God is a Black Woman with Dr. Christena Cleveland

We’re revisiting our interview episode with the remarkable Dr. Christena Cleveland. Dr. Cleveland is an author, activist and a founder and director of the Center for Justice + Renewal as well as its sister organization, Sacred Folk. Tune in as Fr. Shay talks with Dr. Cleveland about her journey to find the Black Madonna and the Sacred Feminine, what that means for her view of the white, male god and her evangelical upbringing, and how wisdom and the Sacred Divine can be found within ourselves.

Grab a copy of her book: God Is a Black Woman

Liberating the Mind Body course

Dr. Cleveland Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/cscleve

Website: https://www.christenacleveland.com/

https://www.justiceandrenewal.org/

 

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This transcript was generated by AI and may contain errors or omissions.

(9s):
Welcome to the Queer Theology Podcast. I’m Brian G. Murphy. And I’m Father Shannon TL Kerns. We’re the co-founders of queer theology.com and your hosts from Genesis, revelation. The Bible declares good news, LGBTQ plus people, and we want to show you how Tuning each week on Sunday for conversations about Christianity, queerness and transness, and how they can enrich one another. We’re glad you’re here. I’m so, so, so excited. Dr. Christina Cleveland PhD is a social psychologist, public theologian, author and activist. She’s the founder and director of the Center for Justice and Renewal, as well as its sister organization, sacred Folk, which creates resources to stimulate people’s spiritual imaginations and support their journeys toward liberation.

(50s):
An award-winning researcher and, and former professor at Duke University’s Divinity School. Christina lives in Boston, Massachusetts. Today I’m this episode Father Shea talks with her about her extensive work as well as her book, God as a Black woman looking at her pilgrimages to visit black Madonna’s. And so much insight in this one. I cannot wait for you to, to hear it. Enjoy. Well, we’ve already read your fancy bio, but I would love to start by asking, like if we were at a cocktail party, a fun cocktail party, and someone asked you to introduce yourself and what you do, how do you, how do you explain yourself and your work?

(1m 33s):
I usually tell people that I’m an artist who stimulates spiritual imaginations, and I’m someone that curates and gathers adventurous people who wanna go beyond what they think they know about spirituality. Hmm. That’s amazing. I love that. I, I am obsessed with your book. It’s so, so, so good. And one of the things that I, I was really struck by is like, you write so beautifully about finding God in the particularity of your and her experience as a black woman. And then you also open that up to sharing how finding that is not just for black women.

(2m 17s):
And I, and I think so often people assume that theologies from the particulars are just for people who share those particulars. And I wonder if you can start out by sharing a little bit more about why it matters that people who aren’t from those particulars learn from seeing God in this way. Hmm. Well, I can tell you why it’s been so important for me to learn from theological viewpoints that are really different from my own. I don’t think I could have gone on my journey, to be honest, without Palestinian liberation theology about seven or eight years ago when I was first getting connected to liberation theology.

(2m 59s):
Of course, I was reading the Black Liberation theologians, both male and female and non-binary. But it was so powerful for me to hear, like read Nama Te, who was talking about Samson as the first suicide bomber. And just that just stimulated my, my, my imagination beyond my experience and just really gave me license to go beyond my experience and to find God outside of my experience. And for, and that that particular example, you know, to see the humanity and the divinity and the sacredness of suicide bombers like that. I mean, that’s why we read theologies outside of our background, is so that we can see the sacredness in other people and, and start to fight for that sacredness too, and, and not just have the people from that background be fighting for that sacredness.

(3m 55s):
So I would say that it’s been a huge part of my journey to be nourished by theologies outside of my experience. But also, I mean, I think the Black Madonna, which so much of my spirituality is centered around these days, she’s so, she’s so expansive. You know, in my book I pit her against white male God, who is kind of like, you know, I talk about his teeny tiny circle, his teeny tiny terrifying circle of acceptability, right? It’s like a pinpoint, like hardly anybody gets to be part of it. He’s like the king of exclusivity and she’s like the queen of inclusivity. But I feel like that language is not ideal.

(4m 36s):
’cause inclusivity is so weak, weakened, but I think she’s like the queen of equity, like the people that have been cast aside, she says, be front and center, very similar to Jesus who said, in the first shall be last and the last, she’ll be first. But people don’t really take that seriously in general, don’t really take that seriously. But I think if we get behind her, her, her real movement of literally taking the first and putting them at the foot at the table and literally taking the last and putting at the, at the foot, at the front, the head, then anyone who’s not black, who has privilege, at least in western society for being non-black, will have to start to see that blackness is part of the sacredness of, and the, the, I love the way James s says, he says, blackness is the image of God in black people, right?

(5m 35s):
And so if we’re starting to read like these theologies out, like so a non-black person reading the, reading my book, or reading a, a black liberation theologian or a womanist can start to see that, that image of God in the world, in the form of blackness, and that’s healing to everyone who’s been poisoned by anti-blackness, black people, white people, Asian, whatever race you are, we’ve been poisoned. And it’s so healing and beautiful and, and it’s shocking. Yeah, yeah, Yeah. You this, you have this amazing quote where you say, regardless of our racial and gender identity is the liberating sacred black feminine, personally invites each of us to examine which God we have been implicitly taught to worship, and how that God has shaped us a God who is exclusively white and male, or even predominantly white and male is never going to be safe because he cannot affirm the sacredness of non-white and non-male people.

(6m 34s):
And I just, I, I think that’s, that’s such an important thing for people to hear, and I think it’s probably also shocking for some people to hear. I’m, I’m wondering how that quote in particular has resonated with folks and, and how you, how you got to that, that place. I know that that’s a really big question and your book is all about that journey, but like Yeah. For folks that, you know, to entice them to read the book. Yeah. You know, I think, I think a lot of people struggle with that idea. I, I would affirm what you’re saying. I think we have been, many of us have been discipled to think that spirituality should be easy and comfortable and feel good.

(7m 23s):
I remember reading books when I was like, back in the evangelical world, you know, growing up like, you know, go on a coffee date with Jesus or something like that. You know, just like kind of snugly cute image, which is it, which was interesting because the Jesus that was being presented to me was actually quite scary and not snugly and warm, but there was this, there was also this, this other flavor of, I would say, white patriarchy that’s like, this should be easy all the time. And that way you never really go on a real spiritual adventure, which is not easy all the time, but is always fulfilling. And so, you know, I think people really struggle with that, the challenge of that.

(8m 6s):
But then I’d also say, I think people really struggle with divesting from their allegiance to white male God, because for many people, white male, God has, and the whole idea behind white male God has propped them up and given them resources and power that they otherwise wouldn’t have. And to actually practice repar, the reparations of being aligned with the interests of the sacred black feminine is costly. Yeah. Yeah. I, yeah. And it’s, so, it’s such important work.

(8m 47s):
And I, I think one of the things that I’m, I’ve been really struck by in, in reading your book is, and you talked about this earlier, is, is that, you know, that tiny little pinprick of, of acceptability is that like investing in these structures of, of white male God are like, not actually serving any of us, but we have this idea that if we just get in that somehow we’ll be okay. And, and we see this a lot in the like queer and trans movement too, of, of this push for respectability. I I’m wondering if you can share a little bit about how you have learned or been learning to divest yourself from this idea of respectability and, and what that has done for you.

(9m 37s):
Yeah. You know, it’s so interesting because the, my book ends, the, the pilgrimage part that I write about in my book ends in late 2018. And so, you know, that’s almost four years ago now. And so it’s so funny ’cause I’m thinking, oh, a lot has changed since then that I didn’t write about in the book. One of the things was, I remember the last like, walk on my pilgrimage, maybe I was gonna go home a couple days later. I was thinking to myself, I could have this beautiful, transformative experience. I could even write about this beautiful, transformative experience. But if I don’t go home and integrate this into my everyday life, this is kind of not gonna do, this is not gonna liberate me.

(10m 23s):
And so I, I was already starting to think, if I go back to this, so I’ve had this experience where I have profoundly encountered this idea that God is in fact a black woman. So how does that change my life? Okay, well, that means that if God is really truly a black woman, then there’s no way she wants me to work in this dehumanizing academic position that I’m in. If God is truly a black woman, that if I leave this position somehow, somewhere, there will be a, there will be resources for me. I don’t know how, I don’t know where, but I can’t believe in a God that knows my experience and relates to my experience and wouldn’t in some way provide for me to be free.

(11m 12s):
If God is truly a black woman, then how is that gonna be reflected in my finances and what sorts of resources I’m keeping for myself assist black women that could be used in to support the lives of trans black women. And so it’s not hard to just follow that logic and really kind of like, put your money where your mouth is, or put your energy where your mouth is. And to me, every single time I’ve asked that question, I’ve had a choice. Like, do I want to go back into the safety of white male God, because I can do okay in that world.

(11m 52s):
It’s not healthy and it’s not free, but my bills are paid and I have health insurance and things like that, or I can keep getting free. And I kind of, I’ve thought ever since my pilgrimage, I’ve thought a lot about Harriet Tubman, my ancestor, because I imagine that she, you know, she was born on a plantation. She was raised on a plantation. She was taught this is the best life can possibly get, get for you. The, the best you can do is try to survive in this space. And then some days she just woke up and was like, I’m too sacred for this. And started to plan to leave. But we have no idea what happened in that time when she was like, how did she convince herself that it’s liberation’s worth it?

(12m 42s):
Even in this landscape off the plantation where she doesn’t know the language, she doesn’t have transferable skills, she doesn’t know who’s trustworthy and who’s not. She doesn’t know the geography. And that’s what we’re all dealing with when we decide to take a step towards abundance. And she, she wrote, she talks a lot about in her, in her writings and her speeches about the North Star. So she found this spiritual resource that she could look to. And that’s kind of what I do with the Black Madonna. You know, it’s like, I, I have them all over my house and sometimes people wonder why I even have a plastic black Madonna in my shower. And, and people always wonder why. And I say, well, I need to be reminded all the time that I’m sacred too, And that I can say no to this opportunity, or I can actually have a frank conversation in this relationship.

(13m 33s):
Or I can give sacrificially in this way, even though it scares me because I’m sacred too. And if I’m sacred too, then just like Jesus said, if I clothe the sparrows, I’m gonna clothe you too. Live your life. Don’t be afraid. You know, but I, it’s like I’m afraid. So I need to be reminded all the time that, that I don’t have to be afraid, you know? Yeah. Yeah. I, I wanna dive more into the Black Madonna and your pilgrimage in just a second, but one more question on, on this topic, because you talked about how much of your work at one point was trying to convince people to see your humanity and how exhausting that was, and how it was all about like, hoping that they would one day give a shit about you.

(14m 24s):
And I, I think that for many of our listeners who, who are in that space in their churches trying to convince churches to care about trans people or queer folks and who are also grappling with the reality that, like, especially for trans folks, we’re a very small percentage of the population. So at some point we do need cis folks to care in order to change politics. Like how do you, how do you grapple with, with that space of not wanting to be in a position to ask people to see your humanity, but also needing to figure out like how to, how to get things to change. Yeah. Yeah. This is another area where I think Palestinian theology was really trans transformative for me.

(15m 8s):
’cause they, they really take seriously the mustard seed in the Bible. And so I, so, you know, I, and I can’t speak from personal experience because I’m cis and what’s the percentage of trans folks? Less than 1%. Yeah. Best, best we can get It. And, you know, I, as a black person, I’m, I’m like 14% of the population in the United States, so it’s not the same thing. That said, one of the things that I have learned is, well, I think when I was trying to convince, and it was white people that I was trying to convince of my humanity, I had this idea that was like a white male God infused idea that like, white people are like a secret weapon.

(15m 55s):
And if you get white people to care, then like people then, like people will care. And Emma Martin Luther King had that same approach until he didn’t, and then he got killed, right? But like early on he thought, we need to convince, you know, the good, the so-called good white person. And he thought, you know, it really has to be a moral majority. And Palestinian theologians would disagree. They really would. They would say, you don’t need a lot people, you just need the right people. And to me, that’s been a practice of surrender to abundance. Because now I can ask the question, do I need to put myself out there in one of those tough conversations?

(16m 39s):
Right. Because I really, if I don’t say it, it won’t get said, if these people don’t get on board, get, don’t get on board and funded it, it won’t get funded. Right. Or so that, which would be a fearful reason for entering into that conversation versus like an abundant reason for entering outta that conversation, which is, we have what we need cosmically, I’m gonna invite this person for their good to participate in what’s happening here. Hmm. And so it’s, it’s not necessarily different words, but the abundant way is a lot less resource consuming, I’ll tell you that.

(17m 22s):
And, and I can, I find that I can be a lot wiser in who and when I engage those conversations, it’s not that, oh my gosh, I have to have every, you know, I, I have to, I have to, I have to, that urgency is gone to a certain extent. And you know, I’ll say as a cis person, that’s all the more reason why cis people need to be doing this work. ’cause it’s not trans people’s responsibility. Right. Yeah. That’s a, that’s a really helpful Think people need to care about race because it’s not black people’s responsibility. Right? Right. Yeah. If, if anyone’s having tough conversations in my church community around, around transness, I should be the one taking any hits or whatever, you know?

(18m 10s):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. That’s a really helpful reframe. Thank you for that. Sure. I, so I would love to talk about the black Madonna and the sacred black feminine. And I, I wonder if you can start by saying, you know, for, for folks who maybe grew up in more evangelical or Protestant traditions for whom both the idea of Madonna’s and this pilgrimage to see these figures might be foreign. Can, can you just talk a little bit about how you found this and also like how you made that shift? Because I also know that you grew up in, in a Protestant circle for whom this was not part of, of your growing up. Yeah. I, so I, yeah.

(18m 51s):
I grew up in a, in a community where Catholicism was satanic basically. Right. And so we weren’t even really allowed to interact with Catholics. Yeah. It’s so sad to me that people don’t know more about the Black Madonna. It’s a conspiracy. It’s like a patriarchal conspiracy. And, and it’s interesting ’cause a lot, most Catholics don’t even know about the Black Madonna, but she’s te okay, so what do I wanna say about this? ’cause it’s so big. How did I find her? I was desperate. I had been desperate. I, I was knowingly desperate beginning in 2012 when Trayvon Martin was killed by George Zimmerman.

(19m 37s):
At that time, I was really rooted in the evangelical world doing a lot of speaking and writing. And it was the first real sort of national experience that I had where these people who claimed I was a part of their family and loved me, could not hear me or black people. And that was the first time I experienced that as an adult. And so that’s when I started to really question the validity of white Jesus. ’cause I was pretty quickly able to make a connection between white Jesus and white, the, the sacredness of George Zimmerman and the reliability of George Zimmerman and the, the virtue of George Zimmerman versus Trayvon Martin.

(20m 22s):
But then in 2016, when Donald Trump was elected after having boasted about sexually assaulting white women, I was shocked. ’cause I knew, I know evangelicals don’t care about black people, but I certainly thought they cared about their precious white cis women. And I like to joke that like white femininity is like a fruit of the spirit in that world. You know? Like, it’s just like so valuable and used against everything. Right? And so I, I was really shocked. And that’s when I really started to, you know, grapple with the problem of male Jesus, exclusively male Jesus.

(21m 8s):
And so I was desperate. I just was like, where can I find any images of the divine that are black and female? Because we need, we need it all. And you know, Google didn’t, I mean, once you have the question, like I feel like the universe responds pretty quickly. So I found the Black Madonna that way, just searching. And I was shocked that, you know, she’s within Catholicism, although she’s obviously not owned by Catholicism. And I just went on a journey. But I will tell you, like, I feel like my biology changed the moment I saw a pic, a picture of her, like, and I exhaled in a way that I, I didn’t realize I had been holding my breath my whole life.

(21m 50s):
And I think I was like 35 at the time or something. So it was just one of those, like, you know, it’s interesting ’cause you know, you look back as a kid, I grew up, you know, I grew up so much in church, so I, and I’m, I’m very evangelical, so I’m like super biblically literate. And you know, I just, I think so much about like, these times when people would encounter Christ, Jesus Christ, and they would be like, changed this like weird boring interaction. You know, we’re fishing and we’re having breakfast afterwards, and then he’s there and then we’re changed and we just drop everything and follow him. You know? That’s how I felt when I met the Black Madonna.

(22m 33s):
Yeah. And so then you went on this, this pilgrimage, this journey to visit all of these, these different statues. What, what was that experience like for you? And, and what, why did you feel like you needed to, to go and, and be in person with these Figures? Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, I did about a year and a half of book research, and I did some, like e-course and stuff like that. There’s something so embodied about the Black Madonna, when you read the stories across the millennia about her, people would often pilgrimage and walk.

(23m 15s):
But then, and I noticed this as soon as I became devoted to the Black Madonna, I ordered off Etsy, like a little black Madonna necklace. And I, I was, I hated my job. I was a professor at Duke Divinity School at the time, and I was terrified to even be in the building. ’cause there were just a lot, there was a lot going on that was really violent there. And I remember putting on my necklace every morning ritually and being like, okay, like, I’m not alone and going into work. And it got to the point where, you know, two weeks after this practice, I was halfway to work and had forgotten it. And I turned around and went back, which is like, so Catholic, right? Like, I’m not gonna Go throughout my Day without my talisman or my, you know, my ritual.

(23m 58s):
But I was, I was amazed at how quickly I went from like, like, you know, in the evangelical world, it was like, oh, I would just be, I would recite a, a a memory verse to myself or something, you know. But it was just interesting to notice how quickly I shifted to embodiment. And then I also realized, like, part of what she was inviting me into was connecting with her beyond my head, and not just the book research and not just the PowerPoint presentations. And then I wanted to walk because so many other people have walked across the centuries. And also I, you know, the more I learned about eco womanism and the ways in which black women’s bodies have been antagonized and, and our relationship to the earth has been antagonized, I really wanted to connect with my body and connect with the earth as a practice of connecting with her.

(24m 54s):
So I ended up going to her, it, it aligned quite well with a paid leave that I had from Duke too. So, you know, it was nice that they paid for the trip and I had the time off to go do it. Yeah. But I went to go visit 18 different black Madonnas on that first pilgrimage, and I walked a little over 400 miles and it took about five weeks. I, I love that. I, I love your comments about being embodied because I, I think for so many of us who grew up in evangelical traditions, right? That sense of, of disembodied spirit or head knowledge is so pervasive.

(25m 35s):
And I think I, I know as a trans person, like I really called that holy, right? That disconnect from my body was like, well, I’m just like extra holy because I hate my body and I don’t wanna be in it. And, and so I’ve loved reading your book and, and how this practice really like Reem embodied you in a lot of ways, ways. Can you talk more about like how, how that has been transformative? This this, the Reem embodiment? Yeah. Well, nowadays I see my own body as the primary source of wisdom and guidance.

(26m 16s):
So I start with myself, and this is huge for me because I grew up in both a home and a church community where wisdom’s outside of you and you better make sure all the people whose opinions you value agree with whatever it is you think about anything or whatever decision you’re hoping to make. And so that’s been a huge shift for me. Another way is it’s forced me to slow down and to realize that, you know, one of, one of the people who’s taught me a lot about contemplative walking is like, you know, the body was designed to move at three miles per hour.

(26m 58s):
Like, we move a lot faster than that for lots of reasons because of technology and in part because of technology and capitalism. But it was really designed to, so it’s really forced me to rethink, redefine what it means to be effective, what it means to be efficient, redefine time, redefine even like the journey. You know, I, if I was telling my editor once we finalized the book and it was off to the press, if I’d had time for one more major revision, I would have made the book way funnier, because I’m funnier than the book suggest. And also because it was, it was funny.

(27m 41s):
Like, it was, it was hilarious to be out on this pilgrimage thinking about the absurdity of white male God, and how white male god’s always rushing you and always making you feel like you’re not doing enough, fast enough and big enough. And to actually be with these black Madonnas that have been their, I mean, like, there’s this one black Madonna that I went to go see who’s not in the book. ’cause you know, I couldn’t talk about all of them in the book. She’s the black Madonna of Lapu, and she has been there for at, since at least the year 400, but she’s probably Isis or Bel.

(28m 25s):
So she’s deeper than that because, than than the year 400. But she’s so powerful and so many people in that region pilgrimage to her to be, to touch her, to pray with her, to hear, have her listen to them. And the Catholic church came gentrified, the place turned her into, you know, built, tore down the temple that people had been worshiping the ancient goddess on, built a ca, you know, a Catholic cathedral on top of it. And she’s basically just become the queen of the cathedral. But that place where she is is the start of the Camino in France.

(29m 9s):
And so she, like, she’s been blessing and interacting with pilgrims for like over 1500 years with it, with no fanfare, with like, no headlines, but imagine like how people have been transformed on that pilgrimage and have gone out and done these amazing things that have changed the world, right? And she hasn’t gotten any other credit for it. And I feel like that’s what the invitation is. It’s so anti-white male god, right? She’s like, okay, you wanna change my name? Fine, labels don’t matter. Okay, you wanna change the trappings around my house? Fine, that doesn’t matter.

(29m 49s):
I’m gonna keep here. I’m gonna stay here quietly, but powerfully doing my work, transforming the world. And so when I think about her, I think size, efficiency, effectiveness, bottom lines, all those things don’t matter when you have access to a mystical power. And it’s like, I can’t, I can’t imagine there’s a more influential walking pilgrimage place than where she is. You know? Like, and like she’s, yet no one even knows. Yeah. That’s Amazing. Everyone starts there though. It starts right there at her cathedral. It’s so cool.

(30m 30s):
Yeah. Oh, I love that. Yeah. And it’s funny because when I first said I was gonna go on a walking pilgrimage in France, and people asked me if I was gonna do the Camino, and I was like super haughty about it. I’m like, man, the Camino’s in Spain. In Spain and plus there’s no black Madonnas. Ha, i I was completely Wrong. I wanted to be just like super unique. Actually, I, yeah, I was kind of on the Camino that one time when I went to visit her. I’m basic just like everybody Else, you Know, I’m, I’m wondering what you would say to someone who, who heard you talk about trusting yourself as this, as the first source of wisdom, who felt a little bit of panic about like, oh, I, I can’t, I can’t trust, I, I can’t trust my body, I can’t trust myself.

(31m 22s):
What would you say to them? I’d have a lot of compassion. I felt the same way. The fir, I didn’t put this in the, I wrote the story, but it didn’t make it into the book. I, the first Bible verse I learned when I was three years old, the first one my mom thought it was important to teach us was Jeremiah 17, nine. The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked who can know it. And so at three years old when my little brain was forming, I was learning that the last person I should trust is me. And I remember having to do a whole year of therapy with just a one therapist who’s highly specialized in evangelical spiritual abuse, just to get past that.

(32m 12s):
Mm. So I get it. It is terrifying. It’s absolutely terrifying to have to, to, to even, to even fathom seeing yourself as sacred and not just sacred as in like, I’m worthy of someone dying for me, but sacred as in the divine wisdom that’s in the world is in me too. And yeah, it’s so scary and part, and part of the reason why it’s really scary is because for many of us, the body often feels like an inhospitable place because it carries so much trauma. And so I would say, you know, I, I’d have a lot of compassion for someone who feels a little freaked out by that, by that idea.

(32m 59s):
And I would also say, go really gently and kindly with yourself and try to get some support from a trauma informed person. Because there’s a reason why we hate our bodies and are afraid of our bodies and feel like our, we’re like, we’re estranged from our bodies. There’s a lot of trauma in there. And it, and oftentimes when we do look inward, it’s too scary to do it alone or we move too quickly. And so, I mean, there’s so much fear in my body. There’s so much insecurity in my body, and it’s only through years, several years now, I that I’ve been doing a body like body wisdom practice pretty intensely, you know, pretty intentionally that I’m starting to able to be with that and allow it to be there along with the other things.

(33m 50s):
And, but we’re taught the, we’re taught to not do that, and we’re taught to fear that. Yeah. Yeah. And I imagine, you know, I, I know in my, my story, you know, for people who read the book, I, I did experience quite a bit of body dysmorphia as someone with an eating disorder. I know a lot of my trans friends have had body dysmorphia for that reason, or for other reasons too. So that’s, that’s yet another reason to actual, like, harmful perceptions of our bodies or hate actual hatred of our bodies, you know, it’s very scary. So find someone who’s really loving and trauma-informed to be there with you.

(34m 34s):
Yeah. Yeah. You posted on social media on Instagram about God being a black trans woman, and then that created a kerfuffle and, and then you posted about how that kind of pushback made you even more convinced. I, I was wondering if you could just talk a little bit about both the post and, And what that’s Yeah. So I got the pushback from a line in my book towards the end of my book. I just, you know, I’m talking about how if we really want to practice the sacred black feminine, not just, you know, claim some allegiance to her, we have to get into formation around her, what, what she values.

(35m 19s):
You know, this, this journey towards the Black Madonna has really expanded my own theological understandings of God. And I really feel like the Black Madonna is inviting, is inviting me into, okay, so let me, let me go back. So in the book, I talk a lot about how like white male, God has set up this pecking order, and she comes and completely disrupts that saying that the least of these, the black women are actually the ones who are sacred. And in doing so, she makes all of us sacred, right? But I’m a cis black, light skinned, upwardly mobile, formerly educated black woman.

(36m 7s):
I am not the least of these amongst black women. The least of these amongst black women is black trans women who have an average life expectancy of 34 years and are on average gonna make less than $10,000 a year in income. And so when the Black Madonna says, I’m completely reordering the pecking order per se, it means putting black trans women at top on the top. So when I say if God’s a black woman, then she must be a black trans woman. Yeah, I was surprised. I, I shouldn’t have been because my trans friends have talked to me about turfs, but I was surprised by how many people turfs were really upset that I included black trans women in my discussion of God as a black woman.

(36m 60s):
And it did make me more, more convinced because that, that behavior suggests that turfs don’t think that trans black women are sacred. And so that made me even more convinced that trans black women are sacred, and that, that the work that I do as a cis woman should be in alignment with that. Yeah. Yeah. I love that. I, I also love, I, I think your book is such a great example of how easy it is to be inclusive. And, and so subtly too of, of there was a, a line about like, I know not all women menstruate and not all people who menstruate are women.

(37m 43s):
And I was like, it, it’s not, it’s not that hard to include that and to just make space. I just, I felt so great, grateful for the ways in which your book made space for trans identities. And I just wanted to say thank you for that and thank you for providing a, a model, an example of, of how to do that well for cis folks. Really Appreciate that. Thank you. I’m, I, I asked a, a black trans man to help me edit it and, and consult on that. And also a non-binary Latinx person because I knew there’s so much danger in writing a book called God as a Black woman. And I, I mean, I’m sure there are things out there that, you know, a year from now I’ll be more aware and be like, oh, like, you know, like those things.

(38m 29s):
But it was, it was definitely a group effort. Yeah. Where, where, what are you working on now? What is kind of the new horizon that you’re excited about and, and exploring? So, so soon? Soon, I think in like two weeks, and I don’t know when this podcast is gonna air, we’re start, we’re launching a new e-course called Liberating the Mind Body Spirit from Capitalism. So I am like deep in thinking and moving and writing and thinking about getting free from the fear and connecting with abundance. So that’s really fun. I am also working on an e-course that we’re doing this winter starting in January called Martin Luther King, Malcolm X and Mahalia Jackson.

(39m 18s):
Cool. And that’s gonna be timeless lessons on anti-racist leadership. So I’m, I am, it’s, I, I taught a class at Duke in, that was actually, that actually met in the prisons in North Carolina. One at Butner Prison, which is a federal prison. And the other one is Central, which was a state prison. And so half my students were incarcerated men and the other half were male Duke students, and that one was on Martin Luther King and Malcolm X. So I, I’m, I’m pretty connected to their stories. So right now I’m spending a lot of time connecting with Mahalia Jackson story, and that’s been really neat. And I’m am starting to work on a book proposal, so we’ll see another, not another book. ’cause I feel like this book is really about me, but I’m gonna write a book about the Black Madonna.

(40m 3s):
Love it. That’ll be her book. Yeah. Not, not as much of my story, but hopefully a lot of other people’s stories as told through her. So yeah. It’s, there’s always, yeah. And my team members know, just be careful. ’cause the vision changes all the time. Right. Just be flexible. If, if people wanted to find you or follow your work, what, what’s the best place for them to connect with you? Patreon is where I’m doing most of my work. I’m pretty flaky on socials. I stopped intentionally posting on socials and now I just post whenever I feel like it, which can be a lot or none, depending on how I feel.

(40m 50s):
So Patreon’s a great way, especially if you’re white and you wanna support somebody who’s not white. And, but you can also sign up. I mean, if you, if anyone goes to my website, christina cleveland.com, there’s so many ways to get involved. We also have a free newsletter that’s like really luxurious. Like, it’s just like we designed it so you Can just Slowly scroll and see beautiful images and insightful quotes and it feels like a bath. It really does. It feels like a really good spiritual bath. Yeah. Those are some of the best ways. Very cool. And we love to end by asking everyone, what’s one thing that’s been bringing you joy lately?

(41m 33s):
Well, it’s starting to be fall here again. And last fall while I was in France, I got connected to this type of fabric called raccoon wool. And it changed my life. It’s like cashmere on steroids. Like it’s so soft and amazing and warm and it’s literally, they literally just sheer raccoons. So it’s sustainable. That’s Amazing. It’s like Sheep wool, but it’s raccoons. So there are no raccoons killed in the making of my raccoon wool sweater.

(42m 14s):
But I do have a 100% raccoon wool sweater. That is amazing. And I bought it in Paris last year, so That’s so cool. Bringing me a lot of joy. ’cause it’s nice to snuggle up. Yeah. Maybe not the most, you know, deep thing. It’s not. No, I love that. That’s amazing. That’s amazing. Well, thank you so, so much for, for being a part of this podcast and for taking the time to have this conversation. Just really appreciate it. Thank you. I’m honored to be invited. Thank you again to Dr. Cleveland for being on the show. We have another interview coming to you next week, rabbi Denise Egger, my rabbi here in Los Angeles, who I’ve learned from so much and new interviews every week long through January.

(43m 4s):
Just as a reminder, supporters on Patreon get early access to episodes and that help to keep this podcast on the air. So if you are enjoying this, you’re excited for it, you want even more of it, patreon.com/queer theology to support the show. You can also support the show just by leaving a review. Every review helps us get the word out and to combat the haters out there who want to bring us down just because we’re queer. So thank you for being here and we’ll see you next week. The Queer Theology podcast is just one of many things that we do@queertheology.com, which provides resources, community, and inspiration for LG BT Q Christians, and straight cisgender supporters. To dive into more of the action, visit us@queertheology.com.

(43m 45s):
You can also connect with us online on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and Instagram. We’ll see you next week.

The post God is a Black Woman with Dr. Christena Cleveland appeared first on Queer Theology.