Up Against a Crooked Gospel: Black Women's Bodies and the Politics of Redemption in Religion and Society

America's white gaze toward the Black female body locates Black women in a crooked society that misrecognizes and misjudges their moral character. Moreover, the Black Church perpetuates a crooked gospel that reinforces society's mischaracterization theologically. Up Against a Crooked Gospel takes up the narrative of the bent woman in the Gospel of Luke 13:10-17 as ripe for womanist theo-ethical inquiry because it parallels with the historical and contemporary narratives of the Black female body bent multiple by pervasive threats seeking to stifle survival in a multi-traumatic world. Through the perspective of the author's grandmother's story and critical analysis of Black women's salvation politics, Up Against a Crooked Gospel articulates how Black women, in mutual partnership with God, possess "matter" mediated by their bodies necessary to confront a crooked moral fabric within Black religion and the broader American society.