Showing results by author "Christena Cleveland" in All Categories

In Our Lady of Liberation, social psychologist and author of God is a Black Woman Christena Cleveland brings forth the Black Madonna as a Divine icon and spiritual home. This is a call to reclaim a spirituality that has always been ours. Through story, image, reflection, and ritual, Our Lady of Liberation becomes an invitation for the spiritually curious and justice-minded to move beyond dogma and toward embodied, mystical liberation.

For years, 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.

With this empowering guide, you'll discover: how bodies are colonized through systems of oppression; why slowing down is essential for healing; how to listen to what your body needs; how to create a space for ritual in your daily life; how to strengthen feelings of capability; and how to cultivate community.

Despite Jesus' prayer that all Christians "be one", divisions have been epidemic in the body of Christ from the beginning to the present. We cluster in theological groups, gender groups, age groups, ethnic groups, educational, and economic groups. We criticize freely those who disagree with us, don't look like us, don't act like us, and don't even like what we like. With a personal touch and the trained eye of a social psychologist, Cleveland brings to bear the latest studies and research on the unseen dynamics at work that tend to separate us from others.

Interviews with Christian authors, leaders, and thinkers.