The Womanist Preacher: Proclaiming Womanist Rhetoric from the Pulpit performs a close textual analysis of five womanist sermons to answer the question: how does womanist preaching attempt to transform/adapt the tenets of womanist thought to make it rhetorically viable in the church? And what is gained and lost in this? The sermons come from five women who are considered exemplars of womanist preaching: Elaine M. Flake, Gina M. Stewart, Cheryl Kirk-Duggan, Melva L. Sampson, and Claudette A. Copeland. This book takes the first step in womanist scholarship to dissect what is rhetorically going on in womanist preaching, to categorize womanist sermons under the four tenets of womanist preaching, and to then create four rhetorical models that reflect the rhetorical attributes of the four different categories or phrased tenets that Stacey Floyd-Thomas uses to represent Alice Walker’s “womanist” definition.

A womanist church has great power to transform church and society, primarily because womanist theology centers the experiences of Black women while working for the survival and wholeness of all people and all creation. Experiences of the triple oppression of racism, sexism, and classism give Black women an epistemological insight into recognizing injustice and creating solutions that benefit all. The Gathering is unique, the only church founded and identified as “womanist,” applying womanist theology to the full life and worship of a church. The Gathering, a womanist faith community in Dallas, Texas, welcomes all people to partner in pursuing racial equity, LGBTQ equality, and dismantling PMS (patriarchy, misogyny, and sexism), following Jesus in liberating the oppressed and lifting up the marginalized. The Gathering, A Womanist Church tells the story of the birth and ongoing development of a womanist faith community. This book includes personal narratives of people transformed in this community, womanist co-pastors’ sermons informed by their experiences and those of other Black women, and litanies for womanist worship.

AbstractThis exploratory study of womanist preaching seeks an answer to the question: how does womanist preaching attempt to transform/adapt the tenets of womanist thought to make it rhetorically viable in the church? And what is gained and lost in this? Through a close reading of various texts, I am able to discover: 1) what rhetorical strategies are employed to advance the womanist position, 2) how sermons function to raise the audience’s critical awareness, 3) how the sermons lead to the transformation of the audience, and 4) how to differentiate between the various facets of womanist preaching. This project identifies five women who are considered exemplars of womanist preaching and analyzes their sermons based on the four different categories or phrased tenets that Stacey Floyd-Thomas uses to represent Alice Walker’s four tenets of “womanism”—radical subjectivity, traditional communalism, redemptive self-love, and critical engagement. The Radical Subjectivity chapter examines Elaine Flake’s sermon, “The Power of Enough,” and Gina Stewart’s sermon, “Enough Is Enough!” to understand what rhetorical strategies are necessary when a preacher needs to encourage women, on their journey toward identity formation, self-love, and self-worth, to make revolutionary changes regarding their current situations. The Traditional Communalism chapter examines how Cheryl Kirk-Duggan’s sermon, “Women of the Cloth” is used to pass down cultural knowledge from one generation to the next. The Redemptive Self-Love chapter examines Melva L. Sampson’s sermon, “Hell No!” in an effort to understand what Walker means when she says that we are to love ourselves regardless. The Critical Engagement chapter examines Claudette Copeland’s sermon, “What Shall We Do for Our Sisters?” to understand how womanist preachers also function as cultural critics and how they engage major questions in multiple disciplines and social contexts. The final chapter serves as a three-part conclusion by providing a contextualized summary and diagram of the various rhetorical strategies, sermonic functions, and methodological approaches used by Flake, Stewart, Kirk-Duggan, Sampson, and Copeland. .

A womanist church has great power to transform church and society, primarily because womanist theology centers the experiences of Black women while working for the survival and wholeness of all people and all creation. Experiences of the triple oppression of racism, sexism, and classism give Black women an epistemological insight into recognizing injustice and creating solutions that benefit all. The Gathering is unique, the only church founded and identified as ""womanist,"" applying womanist theology to the full life and worship of a church. The Gathering, a womanist faith community in Dallas, Texas, welcomes all people to partner in pursuing racial equity, LGBTQ equality, and dismantling PMS (patriarchy, misogyny, and sexism), following Jesus in liberating the oppressed and lifting up the marginalized. The Gathering, A Womanist Church tells the story of the birth and ongoing development of a womanist faith community. This book includes personal narratives of people transformed in this community, womanist co-pastors' sermons informed by their experiences and those of other Black women, and litanies for womanist worship.

Toward a Womanist Homiletic builds on the work of Katie G. Cannon and Alice Walker to offer a womanist paradigm for analyzing the sermons of Black women and proposes the content of a womanist homiletic.

Freedom Faith is the first full-length critical study of Rev. Dr. Prathia Laura Ann Hall (1940–2002), an undersung leader in both the civil rights movement and African American theology. Freedom faith was the central concept of Hall’s theology: the belief that God created humans to be free and assists and equips those who work for freedom. Hall rooted her work simultaneously in social justice, Christian practice, and womanist thought. Courtney Pace examines Hall’s life and philosophy, particularly through the lens of her civil rights activism, her teaching career, and her ministry as a womanist preacher. Moving along the trajectory of Hall’s life and civic service, Freedom Faith focuses on her intellectual and theological development and her radiating influence on such figures as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Marian Wright Edelman, and the early generations of womanist scholars. Hall was one of the first women ordained in the American Baptist Churches, USA, was the pastor of Mt. Sharon Baptist Church in Philadelphia, and in later life joined the faculty at the Boston University School of Theology as the Martin Luther King Chair in Social Ethics. In activism and ministry, Hall was a pioneer, fusing womanist thought with Christian ethics and visions of social justice.

The next installment in the critically acclaimed lectionary series that focuses on women's stories. In this second volume of the three-volume Women's Lectionary for the Whole Church, widely praised womanist bible scholar and priest Wil Gafney selects scripture readings that emphasize women's stories. Focusing especially on the Gospel of Mark, Year B of A Women's Lectionary features Gafney's fresh, inclusive, and thought-provoking translations of every reading, alongside commentary on each reading. Designed for liturgical use or scriptural study, this resource offers a new perspective on the Bible and the liturgical year. “Gafney's paradigm-shifting scholarship will influence biblical preaching and teaching for generations to come." —National Catholic Reporter