Sin, Holiness, and the Anthropocene: Week 2
A note from Joe: Lately I’ve been reading John Green’s bestseller The Anthropocene Reviewed, a series of essays on aspects of modern life and the way they are influenced by contemporary humanity. This series is inspired by that book and recent conversations in various contexts about the concepts of sin and holiness. For a full description of the series, please see last week’s post.
Living in the Anthropocene doesn’t just mean that the natural world is inextricably influenced by humanity. It also means that the way human beings perceive and identify other human beings is deeply impacted by our social and cultural constructs.
Nobody in 21st Century America knows that better than Black women. Enter Womanism, a term coined by The Color Purple author Alice Walker in her 1979 short story, Coming Apart.
Distinguished from classical feminism by its distinctly African American perspective, Walker once said that “Womanist is to feminist as purple is to lavender.” Leading Biblical scholar and contemplative activist Dr. Barbara A. Holmes puts it this way:
Womanist theology arises because we couldn’t trust feminist theology….We’re not women fighting against men to gain our rights. We all want our rights and we want them together.
Dr. Barbara A. Holmes, “Womanist Theology,” theworkofthepeople.com
This week at New Wineskins we’ll continue our summer series, “Sin, Holiness, and the Anthropocene” with a conversation on Womanist theology’s quest for wholeness in the face of patriarchal and white feminist ideologies. We’ll discuss how the systemic sins of enslavement and oppression continue to fracture society and how the stories of Black women in particular can serve as a healing and unifying force for all people.
Join us this Sunday, Aug.6, in the New Wineskins Virtual Theology Pub powered by Zoom for Week 2 of “Sin, Holiness, and the Anthropocene” as we discuss Dr. Holmes’ ideas from her video, Womanist Theology on The Work of the People.
Click here to view this week’s discussion video (email address required)
6:00pm ET: Happy Half-Hour (informal meet & greet time)
6:30pm ET: Presentation & conversation begin
Sin & Holiness in the Anthropocene Series
(Tentative: subject to change)
July 30: Breaking Wholeness: Lisa Sharon Harper on sin as the breaking of relationship- Aug. 6: Womanist Theology: Dr. Barbara Holmes on the perspective of Black women in the search for wholeness
- Aug. 13: Pure and Undivided: Cynthia Bourgeault on the oxymoron of personal salvation
- Aug. 20: Hypocrite: Fr. Richard Rohr on our tendency to “act out” Christianity rather than be transformed
- Aug. 27: Amnesia Therapy: Marlon Hall on the ways art informs wholeness
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