Alice Walker's Influence on Womanist Theology

About the Book

Summary Alice Walker’s Influence on Womanist Theology: A Minority Response by Gladys J. Willis, Ph. D. This short book consists of five chapters. Chapter I, “The Origin of the Idea,” introduces the womanist theology idea as having its origin in Alice Walker’s definitions of the womanist in her book entitled In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens. Chapter II, “Stages in the Development of the Womanist Character,” provides a detailed analysis of the key female protagonists in The Third Life of Grange Copeland and in The Color Purple as examples of Walker’s womanist. Chapter III, “The Womanist Idea in Christian Theology,” presents the thinking of several key womanist theologians – Jacqueline Grant, Delores S. Williams, Kelley Delaine Brown-Douglass, Cheryl Townsend Gilkes and Renita J. Weems. Chapter 4, “Toward a New Hermeneutical Approach,” offers an alternative hermeneutical approach to that of womanist theology. Chapter V, “Appendix,” is to this book what Frederick Douglass’ “Appendix” is to his Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, as it further clarifies the author’s perspective of racism, sexism and classism in the world and in the Black church. The author proposes that womanist theologians who choose to adopt Alice Walker’s womanist idea, rather than the Bible, as the basis for defining a womanist theology are in opposition to orthodox Christian theology.

About the Author

Gladys J. Willis, a native Mississippian, is a graduate of Jackson State University (B.A.), Michigan State University (M.A.), Princeton University (Ph. D. ) and Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia (M.Div.). As a Professor of English, Dr. Willis has served in higher education for over twenty-nine years and now serves as the Dean of Humanities and Graduate Studies at Lincoln University, the oldest Historically Black University. She is listed in several distinguished publications, among which are Who’s Who Among Black Americans and Who’s Who Among America’s Teachers. In 1985, her first book, The Penalty of Eve: John Milton and Divorce, was published by Peter Lang Publishing Company. Among the last women ordained as chaplains in the Church of God in Christ (Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Jurisdiction) in 1988, Dr. Willis understands the plight of many Black women who are called to ministry but have not been granted ordination in their churches, as well as those who have been ordained but do not have the same rights and privileges as their male counterparts, simply because they are women. In 1992, against all odds, Dr. Willis was installed as Assistant Pastor at First Redemption Evangelical Church in Philadelphia, a church founded by her husband in 1967.