Imagining Otherwise: Black Women, Theological Resistance, and Afrofuturist Possibility

Abstract

“If it wasn’t for the women” is a common refrain in Black Church culture, made most popular by Cheryl Townsend Gilkes’ sociology of religion work in the 1990s. As conversations grow around a perceived disconnection from the church—particularly among younger generations—many Black congregations and denominations are asking the following question: Where do we go from here? One possible response is to ask the women. Black women have long been central to the sustenance and theological framing of the Black Church. However, many contemporary Black women theologians and church-adjacent writers are reshaping religious discourse in ways that move beyond traditional ecclesial boundaries and into the interiority of Black womanhood. This turn should be considered essential in any reimagining of the Black Church. This paper employs content analysis to examine five contemporary works by Black women thinkers—Candice Benbow, Lyvonne Briggs, Tricia Hersey, EbonyJanice Moore, and Cole Arthur Riley—whose writings reflect Black women’s embodied spirituality, theological imagination, cultural meaning-making, and institutional critique within Black religious life. Rather than signaling a decline in moral or spiritual life, their work points to the search for sacred spaces that are more liberative, inclusive, and attuned to lived experience. Through a thematic analysis of Power, Authority, and Institutional Critique; Afrofuturistic Visioning of Faith; Sacred Embodiment and Spiritual Praxis; Language and Rhetorical Strategies; Gender, Sexuality, and Sacred Autonomy; and Liberation, Justice, and Social Transformation, this study contributes to the evolving conversation on Black women’s spirituality, leadership in religious spaces, and a possible iteration of the Black Church.

1. Introduction

The presence and leadership of Black women within the Black Church and broader religious life is both deeply rooted and continuously unfolding. Across generations, Black women have shaped the theological, organizational, and spiritual fabric of faith communities, often carrying institutional and cultural memory in their bodies. This embodied memory holds the rhythms of tradition: hymns sung, sermons preached, prayers chanted, and decisions made in parking lots and sanctuary pews. It reflects the lived wisdom of sustaining church life, even when official recognition is withheld. Their labor, which has come in many forms, whether physical, financial, spiritual, intellectual, emotional, or some combination of all these forms of labor, has been indispensable to the vitality and survival of the Black Church. Yet, the extent to which their voices are heard in church governance, doctrinal development, or preaching remains an ongoing matter of reflection and tension. While many Black women carry the weight of church operations and increasing numbers serve as preachers and pastors, their leadership is not always fully affirmed or respected across all congregational contexts. Visibility in the pulpit does not always translate to equitable influence in decision-making or theological authority.

For over a century, scholars and researchers from Du Bois to larger research organizations like the Pew Research Center and Barna Group have studied the Black Church’s history, relevance, and trends (Barna Group 2021; Du Bois 1899; Parker 2022; Pew Research Center 2021). Long before institutional recognition, Black women shaped the theological and spiritual landscape of Black communities that became the Black Church, as we know it. Black women like Jarena Lee, the first authorized female preacher in the African Methodist Episcopal Church (Lee 1849), Maria Stewart, one of the earliest American women to speak publicly on religion and race (Richardson 1987), and Harriet Tubman, whose visions and prophetic faith fueled her abolitionist mission (Taylor-Stinson 2023), all reflect a deep lineage of Black women’s spiritual leadership. According to the Pew Research Center’s 2021 report Faith Among Black Americans, Black women remain more deeply connected to the Black Church than other demographic groups. The report notes that Black women and U.S.-born Black adults are more likely to turn to religious congregations for assistance than Black men or Black immigrants. This dynamic points to a complex and resilient relationship of both social and spiritual dynamics of the Black people and the Black Church.

This paper emerges from a tradition of womanist inquiry and theological reflection that has long centered the spiritual lives and institutional experiences of Black women. In conversation about the development of this work, Reverend Dr. Marsha Brown Woodard of Palmer Theological Seminary offered a grounding insight: “This work is not new, but the fact that you have some places to look and resources to access is new” (Marsha Brown Woodard, personal communication, 4 November 2024). Woodard’s observation speaks to the legacy of Black women’s scholarship, and the growing availability of tools to more fully engage with the work created by or written about Black women and the Black Church is impactful. As a part of a long legacy of scholars thinking about the work of Black women, I now have many generations of resources to engage with.

The words of American Christian womanist ethicist, Emilie Townes, further frames this inquiry. During a February 2025 public theology event, Townes invoked James Baldwin’s The Price of the Ticket, reminding listeners that the Black Church tradition calls for a periodic invitation to “do our first works over,” which means to return to our foundations of how things are done (Baldwin 1985, p. 11). Given Baldwin’s own fraught relationship with the Black Church, marked by his persistent calls for its accountability and transformation, this invitation is situated not as nostalgia but as a demand for renewal. His critique is part of the Black Church’s legacy and, by extension, part of our own. This invitation to return to foundational commitments emerges from some of the Black Church’s limitations, such as gendered hierarchies and institutional rigidity, that continue to warrant a redo. The Black Church remains significant to many, yet it stands at a crossroads that calls for reflection and reimagining. The general inquiry-turned-research question of “Where do we go from here?” guides this article. It invites consideration of not only institutional futures but also theological imagination. This paper conducts a content analysis of the first words (e.g., introductions, author notes) of five contemporary texts authored by Black women whose work engages questions of liberation in Black religious and spiritual life. These texts written by Candice Benbow, Lyvonne Briggs, Tricia Hersey, EbonyJanice Moore, and Cole Arthur Riley are theological and ethical interventions, articulating expansive visions for spiritual life that are embodied and rooted in communal care.

While this paper draws upon Afrofuturism as a theoretical lens, it is important to note that Afrofuturism is not inherently religious in its origins. Rather, it is a cultural framework that centers Black culture and futures. As such, it provides a helpful tool for reimagining the possibilities of Black religious life within the Black Church. Scholars like Mark Dery, Alondra Nelson, and Ytasha Womack have traced Afrofuturism’s intellectual grounding to the intersections of Black cultural production, science fiction, technology, and liberationist thought (Dery 1994; Nelson 2000; Womack 2013, 2022). This foundation enables Afrofuturism to serve as an imaginative and critical framework that complements the Black Church’s tradition of theological innovation and prophetic vision. Although the five authors analyzed in this study do not explicitly name Afrofuturism as their framework, their theological visions resonate with Afrofuturist themes. This paper does not suggest Afrofuturism as a prescriptive solution, but rather as an interpretive possibility worth considering by the Black Church.

Through the methodological lens of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), this paper explores how these authors construct theological meaning, challenge institutional power, and envision new possibilities for themselves that translate into an offering of religious life that can serve the Black experience and Black Church culture. This paper attends to themes like spiritual agency, sacred embodiment, institutional critique, and Afrofuturistic visioning. “Doing our first works over” then becomes not only a spiritual imperative but a methodological orientation. It demands attentiveness to the voices shaping Black faith today and a willingness to reimagine the Black Church’s commitments. Ultimately, this paper affirms that the future of the Black Church may depend, in part, on how it engages and honors the contributions of Black women.

2. Literature Review

The Black Church refers to Protestant, Christian, U.S.-based religious institutions that have historically served as spiritual, cultural, and political anchors in Black communities. Its significance emerges from its dual role as a site of both sacred expression and socio-political resistance. In the context of Black American disenfranchisement, the Black Church stands as a unique institution whose history is entangled with the struggles and aspirations of Black people. This literature review identifies liberation, justice, and social transformation as the central commitments shaping contemporary understandings of the Black Church. These commitments reflect a tradition that must continually reassess its practices considering emerging challenges and insights. Building from this grounding, this review explores five additional key thematic strands that further illuminate how liberation is embodied and renegotiated across Black Church scholarship: Power, Authority, and Institutional Critique; Afrofuturistic Visioning of Faith; Sacred Embodiment and Spiritual Praxis; Language and Rhetorical Strategies; and Gender, Sexuality, and Sacred Autonomy. These themes, which emerge across generations of Black Church scholarship, also serve as the analytical framework for examining the contributions of Benbow (2022), Briggs (2023), Hersey (2022), Moore (2023), and Riley (2024).

2.1. Power, Authority, and Institutional Critique

At the heart of the Black Church’s enduring presence is its role as a moral and institutional authority within Black life. Historically, the Black Church has provided refuge from structural violence and served as a hub for organizing, resistance, and cultural affirmation. Yet, its internal dynamics have not been free from critique. The literature reveals that power within the Black Church has often mirrored broader societal hierarchies, reproducing systems of patriarchy and exclusion even while resisting racial oppression. Foundational scholars like Lincoln and Mamiya (1990) conceptualized the Black Church as both a sacred sanctuary and a site of socio-political engagement that expanded the capacity of Black life. Their work highlights the Church’s ability to galvanize political action and provide a platform for leadership development. However, scholars like Baldwin (1985) point to the dual role the Church has played as both a comfort to the oppressed and a site of constraint and institutional authority. Much of both the expansion and constraint oftentimes occurred around Black women as they upheld the financial, social, and daily functions of the Black Church.

Womanist theologians and Black women’s studies scholars have long assessed these disconnects of how Black women are rendered invisible in both Black and feminist theological discourses and wider society (Grant 1989; Hull et al. 1982). Riggs (2008) further critiqued the Church’s internal dynamics by arguing that its treatment of women often mirrors the oppressive structures of the wider society which created layers of spiritual disenfranchisement. These scholars challenge the assumption that internal power structures within the Black Church are inherently just. Their work insists that the Black women who have supported and sustained the Church must also be seen and heard in its leadership and visioning.

Rather than diminish the Church’s historical importance, these critiques clarify the ethical burden of power. They suggest that true authority demands accountability. As the Church gained institutional strength, it became increasingly important to examine how that power was exercised and to whose benefit it was deployed. Du Bois (1899) offered an early articulation of this need in The Philadelphia Negro. Black Church is noted not only as a religious space but also as a socio-political one, capable of setting moral standards and influencing public life (Du Bois 1899). This analysis reveals a foundational insight, where the moral credibility of the Black Church rests as much on its internal practices as on its public witness. Scott (2023) continues this line of inquiry, contending that the Black Church’s authority must be continually earned through self-examination and transformation. This legacy of internal critique is a sign of moral authority that must continually be earned and re-evaluated.

2.2. Afrofuturistic Visioning of Faith

While institutional critique invites the Black Church to examine its past and present structures, Afrofuturism opens theological and imaginative space for charting new possibilities. Rooted in the cultural and intellectual traditions of the African diaspora, Afrofuturism offers a framework through which the Black Church has and can continue to envision spiritual futures that are expansive and responsive to the complexities of Black life. Afrofuturism centers Black histories and cultures through narratives that often incorporate science fiction, technology, music, and spiritual symbolism (National Museum of African American History and Culture, n.d.). It challenges linear notions of time and authority, asserting that Black spiritual life must be free to reconfigure itself beyond traditional constraints. This framework resonates deeply with Black ecclesial spaces that have historically negotiated the interplay between suffering and hope while making meaning from memory and prophecy.

The literary and theological work of Octavia Butler exemplifies this approach. In Parable of the Sower, Butler (1993) presents a world in collapse and introduces a new faith system that adapts to rather than resists change. The novel’s theological undercurrents reflect a deep engagement with Black Church traditions while also pushing them toward new expressions. Afrofuturism allows the Black Church to reimagine itself as a site for theological understanding and collective liberation while engaging Black aesthetic and ancestral traditions, which include the experiences of Black women (Coleman 2008; Crawley 2016; Pinn 2010; Sneed 2021). These embodied forms of expression reveal the possibility of imagining spirituality outside rigid structures, emphasizing the generative potential of the sensual and ecstatic that only a reimagined experience through a framing like Afrofuturism can bring forward in the face of past and impending marginalization. Rather than dismiss tradition, Afrofuturism reframes it, suggesting that tradition itself can be reinterpreted considering emergent needs and radical hopes. The plurality inherent in Black religious life reinforces the idea that spiritual authority must remain flexible enough to include marginalized voices and fluid enough to grow with changing communities (Coleman 2020).

Afrofuturistic visioning is a forward-thinking theological approach of faithful accountability that embraces imagining as sacred labor, where Black faith communities reclaim their right to imagine and experience expansive futures. Visioning alone, however, is not enough. Like the experience of Black people in the United States, the work must be rooted in lived, embodied realities. For the Black Church to be a site of radical imagination, it must address how faith is experienced through and within the body. This is not a metaphysical abstraction within a future galaxy. It is here in the aching joints of church mothers, the strained smiles of first ladies, the heavy shoulders of preachers, and the speech-giving angst of children in white on Easter Sunday. Throughout years of Black building, destruction, and rebuilding, the Black experience has been largely imaginative as a theological strategy of survival. This study resonates with the imaginative and intergenerational writing of Alexis Pauline Gumbs (2018), whose M Archive presents a poetic, speculative theology that emerges from catastrophe and frames dreaming as spiritual practice and political strategy. In Triumph: Survival Is Not a Theoretical Skill, Gumbs (2024) presents, “So it is better to radically hope and dream. So it is better to dream and imagine otherwise,” underscoring the spiritual and political stakes of Black visionary work. To “imagine otherwise” affirms Afrofuturism’s invitation to survive as a sacred act.

2.3. Sacred Embodiment and Spiritual Praxis

The body becomes a vessel for divine truth to be experienced and expressed. Womanist scholars extend these ideas by emphasizing the epistemological and ethical importance of embodied spiritual practices, acts of daily survival and self-reclamation that are essential for discernment and transformation in the lives of Black women (Floyd-Thomas 2006; Walker 1983). Weems (2000) adds depth by attending to interiority, naming silence, doubt, and emotional struggle as valid and sacred aspects of the spiritual journey. These scholars affirm that sacred embodiment is at the core of faith and that the body holds wisdom. Whether through dance, prayer, healing, or lament, Black religious practice insists that to be spiritual is also to be present in the body. This calls the Black Church to a more holistic approach to worship and care that centers physical and emotional well-being, honors bodies, and sees theological reflection as intertwined with lived experiences (Ammerman 2021).

Across the literature, embodiment emerges as a central dimension of Black Christian spirituality, challenging traditions that separate holiness from the physical self. The body, scholars argue, is not a hindrance to divine encounter but a sacred site where Black suffering, memory, resistance, and joy reside (Douglas [1999] 2025; Floyd-Thomas 2006; Lomax 2018; Mitchem 2007). Rather than abstract notions of spirit, Black religious life has consistently affirmed that the flesh bears theological weight.

This insight is particularly urgent in the context of Black women’s experiences, where theological ideals have too often demanded strength without rest and virtue without vulnerability. Walker-Barnes (2014) critiques these norms, urging a redefinition of strength that includes soft restfulness and shared responsibility. Similarly, Lomax (2025) interrogates the surveillance and moral regulation of Black women’s bodies and lives in religious contexts across the lifespan. Their work reveals how spiritual praxis must contend with the burdens placed on Black women’s bodies and recognize their stories as central to divine revelation.

Douglas ([1999] 2025) echoes these concerns by reframing sexuality and embodiment not as moral threats but as essential components of human dignity. Calling for a sexual ethic within the Black Church, Douglas insists on accountability and affirmation rather than silence or shame. Mitchem (2007) offers a complementary lens through her study of African American folk healing, illuminating how rituals such as herbal medicine, touch, and communal care enact a holistic spirituality beyond institutional spaces. In these traditions, healing is not simply spiritual but bodily and relational, reflecting a theology lived through care.

If Afrofuturism expands theological imagination toward radical futures, sacred embodiment grounds that vision in the lived experiences of Black life. The Black Church has long nurtured a faith that is not only doctrinal but deeply embodied, evident in the rhythm of the sermon, the choreography of praise dance, the moan of a prayer warrior, or the laying on of hands. These embodied expressions are not merely performative but theological acts that reflect how the Black Church lives through embodied traditions and lived faith. Building on the wider field of womanist theological inquiry, scholars such as Angela Parker (2021), Yolanda Pierce (2021), and Eboni Marshall Turman (2013) illuminate the complexities of Black women’s sacred lives. Their work calls attention to how biblical authority, ancestral memory, and institutional power shape both the affirmation and erasure of Black women’s spiritual agency. Taken together, they underscore the urgency of theological frameworks that are embodied and intergenerationally accountable, offering a bridge between lived experience and the sacred language that gives it voice.

2.4. Language and Rhetorical Strategies

In the Black Church, the spoken word holds sacred power, where language and its delivery are not merely vehicles for theology, but a theology of their own. Through preaching, prayer, testimony, and song, words carry belief, evoke memory, make meaning, and call communities into action. This rich rhetorical tradition, deeply embedded in oral culture, serves as a medium through which the Church teaches and transforms. The cadence, rhythm, and emotive resonance of Black religious speech form a distinctive theological expression, one that marries cultural specificity with spiritual authority. Scholars trace this tradition to the lived realities of Black life. Baldwin (1985) captures this dynamic by showing how sermonic language emerges directly from the conditions of Black existence, reflecting both pain and possibility. Even as he maintained a critical stance toward the Black Church and some would say institutionalized religion in general, Baldwin’s own sermonic style, shaped by lament and prophetic critique, reflects the cadence and emotive power of Black preaching. His use of moral inquiry and cultural indictment demonstrates how deeply the rhetorical forms of the Church shaped his public voice, despite his distance from traditional doctrine. Rather than distancing itself from vernacular expression, the Black Church elevates everyday language into sacred proclamation. This dynamic orality is essential and provides a sense of survival and hope. Many scholars anchor this expressive form within the broader African American cultural production, arguing that rhetorical flair in the Black Church functions as a theological gesture (Du Bois 1903; Gates 2021). Preaching becomes both performance and proclamation, conveying spiritual truth through rhythm and emotion. This aesthetic and intellectual tradition shapes not only how theology is communicated but how it is felt and lived.

Womanist scholars extend this analysis by centering the rhetorical labor of Black women. Johnson (2017) and Mitchell and Davis (2008) highlight how Black women preachers develop a distinct homiletic through a blend of personal narrative, communal insight, and biblical interpretation. Their sermons are both intimate and prophetic, offering spiritual depth while resisting binary thinking and inviting justice-centered imagination. Sacred language also thrives beyond the pulpit. Rodgers (1975), writing at the intersection of the Black Church and the Black Arts Movement, uses poetry to express grief, joy, insight, and resistance, showing that theology can emerge through art grounded in the Black experience. Gilkes (2001) expands this view by underscoring the spiritual authority Black women exercise in kitchens, prayer circles, and community gatherings, where everyday leadership and sacred wisdom are cultivated. Whether through sermon, personal testimony, poetry, or conversation, rhetorical strategies are core to how Black faith is communicated and embodied. This tradition invites deeper reflection on how the Black Church’s language serves not merely to interpret Scripture, but to construct spiritual identity and sustain cultural memory.

2.5. Gender, Sexuality, and Sacred Autonomy

The Black Church has depended on the labor, leadership, and spiritual insight of women and LGBTQ+ persons, even as its theological and institutional frameworks have often constrained their full participation. This theme explores how evolving discourse around gender, sexuality, and sacred autonomy challenges the Church to reimagine inclusion not as accommodation but as a spiritual and ethical necessity. While earlier sections examined embodiment and rhetorical agency, this theme centers the affirmation of gender and sexual diversity. The literature consistently highlights how gendered power dynamics have shaped the internal life of Black religious communities. Brown (2008) and Gilkes (2001) document the essential roles that Black women have played in sustaining church infrastructure through ministry, education, finance, and caregiving. Their work underscores the paradox of prominence without authority. Many Black women are often celebrated for their service but excluded from formal decision-making spaces.

Womanist theologians assert that Black women’s lived experiences must inform the ethical and theological foundations of the Church. Weems (2003) and Walker-Barnes (2014) contend that autonomy is not a rejection of spirituality but a spiritual practice. Through reclaiming agency over their bodies, stories, and vocations, Black women model a faith rooted in justice, integrity, and self-determination. Their scholarship reframes autonomy as essential to collective liberation rather than a threat to religious order, offering theological frameworks that affirm complexity, resist erasure, and demand ethical accountability from religious institutions. This includes womanist biblical interpretations that center Black women’s lived realities as sacred sources of meaning (Smith 2015) and reimagining Scripture in ways that elevate Black women as integral to faithful reading (Gafney 2017, 2024). Cooper (2017, 2018) highlights the importance of Black women’s intellectual traditions and framing rage as a catalyst for spiritual truth-telling and communal liberation. Building on this foundation, Douglas ([1999] 2025) and Lomax (2018) challenge the Church’s historical approach to sexuality. Sexual ethics shaped by shame-filled silence and control undermine the dignity of those they intend to guide. Scholars call for a theology that honors the body as sacred and moves toward an embodied ethic of liberation grounded in accountability and even pleasure (brown 2019).

These conversations are further expanded through the inclusion of LGBTQ+ voices and experiences. Ministry exemplifies a theological praxis that is radically inclusive while remaining rooted in Black Church traditions. Her life and leadership call the Church to embody the justice it preaches, not only in public witness but in its internal culture and relationships. Scott et al. (2024) offer empirical insight into this theological mandate by examining the experiences of transgender young adults in religious spaces. Their findings reveal that conditional acceptance often causes harm, while genuinely inclusive communities cultivate belonging, resilience, and spiritual growth. Townes et al. (2022), drawing from the legacy of Katie Geneva Cannon, emphasize that justice must be enacted in daily life and felt in the body. Their work promotes concrete commitments to human flourishing. Within this framework, sacred autonomy is not limited to personal freedom but reshapes Church culture in a way that reflects the full humanity of all people and honors difference as a site of divine encounter.

This theme makes it clear that liberation within the Black Church cannot be selective. While there are many notes of positivity within the Black Church legacy, to remain a site of prophetic witness, the Black Church must grapple with how its doctrines and practices have harmed many people. Sacred autonomy calls faith communities to recognize gender and sexual diversity as gifts that deepen theological understanding and enrich communal life. According to this body of scholarship, the future of the Black Church rests on its willingness to fully embrace the complexity of Black identity and to affirm the sacredness of everybody.

2.6. Liberation, Justice, and Social Transformation

This final theme draws together the threads of embodiment, autonomy, vision, and voice into a broader theological and ethical commitment. Liberation, justice, and social transformation have long defined the Black Church’s mission. From the hush harbors and praise houses of enslavement to the sanctuaries of the civil rights movement, the Church has served as both refuge and catalyst. This tradition of faith-rooted resistance offers a powerful legacy, yet the literature urges a deeper interrogation of its limits and future possibilities.

Black Americans continue to view the Church as a vital force for racial justice. According to Pew Research Center (2021), many believe it has played an important role in the struggle for equality in the United States. Still, scholars caution against uncritical celebration. Du Bois (1924) and Gates (2021) affirm the Church’s socio-political significance but remind us that its institutional power is neither uncontested nor inherently liberative. The potential for transformation always exists alongside the risk of complacency and exclusion.

When viewed through the lens of labor and gender, the tension increases, especially when examining the cost of justice work within the Church, particularly for Black women whose contributions often go unrecognized (Coleman 2008; Lomax 2018; Walker-Barnes 2014). Their research reveals how marginalization and unequal labor expectations diminish the Church’s liberatory witness. In spring 2025, Jessie Washington, a PhD candidate at Emory University’s Candler School of Theology, expressed the concept of existential exhaustion during their dissertation defense. In conversation with the theory of weathering, existential exhaustion underscores the physical and emotional toll borne by Black women in need of mental and physical liberation (Geronimus 2020). Calls for transformation from within are central to the Black Liberation Theology tradition that insists that theology begins with the lived conditions of the oppressed (Cone 1970; Hopkins 2014). Liberation requires not only changes in outward practices but also in the underlying beliefs and ways of thinking that shape them, including within religious communities.

Womanist theologians carry this vision forward by centering Black women’s lives in theological reflection. They affirm that survival, creativity, and care are not merely coping strategies but vital theological resources shaping a collective, embodied ethic of liberation (Cannon 1995; Townes 2006; Williams 1993). For generations, womanist scholarship has contended that the Church must go beyond including Black women. It must be transformed by their wisdom. This scholarship is echoed in the work of West (2006) and Williams (2014), who link Black Christian ethics to global justice movements. West critiques theological traditions that have ignored the lived realities of Black women, while Williams (2014) traces the influence of Black Church theology on global figures like Dietrich Bonhoeffer. These perspectives highlight the Church’s potential to serve not only as a moral compass but as a partner in global movements for dignity and freedom. Offering models of justice-centered ministries, public theologians integrate pastoral care, political organizing, and prophetic witness (Barber 2021; Flunder 2005). Together, these scholars and leaders insist that the Black Church move beyond memory. Its history of resistance must inform its present commitments and future direction. Liberation is an ongoing process that calls for consistent ethical reflection and institutional accountability to the conditions under which people live.

2.7. Synthesis

These six themes reflect the complexity, contradiction, and creativity that has long defined the Black Church as both a spiritual anchor and a site of theological and socio-political contestation. As a result, the Black Church has been seen as a living, evolving community shaped by memory, power, imagination, and hope. Across the literature, Afrofuturism emerges not always as an explicit framework. However, Afrofuturism has been present in the Black Church’s commitment to envisioning alternative futures beyond racialized oppression, while reimagining both sacred time and collective liberation. Some may view Afrofuturism as speculative or disconnected from the Black Church, because of its association with science fiction and fantasy. However, at the Black Church’s core are the principles of radical imagination, historical preservation and recovery, and future-oriented theology. Afrofuturism challenges linear temporality and centers Black cultural production as a vehicle for liberation and transformation (English 2017). Evident in Black preaching, eschatology, music, and ritual are expressions of the Black Church’s capacity to honor the past while simultaneously building toward liberatory futures and imaginative possibilities, which is also at the heart of Afrofuturistic thought (Pratt Institute Libraries 2024; Womack 2013). This study also points to a tension between the formal boundaries of denominational structures and the more embodied and imaginative forms of spirituality that many contemporary writers are exploring. While these emerging expressions may not always fit neatly within traditional church frameworks, they reflect concepts that the Black Church must take seriously.

3. Results

Through a narrative thematic analysis of the introductory sections of five texts authored by Black women in the early 2020s, six salient themes emerged: Power, Authority, and Institutional Critique; Afrofuturistic Visioning of Faith; Sacred Embodiment and Spiritual Praxis; Language and Rhetorical Strategies; Gender, Sexuality, and Sacred Autonomy; and Liberation, Justice, and Social Transformation. Although the authors did not co-author a collective theological framework, their voices resonate in shared concerns and visionary commitments to justice, rest, and liberation, especially for Black women and gender-expansive individuals navigating the sacred. Afrofuturism is named directly in only one theme. However, I contend that Afrofuturist thought operates as a through line across the remaining five themes. Each subsection of the Results section concludes with a reflection highlighting how Afrofuturist sensibilities inform the thematic area, even when not explicitly named. These reflections position Afrofuturism as a through line shaping both the analysis and the theological vision emerging from these thematic areas.

3.1. Power, Authority, and Institutional Critique

Each author interrogates institutional religion’s failure to protect and affirm Black lives—especially Black women. Benbow (2022) critiques an ecclesial practice that deprioritizes Black women, writing “I had been reared in a faith tradition which largely existed to give Black men the status and power White people refused them in larger society” (p. xxiv). Moore (2023) exposes theological gatekeeping, desiring her work to be “a door flung open in institutions that prefer locks and gatekeepers” (p. xvi). Riley (2024) denounces the harms of white Christianity and evangelicalism, noting “We weren’t as safe in church as we thought” (p. xv). These critiques resist total institutional dismissal while calling for radical reformation. Afrofuturism’s commitment to dismantling hegemonic systems and constructing new possibilities aligns with the authors’ rejection of oppressive cultural and institutional norms, offering not only resistance but an affective shift toward affirmation of the embodied self (Young-Scaggs 2022; Zamalin 2022).

3.2. Afrofuturistic Visioning of Faith

These authors reimagine faith through futures imbued with Black spiritual imagination. Moore (2023) invites readers to dream beyond resistance: “This wave of womanism is asking of our politics: What would a revolution that does not cost us our whole spirit, soul, and bodies look like?” (p. xxiv). Hersey (2022) envisions rest as a sacred portal, writing “Rest is a healing portal to our deepest selves” (p. 7). Riley (2024) aligns liturgy with liberation: “Every word... has been written... with an imagination for collective healing, rest, and liberation” (p. xviii). In Black to the Future, Dery (1994) notes “The notion of Afrofuturism gives rise to a troubling antimony: Can a community whose past has been rubbed out, and whose energies have subsequently been consumed by the search for legible traces of its history, imagine possible futures” (p. 180). Collectively, these authors cast visions that resist despair and offer sacred blueprints for a more just world.

3.3. Sacred Embodiment and Spiritual Praxis

Embodiment is honored as sacred and revolutionary. Briggs (2023) writes “the countless sermons I had heard preached about how evil women are and how our bodies must be tamed no longer fit the woman I was becoming” (p. xvi), situating the body as both theological and testimonial. Benbow (2022) uses Red Lip theology to fully express oneself using outside affirmations, stating “these essays fully embody what these beauty practices uncovered for me and frame what I hope will be a progressive faith dialogue for millennial Black women” (p. xxxii). Hersey (2022) presents rest and her work as spiritual praxis: “This book is a testimony and testament of my refusal to donate my body to a system that still owes a debt to my Ancestors for the theft of their labor and DreamSpace. I refuse to push my body to the brink of exhaustion and destruction” (p. 4). While Hersey resists grind culture, EbonyJanice Moore (2023) will “focus on contributing to a canon of knowledge around what enfleshed freedom will look like in our very worthy bodies, today” (p. xix). Like how Afrofuturist theory informs embodied spiritual practices grounded in self-valuation, this theme resists grind culture by reclaiming Black bodies as sacred sites of both present resistance and future possibility.

3.4. Language and Rhetorical Strategies

The language used by these authors is culturally situated and unapologetically Black. Moore (2023) declares “Every line in this book is for the ones who easily understand what I mean when I say Bitch. (with a period)” (p. xxv), establishing both cultural fluency and spiritual depth. Benbow (2022) writes with a theological language and understanding of a core theological concept “womanist theology didn’t feel like it was created for women like me: sisters who didn’t tuck in their ratchetness in favor of righteousness to occupy certain spaces and get in certain rooms” (p. xxv), resisting respectability politics. Briggs (2023) uses liturgical that turns the concept of what people have been conditioned to think on its head: “I am a body-and sex-positive pastor…I am a Black woman spiritual leader who is no longer at war with her body” (p. xv). These rhetorical strategies create spiritual intimacy while rejecting theological elitism, which is a form of Afrofuturistic praxis. As seen by seminal writers, like Octavia Butler and Samuel R. Delany, the authors echo Afrofuturism’s commitment to reimagining language as a tool for cultural survival and resistance (Ye 2025).

3.5. Gender, Sexuality, and Sacred Autonomy

Autonomy, gender expansiveness, and queer spirituality are centered. Moore (2023) writes “If you see your lived experience inside Black-girl culture... know I mean you too” (p. xxiv), signaling radical inclusion. Riley (2024) affirms queerness in all art forms by leaning on the poetry of Lucille Clifton and noting that “good art is necessarily queer—fluid and subversive and impermanent” (p. xiii). Briggs (2023) asserts her broad theological understanding by highlighting that “God is not bound by gender. God is big enough to be ‘her’” (p. xvii). These authors model sacred autonomy rooted in authenticity and Afrofuturistic thought’s radical inclusivity, where gender and sexuality are integral to spiritual wholeness and selfhood reclamation (Johnson 2020; Mougoué 2021).

3.6. Liberation, Justice, and Social Transformation

Across these texts, liberation is both a spiritual and social imperative. Benbow (2022) insists that Black girls “deserve a faith free from the pressure of a perfection impossible to obtain” (p. xxii). Riley (2024) frames her spirituality as liberative at its core: “If this book has loyalty to anything, it is to spiritual liberation in all its incarnations and complexities” (p. xvi-xvii). Hersey (2022) links collective rest to collective freedom: “Our bodies are a site of liberation… The Rest is Resistance movement is a connection and a path back to our true nature. We are stripped down to who we really were before the terror of capitalism and white supremacy. We are enough. We are divine.” (p. 7). Imagination and creativity are hallmarks of Afrofuturist thought (Dery 1994). These authors imagine and enact liberation through a fusion of spiritual and social liberation.

4. Discussions

The themes identified in these texts reflect an emergent theological movement grounded in Black womanist spirituality, sacred resistance, and radical self-love. The authors challenge congregational leaders not only to listen, but to re-examine and re-structure with intention: Who is centered in worship? Who is protected in theology? What is sanctified through institutional norms? Their work reclaims sacred space through storytelling, rest, and spiritual autonomy. Benbow (2022) asserts a need for spiritual freedom to coexist with personal wholeness, while Briggs (2023) offers a queered, poetic vision of liturgy as resistance. Hersey’s (2022) insistence that exhaustion will not be her legacy, while providing an embodied model of rest theology, challenges capitalistic patterns that remain embedded in many congregational routines. While Moore (2023) and Riley (2024) draw from congregational liturgies and theological analysis, they expand these traditions to more fully honor the needs of Black women today, rather than the assumptions of generations past. While each brings a unique lens to Black faith and spirituality, they share overlapping commitments that affirm the next generation of Black religious leaders and congregations. Practically, this calls faith leaders to

• Reimagine liturgical and preaching practices by centering rest, embodiment, and communal healing;
• Integrate womanist theology and queer-inclusive frameworks into Bible studies, leadership development, worship planning, and nontraditional formats (e.g., social media), ensuring such integration is guided by theological training and care;
• Use storytelling and confession as pastoral tools for communal transformation;
• Prioritize wellness and ease as theological commitments, not afterthoughts.

These authors affirm that Black sacred futures require truth-telling, rest, and a rejection of shame-filled, survival-only theologies. They offer readers and congregations a map toward a faith that holds space for sacred rage, soft joy, queer becoming, and Black girl breath. As leaders reflect on what it means to shepherd with integrity, these texts serve as blueprints that present themselves as part protest and part prayer.

5. Materials and Methods

5.1. Content Analysis and Its Importance

This study uses Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) as a qualitative content analysis method to examine how Black Church-adjacent writers construct religious and theological frameworks that challenge, reimagine, or expand faith traditions. As a form of content analysis, CDA goes beyond thematic identification by interrogating how power and ideological discourse shape religious meaning-making (Fairclough 1995; Krippendorff 2018; Neuendorf 2017; van Dijk 1993). This study considers the “Black Church” not only as a physical institution but also as a global, dispersed community of believers and cultural expressions shaped by shared memory and culture. By integrating an Afrofuturist lens, this approach investigates how these texts envision new spiritual possibilities while centering Black women’s agency and resisting institutional power structures. This study focuses on book introductions, prefaces, and author notes by Candice Benbow, Lyvonne Briggs, Tricia Hersey, EbonyJanice Moore, and Cole Arthur Riley. These are all authors whose theological perspectives are shaped by Black feminist and/or womanist thought, as well as imaginative traditions that explore new spiritual possibilities and liberated futures. Given the interdisciplinary nature of this work, CDA enables a nuanced analysis of how language, authority, embodiment, and futurism operate in these texts (Gee 2014; Bryman 2016). The coding framework is structured to capture key analytical categories found in the literature review, including Power, Authority, and Institutional Critique; Afrofuturistic Visioning of Faith; Sacred Embodiment and Spiritual Praxis; Language and Rhetorical Strategies; Gender, Sexuality, and Sacred Autonomy; and Liberation, Justice, and Social Transformation. These categories were developed inductively from prior theoretical scholarship and refined through an initial open coding process.

5.2. Author Selection

This paper turns toward a group of Black women thinkers and writers whose work reimagines sacredness, embodiment, rest, and ritual as essential elements in Black spiritual life. While they may not always write from within formal theological institutions or explicitly identify as theologians in the traditional sense, these five writers—Candice Marie Benbow, Lyvonne Briggs, Tricia Hersey, EbonyJanice Moore, and Cole Arthur Riley—nonetheless engage the language, symbols, and spirit of the Black Church and broader Black religious traditions. Their work is rich with sacred vocabulary, infused with practices rooted in spirituality, and committed to the care and liberation of Black people.

These women are what I describe as “Black Church-adjacent.” They are deeply informed by the Black religious experience, shaped by Christian traditions, and theologically trained or spiritually grounded in ways that position them as critical voices in charting the future of Black faith. Four of the five hold degrees from prominent theological institutions. Benbow earned a Master of Divinity from Duke Divinity School. Briggs holds degrees from both Yale Divinity School and Columbia Theological Seminary. Hersey graduated from the Candler School of Theology at Emory University. Moore holds an M.A. in Social Change with a concentration in Spiritual Leadership and Womanist Theology. While Cole Arthur Riley does not hold formal theological credentials at the time of this research, her writings reflect a deep engagement with liturgical tradition and contemplative practice, drawing from prayer, lament, and meditation as spiritual technologies for survival and healing. Each of these authors brings a sacred orientation.

• Candice Marie Benbow, in Red Lip Theology, weaves personal narrative with theological reflection, engaging the Black Church as both formative and fraught. Her work centers Black women’s spirituality, beauty, and resilience, framed by her training at Duke Divinity School and shaped by her upbringing in the Black Church.
• Lyvonne Briggs, in Sensual Faith, reclaims sensuality and embodiment as sacred, inviting readers to come home to their bodies as sites of divine encounter. Her theological education and grounding provide a rich backdrop for this reclamation.
• Tricia Hersey, the “Nap Bishop” and founder of the Nap Ministry, redefines rest as resistance in a culture of overwork. A graduate of Emory University’s Candler School of Theology, Hersey draws on her theological training in her Rest is Resistance manifesto, employing religious language such as bishop, ministry, and Sabbath to position rest as a sacred and radical act.
• EbonyJanice Moore, in All the Black Girls are Activists, writes at the intersections of womanist theology, spiritual leadership, and racial justice. Her theological and cultural commentary open new pathways for spiritual expression and Black liberation.
• Cole Arthur Riley, in Black Liturgies, offers prayers, poems, and meditations that speak directly to the depth of Black life. Her writing is contemplative and evocative, inviting a deeper spiritual attentiveness grounded in the Black tradition. Her work reflects a profound understanding of Black spirituality.

These voices were selected not only for their theological or spiritual credibility but also because they offer a textured, embodied, and communal vision of Black spirituality that reaches beyond the academy or pulpit. They stand as important guides in answering the question, where do we go from here? They fulfill this role not through dogma, but through reflection, ritual, and resistance. Their work honors the legacy of the Black Church while pointing to its evolving contours, showing how sacred language and practice continue to be reimagined in our time.

5.3. Content Analysis of Five Works

This study focuses on the opening sections—introductions, author notes, and early framing pages—of five works written by Black Church-adjacent women. These beginnings offer theological and spiritual insights that ground each author’s message and mission. Rather than serving as prefaces, author’s notes, or simple introductions, these sections act as theological declarations that establish vision. Each of these texts, through their openings, marks a powerful entry into contemporary theological discourse. These authors ground their work in lived experience, centering Black women’s healing and agency as essential to the future of Black faith and spirituality.

5.4. Coding Procedures, Reliability, and Triangulation

This study was conducted through an iterative, open coding and thematic analysis process grounded in Black feminist theology, Afrofuturism, and Critical Discourse Analysis. Key themes emerged through close and multiple readings of the core five texts, focusing on theological reflection, rhetorical strategies, and visionary constructions. Reflexive journaling and repeated engagement with both the data and theory ensured analytic rigor and alignment with the conceptual frameworks of the article. By drawing on multiple authors, traditions, and interpretive lenses to produce a nuanced synthesis of contemporary Black religious thought, triangulation was prioritized.

6. Conclusions

This study affirms that the future of Black religious life, and the Black Church in particular, depends on how it chooses to hear, honor, and engage the evolving spiritual visions of Black women. The six themes that emerged from the content analysis (Power, Authority, and Institutional Critique; Afrofuturistic Visioning of Faith; Sacred Embodiment and Spiritual Praxis; Language and Rhetorical Strategies; Gender, Sexuality, and Sacred Autonomy; and Liberation, Justice, and Social Transformation) demonstrate that Black women writers are constructing theological blueprints, grounded in lived experience and imaginative resistance.

While this study centers Black women, their insights offer renewed theological frameworks that can enrich the broader body of believers by deepening liberative faith practices. These authors write within the sacred narrative, reshaping its contours and raising questions that center embodied liberation and communal flourishing. Their work reflects a broader yearning in Black spiritual life to move beyond survival. In response, congregational leaders are invited to engage this moment through the imaginative possibilities offered by Afrofuturist thought, which is rooted in cultural memory, Black creativity, and theological innovation. This is not a call for superficial programming shifts but for spiritual and institutional transformation. Black women are building new altars where breath, body, lament, rage, pleasure, prayer, and protest are all welcome and holy.

Future Directions

There remain significant opportunities for future research and practice that center Black women’s spiritual imagination. While this study used content analysis, further inquiry might include ethnographic studies of faith communities engaged in reimagining church through Afrofuturistic or womanist lenses. Storytelling circles, embodied rituals, oral histories, and participatory action research could offer more dynamic methods for understanding how communities are responding to the shifts that these writers name. Future scholarship must continue to explore how the Black Church can serve as a site of transformation that nurtures justice, sustains sacred autonomy, and affirms the embodied lives and diverse experiences of its people.

Faith communities are encouraged to ask grounded and contextual questions. What does our neighborhood need? Who is in our wake? What does creation (human and beyond human) need to feel free, seen, and whole? What does faith look like when it does not extract but restores? This also means discerning where congregational closure may be holy. Some congregations may face dignified endings. Others may choose to shed theologies or structures that no longer serve. Yet even in death, there is a witness. The invitation is to co-create what could be. Black women must remain central in this process, not as spiritual laborers expected to give without rest or reciprocity, but as theologians, visionaries, and whole persons. As traditional models evolve, we must resist asking another generation to sacrifice themselves on the altar of tradition and institutional preservation. Instead, we are called to honor their breath, their rest, their sacred stories, and their dreams. Whether the Black Church becomes a site of renewed thriving or a monument to what was, its significance endures.