Read This Book: April 2014

The April book has been recommended by Emilie M. Townes, Dean of the Divinity School
E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Professor of Womanist Ethics and Society

Toward a Womanist Ethic of Incarnation: Black Bodies, the Black Church, and the Council of Chalcedon

by Eboni Marshall Turman
Palgrave Macmillan (2013)

Marshall Turman is Assistant Research Professor of Black Church Studies at Duke Divinity School and the director of the Office of Black Church Ministries.  She looks at how the Black Church has been, and in many contemporary quarters, remains an institution of rebellion again injustice and an outspoken opponent of racism.  However, it has also been and remains a place that oppresses Black women by denying their gifts for ministry.  Marshall Turman explores how such a juxtaposition can exist by looking at the ways in which the Black body is an American problem that is also a theological problem that can breed sexism that functions behind the veil of race in Black Churches—a challenging read that is well worth the effort.

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