A Digital Womanist Practical Theological Approach

Practical theologians explore, examine, and engage lived practices and experiences theologically and in dialogue with other disciplinary partners to inform, shape, and enhance practices of the Christian faith. One primary purpose of practical theology is to help educate faith leaders to be prepared to lead prophetic churches and organizations that provide hope, liberation, and refuge to those who are marginalized and oppressed. My practical theological approach is rooted in womanist theory, where the departure point is the lived experiences of Black women and other marginalized groups, the love of all persons, and the commitment to the survival and wholeness of all people. As a practical theologian with womanist commitments, I follow a praxis-reflection-analysis-theory-praxis circular model approach. Through this model, research begins with the lived experiences of Black women and other marginalized groups' praxis or practice. The researcher then uses theological reflection, which incorporates hermeneutics, scripture, and practices of the world, to reflect and analyze the practice. Using the analysis, the theory is then used to describe, articulate, and call to the forefront the observed liberatory practices that can inform faith leaders and academics in their practices and engagement with the world.

There is a subset of Black Americans who have disaffiliated and been alienated from traditional churches, yet they have created and found new ways of doing and being the Church.  Black women, in particular, are at the forefront of crafting online communities.  This trend has created a unique position for Black Women faith leaders curating online religious spaces as an alternative approach to traditional brick-and-mortar churches. It is in these spaces that numerous Black disaffiliated are finding the divine. While the Black Church experience is not monolithic and varies across denominations, regions, and cultures, this research focuses on two specific experiences developing online: the digital Black Church and the Networked Black Church.  Erika Gault defines the Digital Black Church by stating, “The Digital Black Church exists wherever Black technologists employ spiritual coding, a unique way of communicating divine presence in Black gatherings; breaking, introducing communal and Black epistemological strategies of combating or breaking up structures of inequality; and networking, creating links between Black people, Blackness, and the spirit world.”  Similarly, Melva Sampson names the

Networked Black Church as a space that centers the interconnection of Black faith, spirituality, and liberation using the womanist tenets of redemptive self-love, critical engagement, radical subjectivity, and traditional communalism to disrupt patriarchal traditions and is not a replication of Sunday services.  To adequately address the three goals of the project, this study relies on the methods and insights of three intersecting disciplines: 1) Sociology of Religion (to describe and analyze the religious experience of the communities), 2) Digital Ecclesiology (to explore and analyze the ecclesiological commitments and practices of online religious experience), and 3) Evangelism (to detect how the spirit is leading and moving in digital ecclesial spaces and how the spirit’s movement impacts the Good News as the world becomes more digitized and technological).