Candice Benbow & Red Lip Theology

On this week's episode of 20 Minute Takes, Nikki talks with author and public theologian, Candice Benbow. Candice is the author of Red Lip Theology, a book written "for church girls who've considered tithing to the beauty supply store when Sunday morning isn't enough." Nikki and Candice talk about what it means to do theology in unexpected places, creation care and Black women, and asking questions that aren't welcomed in church.

You can learn more about Candice and her work here.
You can find her on Twitter and Instagram.

Transcript

Nikki Toyama-Szeto (00:11):

Hi, this is Nikki Toyama-Szeto, the executive director for Christians for Social Action and your host for 20 Minute Takes. On this episode we talk with the author and public theologian, Candice Benbow. She's the author of the book Red Lip Theology. And in this conversation we talk about the way that black women are image bearers of God and what it means to work for the full flourishing of all of God's creation. Candice, thank you so much for joining us on 20 Minute Takes.

Candice Benbow (00:46):

Thank you for having me.

Nikki Toyama-Szeto (00:48):

My absolute first question is, do you have a signature lip color?

Candice Benbow (00:55):

Yes, I would say the Ellison from Pat McGrath is my go to red.

Nikki Toyama-Szeto (01:05):

And why is that your go to red?

Candice Benbow (01:07):

There's just something; I feel powerful when I wear it. It's so beautiful. Pat McGrath is a black woman owned company. She's an African American woman who has blazed trails for a lot of us and I feel good when I wear it. 

Nikki Toyama-Szeto (01:25):

And that's what you want makeup to do, right? Feel good, ready for the world ahead of you. Now, one of the things that I was so excited to talk to you about is I love how you describe yourself as a public theologian, as well as an author.  In the spaces where public theologians are usually connected to seminaries or churches or denominations or the activist space, there's a lot of activists who kind of describe themselves as public theologians. But one of the things that I love about you is I see you showing up in places that are around lifestyle in culture and in these really unexpected places. And I kind of wonder if in these circles you are the first person they've hired with the word theologian in their title. I mean, can you tell me about why public theology in these places, these women's magazines and these columns, why there and what is it that you're trying to do?

Candice Benbow (02:24):

Fairly often a question I get when they talk to me is, so what is a public theologian? That's honestly one of the reasons, if not the main reason that I wanted to be positioned in the lifestyle, cultural, women's interest space.  Faith and how we construct and understand the world, theologically informs so much of who we are. If we are able to have broader conversations about that, we're able to recognize the patterns of our behavior, we're able to recognize the patterns of other people's behavior and how they all should work to create much more holistic identities and understandings and expressions of ourselves. One of the reasons I really hope to and try to position myself in those spaces is because I want to be a part of those conversations. The theological is personal, and if we have those kinds of conversations then we can get to spaces and modes of healing and thriving.

Nikki Toyama-Szeto (03:46):

I'm realizing I usually am the one who has to do the point of integration, right? My faith is over on this one side and then there's kind of like my life as a woman is on this other side. Can you say more about what it is you feel like you're able to do, like the opportunity that's in that space that might be different if you were under sort of an ecclesial under a church umbrella of some sort?

Candice Benbow (04:12):

The first difference is the kinds of conversations I get to have. There is a real, no holds barred space when you are not attached to an institution, whether it's an academic one or a religious one. We get to push conversations. One of the spaces where I really like to lean into is how we can look at pop culture moments and mine them for deeper reflection. What about these moments cause us to take a pause, to ask some questions, and move differently about the world in relation to who we are and who we see God to be. Those kinds of conversations often welcome perspectives that would not and are not necessarily immediately welcomed in certain kinds of spaces. I get to have really great conversations in that way. And I hope that as people read Red Lip Theology, and as it works to resonate with them I hope that they can see what it means to take faith conversations out of their perspective boxes and allow them to breathe and live in other places.

Nikki Toyama-Szeto (05:54):

Which you sound like you're describing what the invitation is for us as Christians, right? To live out loud in all spaces. I love that. It's so amazing and also a little sobering that you find more freedom and spaciousness in some of these spaces, but that feels right. Like theology, how we think about God should be kind of pushing some of those places.

Candice Benbow (06:19):

I think that when we are not honest about all of the ways that we have known spirit and experienced spirit that are beyond the bounds of what we were told or where we could, then we missed some prime opportunities to move and be different  in the world. I, along with a lot of other people, got to a place where the movement in the world and moving with more grace for myself and for others, empathy and compassion were larger starting points that needed to take place.

Nikki Toyama-Szeto (07:14):

Your book, Read Lip Theology- can you tell us about Red Lip Theology as well as what it is that you are trying to do or hoping will happen through this book?

Candice Benbow (07:30):

Red Lip Theology is how I come to understand and know myself as a black millennial woman of faith.  It gives me room to be very honest about the ways that church culture, being raised in the church and also being formed within hip hop culture made impressions on me and they formed my identity. I also get to have broader conversations about what it has meant for me to journey into a much more authentic relationship with God that's rooted in a true appreciation of my whole self and to lift up. I think one of the main things that I hope people get and understand and appreciate as they read Red Lip Theology is that so many of us have had very different experiences growing up. And those experiences often do not lend themselves to being accepted if they lead us or cause us to look at faith differently than other people.

Red Lip Theology lifts that you can be a deeply faithful person and your faith looks different than other people. And that it does not make you any less Christian. It just means that you are honoring the questions that so many other people have that we all have been taught we're not allowed to have and we're not supposed to ask. Red Lip Theology really is about what that journey looks like to say that these questions are sacred and I deserve to explore what the answer can be.

Nikki Toyama-Szeto (09:42):

What are one or two of the questions that you felt were at one point taboo that you've embraced?

Candice Benbow (09:57):

What it means to see God outside of this gendered identity- that took its own exploration. A deeper  question about what is actually sin because in so many contexts I was raised around sin being specific activities. If you did this, you sinned. A lot of those activities were more rooted in social norms and what other people didn't think respectable pious women did. Really sitting down and being like, what is sin? If I recognize sin as a disruption to my flourishing and a space of breach in my relationship with the divine, then what does that look like as it relates to my activities and my actions? Does that really mean that everything that I was taught before is a sin? No. Those two questions really are what pushed me to go into a certain level of exploration.

Nikki Toyama-Szeto (11:32):

To question what are the social or cultural overlays that have been put on these things, but they kind of have theological words to it. One of the things that you engage with is the different responses folks have with regard to violence against black men and women. Can you unpack that a little bit more? What is it that you have noticed?

Candice Benbow (12:02):

One of the things that I noticed growing up was that the issues pertaining to black men and boys were seen with this national emphasis and this communal urgency. Whenever something happened we have to focus on this right now. But when those same or similar instances happen with black women, those weren't conversations that you had. That these were seen as communal level, personal level problems that if black women just adjusted their behaviors, that they'd be okay. And so there's a frustrating level to that because on one hand you want to call out the structures of inequality and racism that prevail against black life. And then on the other hand, you're taught that if you are a woman and these things happen to you, it will never raise to the level of importance that it would if you were a black man or a black boy.

Nikki Toyama-Szeto (13:22):

So double the indignity. One of the things I've appreciated about your work is this emphasis on embodiment. As I'm listening to you talk, it seems like that's sort of the antidote, this affirmation of the imago dei in the black female body and the embrace of that. Can you say more about how you think about embodiment and what some of that looks like?

Candice Benbow (13:58):

I think the first way that I would back up and respond to that is part of what grounds Red Lip Theology has been this journey to accepting and honoring that black women bear the image of God. There are so many forces in this world that will work to suggest otherwise. And then there's so many forces that work within us where the guilt or shame or insecurity that push against that. And so you have this moment where you lean into we bear the image of God, we are beautiful creation. We are fearfully and we are wonderfully made. And living into that is an honoring of the totality of ourselves, right? It's being gracious when we look at our bodies and not picking it apart based on what standards say. It may mean that we look at certain parts of our regimen and say we could be healthier, so that we can have a longer quality of life. But it means to also be gracious in that we find a way to care about and see ourselves as good creation, so that every decision we make about our wellness is not coming from a place of desperation and lack, but it's coming from the fruitfulness of care and of concern. One of the things that I hope black women especially get as they’re reading this is that living into an understanding of yourself as bearing the image of God is one of the most gracious things that you can ever do for you. It means that you honor that there is truth and goodness and capacity for growth and capacity for you. And that you honor boundaries; you say no when you need to say no. That you say yes to possibilities that may push you out of your comfort zone. You find deeper, more intentional ways of loving you because the greatest relationships that you will ever be in is your relationship with God and your relationship with yourself, and if those cannot be where they need to be rooted in health, truth, goodness, grace, then the foundation really is unstable for any other relationship.

Nikki Toyama-Szeto (17:18):

One of the things that I really love is the way that you think about creation care, and I think it's much more expansive and generous than I've heard other people talk about creation care. Can you say a little bit about your approach or your point of view on that?

Candice Benbow (17:35):

I will start first by saying that as beautiful as language is, and I say this as someone who has been called to words, that language is limiting. At best we're using words to grope towards something. When scripture says in Genesis that we were given dominion, I do not believe that is to lord over, right? That the work of creation is the work of an act of love. It's an act of intention. God created man and humanity with as great intention as God created the rest of the world. And if we cannot recognize that is a relationship of interdependence, then what we are doing is creating much more harm, right? The ways that we are dealing with natural disasters, the ways that we are even dealing with ravaging pandemics are largely rooted in an exploitation of our right to have a dominion, a right to claim stake in land.

And instead of honoring that we are in these spaces to live together and commune with nature, to commune with the land, to be good stewards over our actions as the land thrives, then we really miss a larger point about what it means to care for what God loves. I wonder how much of that we miss in our own relationships with each other. I have an uncle; my uncle Dean will not kill a bug. He will not kill a bug. Like he will see a bug, he will go get a piece of paper and he will scoop that bug up and he will go outside and he will return it to nature where it can be free. And every time I watch him do that, you know, I think about how I also see him model care for us.

He embodies a care and empathy and a compassion for us and for humanity that I think we miss so often when we believe that we have the right to treat things however we want to treat them. Part of this work is rooted in creation care because when we can shift the thoughts of domain and subjection to much more communal language of interdependence and accountability, I really do think we have the power to thrive.

Nikki Toyama-Szeto (21:11):

This view of creation care is not just an environmental thing, but it is about all the living things and this interdependence. Even as you're stretching the boundaries of Red Lip Theology and the care of black women as an act of creation care.

Candice Benbow (21:32):

Yeah. It is to love black women and to protect black women is creation care because black women are part of creation. It means being committed to dismantling structures that do not honor the whole and the totality of who we are. We have got to move to a place that we see advocacy, not just what we're called to do as believers and as Christians, because if it is fundamentally the right thing to do. Everybody deserves to thrive because we're breathing. We deserve to thrive in community. We deserve to thrive equitably, equally allowing for all of our gifts and our talents and our expressions to land in the forefront. We all deserve that, we all have that right and we deserve to live into it.

Nikki Toyama-Szeto (22:47):

Candice, that is one of the most beautiful and all encompassing pictures I think I've ever heard anyone say about this motivation towards justice. This is why we move towards that. Candice Benbow, author of Red Lip Theology and public theologian. Thank you so much for joining us today on 20 Minute Takes.

Candice Benbow (23:07):

Thank you so much.

Nikki Toyama-Szeto (23:15):

20 Minute Takes is a production of Christians for Social Action. Our music was created by Andre Henry and our show is produced by David de Leon. I'm your host, Nikki Toyama-Szeto. If you want to find out more about our work, visit the website at christiansforsocialaction.org