I Bring the Voices of My People: A Womanist Vision for Racial Reconciliation (Prophetic Christianity)

by Chanequa Walker-Barnes

Celie’s liberation begins in earnest when she frees herself from worshipping a White supremacist patriarchal God and finds God for herself beyond the constraints of organized Christianity. It is Shug who tells Celie that God is not housed within the walls of the church, but within the people who come to the church, within her very self. “Any God I ever felt in church I brought in with me. And I think all the other folks did too. They come to church to share God, not find God” (193). Whereas telling the truth to Shug may have been only slightly risky, telling the truth of one’s feelings and beliefs about God to God is considerably riskier, as it could possibly jeopardize one’s eternal salvation. Fortunately, for Celie, in addition to her image of God as distant White male authority figure, she has also internalized an image of God as carer and lover of her soul. When Celie relinquishes her negative God-images, she discovers within herself and within all of creation the God who desires more for her than survival, the God whose desire is for her to experience the joy of the color purple.