Abstract
This is the first issue in Interpretation’s 74-year history to honor an individual rather than focus on a theme or biblical book. It is quite fitting that a journal published in association with Union Presbyterian Seminary would dedicate an issue to honor the life and work of The Reverend Dr. Katie Geneva Cannon. The first Black woman ordained in the United Presbyterian Church (1974), she founded the Center for Womanist Leadership at Union Presbyterian Seminary, where she served as the Annie Scales Rogers Professor of Christian Ethics.
Dr. Katie Cannon is recognized as the progenitor of womanist ethics. Using Alice Walker’s four-part definition of womanist, Dr. Cannon’s trailblazing approach to center Black women’s lived experiences and Black women’s novels as sources for moral discernment is a major contribution to the academy, church, and world. The current issue of Interpretation acknowledges the magnitude and far-reach of her embodied contextualized methodology.
Two of the essays in this issue examine the significance of Dr. Cannon’s methodology to the study of Christian ethics. David Gushee is past president of the Society of Christian Ethics and the American Academy of Religion. In his essay, he discusses “ten themes” outlined in Cannon’s revised dissertation, Black Womanist Ethics. He reflects on his personal process of conscientization in response to Cannon’s decentering and deep questioning of a predominant acceptance of a Euro-American hetero-patriarchal worldview. Peter Paris provides the reader who is unfamiliar with Cannon a biographical sketch of contexts that shaped and informed her scholarship and service to the guild. He voices a concern about womanist communal commitments that points towards an invitation to readers to familiarize themselves with the work of younger Black religion women scholars who are addressing “the moral leadership of Black men” and other issues that affect the wholeness of people and communities.
Two of her former Union Presbyterian Seminary students examine the significance of Dr. Cannon’s strategies for learning in their ongoing formation and teaching. Charline Jin Lee examines Cannon’s teaching praxis. Lee discusses her adaptation of Cannon’s “womanist classroom” and the “universality” of five words that reflect the essence of this mutual learning space—“I come from a place.” Andrew Taylor-Troutman describes his own visceral reactions and experience of vulnerability that emerged from an exposure to womanist theological-ethics in general and Dr. Cannon’s teaching in particular. Taylor-Troutman shows how he adapts his teacher’s pedagogy in workshops he facilitates with local healthcare professionals.
The remaining four essays explore a womanist response to a particular moral issue or communal practice. Valerie Elverton Dixon, the first student whose dissertation committee was chaired by Dr. Cannon, suggests Cannon’s adaptation of Dr. Beverly Wildung Harrison’s dance of redemption as a strategy for activism. She uses the March 2017 Women’s March as a case study. In response to Dr. Cannon’s sudden death, anthropologist Linda E. Thomas investigates African American burial practices. Her essay highlights the function of metaphor, performance, and symbols in womanist religious thought. Emilie M. Townes discusses womanist consciousness as a framework from which to explore the moral problem of immigration at the United States’ southern border. Townes emphasizes the importance of interrogating texts and contexts when considering proposals to address this ethical dilemma. Reggie L. Williams describes a personal experience with the “project of whiteness.” He draws on conversations with Dr. Cannon and insights from Katie’s Canon to describe a prescriptive to this issue.