What do you think?
Rate this book
In a Blaze of Glory: Womanist Spirituality as Social Witness
This volume is an interdisciplinary exploration of the interplay between the contemporary Black Church in the United States and African American womanist spirituality and social witness. Historically, the Black Church itself has represented a strong yoking of social witness and spirituality. This blend has endured whether the primary theology and ethical import of the Church has been accomodationist or protest-oriented. African American women in the Church have carried this legacy in their lived witness of spirituality and social action. This volume will explore some of the historic roots of this journey, the literary testimony of this heritage, and offers a constructive ethic for a contemporary social witness which is steeped in spiritual formation and growth.
Paperback
First published February 1, 1995
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
June 26, 2024
A PROFOUND DISCUSSION OF THE NATURE OF WOMANIST SPIRITUALITY
The Rev. Dr. Emilie Townes (b. 1955) is dean of Vanderbilt Divinity School, as well as Professor of Womanist Ethics and Society. She has also written/edited books such as Womanist Justice, Womanist Hope,A Troubling in My Soul,Womanist Ethics and the Cultural Production of Evil,Embracing the Spirit: Womanist Perspectives on Hope, Salvation, and Transformation,Breaking the Fine Rain of Death: African American Health Issues and a Womanist Ethic of Care, etc.
In her Introduction to this 1995 book, she explains, “Womanist reflection is individual, communal, and pithy in its critique and acceptance of love and analysis. Womanist wisdom springs out of the experience of African American women as they have been daughters, wives, partners, aunts, grandmothers, mothers, other mothers, comrades, worshipers, protesters, wisdom bearers, murderers, and saints in the African American culture and society---and in the life of the church. This perspective… is one that yearns for glory. Such glory is found in seeking a new heaven and a new earth---a world crafted on justice AND love that holds us all in God’s creation rather than in a hierarchy of oppressions Womanist spirituality grows out of these roots. This spirituality IS a social witness… 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 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… Womanist spirituality is the working out of what it means for each of us to seek compassion, justice, worship, and devotion in our witness. This understanding of spirituality seeks to grow into wholeness of spirit and body… into holiness in God. Such cogent holiness cannot hold its peace in a world so desperately separate from the new earth.” (Pg. 10-11)
She notes, “Black women took pride in the mothers of the Bible who became their role models for motherhood… [who] gave Black women a view of women as more than bodily receptacles through which great men were born. They saw these mothers as being responsible for rearing sons who would deliver Israel from its oppressors… Black women took the roles of wife, sister, daughter, and mother, combined them with a personal spiritual experience of God in Christ, and understood themselves to be ministers in their homes. With that step, Black women were able to move on from their image of domestic comforter to a greater call.” (Pg. 33)
She observes, “Because of the nature of its project, a womanist spirituality rejects dualism and argues for wholeness. The subject-other relationship is held in the web of creation or in my terminology, ‘is-ness.’ This runs counter to the self-other opposition that underlies much of Western thought. This opposition, or split, is a core part of Western values that cannot be ignored. However, while recognizing this split, a womanist spirituality advocates a self-other RELATIONSHIP, for it is in the relational matrix that wholeness can be found for African Americans.” (Pg. 48-49)
Later, she adds, “A womanist spirituality of wholeness is, finally, radically relational. The various narratives of African American life are constituent of the grand narrative of Black faith and hope in this land. This relational character calls us to moral responsibility and accountability for our lives and the lives of all those who have survived the diaspora. We are, in the most basic sense, one another’s keepers. Out of this, we recognize the preciousness of life and the deep interconnection between body and spirit that will help us be made whole.” (Pg. 66)
She states, “Womanist spirituality dawns from the apocalyptic visions of hope and salvation in the midst of our inhumanity. It is the lived experience of faith that is grounded in the context of struggling for faith and justice. This means that a key part of such a spirituality is to recognize the dualistic nature that so much of our lives have been tied to and question the healthiness of such a way of viewing and living life. This either/or existence can and does maim and kill the spirit, for it denies the interrelatedness of body and spirit… Living out womanist spirituality means integrating faith and life… We are called to a new a renewed awareness of our humanness and our infinite possibilities.” (Pg. 139-140)
She concludes, “It’s a tall order that womanist spirituality sets forth for us. In reality, it adds its voice to any spirituality that is based on hope and refuses to accept the narrowness and death-dealing of today and only grim prospects for tomorrow. For all this, though, we cannot do it alone. For the one thing that is sure in womanist spirituality is that we must know the Spirit. Knowing the Spirit is to use both heart and head… It is to love God with our minds through a rigorous and relentless pursuit of grasping, however imperfectly, God’s unfolding revelation in our lives through our ever-expanding understanding of the nature of the universe. It is in our struggles to live into our witness that we find God waiting for us and also prodding us into wholeness as individuals, as a people as a church. It is in this glory that womanist spirituality finds its witness.” (Pg. 143-144)
This book is another important contribution of Dr. Townes to Womanism, Theology, and Spirituality in general.
The Rev. Dr. Emilie Townes (b. 1955) is dean of Vanderbilt Divinity School, as well as Professor of Womanist Ethics and Society. She has also written/edited books such as Womanist Justice, Womanist Hope,A Troubling in My Soul,Womanist Ethics and the Cultural Production of Evil,Embracing the Spirit: Womanist Perspectives on Hope, Salvation, and Transformation,Breaking the Fine Rain of Death: African American Health Issues and a Womanist Ethic of Care, etc.
In her Introduction to this 1995 book, she explains, “Womanist reflection is individual, communal, and pithy in its critique and acceptance of love and analysis. Womanist wisdom springs out of the experience of African American women as they have been daughters, wives, partners, aunts, grandmothers, mothers, other mothers, comrades, worshipers, protesters, wisdom bearers, murderers, and saints in the African American culture and society---and in the life of the church. This perspective… is one that yearns for glory. Such glory is found in seeking a new heaven and a new earth---a world crafted on justice AND love that holds us all in God’s creation rather than in a hierarchy of oppressions Womanist spirituality grows out of these roots. This spirituality IS a social witness… 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 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… Womanist spirituality is the working out of what it means for each of us to seek compassion, justice, worship, and devotion in our witness. This understanding of spirituality seeks to grow into wholeness of spirit and body… into holiness in God. Such cogent holiness cannot hold its peace in a world so desperately separate from the new earth.” (Pg. 10-11)
She notes, “Black women took pride in the mothers of the Bible who became their role models for motherhood… [who] gave Black women a view of women as more than bodily receptacles through which great men were born. They saw these mothers as being responsible for rearing sons who would deliver Israel from its oppressors… Black women took the roles of wife, sister, daughter, and mother, combined them with a personal spiritual experience of God in Christ, and understood themselves to be ministers in their homes. With that step, Black women were able to move on from their image of domestic comforter to a greater call.” (Pg. 33)
She observes, “Because of the nature of its project, a womanist spirituality rejects dualism and argues for wholeness. The subject-other relationship is held in the web of creation or in my terminology, ‘is-ness.’ This runs counter to the self-other opposition that underlies much of Western thought. This opposition, or split, is a core part of Western values that cannot be ignored. However, while recognizing this split, a womanist spirituality advocates a self-other RELATIONSHIP, for it is in the relational matrix that wholeness can be found for African Americans.” (Pg. 48-49)
Later, she adds, “A womanist spirituality of wholeness is, finally, radically relational. The various narratives of African American life are constituent of the grand narrative of Black faith and hope in this land. This relational character calls us to moral responsibility and accountability for our lives and the lives of all those who have survived the diaspora. We are, in the most basic sense, one another’s keepers. Out of this, we recognize the preciousness of life and the deep interconnection between body and spirit that will help us be made whole.” (Pg. 66)
She states, “Womanist spirituality dawns from the apocalyptic visions of hope and salvation in the midst of our inhumanity. It is the lived experience of faith that is grounded in the context of struggling for faith and justice. This means that a key part of such a spirituality is to recognize the dualistic nature that so much of our lives have been tied to and question the healthiness of such a way of viewing and living life. This either/or existence can and does maim and kill the spirit, for it denies the interrelatedness of body and spirit… Living out womanist spirituality means integrating faith and life… We are called to a new a renewed awareness of our humanness and our infinite possibilities.” (Pg. 139-140)
She concludes, “It’s a tall order that womanist spirituality sets forth for us. In reality, it adds its voice to any spirituality that is based on hope and refuses to accept the narrowness and death-dealing of today and only grim prospects for tomorrow. For all this, though, we cannot do it alone. For the one thing that is sure in womanist spirituality is that we must know the Spirit. Knowing the Spirit is to use both heart and head… It is to love God with our minds through a rigorous and relentless pursuit of grasping, however imperfectly, God’s unfolding revelation in our lives through our ever-expanding understanding of the nature of the universe. It is in our struggles to live into our witness that we find God waiting for us and also prodding us into wholeness as individuals, as a people as a church. It is in this glory that womanist spirituality finds its witness.” (Pg. 143-144)
This book is another important contribution of Dr. Townes to Womanism, Theology, and Spirituality in general.
February 4, 2016
This was an assigned text for a social justice course. I really liked this book It was scholarly but avoided overuse of jargon so it was very readible. It provided some useful historical context and then (at least from where I sit) plainly and accurately described the current situation. It challenged the reader and the black religious community to break out of some current unproductive patterns and to reclaim the lead in working with the community for real change. I'm glad this book was assigned. It was both enjoyable and enlightening.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews