Abstract

Non-cisgender, non-heterosexual, non-male bodies are not safe in Black churches. The digital Black church must be different from its physical landscape and historical institutional status. In the digital age, forward-thinking Black preaching women are going live on social media to preach in multifaceted ways and “bypass traditional systems of legitimization and historically recognized gatekeepers.” A natural progression from the clandestine clearing…

Going Live!: Black Women's Proclamation in the Digital Age

“Black preaching women 'going live' ushers in a necessary disruption of exclusionary practices and maintains that disregarded flesh is salvific. ”

USING SOCIAL MEDIA APPS, STREAMING PLATFORMS AND WEBSITES, BLACK WOMEN HAVE CREATED THEIR OWN SPACES TO DO THE WORK OF FAITH AND SPIRITUALITY…

In this essay I make explicit my own positionality as a black woman who preaches and as a practical theologian who studies the connections between digital worship, gender, performativity and preaching. I examine how religious hybridity informs my preaching practice from unconventional pulpits. I assert that… 

In 1996, I sat in an auditorium-styled mega church sanctuary in Washington, DC along with hundreds of other mostly Black women anxiously waiting for then Prophetess Juanita Bynum to make her way to the stage. After experiencing a shady love triangle, a gentle, socially conscious and lasting love entered my life. I invited My Love to attend service with me that night but he…

I am exhausted! It is exhaustion that overwhelms and overruns me because of its deep-seated roots. Roots that make one question her presence in the Academy while simultaneously questioning her ability to be a mother. How is it that I can maintain my authentic voice within a space where my experiences as a black woman are devalued? More importantly, how do I do this while simultaneously working to develop and provide space for the authentic voice of our two womanish girls? I am exhausted but I do want to be well!…