Episode #40
Race, Religion, and Women with Charmella Williams - No Reform without Reckoning
Send us Fan Mail I am so happy to speak with Charmella Williams again! She is a big thinker and a clear speaker about history and about what it means to be a successful black woman in our confusing time. Last time she spoke about the racial reckoning in America and how this has given her a sense of hope and pessimism as the same time. Now that the mask has been ripped the mask off of the church's racism and power grabbing with the rise of Christian nationalism, we are a knife edge. Will independent thinking women find faith again, or will they abandon it further? This crisis of faith has exposed the divide between men and women. While young white men are trending more conservative and traditionalists, taking the church with them in frightening directs, where is everyone else going? I really wanted to hear Charmellla's unfiltered opinion. Is there any hope for coming together? Does faith and church play any role? Welcome Charmella! I can't wait to hear your thoughts a year after we spoke last time. Teaser questions: Please give a quick intro of yourself. Our last conversation posted on Nov. 8, 2025. You were deep into Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States". You continue to post about your insights on it. What some new insights since last year? You did a video recently about Abrahamic religions and patriarchy. I think it was in honor of Gloria Steinem. You started by describing misogyny, mostly in Islam, but then made the parallel to closed minded Southern Baptist Christians. You were quite angry. What spurred that? You mentioned Male Gods. James Talarico famously said that God is non-binary, which is objectively true from the Bible, but it caused huge backlash, saying he is woke, he is weak, he is a feminist, etc. Why are they so angry? Is this a symptom of what you are talking about? What is third wave feminism and what is the fourth wave? How does this relate to faith and spirituality? Is this why young women have abandoned the church? One of my motivations to invite you on the podcast is that I spend a lot of time with religious people and traditionalists. Some of them are white young man in the theobro world. More often it is perplexed Gen X and Boomers who are confused why our mainline churches are shrinking and why the highly patriarchal churches have attracted both men and women. Is this just church swapping or real growth? I'd like to have an honest discussion about liberal white women vs. black women. When are they allies? And when is the liberal just performance? Religious conservatives often point to black Christian men, some who are very patriarchal, as a sign that we need to be more conservative to heal the church. This is especially true about recent African immigrants and the growth of Christianity in Africa. Is this just a racist trope or is there truth in this? I will tell you about a movement of conservative men, who try to portray themselves as the future of the church. But it seems to have little traction with women and with people of color. What are the getting wrong? When did the church do right? And when did it do wrong? The Presbyterian Church embraced Civil Rights and started being called woke and has lost 40% of its membership. How do you think people who have rejected the mainline churches will worship in the future? Nazis weren't real Christians. Well then, were slaveholders real Christians? What about MAGA people today? This is what I wrote you in my invitation email. Crisis of faith is what I want to talk about. So many people talk about going back to orthodoxy and "tradition." It seems that this is the last thing that people who are reckoning with spirituality want or need now. Spiritual practice can be good, but using it as a shield against truth is foolish. While the discussion could be informed by your personal journey, I think I am more interested in talking about what you are observing in the culture. Is gen Z retrenching or finding something new? As a successful and independent woman in a capitalist society, what do you think is the zeitgeist around progressivism and what role faith plays in that?
