Black Lesbians to the Rescue! A Brief Correction with Implications for Womanist Christian Theology and Womanist Buddhology

Pamela Yetunde

doi:10.3390/rel8090175

Abstract

Foundational Black Womanist Christian Theology has suffered from the focus on Alice Walker’s 1983 four-part womanist definition at the exclusion of her 1979 short story, Coming Apart. The focus on the 1983 definition and the exclusion of Coming Apart has left an invisbilizing effect on the centrality of reliance on African-American lesbian literature and wisdom in womanist Christian methodology. The invisibilization can be corrected, in part, through interpolating Coming Apart with the 1983 definition, utilizing a Black Buddhist lesbian Womanist hermeneutic, and additional Womanist engagement in Womanist Consultations. This correction has implications for Christian theologies that may be heterosexist, homophobic, and patriarchal, Biblical interpretation, preaching, and epistemological processes.

Highlights

Appreciation, and gratitude for our founding Womanist theologians, the early foundations of Womanist Christian theology1 missed the mark on what Alice Walker Womanism could have meant for Black lesbian-Black straight women epistemological alliances when early
Black Womanist theologians who embrace the notion of reliance of Black lesbian literature and wisdom may experience a Transformations of Consciousness through the Epistemological Process that leads to a partial freedom from the anti-LGBTQ wilderness
Christian theology created the impression that Black lesbians played no particular role in the development of a Womanist consciousness, has no particular wisdom to offer Black women in dehumanizing heterosexual relationships, has no particular wisdom to offer in the area of interpersonal and societal ethics, and leaves heterosexual women without the reliance on Black lesbian comrades in the fight for our collective survival against police brutality and lack of justice, and religious freedom to discriminate initiatives and laws

Summary

Introduction

Appreciation, and gratitude for our founding Womanist theologians, the early foundations of Womanist Christian theology missed the mark on what Alice Walker Womanism could have meant for Black lesbian-Black straight women epistemological alliances when early. Black Womanist theologians who embrace the notion of reliance of Black lesbian literature and wisdom may experience a Transformations of Consciousness through the Epistemological Process that leads to a partial freedom from the anti-LGBTQ wilderness. Many Black people support religious discrimination against LGBTQ people, some Black sisters are discriminating against other Black sisters This horizontal encounter can begin to bend and twist when heterosexist Black Christian Womanist theologians revisit Walker’s 1979 short story Coming Apart. Invisibilization means making efforts, consciously or unconsciously, to ignore what is and who are present This brief correction comes, in part, from a Black Buddhist lesbian hermeneutic and has implications for Womanist Christian practical theology and the building of Womanist scholarship and community

The Formation of a Black Lesbian Buddhist Hermeneutic

Black Womanist Scholars Engage Buddhisms

Implications for Womanist Christian Theology

Collectiveness is Next to Godliness

The Parable of our Collective Survival Manifesting as Womanist Theological

Conclusions