Womanist theology

Theology about, by, and for Black women

Womanist is to feminist

as purple is to lavender

-Alice Walker

In our Lent series, “The Wilderness of Faith: Hope and solidarity in Lent,” we will be spending a few weeks in the story of Hagar, the female slave forced to be a surrogate for Sarah and Abraham, using the lens of womanist theology. In this post I am going to give you the briefest primer on what womanist theology is, how it functions, and how we are using it as a racially diverse community.

In case you haven’t seen me, I am a white cis-female. I come to womanist theology as an outsider who has also learned a great deal from womanist theology. Here I am merely dipping my toe into a pool of water, stirring it around, and picking up a few bits from the surface. 

Womanist theology comes out of womanism, a word coined by the writer and poet Alice Walker. She defines a womanist as (among other things): 

A Black feminist or feminist of color… a woman who loves other women, sexually and/or nonsexually. Appreciates and prefers women’s culture, women’s emotional flexibility (values tears as natural counterbalance of laughter), and women’s strength. Sometimes loves individual men, sexually and/or nonsexually. Committed to survival and wholeness of entire people, male and female… Traditionally capable… Loves music. Loves dance. Loves the moon. Loves the Spirit. Loves love and food and roundness. Loves struggle. Loves the Folk. Loves herself. Regardless.

When womanists practice theology, they centre the experiences of Black women including the intersections of race, gender, sexuality, and class. This may mean looking at the inherited Scriptures and traditions from a critical perspective based in Black women’s experiences. It will sometimes consider theology from the margins. For example, how does one read and find salvation in stories of slaves when slavery is one’s inheritance? It focuses on themes of liberation, survival, quality of life, and hope for the oppressed. 

Womanist theology, in general, rejects the idea that suffering is “redemptive,” confronting messages that Black women and other oppressed people are merely “taking up their cross,” and identifying their oppression as the result of unjust systems. It celebrates the capacity of Black women to “Make a way out of no way,” through their persistence and faith in God.

In case it hasn’t been obvious to this point, womanist theology is by, for, and about Black women, cis or trans, and non-binary people. That means I and people in my position can never be a womanist, even though I can still find it life-giving. Candace Benbow calls this “overflow.” People other than Black women can read, listen, and grow from womanist theology, but it will never be written for us. 

So why is Harbor focussing on womanist theology if it is just for Black women? A few reasons. First, stories about the oppression of Black women are often misrepresented or entirely erased. Learning how Black women understand God and God’s work in the world is important for interpreting Scriptures that directly affect them. Second, history is written by the winners and that is true of the Bible, too. Womanist theology (and liberation theology, too) directs us to the marginalised characters in the story to consider the injustices that translations and interpretations have accepted as normal, glossed over, or erased. Third, reading womanist theology helps us identify and confront our own internalised racism and sexism. And lastly, the liberation of all peoples is tied together. When oppressed people are liberated, we are all liberated.

It is important to remember that every single one of us approaches the Bible and traditions through the lens of our own culture and experience. No one person or group can claim that their interpretation is “pure” and without influence. Rather than seeing that as a detriment, womanist theologians embrace their lens to find blessing and hope rather than exclusion. Perhaps you can consider what lenses you bring when you absorb religious texts and tradition. What is it like to read about kings and landowners when you live in poverty? How does a cis-gendered man empathise (or not) with the woman being stoned in John 8:1-11? And may you follow the womanist example of finding blessing and hope.