By Christena Cleveland
This is a phenomenal book in which Christena makes a case for tearing down our image of God as a white male and fashioning a new God-concept for ourselves. “Whitemalegod” is the term she uses in her book to encompass a very strict, moralistic, sexist, racist, homophobic, legalistic, perfectionistic, needless, powerful, white, masculine god.
It is well and truly time to replace “whitemalegod” with this radical and yet not-so-radical concept:
God is a black woman.
This statement may be offensive to some, so I will dumb it down for truly racist, sexist, homophobic “whitemalegod” worshippers. God embraces all races, genders, sexualities, and personalities. Therefore: God is better represented as a black woman than a white man.
The Black Divine Feminine understands that Black lives matter, especially Black female lives. LGBTQIA+ lives matter. Women in general matter. All people do, in fact, matter and are loved by her, BUT the marginalized must come first. They are her top priority. She embraces the most shunned, she fights for their rights, she stands against the “whitemalegod” systems of oppression that have caused and continue to cause suffering for those who are not straight white males. She is the God of the sick and the needy, the disabled, the poor, the vulnerable, even the less than morally-perfect.
Here are some powerful quotes from the book:
“She is the God who definitively declares that Black women—who exist below Black men and white women, at the bottom of the white male God’s social pecking order—not only matter but are sacred. And, in doing so, She declares that all living beings are sacred. She is the God who has a special love for the most marginalized because She too has known marginalization. She is the God who cherishes our humanity and welcomes our fears, vulnerabilities, and imperfections.”
“One gender cannot exclusively represent the fullness of the mystery of Christ.”
“According to our cultural conditioning, femininity is untrustworthy and blackness is dirty. So Black femininity is perceived as wholly unholy—as far from God as possible.”
“When the feminine is silenced and God is exclusively masculine, he becomes a detached, off-planet god that I call fatherskygod. When we need him most, fatherskygod isn’t anywhere to be found.”
“We are unable to imagine a God who proclaims #blacklivesmatter, a God who says #metoo, a God who stands not atop a social hierarchy, but at the bottom with the people who have been cast aside, silenced, and forgotten. When god is solely male, he can only show up as fatherskygod who is nowhere near us.”
“The four-hundred-fifty-plus Black Madonnas around the world encompass a wide range of skin colors, hair textures, body sizes, and ages. Some are pregnant. Some are breastfeeding with proudly exposed breasts. Some are gender noncomforming. The one thing they all have in common is that they are Black and they are holy… The opposite of whitemalegod’s non-body, Her body is infinitely relatable and always expanding to include Her precious children. There is enough room for all of us. We can all find ourselves in Her body.”
“By standing in the mud beside us, the Virgin-Warrior is teaching us that moral perfection is not the goal, moral connection is the goal.”
“All white people… naturally embody white sprawl unless they choose to actively work toward healing from their whiteness.”
“Regardless of our racial identity, in order to experience the fullness of Her transformative love, we must get into formation around Her unapologetic Blackness.”
“I am worthy of a Higher Power who stands beside me at the fatal intersection of white supremacy and patriarchy. I am worthy of a Higher Power who exists in a body that is also scorned by the society. I am worthy of a Higher Power who is a Black woman.”