Today, Ash Wednesday 2021, marks a strange anniversary for me. For it was one (liturgical) year ago that I first wrote here about 2020 shaping up to be a brutal year. And so to me at least, it genuinely feels like a marker of one year of this collective experience of struggle. As I reflected … Continue reading Into the Depths: A Reflection for Ash Wednesday, 2021
This past June, my first wave of posts celebrating Black theological voices used Diana L. Hayes to introduce readers to Womanist theology. We saw then how Womanist theology centers the experiences of women of colour in its reading of Scripture and its understanding of God, and is therefore inherently intersectional and generous. But, of course, … Continue reading “The Form of a Slave”: The Unflinching Eye of Rev. Dr. Wilda C Gafney
The second of the three Black theologians I'd like to hear and celebrate this Black History Month is Verna J. Dozier. Dozier (1917-2006) was an educator by training and vocation. She taught high school for thirty years while leading Bible Studies for her parish in her spare time, and later taught courses in Bible at … Continue reading The Dream of God: The sanctified imagination of Verna J. Dozier
One of my favorite projects last year was the week in which I posted daily posts celebrating, in my small way from my small platform, the voices of African American theologians. I don't mean this in a self-congratulatory way; but I genuinely loved getting out of the way to give space for these largely under-appreciated, … Continue reading The Life Worth Living: The Prophetic Spirituality of Howard Thurman
I remember many years ago listening to a dialogue between two theologians, one Protestant and one Orthodox, about our language surrounding light and darkness. The Protestant — I sadly don't remember who the participants were — made the statement that he didn't believe we would be able to successfully address racism in our culture until … Continue reading The Darkness of God
Matthew Root 