Looking At Sisters In The Wilderness By Delores S. Williams

Often throughout history, the church and Biblical preaching’s were taught through the lens and preaching’s of black males with little appreciation for Black women’s experiences. However, theologists like Delores S. Williams, defies the patriarchal outlook displayed in the modern church setting, by explaining and theorizing black women’s experiences through the bible. She utilizes the experiences of black women in order to relate them to the Bible in a way that might have otherwise been ignored. As such by looking at Sisters in the Wilderness by Delores S. Williams, we can understand how the theme of motherhood relays through the lens of Black Women in the Bible. Williams utilizes the theme of motherhood through the Hagar story. Through Williams

She describes how through the victimization and oppression experienced through slavery; black women have come to a sense of almost becoming mothers to their own communities. In this case, the term mother becomes more than just the physical or biological aspect of being a parent, but relies more on the protection and nurturing that mothers bring towards their children or people they care about. Williams describes this idea through the use Alice Walkers The Color Purple. As shown in The Color Purple, Shug was the catalyst that sparked Celie’s sense of self identity and self-worth after being brutally victimized and brutalized by men all of her life. Williams believes that Shug’s influence and nurturing as a black women gave Celie the ability to believe in herself as well as, her God and not the God she was taught to believe in (Williams 50). By analyzing, Walkers The Color Purple, Williams brings forth another viewpoint or experience that remains beneficial to this idea of motherhood in context of the Bible. Essentially, Williams explains that by embracing this sense of motherhood, in both the Hagar story as well as, in black women’s experiences, black women can begin to embrace the Bible without the corruption and oppression of the patriarchy. She demonstrates this idea by stating how Walker “suggests that mothers get victory over oppressive social forces by bonding with one another and opposing their oppression rather than” simply praying (Williams