Holy Heretics: Losing Religion and Finding Jesus · The Sophia Society

We're Done: Womanism in MAGA America w/Dr. Angela Parker

·56 min·3 clips

Dr. Parker says Kamala Harris exposed how the world reacts to an “overqualified, overeducated Black woman.”

1. Holy Heretics: Losing Religion and Finding Jesus centers this episode on womanist theology, biblical authority, and Black political grief in Trump's America. 2. Host Gary Allen interviews Dr. Angela Parker of Mercer University, a New Testament scholar with a PhD from Chicago Theological Seminary who teaches at McAfee School of Theology. 3. The episode asks why Black women are saying they are “done” after the 2024 election and how that connects to theology, race, and power. 4. Parker says she is a “down-to-earth woman” from South Jersey who became born-again at age eight and still treats the Holy Spirit as central to her identity. 5. She says her academic life and spirituality are not separate, even with a high academic pedigree and a teaching career in Atlanta, Georgia. 6. Allen asks about her students, and Parker says many have never had an African-American woman professor before. 7. She describes teaching New Testament source criticism, Matthew authorship, and race to students who often assume the Bible is colorblind. 8. Parker uses Luke 4 to show that Jesus spoke to outsiders by naming the widow of Zarephath and Naaman in Syria. 9. She says that kind of reading exposes white supremacist thinking when students expect a gospel that only centers Israel. 10. Parker defines biblical authority through the Latin word auctoritas and says it means conversation with past and future traditions rather than power over parishioners. 11. She contrasts that dialogical authority with inerrancy and infallibility, which she says are often used as white supremacist authoritarianism. 12. Parker calls one-to-one proof-texting “biblical malpractice” and uses Ephesians 5 as an example of responsible contextual interpretation. 13. She explains womanism as a Black feminist lens shaped by Alice Walker’s “womanish” language and by the limits of Black liberation theology and feminist theology. 14. Parker names James Cone, Dolores Williams, Jacqueline Grant, Katie Geneva Cannon, and Stacey M. Floyd-Thomas as central figures in womanist thought. 15. She says intersectionality matters because Black women are often treated differently in public life, and she points to Kamala Harris as an example. 16. Parker says Black women are the most educated constituency in the United States and links attacks on the Department of Education to funding access like Pell Grants. 17. The conversation becomes personal when Parker describes her grandmother’s life in Alabama, including sharecropping, the legacy of enslavement, and two rapes by white men. 18. Allen responds as a white male listener, naming his privilege and saying he does not want Black women asked to fix white Christianity for free. 19. The episode feels like a direct, confrontational interview with long theological answers, personal testimony, and sharp political judgments. 20. Listeners who want Black Christian theology, womanist thought, and critiques of white evangelical power will get the most from it; listeners wanting light church talk may skip it.

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