not win, but no one could figure out how did that happen.

Black women have gotten together throughout history.

You know, we gonna find a way or we gonna make one.

And I don't know if that answered your question, but yes.

>>Absolutely does.

So, Ashley Lewis, you're on the, age wise on the sort of earlier scale of all this, someone who's learning about theology, and the black church, and all of those kinds of things.

Tell me about the appeal of womanist theology to you and whether it might look different because of your age than it does for those of us who are older.

>>Thank you.

I think for me, because I've actually taken Dr. Simon's course on womanist theology, and this was something that actually created or cultivated within me a decision to actually go to seminary.

It was a course that allowed me to understand and conceptualize my identity through theology that spoke to my experience as a black female.

And I think that the thing for me is understanding why we are so essential and how culturally and socially, from a historical standpoint, how we've been essential and yet disregarded, and how that theme continues to perpetuate itself today.

And yet I would say as a young woman, I push back on being essential to everyone.

The idea of countering the need to associate my worth with productivity, because I think often black women give all to all, or to all, everything, and literally are in every sphere, the essential component.

I don't care whether it's at work, at home, at church, we are essential in every community that we show up in.

And so how is it that we cultivate our own identity?

And I think a lot of that, for the millennial generation, has been a discussion around how do we create boundaries and healthy boundaries where we aren't taking care of everyone else and not taking care of ourselves.

Where we are literally giving to everyone and not taking care of our own mental health, our physical health, our spiritual health.

So for the millennial generation, I think it gives us an understanding, first and foremost, of the generations that came before us, and also where we can improve and also push forward an agenda that helps progress everyone.

Because one of the things that resonated with me, especially being a union activist, is the idea that womanist theology speaks to the oppression that occurs against anyone.

And to me, that is truly a black female perspective because no matter what, no matter how much you're disregarded, disrespected, we still find the courage to advocate for others.

And this theology speaks to the work that I do every day within the UAW, but it also just speaks to the idea of advocating against injustice and advocating for a better work life balances, better health outcomes, not only for black women, but for our communities as a whole.

So this theology has been essential in me creating my identity, and also cultivating my call.

>>So I wonder, Dr. Reynolds, if you can talk just a little about how this fits in the history of the black church and in the precedent of the black church, in terms of the devaluing of women that we have seen in some cases inside that church.

I think it would be dismissive to call this a protest movement against that.

But at the same time, it is a major pushback against the sort of male dominance that historically has has been associated with the black church.

Can you just kind of define what that struggle has looked like and what it looks like now?

>>So I would say that it has existed in terms of the church, let's say the founding of the church, right?

We tell the Easter story from the disciples' worldview, it's recorded from their worldview, but it was the women who showed up at the tomb to anoint the body with spices.

And it's sort of like a footnote, right?

And so we can see that throughout the ages, right, that women have always been a part of the ministry, the context, the movement of God, Yawe, Elohim and the world, right?

The first to name God in the Hebrew Bible is Hagar, a woman who was both a servant, and a slave, and a wife, and the mother of Abraham's first born, Ishmael, and cast out into the wilderness, has a conversation with God, sent back to her oppressors, you know, given provision.

So we can go back in to the biblical text and find black women.

We can find African women from Moses's wife, Zipporah, and her father, who taught Moses how to be a priest.

So it's always there.

It's just a matter of has, I mean, I'll go the furthest back we're gonna go on this.

There are two creation stories back to back.

Most churches don't talk about that, right?

They talk about women being created from the rib of a man as some sort of substance, sub-human support.

But that's what's called the Elohim version.

The Yawe's version, the first version, is co-created equal in the image of a divine god.

So the church has organized itself around this patriarchy, which can be supported in the biblical text but not completely, because through truth study, which is why seminary is important for spiritual leaders, then you get to go beyond the veil, beyond the curtain, beyond the average, beyond the exposure.

So women have been a part of the plan of God the entire time that we have a recorded history of engagement.

So then we move forward to the black church's emergence through the crucible of enslavement as a liberated space for black people, and yet we find that this space was oppressive toward the women as a part of the patriarchy that was brought with it.

And yet the black church has always had women preachers, and teachers, and leaders, and Harriet Tubman on the underground railroad who gave $500 to the AME Zion church, who believed in God, who read the Bible, who exhales, so you've, we've always had characters, women, who either bucked against it, or just burst from it.

And many who still supported what existed.

Because it wouldn't exist without women, or you can't have something that's 90% women and men are leading it and say that the men kept it going, right?

And so it's, I want, I don't, I want to caution against, it's still not women against men.

It's women in relationship with God, creator, spirit, and how that shows up in the real world.

You know, our grandmothers' faithfulness and faith have them do a lot more with a lot less than what we have access to now.

So in the black church, we have bishops now, you know, Vashti McKenzie, you know, in the AME church, we have people, women, that have reached the highest ranks.

That's one form of it, right?

But these women who started with womanist theology were theologians and biblical scholars.

You know, some people that simply study the Bible from the Hebrew and the Greek text, and they interpret it from their lens.

That's what biblical scholars do.

So there's this academic side, and then me, I prefer the practice because the practice of having a faith that sees me wholly who I am and frees me from the enslavement, the psychological, physical patriarchy, that frees me from that to work with brothers and sisters to provide safety and love for humanity, right?

Because we have marginalized people in the church.

We can say that are, people who are, who identify outside of gender norms are marginalized in the church, but they still participate.

You wouldn't have music ministry without them, right?

But at some point, the church has to say "welcome" to the people that we have marginalized because you can't exist without us.

So I think that the church has always, I mean, you can look at Detroit in the early 90s, they began ordaining women in the Baptist church.

Wilma Johnson was one.

She, they were all under a great theologian, Dr. Adams at Hartford.

He ordained several women back when they weren't ordaining women, and then they became leaders of churches, right?

And then they had a meeting to say, "We're not gonna do that anymore," right?

So the organization is struggling, right?

And we, women work within these organizations.

We serve within these organizations, but we also burst free from them, right?

'Cause nobody had, my grandmother could not go in the pulpit, she could only clean it.

But it was her faith that helped her raise 11 children and cultivate 200 acres of land, right?

So her faith may not have been celebrated, but it didn't mean it didn't exist.

And so what womanist theologians do is say we not only exist, these experiences are valid, and these experiences are things we can read about and learn from and move into the future with.

>>Dr.

Simon, I'd love for you to talk just about, if somebody is hearing this and hearing this for the first time, where would you start?

What would you recommend somebody read to learn more about this?

What kinds of scholars do you think point the way in womanist theology for somebody who's just starting out?

>>I'm so glad you asked.

I'm sitting here grinning because Dr. Reynolds's research was on womanist theology and I was her chair.

And then Ashley's one of my students, so I'm just, I'm peacock proud.

However, there's several books.

There's a book called "Womanist Theological Ethics".

It's a reader by Katie Cannon, Emilie Townes, who is the dean at the school of religion at Vanderbilt, and Angela Sims.

One book that I use in my course, which is a beginner, is "Introduction to Womanist Theology" by Stephanie Mitcham.

Has some very good points.

I have my students read "Deeper Shades of Purple: Womanism in Religion and Society", Stacy and Floyd Thomas.

Excellent textbook, excellent.

That took some really unpacking with my class.

Then we have Emilie Townes, again, "A Troubling in my Soul: Womanist Perspective on Evil and Suffering".

One thing that I have to explain when I start off is everyone needs to be a part.

Women don't leave anyone out.

However, you need to understand the gender oppression that's gone on with black women.

It's been deep, it's been long, and even as like the only female who's really full time at the seminary, things happen, and I recognize, let me see.

I'm not trying to be offensive, but, and not just there.

'Cause I'm like all clergy, I am multi tasked and talented, but in a lot of circles, things are said and done and they don't even recognize what they said and did.

You know, I'm like, you're going to ignore me, but you're gonna ask someone else to answer about my research, excuse you.

So, you know, you have to help people grow.

Last book I'm gonna tell you about is one I just adore.

Matter of fact, I think Kimberly Johnson, who is the author, Dr. Kimberly Johnson, is just amazing.

I will try to bring her to ETS.

It's "The Womanist Preacher".

And she was a young lady that studied under Frank Thomas.

And in her studies, she wrote this book for her, for her PhD.

And it's quite a comprehensive thing because what you'll find in most of the African American denominations, women really didn't start becoming ordained until the early, late seventies, early eighties.

We've been around forever, but the late, that's terrible.

Yvonne Delk and Katie Cannon, who was known, Katie, the late Katie Cannon was known as being the, kind of like the mother of womanist theology.

She didn't become a Presbyterian until, the first woman ordained Presbyterian until 1974.

And that goes on Delk, and United Church of Christ, they consider their selves very open and affirming, but it took that long.

It took that long to be recognized.

Now the last is, I'm a lover of bell hooks.

And if you Google and realize that her name is not capital, that's how she writes.

But she wrote about "sisters of the yam: black women and self discovery".

There are a lot of books, even getting out to some of the, just the women's novels that talk about how women navigate, how we become, how we do what we do.

And in a lot of cases, I see us as doing the possible.

There are a lot of good books.

I invite people to come to ETS and take this class.

But womanist theology is very important.

>>That is gonna do it for us this week.

Thanks for watching.

Our special reports on the black church in Detroit will appear once a month, all year.

And you can see past shows at americanblackjournal.org.

Plus you can connect with us anytime on Facebook and on Twitter.

Take care, we'll see you next time.