PROGRAMS  |  BLACK CHURCH INITIATIVE AND LA INICIATIVA LATINA

Clearing House and Resource Center - Women

The MultiCultural Programs Department Clearing House and Resource Center features a collection of theological books, sermons, speeches,  workshop presentations, youth and adult sexuality curriculums. The Clearing House and Resource Center serves as a resource to clergy, seminarians, health and human service educators, parents and youth. Resources are available for loan. For more information, contact bciinfo@rcrc.org or call 202-628-7700.

Books

Body and Soul: Rethinking Sexuality as Justice-Love, Marvin M. Ellison and Sylvia Thornton-Smith, eds.

A Reader In Latina Feminist Theology: Religion and Justice, Maria Pilar Aquino, Daisy L. Machardo, Jeannette Rodríguez
With twelve original essays by emerging and established Latina feminist theologians, this first-of-its-kind volume adds the perspectives, realities, struggles, and spiritualities of U.S. Latinas to the larger feminist theological discourse. The editors have gathered writings from both Roman Catholics and Protestants and from various Latino/a communities. The writers address a wide array of theological concerns: popular religion, denominational presence and attraction, methodology, lived experience, analysis of nationhood, and interpretations of life lived on a border that is not only geographic but also racial, gendered, linguistic, and religious.

What’s Faith Got To Do With It? Black Bodies/Christian Souls, Kelly Brown Douglas
Kelly Brown Douglas writes about the role of Christianity in white supremacists’ ideology and practices and traces the roots of what she sees as a “heretical” tradition of an oppressive Christianity. Douglas also vindicates the liberating, prophetic Christianity of her mother and Grandmother. This book is critique of the ways in which Christianity is both a bane and blessing in the lives of Black folk.

In A Blaze of Glory: Womanist Spirituality  As Social Witness, Emile M. Townes
Womanist spirituality, asserts Emilie Townes, grows out of individual and communal reflection of African American faith and life. This spirituality is s social witness born out of people’s struggle and determination to continue to find ways to answer the question, “Do you want to be healed?” with the “Yes!” of our lives and the work we do for justice. In a Blaze of Glory explains that womanist spirituality is not grounded in the notion that spirituality is a force, a practice separate from who we are moment by moment. It is the deep kneading of humanity and divinity in one breath, one hope, one vision.

Longing to Tell: Black Women Talk About Sexuality and Intimacy, Tricia Rose
This book is a set of frank and fearless narratives from women who span a broad range of ages, levels of education, and socioeconomic backgrounds. The truth is that in a culture driven by sexual and racial imagery, very few honest conversations about these issues actually take place. Tricia Rose seeks to break this silence and jump-start a dialogue with this unprecedented collection of the sexual testimonies of black women.

From Deborah to Esther: Sexual Politics In The Hebrew Bible, Lillian R. Klein

Sisters In the Wilderness: The Challenge of Womanist God-Talk, Delores S. Williams
Drawing on the biblical figure of Hagar-mother of Ishmael, cast into the desert by Abraham and Sarah, but protected by God – Williams finds a prototype for the struggle for African-American women, African slave, homeless exile, surrogate mother, Hagar’s story provides an image of survival and defiance appropriate to black women today. Exploring the themes implicit in Hagar’s story – poverty and slavery, ethnicity and sexual exploitation, exile and encounter with God – Williams traces parallels in the history of African-American women from slavery to present day. A new womanist theology emerges from this shared experience, from the interplay of oppressions on account of race, sex, and class. Sisters in the Wilderness is the best introduction available to the powerful new movement that is womanist God-talk.

Righteous Content: Black Women’s Perspectives of Church and Faith, Daphne C. Wiggins
Enter most African American congregations and you are likely to see the century-old pattern of predominantly female audience led by a male pastor. How do we explain the dedication of African American women to the church, particularly when the church’s regard for women has been questioned? Following in the footsteps of Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham’s pathbreaking work, Righteous Discontent, Daphne Wiggins takes a contemporary look at the religiosity of black women. Her ethnographic work explores what is behind black women’s intense loyalty to the church, bringing to the fore the voices of the female membership of black churches as few have done. Wiggins illuminates the spiritual sustenance the church provides black women, uncovers their critical assessment of the church’s ministry, and interprets the consequences of their limited collective activism. Wiggins paints a vivid portrait of what loved religion is like in black women’s lives today.

White Women’s Christ and Black Women’s Jesus: Feminist Christology and Womanist Response, Jacquelyn Grant
Christology is especially problematic for feminists. Because Jesus was undeniably male and because the Christian church claims him as the unique God-bearer, feminists Christology confronts the dual tasks of explaining the significance of a male God-bearer for women and creating an adequate Christological model adequate to feminist experience. This work rehearses the development and challenges of feminist Christology and argues that, because it has reflected the experience of White women predominantly, it fails to reflect the concerns of non-White and non-western women. In response to this failure, and as distinguished from feminist theology, the author proposes a womanist theology and Christology that emerges from and is adequate to the reality of contemporary Black women.

Introducing Womanist Theology, Stephanie Y. Mitchem
Introducing Womanist Theology demonstrates how theology by women of color is firmly rooted in their varied life experiences. By participating fully in the construction of theology instead of simply learning theology from others, black women are able to analyze church teaching, develop meaningful systems of ethics, and challenge ecclesiastical structures, if needed. This book describes the unique experiences of African American women and explores not only what theology is but, but how it is constructed. It lays out the major components of womanist theology and womanist ethics.

Communion: The Female Search For Love, bell hooks
Communion Challenges every female to courageously claim the search for love as the heroic journey we must all choose to be truly free. In her trademark commanding and lucid language, hooks explores the ways ideas about women and love were changes by feminist movement, by women’s full participation in the workforce, and by the culture of self-help.

Womanist Justice, Womanist Hope, Emilie Townes
Ida Wells-Barnett (1862-1931) was an African American activist, social reformer and churchwoman. Womanist Justice, Womanist Hope recovers her life and historical context and examines the extent to which her perspective is a resource for a contemporary womanist Christian social ethic. Beginning with a brief biographical sketch of Wells-Barnett, the volume examines the religious and social world in which she worked as well as her many speeches and publications. Particular attention is paid to her participation in the anti-lynching campaigns of the late nineteenth century. In the lineage of Black Womanist Ethics and White Woman’s Christ, Black Woman’s Jesus – also published by Scholar Press – Womanist Justice, Womanist Hope is a methodologically sophisticated contribution to the recovery and articulation of African-American womanist experience.

Sister Save Yourself: Direct Talk about Domestic Violence, Linda Hollies
In her latest book, Hollies addresses women who are victims of domestic violence and those who do ministry with them. She begins by simply telling the victims they do not have to stay in abusive relationships, but provides effective strategies and solutions that will empower them. Hollies also discusses how and why the church must speak out against male domination and institutional sexism and offers clergy a new interpretation of the scriptures that are used to support submissiveness. This practical, accessible resource will help break the silence on domestic violence so that victims and congregations can work together toward a healing solution.

Strength in the Struggle: Leadership Development for Women, Vashti McKenzie
Strength In the Struggle is written for women seeking new direction for their personal and professional growth. It includes a wealth of information including chapters such as “A Foundation on Leadership,” “Defining Moments,” “Surviving the Jungle,” and “Living beyond Stereotypes.” Vashti McKenzie also includes a unique leadership lesson based on the character of Dorothy from the classic L. Frank Baum book, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

African American Women and HIV/AIDS, Dorie Gilbert and Ednita Wright

Women in the Hebrew Bible, Alice Bach
Women in the Hebrew Bible presents the first one-volume collection of essays examining women’s roles in the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament. Written by the major scholars in the field of biblical studies and literary theory, theses essays examine attitudes toward women and their status in ancient Near Eastern societies, focusing on the Israelite society portrayed by the Hebrew Bible.  

Is Nothing Sacred (Clergy Sexual Abuse), Marie Fortune
The reissue of a classic. In her characteristically direct and forthright style, Marie Fortune tells the shocking true story of a scandal that took place in a typical church in an average city. It should never have occurred, but its telling helped to focus the national spotlight on a serious problem that is more pervasive than any of us would like to believe.

Out of the Depths: Women’s Experience of Evil and Salvation, Ivone Gebara
Whether understood as sin, suffering, injustice, or inexplicable human choice, evil has historically been pondered chiefly through male categories. Likewise salvation. Gebara here presents an alternative, feminist approach to evil and salvation. She allows women to voice their personal sufferings from their own contexts. She then introduces a perspective on evil and salvation based in gender analysis to address specifically the evil women do, the evil they suffer, and their redemptive experiences of God and salvation.

The Black Women’s Guide to Black Men’s Health, Collier and Edwards
Black women have always been the backbone of their families and communities. Now studies are showing what we have already known – that our love, support, and guidance help to improve the health of our black men. Whether we’re helping them follow a healthy diet and get more exercise, encouraging the use of proper medication, or lifting the taboos surrounding health concerns such as depression, we can make a major difference in the lives of the men we love. In this guide, you’ll learn how to help the man you love find the right doctor and health insurance, talk openly about his health, and use his family history as a tool to help prevent illness. Including strategies for building health partnerships in your family and community, and heartfelt stories from women and men on the powerful impact these partnerships can have, this book is full of practical tips and sound advice. Because you are his best ally in staying healthy and strong.

Deeper Shades of Purple: Womanism in Religion and Society, Stacey Floyd-Thomas Editor
Deeper Shades of Purple brings together a who’s who of scholars in the study of Black women and religious who view their scholarship through a womanist critical lens. The contributors revisit Alice Walker’s definition of womanist for it’s viability for the approaches to discourses in religion of Black women scholars. Whereas Walker has defined what it means to be womanist, these contributors define what it means to practice womanism, and illuminate how womanism has been used as a vantage point for the theoretical orientations and methodological approaches of Black women scholar-activists.

Breaking the Fine Rain of Death: African American Health Issues and a Womanist Ethic of Care, Emilie Townes
In this book, Emilie Townes focuses on the health care issues affecting African Americans and does so from a womanist perspective by paying attention to race and class as well as gender. Townes describes the lamentable history of health care in African American communities and the diseases that affect African Americans disproportionately – diabetes, hypertension, low-birthrate babies, and drug related illnesses – as well as cultural, genetic, and socio-economic factors that account for them. Townes then offers models of care that have worked in some African American communities and that need to be used on a broader scale. She explores healing models sensitive to class and cultural context, and provided practical recommendations relevant to the needs ot the Black Church and the African American community.

Whatever Happened to Daddy’s Little Girl: The Impact of Fatherlessness of Black Women, Jonetta Rose Barras

A Guide to the Clinical Care of Women and HIV, Jean Anderson

Your Inner Eve, Rev. Susan Newman

New Faith: A Black Woman’s Guide to Reformation, Re-creation, Rediscovery, Resurrection, and Revival, Sheron Patterson
In this remarkable book, Sheron Patterson argues that African American women need “New Faith” for their personal survival and revival. Grounded in a sturdy faith in Jesus Christ, she turns the clear light of Black women’s religious insights on churches, mothers, brothers, fathers, and - most of all  – on Black Christian women themselves. Passionately and poignantly she urges women to seek a better existence for themselves by eradicating unnecessary suffering and implementing corrective love in their lives. New Faith, she says, helps to identify and address the religious and social negatives that historically have impeded Black women from nurturing their own growth.

A Sassy Girl’s Guide to Loving God: Discovering the Ultimate Relationship, Michelle McKinney Hammond

Mujerista Theology, Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz

Unhooked: How Young Women Pursue Sex, Delay Love and Lose at Both, Laura Stepp

Pregnancy and Power: A Short History of Reproductive Politics in America, Rickie Solinger
Leading historian Rickie Solinger argues that a woman’s control over her body involves much more than the right to choose an abortion. Reproductive politics were at play when slaveholders devised breeding schemes, When the US government took Indian children from their families in the nineteenth century, and when doctors pressed Latina women to be sterilized in the 1970s. Pregnancy and Power is filled with powerful accounts of the fights women have waged in this country to control their bodies and their destinies against anti-miscegenation laws, labor laws, anti-contraception laws and recent welfare reform laws that punish poor women for having children. Tracing the diverse plotlines of women’s reproductive lives throughout American history, Solinger redefines the idea of reproductive freedom, putting race and class at the center of the effort to control sex and pregnancy in America over time. 

Women of Color and the Reproductive Rights Movement, Jennifer Nelson

Born of a Woman: A Bishop Rethinks the Virgin Birth and the Treatment of Women by a Male Dominated Church, John Shelby Spong
Author John Spong undertakes to release Mary from the stilted images that have been assigned to her through-out history. In doing so, he opens a critical pathway – one in which people are no longer forced to switch off their inquiring minds and/or harden their hearts to remain in, or return to, the Church. For those who love Mary, Bishop Spong provides an inclusive opportunity to be freed from a prison of literalism and fragmentary recollection regarding the mother of Jesus.

Black Sexual Politics: African Americans, Gender, and the New Racism, Patricia Hill Collins
Drawing on vivid images of hypersexual blacks and the sociological theses of strong black women and weak black men, Collins explores an astonishing range of ideas and images through history, sociology, and popular culture. Rather than debate the dominance of race versus sex in the history of social injustice to black men and women, Collins offers a theory of "intersectionality," viewing race, gender, and sexuality together.

Stolen Women: Reclaiming our Sexuality, Taking Back our Lives, Dr. Gail Wyatt
Gail Elizabeth Wyatt's Stolen Women explores how body identities are often shaped by deeply rooted myths and cultural stereotypes. Tracing black women's body images and sexuality from childhood to adolescence to adulthood, Wyatt powerfully explains in her introduction that "to the degree that we allow our sexual self-image to be defined by others, we will remain, as our ancestors were, stolen women, captives not of strangers but of the past, and of our own unexamined experiences. The challenge we face is to see ourselves not as others see us or want us to be seen, but as we are, as we were, and as we want to be."

Reach! Laila Ali with David Ritz
Since her professional debut four years ago, Laila Ali has set the world of women’s boxing on fire. The daughter of the world’s most famous boxer, she has more than come into her own, winning twelve straight fights with breath-taking confidence and poise—including a bout with Jacqui Frazier that was the most highly publicized female boxing event ever. But Laila’s journey to success was not without struggle. In this revealing book, she describes—with striking humility and streetwise wisdom beyond her years—how she made many mistakes along the way, but eventually managed to overcome every obstacle that life threw at her. In fifteen straight-talking, hard hitting “rounds,” Laila offers her dynamic formula for physical, emotional, and mental power, and demonstrates how to sidestep feelings of self-pity and defeatism.

Leaving Home, Becoming Home: Girls and Women Write About the Search for Self, Edited by Linda Bryant
In this lovely collection, girls and women of various ages and culture explore disparate meanings of home. This important book brings together a range of intriguing voices, both familiar and new. They are voices from the gaps, voices of the future, voices that deserve, and demand, to be heard.

Living Islam Out Loud: American Muslim Women Speak, Edited by Saleemah Abdul-Ghafur
Living Islam Out Loud presents the first generation of American Muslim women who have always identified as both American and Muslim. These pioneers have forged new identities for themselves and for future generations, and they speak out about the hijab, relationships, sex and sexuality, activism, spirituality, and much more.

Feminism is for Everybody, bell hooks
In this book, bell hooks offers an open-hearted and welcoming vision of gender, sexuality, and society in this inspiring and accessible volume. In engaging and provocative style, bell hooks introduces a popular theory of feminism rooted in common sense and the wisdom of experience. In language both eye-opening and optimistic, hooks encourages us to demand alternatives to patriarchal, racist, and homophobic culture, and to imagine a different future.

God in Her Midst: Preaching Healing to Wounded Women, Elaine M. Flake
Elaine Flake, a consummate womanist theologian, a powerful preacher, and one who cares deeply about women’s issues, had written a book for preachers and teachers and illustrated effective methods for preaching healing and liberation to hurting women.

The Real Deal: A Spiritual Guide for Black Teen Girls, Billie Cook
Navigating life can be a challenge for any teenager, but some issues and struggles are unique to African American teens. Using language that will appeal directly to young African American girls, Cook offers comfort, counsel, advice, and hope. Teens will find in this book surprisingly helpful lessons that will last for a lifetime.

African Women, Religion, and Health, Phiri & Nadar
Mercy Amba Oduyoye, from Ghana, founded the Circle of Concerned African Women Theologians and is the first deputy general secretary of the World Council of Churches. The essays in this volume describe the key contributions she has made to African theology in our time, and then apply her insights to issue of scripture, health and poverty, and women as peacemakers.

Videos

Back Alley Detroit: Abortion Before Roe v. Wade, by Daniel Friedman and Sharon Grimberg for Filmmakers Library

Women Like You (Available in Spanish and English), Pfizer, NAACP, Los Angeles HIV Prevention Trials Unit