Follow-up to WATERtalk with the Rev. Dr. Teresa Smallwood

Public Theology and Violent Rhetoric Examined in a Queer Womanist Critical Ethnography

Wednesday November 12, 2025, 1 PM ET

     WATER is indebted to the Rev. Dr. Teresa Smallwood for an informative and thought-provoking session on her book Public Theology and Violent Rhetoric Examined in a Queer Womanist Critical Ethnography (London and New York, T&T Clark, 2025). Her commitment to rigorous scholarship and useful analysis, as well as her persuasive and inviting pedagogical style, make her a valued presenter.

The program began with a land acknowledgement. WATER is on the  traditional and contemporary land of the Piscataway and Anacostan peoples. We acknowledge the trauma and injustice toward indigenous people and other people of color that is deep in U.S. culture and history. We join in efforts to eradicate it and make reparations for the genocide involved. WATER’s work, whether intellectual, spiritual, liturgical, or pastoral is aimed to bring about social justice.

WATER’s work brings feminist/womanist spiritual values and intellectual work to efforts for social change. Our hope is that by socializing the resources of feminist/womanist work in religion we spread tools and energy for justice. In light of the current U.S. administration’s disruptive, destructive, chaotic, and globe-shaking policies, it is more crucial than ever that we create opportunities like this for learning, conversation, and resistance.

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Mary E. Hunt’s Introduction to Teresa Smallwood

Welcome, Teresa Smallwood. We have been acquainted for a number of years, having served together on the American Academy of Religion LGBTIQ Committee. I am delighted to have you lay out your very useful research in Public Theology.

Dr. Smallwood is a graduate of University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, with an MDiv from Howard University Divinity School. She trained as an attorney at North Carolina Central University and spent two decades in the practice of law. She went on to do a PhD in Theology, Ethics, and Human Sciences at Chicago Theological Seminary.

Here is a snippet of her bio: “Dr. Smallwood served as Postdoctoral Fellow and Associate Director of the Public Theology and Racial Justice Collaborative at Vanderbilt Divinity School before moving to United Lutheran Seminary (ULS) where she is the Vice-President and Dean. She is an adjunct professor at Lancaster Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania where she lives, and is a frequent contributor to the Religious Freedom Center in Washington, DC. Formerly, she worked at Legal Services of the Southern Piedmont in Charlotte, NC, as a staff attorney for the Children’s Law Center. Dr. Smallwood was licensed and ordained to public ministry while serving Mount Olive Missionary Baptist Church in Lewiston, NC.”

This book is a fascinating and above all useful study of the pernicious impact of violent rhetoric on the well-being of LGBTIQ+ people. Some of Teresa’s own story is woven into the analysis as she calls for an end to violent rhetoric in the bully pulpits of churches, especially but by no means only Black churches, where some who preach do the dirty work of reinforcing white Christian hegemonic discrimination.

This is a work of courage and compassion, as well as a scholarly contribution to the field of public theology. It is a wonderful example of work that can be made accessible, written clearly and unambiguously. It is a book that calls us to action.

Dr. Smallwood, a warm WATER welcome to you.

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Teresa Smallwood’s Remarks can be found on the Video (link above)

Here are a few highlights:

  1. Teresa had practiced law for many years, never imaging that the church would be a place for her. But she decided to do a doctorate for which her dissertation was to be a coming out statement. She investigated how the very church that nurtured and formed her, and that she loved, rejected her ontologically and ejected her as a minister. It became the work of her life “to do the work my soul must have,” as Professor Katie Geneva Cannon would have it, to understand and change this situation.
  2. She asked how certain people are accepted and acceptable in a Christian container and others are not. How is it that one can grow up in a place and be nurtured by it and rejected by it at the same time? This is a common experience for many people, especially women, people of color, LGBTQI+, and too many others.
  3. Ethnography was important as a methodology because the experience is not only personal but communal. She surveyed persons, then interviewed a focus group, and together they looked at the case of a pastor whose work they deconstructed to understand the impact of violent rhetoric in the pulpit.
  4. The Black community is not the only place where people in the pews are referred to as a mistake that God has made, that they are not considered human. It is important to talk about this with others who have had the same experience.
  5. Teresa felt the need to examine her own life. The Church accepted her money, but not her being. She could tithe, but not serve communion. She was considered an abomination for being a lesbian; “You are nothing to God” one deacon said behind her back.
  6. This did violence to her. She left her faith tradition and eventually returned because she believed what she had been taught. She needed to construct her own theology around her own core beliefs. Created in the image of God, she asked: “If the Imago Dei can’t hold me, who can it hold?” God would not reject God’s own creation. God makes no mistakes.
  7. What drives the need for violent rhetoric? Dr. Smallwood suggests it is somatophobia or fear of the flesh. Sameness has created an idolatry that causes people to believe that those who are other than oneself are to be feared. The killings at the Pulse Nightclub is a good example of this. So is violent preaching, as in the case of Roger Jimenez who condoned the Pulse killings (p. 107). This is common in many faith traditions as toxic masculinity is unfurled. Religion is deployed as a weapon in these cases. Othering, which keeps people from belonging, is a result of this kind of poisonous rhetoric and the behaviors that result.
  8. There is a counter narrative to all of this that begins with having one’s core beliefs intact. Then one engages in practices that counter the narrative such as burning sage, taking a special bath, engaging in meditation, and so many other ways to resist healthily
  9. This book is meant to counter violent rhetoric. Among the inspirations for Teresa’s work are the writings of Charles Long and Emilie Townes.
  10. Looking ahead, Dr. Smallwood will reflect on the Pulse Nightclub and what sanctuary looks like. She will connect these stories with the ancestors’ stories to help future generations.

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Discussion

  1. This first speaker reflected that this book made them realize anew how little has changed in so many churches in their lifetime. There are young people today who can tell the same story in Catholic churches. There are places where there is said to be love, but there is hate; people are talked about not talked with. Pulse Nightclub might not be a singular event. How are we to assess the effectiveness of our work to date and what might we do differently as we move ahead with greater speed?

         Teresa Smallwood—This work could not be done without antecedents. So academics need to write, write, write. Also, we are responsible to talk as Kelly Brown Douglas, Monique Moultrie, Katie G. Cannon, Emilie Townes, and others do to make change. One pastor took a gun into the pulpit! Solidarity is not cheap, and it is a call on our lives. This work is the long game. It takes years to make change, like turning a large truck by going to the right to make a left turn. That is, we have to talk with people on the right who might hate us to try to build a relationship.

  1. Another colleague noted that there are many abominations referred to in the Hebrew Scriptures though homosexuality is the only one we hear about.

TS: How hypocritical we are!

  1. The phenomenon of “othering others” is caused in part because some want to belong to the group that others others.

TS: See the book Lynching to Belong: Claiming Whiteness through Racial Violence by Cynthia Skove Nevels, (Volume 106) (Centennial Series of the Association of Former Students, Texas A&M University) 2007.

The cost of belonging can be high. White privilege can be a way to join in to be protected. Many Americans have chosen autocracy over democracy, a king who will protect people.

  1. A professor lifted up “the spirituality of the catacombs.” What are ways to feed ourselves to resist things that kill our spirits as we are open to dying for the causes in which we believe?

TS: Lynching images include even the tree feeling the evil of the act. Nature moaning and groaning is a sign of the spiritual power that can move mountains, part waters, take down walls.

  1. An international colleague noted how different her context is from that of Dr. Smallwood’s in the United States. The Roman Catholic Church in Ireland is part of the larger synodal process of the Catholic Church in which LGBTQIA+ issues have been raised. “The System” takes hold rather than the truth-telling of the membership. For example, it was reported that some bishops in the Synod insisted that there were no LGBTQIA+ people in their respective countries. The wall of resistance is great. Systems are so powerful that it is hard to break dominant rhetoric.

TS: “How long, God?” Change is a long game that might not play out in our lifetime. It is discouraging to see people who know better, like bishops who surely know queer people. It is important to call out hypocrisy.

  1. Another question: If rhetoric has an influence on laws and behavior, does it work in reverse that laws and behavior have an impact on rhetoric?

TS: After 20 years of working as a lawyer, her faith in the law is limited. There is no ERA, for example. Changes of the heart are what make the difference. It is the people, not the law, that change.

  1. One colleague lifted up the problem of lawlessness during the current administration. The disregard of law is serious.

8. Have Queer Biblical Studies helped? Have these materials found their way into the theological curricula, for example, at United Lutheran Seminary and/or Howard University Divinity School?

TS: Queer biblical scholars have been very helpful in Teresa’s work. Ken Stone, a white man, is the author of Practicing Safer Texts: Food, Sex and Bible in Queer Perspective (Queering Theology), T&T Clark, 2005 though few Black biblical scholars have taken on queer topics.

Kelly Brown Douglas, a theologian not biblical scholar, uses the Bible in her writing, for example in her Stand Your Ground: Black Bodies and the Justice of God, Orbis Books, 2015.

Theo-poetics, including the work of Adrienne Rich, Audre Lorde, and others, are reliable sources. Howard University Divinity School Professor Gay Byron, of blessed memory, was a very helpful Black biblical scholar.

  1. Getting theological work into the popular press is important but difficult.

TS: Monique Moultrie knows this territory. Melanie Jones Quarrels who wrote Up Against A Crooked Gospel: Black Women’s Bodies and the Politics of Redemption (Ethics and Intersectionality Series) Orbis Books, 2024, has done a good job marketing her work.

Some denominations, like the African Methodist Episcopal Church, would probably not touch Teresas work for a review or discussion.

Social media is a key place to promote this kind of work. Renita Weems is one of the few people who has been able to get her work into the public arena without an academic platform.

  1. Spiritually is important.

TS: “I am a person of nature.” Sunrises, sunsets, beaches and waves, the woods are all occasions of spiritual practice for her.

See the work of Mumu Fresh, AKA Maimouna Youssef, https://maimounayoussef.com/. She calls us all spiritual beings having a human experience.

  1. Dr. Smallwood had the last word, thanking WATER for the gift of this experience. WATER replied in kind. Teresa’ book is a welcome contribution which puts us all on notice on how public theology can undo harm and reshape discourse. In that sense, it is ever so useful. Thank you, Teresa Smallwood for sparking an important conversation.

Please see WATER talks by Monique Moultrie, Gay Byron, and others on WATER’s website https://www.waterwomensalliance.org/under Programs/WATERtalks. https://www.waterwomensalliance.org/watertalks/

Then search by name or scroll down to the date of the event if you know it.