Legacy Leaders - bell hooks & Wilda Gafney
Some life experiences though painful, prove profitable with time. Glancing back, I view with affection, even gratitude a time when I experienced considerable resistance as a female church leader. Being overlooked and mistreated by people I had trusted was an arresting experience for me, a white female born in the UK. Yet the outworking of these experiences cultivated in me a deeper sense of injustice and indignation at the issues of race, gender, class and disability.
Experiencing and witnessing how people disregard ability, gifting and calling, as well as limit peoples’ potential because of the innate, caused me to look longer, harder, deeper and understand better the injustices of the human experience. Learning this way is uncomfortable, whether it’s a log or splinter you find in your eye, critiquing oneself, one’s world can be disrupting and discombobulating, and yet enriching as we enlarge our world to embrace that which was once beyond it.
Recently, at a workshop we were asked how many female authors or theologians we had read. Having long since departed from the familiar, popular authors and academics read in my stream, I could confidently name many I have read over the last ten years. Academics and authors like bell hooks (Gloria Jean Watkins) and Wilda Gafney, who have influenced me as they have written bravely navigating the issues of race, gender and class in society and church.
Whilst bell hooks (pen name) died in 2021, the impact of her work continues to influence our understanding of the intersectionality of race, sex and class. Her feminist books arguing that feminism is for all are accessible, acutely critical yet compassionate.
“Simply put, feminism is a movement to end sexism, sexist exploitation and oppression. I liked this definition because it does not imply that men were the enemy.”
-bell hooks, Feminism Is for Everybody: Passionate Politics
Her articulation of the damage patriarchy does to men ‘dividing their souls’ outlined in ‘The Will to Change: men, masculinity and love’ is truly ground breaking.
Whilst Wilda, still writing, described as a ‘Womanist Wading in the Word’ skilfully unpacks the Hebrew Scriptures bringing credible challenge to established thinking about the women and their place in Old Testament times.
“Womanism is committed to the wholeness and flourishing of the entire community.”
-Dr. Wilda C. Gafney, Womanist Midrash: A Reintroduction to the Women of the Torah and the Throne
Thanks to these two authors and academics who have used their own painful experiences along with their abilities, to navigate complexity and think critically with compassion, model the possibilities of healthy challenge motivated by love. Having used their gifting so wisely these black women, both highly regarded, have generated a legacy through their words, which reveals their uncompromising compassion and desire for the flourishing of all despite race, gender and class. Their legacy is an invitation to us to view life with a critical eye in the compassionate hope that we can change things for the good of all.
Rev. Michelle Nunn
Lead Pastor Nantwich Elim Church
Member of Elim’s National Leadership Team
