Overview
Ethics and Intersectionality Series
UP AGAINST A CROOKED GOSPEL
Black Women’s Bodies and the Politics of Redemption
Melanie Jones Quarles
“A stunning treatment of womanist theology and a must-read for any serious student of womanist method and Christian ethics. Propelled by her grandmother’s lived witness, Jones Quarles centers the ‘bendedness’ of Black women’s bodies to explore critical questions of salvation and redemption. She boldly claims that, too often, the Black Church and its narrow biblical interpretation is responsible, at least in part, for Black women’s suffering. She endeavors to hold the church accountable for responding to the flesh and blood realities of Black women.” –Rev. Eboni Marshall Turman, PhD, associate professor, theology and African American religion, Yale Divinity School
“An original and compelling contribution to Christian ethics and biblical interpretation, offering a fourth-wave womanist approach to centering Black women's moral agency and embodied experience of the Divine in theological and ethical reflection. . . . Grandmother Foster's story reveals the multifaceted ways US society contorts, controls, commodifies, and abuses Black women's bodies. [This book] is a persuasive reminder of Black women's embodied power to upend their lives, disrupt oppressive systems in church and society, and walk hand-in-hand with others to lead us on a path of redemption. It is an essential new resource for classroom teaching in colleges, universities, and seminaries, and for congregational use. –Rev. Dr. Elizabeth L. Hinson-Hasty, professor, theology and ethics, Union Presbyterian Seminary
An essential text for students and scholars of womanist thought, ethics, biblical studies, and Black religion.
Drawing upon her grandmother's personal struggles with physical "bendedness" and the narrative of the bent woman in Luke 13:10-17, Melanie Jones Quarles engages Black religious thought and cultural criticism to expose how the Black Church paradoxically nurtures Black women while also sustaining their oppression. Quarles mines the prophetic imaginations of influential womanist thinkers, crafting a liberating vision that resists serving as surrogate "saviors" in society and religion.
With insights into politics, Christology, and biblical interpretation, this book boldly calls Black women to unbend their bodies and reclaim their moral agency in the face of crooked systems that attempt to constrain their freedom.
Melanie Jones Quarles is a womanist ethicist, millennial preacher, and intellectual activist. She is assistant professor of ethics, theology, and culture, and director of The Katie Geneva Cannon Center for Womanist Leadership, Union Presbyterian Seminary. A third-generation ordained Baptist preacher and sought-after lecturer, she is a leading millennial Black religious scholar.
Cover design: Regina Gelfer
Cover photos: iStock photo
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