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1304 l CONTEMPORARY WOMEN’S ISSUES IN RELIGION nent has been the Black Church Initiative program sponsored by the Religious Coalition of Reproductive Choice (RCRC). The president and chief executive of- ficer of RCRC is black Baptist minister Carlton Veazey. The Black Church Initiative (BCI) was developed by RCRC to encourage black religious leaders, lay and clergy, to address sexual issues as those issues impact the black community. Since 1997 BCI has sponsored an annual National Black Religious Summit on Sexuality. During this summit black clergy and laity from across the United States discuss various topics confronting black America such as teenage pregnancy, HIV/AIDS, male/female relationships, and domestic violence. National leaders such as former U.S. Surgeons General David Satcher and Joycelyn Elders have participated in the summits. They too have called upon the Black Church community to become proactive in addressing the sexual concerns within the black community. The 2000 summit drew a record number of participants and offered a separate program for youth in attendance. This summit also included for the first time the participation of young people from South Africa. BCI also sponsors regional and local conferences on sexuality throughout the year. Beyond the conferences, Black Church Initiative provides two faith-based curriculums to be used in local congregations. “Keeping It Real” is a nine-week curriculum designed specifically for youth. “Breaking the Silence” is another nine-week course of study developed for local Black Church congregations. The Kelly Miller Smith Institute at Vanderbilt Divinity School (Nashville, Tennessee), under the leadership of the Reverend Forest Whitaker, has initiated programs with local black congregations on sexuality issues. Twoday conferences are regularly held for national black religious leaders and scholars to come together to discuss the theological and biblical mandate for engaging matters of sexuality. While historically the Black Church has been introverted on matters of sexuality, the dawning of the twenty-first century reveals a changing disposition. Unsettled by disturbing trends within the black community, various segments of the community have introduced sexual discourse within the Black Church. This breakthrough in regard to frank and transformative discourse on sexuality indicates that the Black Church has taken the necessary first step toward becoming more responsive to sexually related concerns. SOURCES: Kelly Brown Douglas, Sexuality and the Black Church (1999); W. E. B. DuBois, The Souls of Black Folk (1903); Paula Giddings, “The Last Taboo,” in Race-ing Justice, En-Gendering Power, ed. Toni Morrison (1992); Cheryl Townsend Gilkes, “Some Folks Get Happy and Some Folks Don’t: Diversity, Community, and African American Christian Spirituality ,” in The Courage to Hope: From Black Suffering to Human Redemption, ed. Quinton Hosford Dixie and Cornel West (1999); James Nelson, Embodiment: An Approach to Sexuality and Christian Theology (1978); Emilie Townes, In a Blaze of Glory: Womanist Spirituality as Social Witness (1995); and Cornel West, Race Matters (1993). GIRLFRIEND THEOLOGY: ADOLESCENT GIRLS AND FAITH COMMUNITIES Dori Grinenko Baker GIRLFRIEND THEOLOGY IS a method of religious education that helps adult women translate tenets of feminist and liberation theologies to adolescent girls within faith communities. Girls are invited into religious practices that honor feminine imagery of God and help them voice their indigenous knowledge of the holy. It grows out of the impulse of religious feminists in the latter half of the twentieth century to explicitly impart the traditions, values, and epistemologies of feminist theologies to younger audiences. The Emergent Concern for Adolescent Girls Across cultures, the adolescent girl’s journey to adulthood is often characterized by abuse, violence, exploitation , and more subtle demeaning factors. At certain moments within U.S. history, women concerned about girls saw religion as a primary resource in addressing these violations. However, adolescent girls were largely absent from much of the early work of feminists in religion in the 1970s and 1980s. Earlier generations of women had formed organizations such as the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) to improve living and working conditions for young women who fled to the cities during the Industrial Revolution. Born of the 1850s religious awakenings, the YWCA grew out of an alliance of Protestant women concerned about the physical and spiritual well-being of girls. In later decades , it engaged women and girls in addressing issues of equality and social justice, especially the elimination of racism and the provision of sex education for working-class girls. As the second wave of feminism crested, concern for the lives of adolescent girls shifted from the religious impetus of the YWCA to more secular...

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