Toward a Womanist Ethic of Incarnation: Black Bodies, the Black Church, and the Council of Chalcedon (Black Religion/Womanist Thought/Social Justice)

The Black Church is an institution that emerged in rebellion against injustice perpetrated upon black bodies. How is it, then, that black women's oppression persists in black churches that espouse theological and ethical commitments to justice? The book engages the Chalcedonian Definition as the starting point for exploring the body as a moral dilemma. It reveals how the body of Christ has historically posed a problem for the church, and has produced a Christian trajectory of violence that has resulted in the breaking of the body of Christ. A survey of the black body as an American problem provides the lens for understanding how the theological problem of body has functioned as a social dilemma for black people. An exploration of the black Social Gospel as the primary theological trajectory that has approached the problem of embodied difference reveals how body injustice, namely sexism, functions behind the veil of race in black churches The Black Church is an institution that emerged in rebellion against injustice perpetrated upon black bodies. How is it, then, that black women's oppression persists in black churches that espouse theological and ethical commitment to justice? Toward a Womanist Ethic of Incarnation engages the Chalcedonian definition of faith as the starting point for exploring the body as a moral dilemma. Marshall Turman asserts that the body of Christ has historically posed a problem for the church, and has produced a Christian trajectory of violence that has resulted in the breaking of the body of Christ. A survey of the black body as an American problem provides the lens for understanding how the theological problem of body has functioned as a social dilemma for black people. An exploration of the black Social Gospel as the primary theological trajectory that has approached the problem of embodied difference reveals how body injustice, namely sexism, functions behind the veil of race in black churches. (Publisher) Front Matter....Pages i-xii Introduction....Pages 1-18 The Politics of Incarnation: A Theological Perspective....Pages 19-38 Moving the Body: The Logic of Incarnation in Theoethical Perspective....Pages 39-57 The Problem of Incarnation: Theorizing the Veil....Pages 59-85 Bodies and Souls: The Moral Problem of “Making Men”....Pages 87-132 Beyond the Veil: Toward a Womanist Ethic of Incarnation....Pages 133-161 On the Parousia: The Black Body Electric....Pages 163-172 Back Matter....Pages 173-214