(RNS) — The three Black women — a public theologian, a senior pastor, an educator and psychologist — first got to know each other through a group chat.
After having wide-ranging discussion on religion, race and gender, they met at a conference, where they were encouraged to start a joint podcast. Now, their book, “Truth’s Table: Black Women’s Musings on Life, Love, and Liberation,” was released on Tuesday (April 26).
Ekemini Uwan, Michelle Higgins and Christina Edmondson have said their work — in audio and in print — is designed expressly for Black women but they welcome others into their audience, to what they call their “standing-room section.”
“We see y’all, but the sisters are at the table,” said Uwan, 39, who attends an African Methodist Episcopal church in the Washington metropolitan area and is the Black Christian Experience Resource Center’s 2022 inaugural theologian-in-residence.
Edmondson added that, though their focus is on Black Christian women, they also read and learn from the stories of people who do not share their gender or culture.
“It’s hard for us to see ourselves, actually, culturally, unless we engage cross-culturally,” said Edmondson, 42, a scholar-in-residence of a multiracial Presbyterian Church in America congregation in Nashville, Tennessee. “So I really think there is a benefit and a gift to people who don’t identify as Black Christian women to listen respectfully to these stories and narratives in the same way that I pick up books by authors who are outside of my own demographics all the time.”
The trio announced in December that Higgins, a justice activist who leads a United Church of Christ congregation, was leaving the podcast “to continue her movement and ministry work in St. Louis.” Uwan and Edmondson, while continuing with the sixth season of the “Truth’s Table” podcast, are also co-hosting a second podcast, “Get in the Word With Truth’s Table,” in which they are reading the entire Bible during 2022.
The two of them, who are promoting their book while Higgins is on medical leave, spoke to Religion News Service about the challenges and joys for both single and married Black women, countering white supremacy and their hopes for the future of Black American Christians.
The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
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