Delores S. Williams
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Delores Seneva Williams (November 17, 1937-November 17, 2022) was an American
Presbyterian Presbyterianism is a part of the Reformed tradition within Protestantism that broke from the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland by John Knox, who was a priest at St. Giles Cathedral (Church of Scotland). Presbyterian churches derive their nam ...
theologian notable for her formative role in the development of womanist theology and best known for her book ''Sisters in the Wilderness''. Her writings discussed how the intersection of race, gender, and class played a role in black women's lives. As opposed to
feminist theology Feminist theology is a movement found in several religions, including Buddhism, Hinduism, Sikhism, Neopaganism, Baháʼí Faith, Judaism, Islam and New Thought, to reconsider the traditions, practices, scriptures, and theologies of those reli ...
as it was predominantly practiced by white women and black theology as predominantly practiced by black men, Williams argued that black women's oppression deepens the analysis of oppression in theology. Her book, ''Sisters in the Wilderness,'' helped establish the field of womanist theology. In it, Williams primarily develops a rereading of the biblical figure,
Hagar Hagar, of uncertain origin; ar, هَاجَر, Hājar; grc, Ἁγάρ, Hagár; la, Agar is a biblical woman. According to the Book of Genesis, she was an Egyptian slave, a handmaiden of Sarah (then known as ''Sarai''), whom Sarah gave to h ...
, to illuminate the importance of issues of reproduction and surrogacy in black women's oppression. According to Aaron McEmrys, "Williams offers a theological response to the defilement of black women.... Womanism is an approach to ethics, theology and life rooted in the experiences of African-American women". The term ''womanism'' was coined by a contemporary of Williams,
Alice Walker Alice Malsenior Tallulah-Kate Walker (born February 9, 1944) is an American novelist, short story writer, poet, and social activist. In 1982, she became the first African-American woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, which she was awa ...
, used in her 1979 short story "Coming Apart" and again in her 1983 essay collection '' In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens''.


Biography

Delores Williams earned her PhD from Union Theological Seminary, and later became the Paul Tillich Professor of Feminist Theology at Union. Her title was later changed to the Paul Tillich Professor of Theology and Culture. After retirement, she became Professor Emerita. William's writings helped develop the field of Womanist Theology. In 1977, she wrote an article entitled, "Womanist Theology: Black Women's Voices," which Cheryl A. Kirk-Duggan notes as being a "seminal moment" in the development of the field. She published ''Sisters in the Wilderness: The Challenge of Womanist God-Talk'' in 1993. Williams published many articles and chapters in books. She authored the eighth chapter of ''Transforming the Faiths of our Fathers: Women who Changed American Religion'' (2004), edited by Ann Braude.


Womanism

The term Womanism developed out of
Black Feminism Black feminism is a philosophy that centers on the idea that "Black women are inherently valuable, that lack women'sliberation is a necessity not as an adjunct to somebody else's but because our need as human persons for autonomy." Race, gen ...
, and was coined by
Alice Walker Alice Malsenior Tallulah-Kate Walker (born February 9, 1944) is an American novelist, short story writer, poet, and social activist. In 1982, she became the first African-American woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, which she was awa ...
. In her observation, Delores S. Williams noted that Womanism and Black Feminism are both "organically related" to
white feminism White feminism is a term used to describe expressions of feminism which are perceived as focusing on white women while failing to address distinct forms of oppression faced by ethnic minority women and women lacking other privileges. The term h ...
; however, she observed that most white
feminists Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male poi ...
led movements have usually exclude Black Feminist and Womanist experiences and concerns. While some white women advocated for more radical critiques of oppression that included race, many white women and often the most popular conceptions of feminism were centered on achieving individual and relational equality with white men as the means to eliminate sexism. For Black women, it is not only that equality would include the elimination of
racism Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another. It may also mean prejudice, discrimination, or antagonis ...
and
classism Class discrimination, also known as classism, is prejudice or discrimination on the basis of social class. It includes individual attitudes, behaviors, systems of policies and practices that are set up to benefit the upper class at the expense ...
, something that feminism did not directly address, but that it would also require a redefinition of equality in the first place rather than conflating it with white men's social position. As a practice of thought, womanism intends to attend to the particularity and specificity of black women's experiences in order to cultivate methods and concepts which are adequate to their situation. The goal of the womanist movement was not only to eliminate inequalities but to assist black women in reconnecting with their roots in religion and culture and to reflect and improve on "self, community and society".


''Sisters in the Wilderness''

In 1993, Williams published ''Sisters in the Wilderness: The Challenge of Womanist God-Talk.'' Using black women's experience of struggle as a starting place for biblical analysis, Williams explores themes from the story of Hagar in the wilderness. The biblical character
Hagar Hagar, of uncertain origin; ar, هَاجَر, Hājar; grc, Ἁγάρ, Hagár; la, Agar is a biblical woman. According to the Book of Genesis, she was an Egyptian slave, a handmaiden of Sarah (then known as ''Sarai''), whom Sarah gave to h ...
, was a concubine of
Abraham Abraham, ; ar, , , name=, group= (originally Abram) is the common Hebrew patriarch of the Abrahamic religions, including Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In Judaism, he is the founding father of the special relationship between the Je ...
, and servant to both Abraham and his wife Sarah. Williams notes similarities between Hagar's role as handmaiden, giving birth to Ishmael when Sarah and Abraham were unable to conceive, and the role of black women in caring for white children during and after slavery. The biblical story of Hagar's ability to survive in the wilderness has resonated with many black women who have found the strength to survive and persevere through adversity by leaning on their God. In particular, Williams' notes the ways Hagar's position in relation to Sarah was comparable to black women's roles as mothers, both within their own communities, and in relation to white women. She argues that the system of slavery forced enslaved mothers to take on the roles of "protecting, providing for, resisting oppression and liberating" their loved ones. Yet, like Hagar, many Black women were forced into surrogacy roles in white families, forced to produce children or take care of their master's children, and after slavery, working for low wages as laborers in the homes of white people. In the second half of the book, Williams examines how the womanist perspective provides distinct insights to theology. Williams argues that Black women's experience has been overlooked in theology, including black liberation theology and white feminist theology, and that womanist theology, by centering black women's experience, offers an important corrective. "The issue is an understanding of biblical accounts about God that allows various communities of poor, oppressed black women and men to hear and see the ''doing'' of the good news in a way that is meaningful for their lives."


Dialogue between Womanist theologians and other liberation theologies

Williams supported dialogue between feminists and womanists as well as between womanists and black liberationists, Asian feminist theologians, and mujerista theologians – to achieve a greater good. While she was not naïve in believing that this alone would eradicate racism or sexism, Williams found a dialogical sharing of resources was important because "all women regardless of race or class, have developed survival strategies that have helped hem toarrive sane at heirpresent social and cultural locations". She recognized that "there has been little to no conversations among women for the purpose of swapping stories about the nature of these survival strategies". She stated in the ''Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion'': "we feminist-womanist women need to remember, commemorate, and lift up for ourselves and subsequent generations of women the resistance events and ideas that have birthed and kept alive women’s rights struggle...create resistant rituals that can be enacted wherever feminist and womanist meet to share survival strategies and plan attacks upon patriarchal and white supremacist mind-sets and practices in American institutional life." By sharing survival stories, new resources are developed for resistance.


References


Further reading

*McEmrys, Aaron (2006). "Engaging the sacred wisdom of our sisters in the wilderness: A unitarian universalist/womanist dialogue". ''Discourse: The Journal of Liberal Religion'' 7(1), 1–17. *Pinnock, Sarah. (2005). "Williams, Delores S." In
Bron Taylor Bron Raymond Taylor (born 15 April 1955) is an American scholar and conservationist. He is professor of religion and nature at the University of Florida and has also been an affiliated scholar with the Center for Environment and Development at the ...
(ed.), ''Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature'' (Vol. 1, pp. 1751). Oxford University Press. * Russell, Letty M. (1993). ''Church in the Round: Feminist interpretation of the church''. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press. *Williams, Delores S. (1993). "Visions, inner voices, apparitions, and defiance in nineteenth-century black women’s narratives". ''Woman’s Studies Quarterly'' (Vol. 21, pp. 81–89). New York: Feminist Press. {{DEFAULTSORT:Williams, Delores S. 1937 births 2022 deaths 20th-century American theologians Women Christian theologians 20th-century Calvinist and Reformed theologians African-American feminists African-American theologians African-American women writers American Calvinist and Reformed theologians American feminists American Presbyterians American women non-fiction writers Black feminism Place of birth missing Womanist theologians 20th-century African-American women 21st-century African-American people 21st-century African-American women