Sexual Politics of Black Churches

Josef Sorett is professor of religion and African American and African diaspora studies at Columbia University, where he also directs the Center on African-American Religion, Sexual Politics, and Social Justice. He is the author of Spirit in the Dark: A Religious History of Racial Aesthetics (2016).

• AcknowledgmentsIntroduction, by Josef SorettPart I. A Call to Conversation1. Religion, Race & Sexuality in American Culture: A Public Conversation, featuring Victor Anderson, Serene Jones, and Barbara Savage; moderated by Cathy Cohen and Josef SorettPart II. Sacred Texts, Social Authority, Sexual Difference2. Jephthah’s Daughter and #SayHerName, by Nyasha Junior3. An Inconsistent Truth: The New Testament, Early Christianity, and Sexuality, by Michael Joseph BrownPart III. Historical and Cultural Formations of Black (Christian) Sexual Politics4. “Have the Sons of Africa No Souls?” Manliness, Freedom and Power in the Cultural Roots of Afro-Phallic Protestantism, by Jonathan Lee Walton5. Everybody Knew He Was “That Way”: Chicago’s Clarence H. Cobbs, American Religion, and Sexuality during the Post-World War II Period, by Wallace Best6. Interrogating the Passionate and Pious: Televangelism and Black Women’s Sexuality, by Monique MoultriePart IV. Identity and Inclusion in Black Churches7. The Self Interested Politics of Collective Religious Transformation: Issues of Family Definition and LGBT Inclusion in Black Churches, by Melynda J. Price8. Intersectional Invisibility and the Experience of Ontological Exclusion: The Case of Black Gay Christians, by Valerie Purdy-Greenaway, Richard Eibach, and Nick CampPart V. Theological and Pastoral Visions of Inclusive Black Churches9. Gay Is the New Black, Theologically Speaking, by Monica A. Coleman10. Flesh That Needs to be Loved: Wounded Black Bodies and Preachin’ in the Spirit, by Luke A. Powery11. Aiding and Abetting New Life: “Sex-Talk” in the Pulpit, Pew and Public Square, by Brad R. Braxton12. An Experiment in Inclusion: A Conversation with Christine and Dennis Wiley, an Interview by Derrick W. McQueenEpilogue by Josef SorettNotesList of ContributorsIndex

The Black church is a complexly rich institution, and its sexual politics are even more complex. Yet the Black church has been caricatured as culturally monolithic and its sexual politics as dogmatically conservative. The Sexual Politics of Black Churches reveals the inaccurate and gross simplification of both of these characterizations. The interdisciplinary voices and varied approaches represented in this volume provide the kind of cultural, theological, historical, and political analyses that are necessary if one is ever to appreciate the intricate nature of Black churches and their sometime opaque sexual politics. For anyone who wants to move beyond the stereotypic tropes about Black churches as stubbornly homophobic, this volume is a must read. It does not simply build upon previous studies of Black church sexual politics; rather, it provides a new interdisciplinary approach that allows for a nuanced understanding of what has seemed too easily misunderstood and casually dismissed.