God Is a Black Woman: Christena Cleveland

For years, our guest Dr. Christena Cleveland spoke about racial reconciliation to congregations, justice organizations, and colleges. But she increasingly felt she could no longer trust in the God she'd been implicitly taught to worship--a white male God who preferentially empowered white men despite his claim to love all people. A God who clearly did not relate to, advocate for, or affirm a Black woman like Christena.

Her crisis of faith sent her on an intellectual and spiritual journey through history and across France, on a 400-mile walking pilgrimage to the ancient shrines of Black Madonnas to find healing in the Sacred Black Feminine. God Is a Black Woman is the chronicle of her liberating transformation and a critique of a society shaped by white patriarchal Christianity and culture. 

Christena Cleveland Ph.D. is a social psychologist, public theologian, author, and activist. She is the founder and director of the Center for Justice + Renewal as well as its sister organization, Sacred Folk, which creates resources to stimulate people's spiritual imaginations and support their journeys toward liberation. An award-winning researcher and. A former professor at Duke University's Divinity School, Christena's work has appeared in magazines ranging from Essence to Christianity Today. She lives in Boston, Massachusetts.