Ain't I a Womanist, Too?: Third Wave Womanist Religious Thought

Foreword

Foreword Layli Maparyan “Repeatedly, Thurman asks, ‘How can I believe that life has meaning if I do not believe that my own life has meaning?’ Thurman poses this question/affirmation to stress how one’s autobiography is connected to spirituality. Whatever one seeks to discover about the meaning of life in general must take into consideration how such meaning is found in one’s own life.” –Luther Smith1 “. . . it was the first time that I could be all of who I was in the same place.” –Barbara Smith2 Womanism stands out as a liberatory spiritual praxis because of the depth to which it honors the personal spiritual journey. In the early twenty-first century, we find ourselves at a place where, if popular polls can be believed, at least in the United States of America, large segments of the population have rejected traditional, mainstream religious adherence in favor of various hybrids of spiritual belief and practice that embrace multiple religious threads and even various forms of secularity. Some people claim multiple religious affiliations, while others simply identify as “spiritual but not religious.” Many people question the faiths into which they were born, the faiths of their parents and ancestors. Some leave for good; others leave, then come back with a different perspective and renewed passion. Still others create highly idiosyncratic hybrids by bringing additional faiths or philosophies into their core religion—or dispensing with a core altogether.3 For many people, the new normal is, “I am the organizing principle of my own spirituality.” xiii In the beginning, the womanist tradition in religious studies came from a place of deeply self-respecting reflexivity—a place of “respects herself, regardless”—against the backdrop of religious histories of gender-, race-, and sexuality-based exclusions and oppressions. The question posed seemed to be, how do I need to relate to this faith and its institution in ways that respect me and my community? Also, how can I forge new pathways (à la Harriet Tubman) for myself and others to escape religious oppression, marginalization, or colonization while remaining connected to Spirit? The answers that came from womanists were—and continue to be—polyform and ingenious. We see in third wave womanist religious thought the latest iteration of this liberatory thinking. The Internet Age—which hadn’t even been born when womanism first asserted itself three decades ago now—has allowed us to explore many traditions and belief systems from the comfort of our couches and kitchen tables. No longer do we wait for interpreters to tell us the meaning of distant practices. In my own Baha’i Faith, the principle is called “The independent investigation of truth”—the notion that external arbiters are no longer needed for us to find meaning, truth, or even Divinity itself. While we revere sacred traditions in their wholeness, we find our courage to question, indeed to interrogate, and even to mix and match them in ways that, from our own diverse perspectives, not only suit us personally, but also create new pathways of political and spiritual liberation for others. Womanism is very much about the personal spiritual journey—bringing it from behind the shadows, owning it, and forging new pathways through dialogue and interpersonal sharing that allow us all to be enriched by one another’s personal spiritual journeys and reimagine community along new lines of affinity and sacredness. Third wave womanist religious thought, as showcased in this landmark volume, exposes the inner workings of these hybrid spiritual journeys, their resulting belief systems, and highly varied modes of practice—particularly as they relate to people for whom the terms “womanism” and “womanist” resonate. Sometimes, but not always, these are black women or other women of color; sometimes these are people of other genders or colors. Indeed, many of these authors are people who define their own identities in ways that defy established categories. This work simultaneously embraces, confronts, and transcends intersectionality in ways that some will find maddening, others will find confusing, and still others will find exhilarating. In early 2010, Monica A. Coleman asked me to serve as a discussant at the Third Wave Womanist Religious Thought conference she was organizing in conjunction with her inaugural lecture at Claremont School of Theology. I was xiv | Ain't I a Womanist, Too? invited to serve as a bridge between the religious and nonreligious domains of womanist scholarship on spirituality. This was only my second or third time...