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nikkimcgee's review against another edition
5.0
This is such a great book, I wish I had read it earlier. I would also recommend looking up Delores S Williams on youtube to hear her speak.
The book presents womanist theology as an alternative to feminist and black theology - stating that they both overlook the oppressed of the oppressed - black women.
The book is bold and takes on the giants of Martin Luther King and James H Cone as well as classical
Theologians - arguing that the glorification of suffering and atonement models are harmful to black women in particular. We need to construct new lenses through which to view the Christian story.
I know the story of Hagar but thanks to Williams I now feel like I actually know her rather than a story which views her in passing, as a womb to be used and then rejected.
This is a must read.
The book presents womanist theology as an alternative to feminist and black theology - stating that they both overlook the oppressed of the oppressed - black women.
The book is bold and takes on the giants of Martin Luther King and James H Cone as well as classical
Theologians - arguing that the glorification of suffering and atonement models are harmful to black women in particular. We need to construct new lenses through which to view the Christian story.
I know the story of Hagar but thanks to Williams I now feel like I actually know her rather than a story which views her in passing, as a womb to be used and then rejected.
This is a must read.
juliariley9's review against another edition
5.0
I read bits and pieces of this in seminary, but it was good to finally take a look at the whole thing. This should be required reading in all seminary curriculums. It has been foundational for my understanding of Christ and the cross.
moreteamorecats's review against another edition
3.0
Objectively, this is a pathbreaking book. We wouldn't have womanist theology in its current form without this book. The theological academy has taken up some of Williams' major moves enthusiastically, even as it has tended to sideline younger womanist theologians. At the same time, like so many pathbreaking books, this one has at least as many blind alleys as fruitful new courses. Though consistently interesting and always (need one add?) suffused by a bracing moral clarity, this book lacks the monographic specificity that helps other revoultionary works feel constantly fresh.
For my purposes, Williams' theological method and hermeneutics are her most intriguing contributions. Theology had been in conversation with philosophy and politics for ages, but womanist theology marked the first time in generations that a theological movement took so many of its cues from a literary movement. (What precedent, if any, would we choose? Late Renaissance humanism and its impact on the Reformers? Even that was less direct.) The use of literature as a privileged theological source for Black women's experience would grow more sophisticated, but the basic pattern is already there in Williams.
What to make, then, of something like her careful retrieval of the category "genocide" and the postwar efforts of Black radicals to charge the United States with it? The historical work here is very strong, paralleling Samantha Power's work in [b:A Problem from Hell|368731|A Problem from Hell America and the Age of Genocide|Samantha Power|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1174179182s/368731.jpg|118565] but fifteen years earlier; the moral case, likewise, is compelling. Why make that case in this particular book? What are readers, even those won over by (say) the Hagar/Sarah material, to make of it? Its importance to Williams is obvious. There would be an amazing article, and probably a good solid book, behind the research for that chapter; but why bring it up with so little argumentative or theoretical follow-through?
When assigned (as it often is) as a founding or representative text of womanist theology, I think, this book is not likely to be read on its own terms. Its arresting, strange intensity demand attention, but the payoff remains elusive, at least between its own covers. The moves, tropes, and themes Williams surfaces in this book have proven themselves invaluable and even necessary. Perhaps it is only in comparison to them that the book itself comes off, to me, as disappointing.
For my purposes, Williams' theological method and hermeneutics are her most intriguing contributions. Theology had been in conversation with philosophy and politics for ages, but womanist theology marked the first time in generations that a theological movement took so many of its cues from a literary movement. (What precedent, if any, would we choose? Late Renaissance humanism and its impact on the Reformers? Even that was less direct.) The use of literature as a privileged theological source for Black women's experience would grow more sophisticated, but the basic pattern is already there in Williams.
What to make, then, of something like her careful retrieval of the category "genocide" and the postwar efforts of Black radicals to charge the United States with it? The historical work here is very strong, paralleling Samantha Power's work in [b:A Problem from Hell|368731|A Problem from Hell America and the Age of Genocide|Samantha Power|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1174179182s/368731.jpg|118565] but fifteen years earlier; the moral case, likewise, is compelling. Why make that case in this particular book? What are readers, even those won over by (say) the Hagar/Sarah material, to make of it? Its importance to Williams is obvious. There would be an amazing article, and probably a good solid book, behind the research for that chapter; but why bring it up with so little argumentative or theoretical follow-through?
When assigned (as it often is) as a founding or representative text of womanist theology, I think, this book is not likely to be read on its own terms. Its arresting, strange intensity demand attention, but the payoff remains elusive, at least between its own covers. The moves, tropes, and themes Williams surfaces in this book have proven themselves invaluable and even necessary. Perhaps it is only in comparison to them that the book itself comes off, to me, as disappointing.
skitch41's review against another edition
4.0
Lately I have been exploring black theology through an online discussion group and been wrestling with what they have to say about God and Jesus Christ. In this book, [a:Delores S. Williams|410778|Delores S. Williams|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png] uses the biblical story of Hagar in the book of Genesis to explore what it means to be a black woman living in America and a Christian. It is an impressive book that links the trials and travails of the black woman experience to this biblical story of oppression and survival.
The book is divided into two parts. The first part looks at the Hagar/Ishmael story in the book of Genesis and makes connections between Hagar's oppression & survival and links it to the unique experience of black women in America. Ms. Williams points how, like Hagar, enslaved black women were taken advantage of by their masters and provided surrogate children to them and how, like Hagar again, enslaved black women could face abuse and mistreatment by their owners. Drawing on these parallels, she expounds upon black women's critical role in the black church and black community life. The second part of the book is a kind of dialogue between the womanist theology Ms. Williams is expounding upon and other theologies/ideologies that it bumps up against such as black liberation theology, as expressed by black theologians such as [a:James H. Cone|17438|James H. Cone|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1281326117p2/17438.jpg] and others, white feminist ideology, and the black church as a whole.
Not everyone will agree with Ms. Williams's arguments. But the value of this book is in how it provides a unique perspective on Christian faith and practice from a group that too rarely gets a chance to speak out about their own travails. Whether this is your first experience with womanist theology or not, I would recommend this book to all Christian thinkers.
The book is divided into two parts. The first part looks at the Hagar/Ishmael story in the book of Genesis and makes connections between Hagar's oppression & survival and links it to the unique experience of black women in America. Ms. Williams points how, like Hagar, enslaved black women were taken advantage of by their masters and provided surrogate children to them and how, like Hagar again, enslaved black women could face abuse and mistreatment by their owners. Drawing on these parallels, she expounds upon black women's critical role in the black church and black community life. The second part of the book is a kind of dialogue between the womanist theology Ms. Williams is expounding upon and other theologies/ideologies that it bumps up against such as black liberation theology, as expressed by black theologians such as [a:James H. Cone|17438|James H. Cone|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1281326117p2/17438.jpg] and others, white feminist ideology, and the black church as a whole.
Not everyone will agree with Ms. Williams's arguments. But the value of this book is in how it provides a unique perspective on Christian faith and practice from a group that too rarely gets a chance to speak out about their own travails. Whether this is your first experience with womanist theology or not, I would recommend this book to all Christian thinkers.