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Join the Center for Black Church Studies as we examine the past, present, and future of womanist theology within theological scholarship and the Black church in the United States. Womanist theology is a religious conceptual framework which reconsiders and revises the traditions, practices, scriptures, and biblical interpretation with a special lens to empower and liberate African American women in America. The term “womanism” was coined by Alice Walker, who offered a definition of the word in her 1984 book In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens. Walker described a womanist as a “Black feminist or feminist of color” who is bold and assertive, relishes African American culture, and is committed to the flourishing of the entire African American community. In the 1980s African American scholars — Katie Cannon, Jacquelyn Grant, and Delores Williams — realized there was a need for a more inclusive theological and ethical framework concerning Black liberation theology.
The Rev. Dr. Valerie Bridgeman is dean and vice president of Academic Affairs, as well as associate professor of homiletics and Hebrew Bible, at Methodist Theological School of Ohio. She also is founding president and CEO of WomanPreach! Inc., the premiere nonprofit organization that brings preachers to full prophetic voice. She has been in licensed or ordained ministry since 1977.
Bridgeman earned her PhD in biblical studies (Hebrew Bible concentration) and secondary studies in ethics from Baylor University. She earned her Master of Divinity from Austin Theological Seminary in Austin, Texas and a Bachelor of Arts degree with a double major of communication and religion from Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas.
She is a peace activist and advocate for human rights, and was inducted into the 2010 class of Martin Luther King, Jr. Collegium of Scholars and Preachers at Morehouse College in Atlanta, GA. For more information about Bridgeman, visit WomanPreach.
The Rev. Melanie C. Jones is a womanist ethicist, millennial preacher, and intellectual activist. Jones joined the Union Presbyterian Seminary faculty as instructor of ethics, theology and culture and inaugural director of the Katie Geneva Cannon Center for Womanist Leadership in fall 2019. Formerly, Jones served as the 2018-19 Crump Visiting Professor and Black Religious Scholar-in-Residence at Seminary of the Southwest in Austin, Texas, and lecturer at Brite Divinity School in Fort Worth, Texas; American Baptist College in Nashville, Tennessee; Chicago Theological Seminary; and The Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago, Illinois.
Jones’ research probes the scripting of the body in theology and philosophy that fosters religious, cultural, and moral meaning for the present with particular attention to Black women’s body politics. Jones engages womanist theological ethics and sacred texts, millennials and faith, and Black aesthetics and popular culture. For her distinguished research, Jones has received notable fellowships and scholarships, including The Forum for Theological Exploration, The Louisville Institute, Wabash Center, and Villanova University Center for Church Management.
Jones is a thinking woman of faith embodying radical love and revolutionary justice in the academy, church, and global community. She is co-curator of #MillennnialWomanism Digital Forum and co-founder of The Millennial Womanism Project (TMWP) — an enterprise committed to enhancing the well-being of Black millennial women of faith and justice and fostering trans-generational womanist dialogue. As a global leader serving professional societies and international boards, Jones is the chair of the board of directors of the Daughters of the African Atlantic Fund.
A third-generation ordained Baptist preacher and sought-after lecturer, Jones is an emerging millennial voice with noted academic and popular publications as well as features on television, radio, and news outlets. Follow Jones on her website.
The Rev. Dr. Monica A. Coleman is professor of Africana studies at the University of Delaware. She is also an ordained elder in the African Methodist Episcopal Church. She works at the intersection of faith, culture, and social justice. She is the author or editor of six books, and several articles and book chapters that focus on the role of faith in addressing critical social and philosophical issues. Her book Making a Way Out of No Way: a Womanist Theology is required reading at colleges and universities around the United States. Her memoir Bipolar Faith: a Black Woman’s Journey with Depression and Faith received the Silver Illumination Award in 2017. Coleman is active in academic guilds, including the American Academy of Religion, the Society for the Study of Black Religion (SSBR), and the Institute for American Religious and Philosophical Thought (IARPT). Coleman has received funding from the Ford Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Woodrow Wilson Fellowship Foundation, the Association for Theological Schools, and the Forum for Theological Exploration (formerly, the Fund for Theological Education). Coleman speaks widely on religion and sexuality, religious pluralism, churches and social media, mental health, and sexual and domestic violence.
In 2020, Professor Coleman was nominated and elected to the Program Committee of the American Academy of Religion (the world’s largest guild for the academic study of religion). She was also inducted into the Martin Luther King, Jr. Collegium of Scholars. The American Academy of Religion Program Committee oversees the annual meeting program (over 10,000 attendees) — designing and reviewing the program structure, establishing categories and criteria for governing program units, and advising the executive director and the director of meetings on important programmatic aspects of the meeting. The Martin Luther King, Jr. Collegium of Scholars provides a creative learning environment where clergy and laity from diverse backgrounds, distinct faith traditions, and different generations come together as students of Dr. King’s philosophies to reflect on their personal calling, foster meaningful relationships with others who are answering their calling, and develop ideas and strategies for taking their calling to the world.
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