The Womanist Approach to Restoring Wholeness to the Black Faith Community
© Marlene L. Johnson 2007


Introduction
Purple is an ingenious way to describe womanist theological reflection because it is one of the richest colors in the rainbow and “encourages deep contemplation, or meditation,” according to color psychologists (http://higher-self-improvement-pursuits.com/color-psychology.html).

The color purple speaks to spiritual awareness, containment, vision, authenticity, truth and quality, just as womanist theology speaks to black women’s religious and life experiences from enslavement to the present. Lavender or pale purple paints a diluted picture of a white feminist movement. The white feminists have privileges afforded by the white patriarchal system. Black women do not. Yet white feminists focus exclusively on gender oppression and ignore issues of race, leaving black women out of the concerns they address.

Black women have paid a high price for their very survival as they encountered the interlocking oppression of race, class and gender. Their labor is exploited, their rights and privileges are denied, and their images are distorted. It is the task of womanist theology to move black women toward wholeness by unraveling the suppressed knowledge of black women. Doing so moves the entire black community, male and female, from the culture of oppression to the culture that nurtures wholeness.

This paper will briefly discuss some of the themes, such as suffering/the wilderness experience, surrogacy, salvation and other forms of black women’s oppression as seen through the lenses of several womanist scholars who have written groundbreaking works.

What is Womanist Theology?
The nuances of womanist theology are pulled together by Stephanie Y. Mitchem in “Introducing Womanist Theology,” which offers a survey of the ideas of other womanist thinkers. Mitchem provides a necessary overall theological framework for womanist theology. She presents a dynamic “snapshot” of how race, class, and gender are interwoven in the experiences of black women; provides an overview of distinctive components to be considered in the theological enterprise from the perspectives of people of color; and offers working definitions and themes for womanist such as salvation, black women’s suffering, Christology and personhood, and constructed womanist theology and new challenges.

Womanist thinkers suggest that womanist theology always starts with the community and involves the taken-for granted-wisdom of women for whom the Black faith community claims to be accountable, such as the subjugated voices that become the window through which we come to see our past. Womanist theological reflection begins with a commitment to the survival and wholeness of an entire people and is similar to liberation theology, which talks about freedom. Womanist theology “aims for holistic links between faith and life” (Mitchem, p. xi), and tries to engage the multidimensional reality of black women’s oppression—social, political and economic. According to Mitchem (p. ix) it is “the systematic, faith-based exploration of the many facets of African American women’s religiosity” and “is based on the complex realities of black women’s lives.”

Womanist theological discourse is concerned with Black woman becoming whole and with moving beyond a culture of oppression and places of pain. Our survey enters womanist theological discourse by examining the themes in two novels written by Black women.

An Entry Point to Womanist Theological Discourse
Fiction provides a good entry point for womanist theological discourse because it offers a safe space for Black women to address their concerns and the complexity of those concerns. Womanist theological concerns emerge out of the struggle and liberating activity of Black women and add a new world view to religious discourse. “Linda Brent: Life of A Slave Girl” and Zora Neale Hurston’s “Their Eyes Were Watching God” present broad historical views of the struggles of black women, both enslaved and newly freed. These novels show how religion helped black women cope with their lives as they struggle for survival and wholeness.

Linda Brent’s story shows how her strong religious faith serves to sustain her through the seven-year self-imposed exile in the crawl space of her grandmother’s house. From a womanist theological perspective Linda’s exile is evidence that she didn’t accept the notion that her body was a sexual object for the sexual pleasure of white slave owners. Linda made a choice to protect her body by hiding to escape the licentious clutches of Dr. Flint who was plotting to rape her. As long as she hid in the cramped, damp crawl space, Linda had authority over her own body. Her act of defiance and resistance affirmed her humanity and carved out a new reality for herself and her family, eventually allowing them to escape from enslavement.

Linda’s seven-year exile can be seen as a “wilderness experience” as defined in Delores S. Williams’ groundbreaking work “Sisters in the Wilderness,” which focuses on the Hagar biblical story. The Hagar story can be said to foreshadow the oppressive circumstances in which Black women have found themselves since biblical times. “God tells Hagar to return to her station with Abraham and Sarah her master and mistress from whom she had run away” (p. 21). Williams explains that the wilderness experience is a religious experience that involves physical isolation from the slave environment, establishes a relationship with God, elicits feelings of healing by God, feelings of transformation and motivation to return to the slave community changed for the better. (p. 113).

Linda’s exile had all the characteristics of the “wilderness experience” during which she spent many lonely hours reflecting on her faith. One of the things she pondered was the differences between Christianity and religion in the South. What she thought about was how the White pastor’s act of discretion was viewed by the church, depending on whether he had raped an enslaved woman or fornicated with White woman other than his wife. “If a pastor has offspring by a woman not his wife, the church dismiss (sic) him, if she is a white woman; but if she is colored, it does not hinder his continuing to be their good shepherd.”

God protected Hagar from the dangers she faced being alone and pregnant and she is shown how to survive. Linda is protected from discovery on more than one occasion, once by a young girl she feared would disclose her whereabouts. And on more than one occasion, Linda was tempted to reveal herself.

Another aspect of the Hagar story that has resonated with black women for ages is the struggle to hold the family together, often alone and more often than not being relegated to poverty. “Hagar, like many black women, goes into the wide world to make a living for herself and her child, with only God by her side.” (Williams, p. 33). Both novels are good examples of the efforts of black women to keep the strong family ties that existed among the enslaved and the enslaved once removed. “The close bond between black women and children that existed in Africa was reinforced in the slaveocracy. Many women were left alone to nurture their offspring because the enslaved fathers lived on other plantations, or were used as ‘studs’ to father a host of other children—or the father was the White slave holder who did not claim his black children. (Williams, p. 34)

Hagar’s story holds primacy as a strong theme in womanist theology, especially in terms of the surrogacy revealed in the two novels. Like Hagar, Black women often have no control over their bodies or the oppressive labor they are forced to do. White women’s bodies were protected, even from suckling their own children, a task left to enslaved black women. Even as they mothered and nurtured their own children and those of the slave holder, black women were not excused from oppressive work in the slaveocracy. These surrogacy roles devalue black womanhood. As Nanny in Hurston’s novel explains it, black women “are de mule uh de world.”

Patricia Hill Collins, a black feminist, takes on the issue of exploitation of black labor, asking why Black women are treated as ‘mules’ and assigned heavy cleaning chores. “The drudgery of enslaved African American women’s work and the grinding poverty of ‘free’ wage labor in the rural South tellingly illustrate the high costs Black women have paid for survival” (Collins, 4). She also points out that while good mothers are supposed to stay home with their children, Black women in the U.S. are forced off of public assistance and into the job market, leaving their children in day care. (p. 11)

The “mule” is just one of the negative images assigned to Black women. Among other images Collins addresses is the Mammy image created to protect the slaveocracy. Some womanist theologians suggest that Mammy was a foil for other images because slaves didn’t get enough food to be fat, and dark slaves didn’t work in the big house. Collins says the “overarching purpose of U.S. Black feminist thought is to resist oppression, both its practices and the ideas that justify it (p. 23).

Our survey now turns to the Bible and the use of metaphors to describe the relationship between God and Israel.

New approaches to the Bible

Renita J. Weems looks at the difference the womanist lense makes in encountering the Bible in her signature work “Battered Love.” Weems suggests that we take seriously the biblical witness itself, as she examines the metaphors used by the prophets Hosea, Jeremiah and Ezekiel in their biblical stories. “Renita Weems employed a narrative methodology. Her approach to constructing womanist theology resonates with the African American tradition of oral culture” (Mitchem, p. 81). She focuses on the marriage metaphor which proposes “to personify divine human relations” (Weems, p. 115) examining the limitations of the language.

The marriage metaphors are rife with sexual violence designed to shock, inform and influence their mostly male audiences. “Women, sex, and marriage were politicized in prophetic speeches and provide a means by which the prophets could integrate three separate but interrelated commentaries on Israelite society: the social world of Israel, the political fortunes of Israel, and the religious life of Israel” (p. 5)

Weems argues that the receiver of a revelation must be taken seriously and points out that the words we use help navigate human reality. Womanist scholars suggest that you can’t receive a metaphor if it offends you, so some may not receive the message being put forward. Misogynistic metaphors were used by the prophets to talk about God. Weems exposed the metaphor and the historical, political, social context in which God’s word was received. She then tries to get the reader to explode the metaphors, which are a reflection of the dominant male culture of the time. Metaphors have to make sense for the community out of which they emerge but can be dangerous by creating images of God and a certain reality.

Womanist scholars point out that symbols participate in the reality to which they point and tell you something about the people who gave birth to them and the audience who receives them. A religious symbol is one that has been developed to unlock human sense of religious reality and to point to divine reality. The cross and the suffering of Jesus is a symbol that points to a reality for many Black women of faith. We next examine a new theological paradigm that answers questions like “Why do we suffer?”

Suffering for Jesus
Williams offers a new paradigm in the theology of suffering and the theology of the cross. Williams posits that Jesus represents the ultimate surrogacy figure in suffering and dying on the cross for the salvation of humankind, but questions Blacks who identify and affirm their salvation through suffering. How do we make sense out of suffering that is Black suffering vis a vis human suffering? Is there a divine command to suffer?

Williams suggests that God didn’t demand that Jesus die on the cross, so the meaning of the cross is not found in Jesus dying, but in his resurrection. What that means for the womanist theologian is that the sociopolitical thought and action of the Black woman’s world should be used to show them that their salvation doesn’t depend on any form of surrogacy made sacred by traditional and orthodox understandings of Jesus’ life and death. “Rather their salvation is assured by Jesus’ life of resistance and by the survival strategies he used to help people survive the death of identity caused by their exchange of inherited cultural meanings for a new identity shaped by the gospel ethics and world view” (Williams, p. 164).

The notion of sacrificial suffering is still a predominant theological motif among Black people of faith. Williams argues that the meaning of salvation is in the resurrection, the beginning of life and that Jesus was a model for living, not a model for dying. Williams suggests that “Jesus came for life, to show humans a perfect vision of ministerial relation that humans had very little knowledge of. As Christians, black women cannot forget the cross, but neither can they glorify it. To do so is to glorify suffering and to render their exploitation sacred. To do so is to glorify the sin of defilement” (p. 167). This may be one of the most difficult ideas to get across to Black Christians who believe if they don’t suffer they are not doing what God wants them to do. Black woman, as the nurturers, especially believe in and practice sacrificial suffering, believing if there is no sacrifice their salvation isn’t assured. So we turn to womanist themes of faith and spirituality to see how this idea plays out.

Faith and spirituality
The womanist themes of faith and spirituality are the central focus of “Between Sundays,” a signature work by Marla F. Frederick, an indigenous anthropologist, that examines the lives of eight women in Halifax County, S.C., and takes us back into the church to help us understand the women in the pews.

Frederick’s work sets the example that a womanist scholar should never be disconnected from her community of origin. As a womanist scholar she becomes the outsider within engaging her own experience and bringing sensitivity to the political, social, economic and cultural context of her community. We see how faith impacts the lives of the every day women she lifts up and the significance of their faith experience.

Frederick raises critical questions about tithing as a role in these women’s lives and the problems it causes. For those who are poor, tithing can mean sacrificial giving. Giving until it hurts. Frederick also addresses sexuality and how it has impacted intimate familial relationships, and seeks to discern when one’s own affirmation of faith becomes judgmental as it regards others. Some of the women in Halifax are defined by the same categories used by white oppressors, namely saved versus unsaved and privileged as against those without privilege. Some womanist thinkers believe tithing mitigates against materialism, but gets caught in a paradigm of sacrifice when it belongs in a paradigm of service.

The task of womanist theologians is to be a voice for the less privileged, but what does that mean in terms of how poverty is defined? Is poverty living in a rural area, on a farm that feeds you and your family, in a house with no electricity or plumbing, but with all the necessary furnishings and just enough cash to cover your needs? Or is it being “house poor” because you live in an expensive house with all the modern accoutrements, have no furnishings except a mattress on the floor and only enough money to buy canned beans at the grocery store? In the first scenario the family probably is labeled poor, while in case number two the family would be seen as middle class. I would argue that the labels should be flipped because even though it isn’t evident from their trappings, the second family is living in poverty.

The definitions of poverty are important in looking at the question of whether it makes any more sense for the “poor” to tithe, or to spend 10 percent of their meager funds on the lottery (formerly known as “the numbers”) or other such pursuits. Oftentimes the counterparts of these same poor tithers can be seen lined up to plunk down their money for lottery tickets and other games of chance, which usually attract those who can least afford to play. While some are willing to gamble for a rich life on earth, others would rather spend a dime of every dollar they have on everlasting salvation in God’s heavenly kingdom. I would argue in favor of tithing because even the so called poor find ways to “throw away” a dime of every dollar on alcohol, cigarettes, drugs, and gambling.

Hagar’s story is of primacy in womanist theological discourse and offers new insights and paradigms that can move the lives of black women of faith to a culture that nurtures wholeness. One way to ensure wholeness is to exorcise the sexual demons found in the Black church.

Facing our Sexual Demons
In her treatise on “Sexuality and the Black Church,” Kelly Brown Douglas enters the examination of sexuality and the Christian church tradition through the prism of the white culture’s “inordinate attention” to black sexuality and the negative fallout black people suffered because of it. “Carnal, passionate, lustful, lewd, rapacious, bestial, sensual—these are just some of the many terms that come to mind when thinking of the ways in which White culture has depicted Black people’s sexuality” (p. 31). Douglas says the sexual images have been “critical to the achievement of unprincipled racist power” and created such an impact on Black lives that sexuality has been “a virtually taboo topic for the Black church and community” (p. 31).

Douglas’s examination goes back to slavery where “the roots of the demeaning attacks on Black sexuality” began and comes forward to an exploration of stereotypes spawned by the White culture against blacks and their bodies. Stereotypes and images of Blacks women as mammies, Jezebels and welfare queens, and black men violent bucks stultify our black faith experience. Douglas points out that you sexualize a people you want to oppress/marginalize. Women become defined by their bodily functions such as PMS. “Women, a marginalized gender, have become a sexualized gender,” Douglas says.

She suggests that we rid ourselves of the Platonized tradition that emerged in Christianity and has been a dominant influence, namely that the body flesh is bad and must be overcome. This translates into the notion that sexual activity is good only for reproductive purposes, and it disconnects sexuality from loving relationships. “Sexuality has to do with being compelled toward one another and toward God,” Douglas says.

She points out that Blacks have taken on the Platonized theology, causing us to reject our own bodies to become Holy. “We’ve used it against ourselves and others (homosexuals),” Douglas says. Most Black churches function under the “open closet” notion by circumscribing a place in the church for non-heterosexuals, often this involves musical talent. According to Douglas, heterosexism is a normative privilege of our society. “We live in a heterosexist society and are privileged, just as maleness and whiteness is privileged,” Douglas says. She suggests that the Black church community sever the link with all that is bad and corrupt, including pathological responses to homophobia.

Conclusion
This paper represents a snapshot of some of how womanist theologians approach and examine the issues important to restoring wholeness to the Black faith community and the community at large. This exploration was an eye opener to the neophytes among us who have never looked at theology through the womanist lense. It also opens doors for research in new and interesting ways. I am grateful for the experience.