Sexuality and the Black Church: A Womanist Perspective [Paperback]

Kelly Brown Douglas (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1, 1999

This book tackles the "taboo" subject of sexuality that has long been avoided by the Black church and community. Douglas argues that this view of Black sexuality has interfered with constructive responses to the AIDS crisis and teenage pregnancies, fostered intolerance of sexual diversity, frustrated healthy male/female relationships, and rendered Black and womanist theologians silent on sexual issues.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

This book probes the conundrum of black sexuality, especially as it relates to black theological silence about sexuality. Douglas aims to understand why sexuality in general has been a "taboo" subject for the black church and community, attempts to advance "womanist" discourse on black sexuality, and seeks to promote theological discourse that might nurture healthier attitudes and behaviors toward sexually related concerns, especially homophobia/ heterosexism. Douglas, an Episcopal minister and associate professor of theology at Howard University Divinity School, is also the author of The Black Christ (Orbis, 1994). Her discussion offers food for thought. While readers may not concur with some of her broad conclusions, they will likely appreciate the deepened discourse. Recommended for collections seeking to cover issues affecting the black church and community.ALeroy Hommerding, Citrus Cty. Lib. Sys., Inverness, FL
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Paperback: 162 pages
• Publisher: Orbis Books (March 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1570752427
• ISBN-13: 978-1570752421
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.3 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #301,720 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Probing and intellectually stimulating, May 12, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Sexuality and the Black Church: A Womanist Perspective (Paperback)

Kelly Brown Douglas has opend a work that will be reqired reading in most schools of divinity. The conroling thesis of her work is the establishment of a sexual Discourse of Resistance as a counterforce to white racist culture that has exploited and damaged African American sexuality.Douglas contends that the damage is so deep that blacks have a difficulty speaking openly regarding issues of sexuality. She has masterfully made the interconnections between sexuality, racism, sexism and homophoia. She challenges the black church to employ her sexual discourse of resistance but does not clearly explain what contstitutes the black church. What about Black Catholics, Black Episcopalions, et.al. Her work underscores the sadness that some theologians (namely, Black Roman Catholics) could never author such a text because much of Douglas's volume counterveins Roman Catholic dogmatic formulations and a Catholic theologian would have to answer to Rome for such a work. Thank God for African American Episcopalions like Douglas.

11 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Foucault and the History of Black Sexuality, April 6, 2000

By 

Rudolph Lewis - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sexuality and the Black Church: A Womanist Perspective (Paperback)

Kelly Brown Douglass has written an excellent first chapter for her book Sexuality and th Black Church. What she has done here is to explain the relevance of using Michel Foucault as a tool to look at the history of black sexuality in the United States. Her basic argument is that black sexuality as we know it today is a fiction, a number of fictions (made of up numerous stereotypes), more or less derived, from what she calls White Culture. That Black sexuality has been a means to discipline and control black bodies. This book is commendable in that it dares to use Foucault and that it touches upon the personal in such aa way as to make all a bit uneasy --- black, white, male, female, heterosexual and homosexual. We all have a lot to learn from her analysis.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Must Read!!, February 15, 2002

By 

Gregory Stamper Jr (Jersey City, NJ) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sexuality and the Black Church: A Womanist Perspective (Paperback)

I think I've recommended this great work to everyone I know.

This book should be a must read for all African American church members. It is challenging, provocative, and engaging. A work like this is the only way to begin the dialogue necessary to resurrect the dying Black Church.