A collaborative book project centering the liberative theopoetics practiced by a new generation of scholars of color 

What is theopoetics? Once a field dominated by white liberals in the ivory tower, this embodied form of theology has flourished in the work of a new generation of scholars of color.  In this groundbreaking book edited by Oluwatomisin Olayinka Oredein and Lakisha R. Lockhart-Rusch, a diverse team of theologians shows how theopoetics can be practiced “in color.” 

Featuring unconventional and artistic forms of religious reflection, this collection demonstrates how theology can become accessible when it reflects the embodied experiences of marginalized people and communities. These creative contributions defy the limitations of the white, Eurocentric academy, including such works as: 

• an explanation on the use of experimental theater to express theological theses 

• a guide to spiritual disciplines for metaphorical cyborgs seeking liberation 

• a meditation on the theological import of Filipino potlucks 

• a literary reflection on the meaning of religion to Black boys and men 

Diverse in scope and radical in perspective, this bold volume reclaims the liberative potential of theopoetics. Scholars and students of theology and the arts will discover inspiring new methodologies and fresh ideas in these pages.

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Adolescents, like everyone else, make mistakes. However, religious educators Cynthia L. Cameron, Lakisha R. Lockhart-Rusch, and Emily A. Peck argue that some youths are born with the privilege of making mistakes in ways that others often are not. They also argue that many Christian education practices that guide our understandings of mistake-making are shaped by gender and gender identity, sexual orientation, and race in ways that disenfranchise some adolescents.

In response, Cameron, Lockhart-Rusch, and Peck curate a much-needed conversation that helps religious educators accompany adolescents and better understand mistakes based on a theological framework that names adolescents as fundamentally good. The result is an edited volume that explores ways educators can walk with adolescents so that youth can learn from their mistakes and grow without misunderstanding all mistakes as sin. Together, these essays seed a theology of adolescent goodness that's rooted in a liberative Christian theological anthropology.

Drawing on both qualitative and quantitative research, Nobody's Perfect offers nuanced and robust definitions of what a mistake is, apart from definitions of sin. The book also explores the challenges of talking about mistake-making and sin with adolescents within religious institutional contexts that shape policy, pastoral practice, and ministry orientations. Finally, the book presents youths' own voices about how they understand and process what mistake-making looks like in the contexts in which they live and learn.

Nobody's Perfect is for Christian educators who serve either in the academy or in congregational settings. The book well serves educators who recognize the various cultural and developmental challenges adolescents face when their church communities. The book also offers tools to help such church leaders attend to religious education spaces with a renewed theology that can root a more liberative experience of religious education.

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Embodied womanist play brings us closer to ourselves, to others, and to the divine.

In this remarkably innovative book, Lakisha R. Lockhart-Rusch offers a fresh vision for theological education rooted in the embodied insights of Black women. Acknowledging the historical reality that play has often been a privilege reserved for those in power, Lockhart-Rusch shows how play has nonetheless functioned as a hidden space of agency, healing, and resistance for Black women. Using the game of Double Dutch as an extended metaphor, she demonstrates how a womanist pedagogy of play offers a transformative encounter with the love of self and of God for students from all backgrounds. Coupling theory with practical tools, this book equips theological educators to teach across difference for the liberation of all.

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