The Wounds Are the Witness

Name: The Wounds Are the Witness
ISBN: 9781506485331

Black Faith Weaving Memory into Justice and Healing

by Yolanda Pierce

Publisher

Broadleaf Books

Publication

Feb 04, 2025

Format

Hardback

Illustrated

Price

25.99

Dimensions

5.5 x 8.25 in

ISBN

9781506485331

Pages

196

Age

Adult 18+

Rights Sold

LanguageEnglish AudioCountryWorldwideAgent-BuyerTantor Media

Description

From celebrated scholar Dr. Yolanda Pierce comes this indelible meditation on Black faith, suffering, hope, and the healing possibilities of justice, written in the venerable tradition of James Cone and Kelly Brown Douglas.

What do we do with wounds--our own, others', and a nation's? We can turn away, avert our gaze. We can make a spectacle of suffering. Or like the doubting disciple who longed to touch Jesus's side, we can acquaint ourselves with the wounds: both the story they tell and the healing they prefigure.

In The Wounds Are the Witness, Yolanda Pierce, dean of Vanderbilt University Divinity School and author of In My Grandmother's House, weaves together her own memories, vignettes from Black life, and scenes from scripture, especially the passion of Christ. To work for liberation in a broken world, we cannot look away from crucified flesh. Bones from the Middle Passage, GI Bill benefits denied to Black veterans, women inmates shackled while giving birth: we must take all such wounds seriously. They testify to both the pain and the faith of a people.

With the lyrical eye of a poet and the moral precision of a preacher, Pierce casts readers into the astounding story of God's healing. From the curative powers of a spiderweb to the work of justice in history, politics, medicine, higher education, and the Black church, Pierce asks: Where are the remedies for the battered and broken? What does accountability look like? Is there any cure?

Healing takes time, Pierce writes, and even the wounds of the risen Christ do not immediately close. When the wounds become the witness, we find a faith reimagined and a hope transfigured. They tell the truth: about the extent of the injury and the extraordinary work of healing.

Awards & Endorsements

Chanequa Walker-Barnes, PhD, psychologist, theologian, and author of Sacred Self-Care and other books

"Too often Christian leaders sacrifice theological depth for blithe encouragement. This is a book for Christians who have considered leaving the church when superficial theology is not enough. Yolanda Pierce helps us to hold the pain of this world together with the light and hope of Christ. In a time when critiquing the church is as common as attending it, Yolanda Pierce draws us back to the faith that sustained our ancestors, the faith that was, for many of us, our first love. With unparalleled theological insight and scriptural wisdom, she reconnects us to the spiritual might of the Black church and provides fresh sustenance in our modern context. This is a book to savor and return to again and again."

Author(s)

Yolanda Pierce

Yolanda Pierce is professor and dean of Howard University School of Divinity. She is a scholar of African American religious history, womanist theology, race, and religion, as well as a public theologian, activist, and commentator. An alumna of Princeton University and Cornell University, Pierce served as the founding director of the Center for the Study of African American Religious Life at the National Museum of African American History & Culture. Pierce's writing has appeared in Time, Sojourners, and The Christian Century, and she is the author of the book Hell Without Fires. Pierce lives in Washington, DC.