I Found God in Me Quotes

“The womanist prophetess submits herself to God as a text to be read, indicted, and transformed so that she in turn can be a revolutionary, transformative force in the world.”
― Mitzi J. Smith, I Found God in Me: A Womanist Biblical Hermeneutics Reader

“She must constantly make available to God her fallible humanity so that God might continually encourage, transform, and regenerate her for the work she is called to do for herself and her community.”
― Mitzi J. Smith, I Found God in Me: A Womanist Biblical Hermeneutics Reader

“Yet even as women are the majority in most black churches and even though black women’s oppressions, especially with regard to sexual assault, have been the impetus for the Civil Rights movement,264 the black church has failed on any significant scale to be an activist for gender inclusivity and sexual orientation.”
― Mitzi J. Smith, I Found God in Me: A Womanist Biblical Hermeneutics Reader

“As prophetic activist, the womanist biblical scholar knows her power is derived from her relationship with the God who created the universe and everything in it, and who created all human beings equal.”
― Mitzi J. Smith, I Found God in Me: A Womanist Biblical Hermeneutics Reader

“I would argue that the essential task of a womanist hermeneutic consists in analyzing black sermonic texts with regard to how they “participate in creating or sustaining oppressive or liberating theoethical values and sociopolitical practices.”
― Mitzi J. Smith, I Found God in Me: A Womanist Biblical Hermeneutics Reader

“As female prophets who live in the margins, womanist biblical scholars must not be blinded by the center and its entrapments, but must maintain a peripheral vision focused on the struggles, concerns, and needs of black women and the masses of marginalized peoples.”
― Mitzi J. Smith, I Found God in Me: A Womanist Biblical Hermeneutics Reader

“It is not the practice of liberation to ignore and silence the voices of our sisters and brothers when they disagree with us. Such a response to dissenting or other voices constitutes a deployment of the master’s tools,277 and will never dismantle the master’s house, but merely constitutes a renovation of old structures.”
― Mitzi J. Smith, I Found God in Me: A Womanist Biblical Hermeneutics Reader

“Individuals who are oppressed, especially those who are unaware of their own oppression, do not or cannot fight for the liberation of communities, at least not in helpful and healthful ways.”
― Mitzi J. Smith, I Found God in Me: A Womanist Biblical Hermeneutics Reader

“Womanist biblical scholars reject a theology of exceptionalism because it liberates the few and imprisons the masses. A theology of exceptionalism supports a Thomasonian pull-yourself-up-by-your-boot-straps philosophy that denigrates the masses of poor and most marginalized peoples.”
― Mitzi J. Smith, I Found God in Me: A Womanist Biblical Hermeneutics Reader

“A theology of exceptionalism lifts up the exceptions as a standard for the masses and is often blind to the need to dismantle systems of oppression.”
― Mitzi J. Smith, I Found God in Me: A Womanist Biblical Hermeneutics Reader

“womanist scholars exegete Scripture within the overarching hermeneutic of liberty and justice for the oppressed and most marginalized.”
― Mitzi J. Smith, I Found God in Me: A Womanist Biblical Hermeneutics Reader

“God is the ultimate Power transcending and trumping all powers. And God can be found in black women and other marginalized women and peoples and their contexts.”
― Mitzi J. Smith, I Found God in Me: A Womanist Biblical Hermeneutics Reader

“But the Bible is not the Power. God and the Bible are not synonymous.”
― Mitzi J. Smith, I Found God in Me: A Womanist Biblical Hermeneutics Reader

“Although it is varietal, womanist theology is fundamentally a theology of liberation; its discipline requires commitment to the wholeness of entire peoples, male and female.”
― Mitzi J. Smith, I Found God in Me: A Womanist Biblical Hermeneutics Reader