Book Review: God is a Black Woman

Post Author: Ali Van Kuiken

When I was a child, growing up in a conservative, predominately white church, I was taught that God was beyond gender or somehow included both male and female within Him. (Yes, the masculine pronoun was still used.) And I don’t recall anyone ever telling me God was white, but somehow I came away with the mental image of God as a white, bearded man sitting on a throne, loving smile on His face, ready to judge my sins. 

God is a Black Woman deconstructs the harmful conception of God as white and male.

The God of my imagining was influenced by what Christena Cleveland calls “fatherskygod” in her book God is a Black Woman. This idea of God as a distant, fierce storm deity is one that historically we received from Indo-Europeans and their aggressive, warrior culture. This perception of God made its way to Canaan and significantly influenced Judeo-Christian concepts of God. The image of God that many of us have today is a confluence of this male god with an image of a white Christ, which Cleveland terms whitemalegod, a god who is for white men and who looks like a white man. Cleveland deconstructs the white supremacist, patriarchal structures of this god, interweaving her own story in a compelling fashion. The personal intersections include her femininity, Blackness, identity as a scholar and theologian, and her sister’s mental health challenges. In her late 20s Cleveland was  introduced to the concept of God’s femininity and begins her own healing journey toward the Sacred Black Feminine, finding on that journey the Black Madonna. 

This book contains theological reflection, memoir, and an emphasis on the healing of trauma. Cleveland moves from sociology to theology and has a tone that is both confessional and exploratory. She challenges whitemalegod’s way of knowing, which is tradition and knowledge-based, and invites us into the Sacred Black Feminine’s way of knowing, which is intuitive and mystical. Patriarchy does not just repress what it does not understand, but is in itself inadequate and too narrow-minded. Cleveland invites her readers to join her on a healing journey while recounting her literal journey on a pilgrimage to visit eighteen Black Madonnas in central France. I both listened to this as an audiobook and purchased a physical copy. The audiobook was very well done and Cleveland’s writing is well-suited to the aural experience. However, the physical book contains images of eight of the Black Madonnas, providing the visual element to accompany the story of Cleveland’s pilgrimage.

I found Cleveland’s personal journey captivating and relatable even from my white woman’s perspective with the limitations that necessitates. Reading this book reminded me of my own journey toward understanding God as Feminine. I remember speaking to Regina, a PhD Student, while doing an MDiv in seminary about the idea of God as Feminine and finding that to be a difficult concept. “Why do you have trouble imagining God as female?” Regina asked me. She asked it kindly and gently, easing me, a straight, white cis-woman with strong internalized patriarchy into a new theological space. It would take several years before I could refer to God as “She” comfortably, but in that moment Regina helped me explore my own resistances. She didn’t push, but eased me into the idea, starting with the question of why it was so hard for me to call God “She.” Cleveland has helped me expand my notion of God even further, making the case for God as Black and Feminine, and radically inclusive of all. I especially connected with her discussion of Richard Rohr’s explication of Christ as manifesting in but not being limited to the person of Jesus. Christ is therefore not exclusively male but can be understood in many ways, including the Sacred Black Feminine. 

Cleveland does not mince words and much of her book was uncomfortable for me to read. I felt complicit as a white person in her pain. I felt helpless reading about the countless ways her Black body has been discounted, mistreated, and disrespected by others. However, it rang with truth, and I recognized in it a much needed corrective for my accepted ways of knowing and being in the world. I found within my own psyche a narrow-minded approach that privileges Western tradition and reason over experience and intuition. Now I feel invited not only to accept the experience and intuition offered by others but to notice where that may arise within myself. This book is a great resource to expand a pastor’s view of God and for a congregation or lay leadership team to think of God in an antiracist and antipatriarchal framework.