Cleveland, Christena (2022) God is a Black Woman. New York: HarperOne.

Definitely not The Shack.

Rather, more James Baldwin and James Cone—black liberation theology from the current perspective of a black woman growing up in the USA and becoming a professor at Duke University’s Divinity School.

Christena Cleveland, PhD, is a social psychologist, public theologian, author and activist. She fights for freedom in a world of racial trauma and rage imposed by the dominant image of WhiteMaleGod, even from the hand of her perfectionist preacher father.

Under the gospel tent of colonial supremacist theology cowers manifestations of oppression in various disordered personal guises. For Cleveland these include bulimia, sexual repression, ridicule, fear, shame and self-loathing.

Liberation for Cleveland extends from alternate healing images of the Sacred Black Feminine, which she goes to find on a walking pilgrimage in France.

There she meets face-to-face many beloved, centuries-old, Black Madonnas, like Our Lady of the Good Death who helps us die to our false selves; The Black Virgin of Moulins to whom Joan of Arc prayed; The Virgin-Warrior; and, most impressively, Our Lady of the Rock, who is unapologetically Black and unapologetically pro-Black. “She is black because she is black,” Cleveland asserts.

Cleveland’s work now is to create resources to stimulate people’s spiritual imaginations and support their own spiritual journeys toward liberation. Like Our Lady of the Rock, whom Cleveland dubs Our Lady of the Side-Eye, with boldness shooting from Her eyes, stance, and every limb, God is a Black Woman is unequivocal and powerful in its stance. It pushes those who dare seek its counsel forward to break the shackles of all kinds of unhealthy relationships.

www.christenacleveland.com