Womanist Theology PART -2-

African-American Officers; USA Eastern Territory

From: Journal of Aggressive Christianity, Issue 45, October - November 2006 21

I’ve especially appreciated the writings of Renita Weems, who definitely has the ability to “cross-over,” for she makes the leap from learned theologian to conversational writer, and she is able to use her African-American womanist background to speak broadly to women of varying ethnicities and backgrounds. Weems is currently the William and Camille Cosby Visiting Professor at Spelman College, and has spent many years on the faculty at Vanderbilt University. Weems has also been ordained in the African Methodist Episcopal Church since 1984. Of her ordination, she says, “I didn’t choose ministry so much as ministry chose me. I hope I heard correctly, but I can’t always be sure” (Weems 1999, 115).


Her personal story shines through her writing for women. Rooted in a small storefront Pentecostal church in Atlanta, she speaks of those days: Of course, education tends to make us look back at our conservative, working-class origins with contempt. In order to gain acceptance into the upper classes, in order to buy into academia, in order to move around in a class of educated clergy, for the sake of upward mobility, we must denigrate the people, the experiences, and all the
memories that shaped us . . .

Yet, Weems recognizes, that grounding provided her with “a heart full of hope which keeps me tiptoeing to the altar” (Weems 1999, 97).

Role in the Church

It may be too early to judge the impact of womanist theology on the church at large, and on the Black church in particular. Baker-Fletcher suggests that, “Black women and men can transform present existence by actively remembering and practicing the prophetic, generational wisdom of the past . . . in a way that is salvific and communal.” She also believes that its purpose is to “ remember the heritage of creative, prophetic wisdom in African-American culture “(Baker-Fletcher 1993, 8). Linda Thomas knows that “womanist theologians can bring the experience and knowledge of the marginalized to the center by standing aside to let the community speak for itself” (Thomas 2003, 2).

One of the questions to be answered, although it may be too early to do so, is this: Is womanist theology just a flash in the pan of the late twentieth century, or will it have value in the history of the church? Townes asks a similar question in a different form:

I think it telling that in this late modern/postmodern theological world academic denominational local church that the work of men and women of African descent, the work of other racial ethnic women and men remains off the radar screen of so many who declare what is perfect and imperfect in theological thought church doctrine and righteous living
our lives
our experiences of God
our strivings to understand the nature and work of the church
our yearnings for the spirit
our cries and shouts to Jesus
oddly enough remain categorized as drama or theater or “interesting’ some have noticed our absence in their thought
but have faulted us for not using the masters’ and mistresses’ tools with the same kind of ghastly precision they do to annihilate or obscure the vastness of God’s ongoing revelation and God’s eternal and unrelenting call to all of us to grow in grace from right where we have been planted to celebrate the richness found in being created in the image of a god who is quite simply limitless they have forgotten a cardinal rule that many of us learned in nursery school or perhaps kindergarten: sharing (Thomas 2004, 189-190).

Another question of importance is this: Can womanist theology impact the lives of the average church-going woman of color, or is it, like many other theological positions, potentially only for the theologians to discuss? How can it impact the lives of poor black women in the neighborhoods where Salvationists minister?

It will be up to scholars such as Renita Weems to find ways to communicate outside of the ivory towers of academia, as she had through her column in Essence and in her recent writings such as Showing Mary and What Matters Most, in which she has been
able to speak to every-day women about common life situations from a theoretical base of womanist theology. She, like Sojourner Truth, is finding ways for ‘keeping things going while things are stirring’” (West and Glaude 2003, 845). But it will also be the responsibility of the ordinary woman of color to tell her story, and so to keep alive the
tradition of faith and practice into the twenty-first century.

Practical Implications

While the Salvation Army is not considered a black denomination, in the US quite a number of its congregations are predominantly African-American, and so the lack of exposure to this way of looking at theology is of concern, even considering the Salvation Army’s conservative theological bent. Yet I am not a woman of color, so how can I
speak to this topic? In 1994, Jane Evershed coined a new term, “sisterist”. “To be sisterist is to recognize and celebrate diversity among women, to work towards a common goal regardless of race, creed, nationality, or sexual preference, to disregard social structures which place women in groups that separate them from each other”
(Baker-Fletcher 1998, v). As a white woman of relative privilege who has worked for a number of years among poor African-Americans, as much as I might long to be, I cannot truly be a womanist, but I can, by Evershed’s definition, be a sisterist, and I
would suggest that can be a start for those of us who minister across cultures.

We are able to adopt the spirit of womanist theology as described by Townes: [Womanist spirituality] is the deep kneading of humanity and divinity into one breath, one hope, one vision. Womanist spirituality is not only a way of living, it is a style of
witness that seeks to cross the yawning chasm of hatreds and prejudices and oppressions into a deeper and richer love of God as we experience Jesus in our lives…

This understanding of spirituality seeks to grow into wholeness of spirit and body, mind and heart – into holiness in God. Such cogent holiness cannot hold its peace in a world so desperately separate from the new earth (Riggs 1997, 190).

As Salvationist women in particular, we can also take courage from Weems, to be the kind of woman that she and her womanist sisters are, women who “know how to dive deep within and tap into the inner resources God has given them” (Weems 2004, 84). She reminds us that, “You have to learn how to focus your energies and intelligence on what you want” (Weems 2004, 90). Her belief that “You will never become the woman you want to become until you learn how not to disintegrate in the face of difficulty, learn how to stay focused despite whatever difficulties that come your way, and learn how to disarm difficult people” (Weems 2004, 93), is a powerful perspective to offer to those we work with. Her words remind us that although womanist theology may be a theoretical discipline, it is also a way of seeing God that gives hope to everyday people.

As a start, might I suggest two options for a better understanding of womanist theology. The first is to read one of the authors listed in the reference section or the paragraph on womanist theologians. The second is to seek out a woman of African descent and truly listen to her story – her hopes and fears and her love for Jesus. For it is in the stories of
real women who seek to grow into wholeness of spirit and body, mind and heart, that we find the essence of womanist theology.

JoAnn Shade currently ministers with her husband, Larry; they are C0-Directors of the Ray & Joan Kroc Corps Community Center in Ashland, Ohio. JoAnn is a trained counselor who holds a D.Min. from Ashland Theological Seminary, where her doctoral thesis was on Women in Prophetic Leadership.

REFERENCE LIST: Available on request