ABSTRACT
This chapter takes an in-depth look at the communicative rhetoric of Reverend Dr. Pamela Lightsey and her paramount text, Our Lives Matter: A Womanist Queer Theology. Through a close reading of the text as a critical intersection of racial and religious rhetorics, Lightsey’s (2015) words reverberate with a transcendent truth that allows for readers to be at once both student and collaborator to her intention of creating a womanist theology centered around social justice within and outside the church. By exploring her text as a rhetorical memoir, this chapter will also highlight how Lightsey’s theological propositions have marked her as a femme fatale within the hegemonic church—a lesbian and woman of color who preaches for inclusion, advocates for the insurrection of power, and promotes a queer notion of love that is rooted in the “indecent.” Historicizing how Black women and women of color have been demonized in religious rhetoric through a discourse of racialization, this chapter ends by highlighting how religious communication often creates a platform for eradicating, vilifying, and sexualizing the voices and bodies of women of color.
