ABSTRACT
This chapter will uphold Beyoncé Mass as an exemplary display of flourishing for black women. It further examines the popular music and culture as a tool for female empowerment and spiritual formation. Through engaging womanist perspectives of ontology and epistemology, this chapter will locate Beyoncé Mass within a tradition of black womanist practices that use extra-theological sources as a means of religious and spiritual expression, freedom, and wholeness, which Emilie Townes argues is at the center of a womanist ontology. By viewing this experience as an example of what Stacy Floyd Thomas calls radical subjectivity and Anthony Pinn calls the quest for complex subjectivity, this chapter shows the possibility of the transformative power of Beyoncé's music when used in worship. In doing so, Beyoncé Mass is seen as part of a tradition that highlights ethical questions about sacred congregational music and its ability to enable flourishing for black women.
