Candice Benbow is making waves in the blogosphere by reshaping the way Black girls think about love, faith, and femininity. In her new book, Red Lip Theology: For Church Girls Who’ve Considered Tithing to the Beauty Supply Store When Sunday Morning Isn’t Enough, she weaves excerpts from her own life to weave a charming reimagining of what it means to navigate modern life as a Black church-going woman. We are also pleased to welcome writer and TV host Melissa Harris-Perry to the conversation! Join our special guests on the Front Row along with host and MahoganyBooks co-owner Ramunda Young on February 8th at 7pm.
Candice Marie Benbow is a multi-genre theologian who situates her work at the intersections of beauty, faith, feminism and culture, giving voice to Black women’s shared experiences of healing and journeying toward wholeness. Reimagining how faith can be a tool of liberation and transformation for women and girls, she challenges Black women to think critically about how they see God and the world.
About the Book:
A moving essay collection promoting freedom, self-love, and divine wholeness for Black women and opening new levels of understanding and ideological transformation for non-Black women and allies.
Blurring the boundaries of righteous and irreverent, Red Lip Theology invites us to discover freedom in a progressive Christian faith that incorporates activism, feminism, and radical authenticity. Essayist and theologian Candice Marie Benbow’s essays explore universal themes like heartache, loss, forgiveness, and sexuality, and she unflinchingly empowers women who struggle with feeling loved and nurtured by church culture.
Benbow writes powerfully about experiences at the heart of her Black womanhood. In honoring her single mother’s love and triumphs–and mourning her unexpected passing–she finds herself forced to shed restrictions she’d been taught to place on her faith practice. And by embracing alternative spirituality and womanist theology, and confronting staid attitudes on body positivity and LGBTQ+ rights, Benbow challenges religious institutions, faith leaders, and communities to reimagine how faith can be a tool of liberation and transformation for women and girls.
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