Red Lip Theology, Candice Marie Benbow
Red Lip Theology, Candice Marie Benbow
4 Rating(s)
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Red Lip Theology
For Church Girls Who've Considered Tithing to the Beauty Supply Store When Sunday Morning Isn't Enough

Author: Candice Marie Benbow, Melissa Harris-Perry

Narrator: Candice Marie Benbow, Karen Chilton

Unabridged: 6 hr 47 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 01/18/2022


Synopsis

A moving essay collection promoting freedom, self-love, and divine wholeness for Black women and opening new levels of understanding and ideological transformation for non-Black women and allies

“Candice Marie Benbow is a once-in-a-generation theologian, the kind who, having ground dogma into dust with the fine point of a stiletto, leads us into the wide-open spaces of faith.”—Brittney Cooper, author of Eloquent Rage and co-editor of The Crunk Feminist Collection
 
Blurring the boundaries of righteous and irreverent, Red Lip Theology invites us to discover freedom in a progressive Christian faith that incorporates activism, feminism, and radical authenticity. Essayist and theologian Candice Marie Benbow’s essays explore universal themes like heartache, loss, forgiveness, and sexuality, and she unflinchingly empowers women who struggle with feeling loved and nurtured by church culture.
 
Benbow writes powerfully about experiences at the heart of her Black womanhood. In honoring her single mother’s love and triumphs—and mourning her unexpected passing—she finds herself forced to shed restrictions she’d been taught to place on her faith practice. And by embracing alternative spirituality and womanist theology, and confronting staid attitudes on body positivity and LGBTQ+ rights, Benbow challenges religious institutions, faith leaders, and communities to reimagine how faith can be a tool of liberation and transformation for women and girls.

Reviews

Goodreads review by chantel on December 09, 2021

Candice Benbow gave me exactly what I needed to read in this book. As a girl who has never given her life over to the church, and had a mom liberal enough to never force me to, I have always felt solid in my spirituality but grappled with organized religion d e e p l y forever. I feel like anyone ta......more

Goodreads review by BookOfCinz on April 16, 2023

Red Lip Theology is the lens through which I understand myself as a millennial Black Woman of faith. It creates a space for both my upbringing in the Black Baptist Church of the South…. It introduced me to a God much more kind, gracious, and loving than the one I’d been given in my youth and young......more

Goodreads review by Bethany (Beautifully Bookish Bethany) on January 16, 2022

Part memoir, part progressive theological manifesto, Red Lip Theology offers a different approach to Christianity, particularly for Black women. This faith is deeply feminist (or more specifically, womanist), sex-positive, and LGBT friendly (I'm not sure I would go quite so far as to call this LGBT-......more

Goodreads review by Traci on December 06, 2021

I read three of the essays (We are Good Creation, God Made Me Black and Black Lace Teddies and Other Pieces I Rock Under the Anointing) as a preorder gift. When I read Candice’s words in each, I could identify with my own upbringing in the South, as a Baptist and as someone who is Black. Candice doe......more

Goodreads review by Eberechukwu Peace on January 31, 2022

Red Lip Theology sets the stage for an entry point into progressive Christian thoughts. Following the routine of makeup application, Benbow takes the reader on a journey through 12 different essays, each with something unique to offer. Benbow’s Red Lip Theology is rooted in the logic of Black women......more


Quotes

“This lush, funny, deeply personal memoir is a beautiful gift to church girls everywhere and an instant classic on faith and getting free.”—Deesha Philyaw, author of the PEN/Faulkner Award–winning The Secret Lives of Church Ladies

Red Lip Theology is more than a come-to-Jesus moment for the church; it’s also a potent and fearless cry of hope and life for a new generation of believers.”—Matthew Paul Turner, #1 New York Times bestselling author of What Is God Like? and When God Made You

“This book is a theological masterpiece, a love song, and a tender exploration of what it means to live and grow up and fail and get better and put the broken pieces of ourselves back together.”—Danté Stewart, author of Shoutin’ in the Fire

“Candice Marie Benbow is what we need in the world—a humane writer who provides a safe space for people who toggle between independence and institution as they navigate their beliefs.”—Morgan Jerkins, New York Times bestselling author of This Will Be My Undoing and Caul Baby

Red Lip Theology will make you laugh, gasp, and call your bestie to read lines aloud.”—Monica A. Coleman, author of Making a Way Out of No Way and Bipolar Faith

“The spiritual and material lives of so many will be changed because of Benbow’s words.”—Darnell L. Moore, author of No Ashes in the Fire

“Candice Benbow is the physical embodiment of a paradigm shift. Her work represents the new era of The Divine Feminine and through her essays of grace, faith, trauma, and creativity she teaches all not only how to experience God at the deepest level but how to unconditionally love themselves through the eyes of God.”—Devi Brown, author of Crystal Bliss