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Red Lip Theology: For Church Girls Who've Considered Tithing to the Beauty Supply Store When Sunday Morning Isn't Enough
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
"Candice Marie Benbow is a once-in-a-generation theologian, the kind who, having ground dogma into dust with the fine point of a stiletto, leads us into the wide-open spaces of faith."-Brittney Cooper, author of Eloquent Rage and co-editor of The Crunk Feminist Collection
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.
"Candice Marie Benbow is a once-in-a-generation theologian, the kind who, having ground dogma into dust with the fine point of a stiletto, leads us into the wide-open spaces of faith."-Brittney Cooper, author of Eloquent Rage and co-editor of The Crunk Feminist Collection
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.
Editorial Reviews
"This lush, funny, deeply personal memoir is a beautiful gift to church girls everywhere and an instant classic on faith and getting free."-Deesha Philyaw, author of the PEN/Faulkner Award–winning The Secret Lives of Church Ladies
"Red Lip Theology is more than a come-to-Jesus moment for the church; it's also a potent and fearless cry of hope and life for a new generation of believers."-Matthew Paul Turner, #1 New York Times bestselling author of What Is God Like? and When God Made You
"This book is a theological masterpiece, a love song, and a tender exploration of what it means to live and grow up and fail and get better and put the broken pieces of ourselves back together."-Danté Stewart, author of Shoutin' in the Fire
"Candice Marie Benbow is what we need in the world-a humane writer who provides a safe space for people who toggle between independence and institution as they navigate their beliefs."-Morgan Jerkins, New York Times bestselling author of This Will Be My Undoing and Caul Baby
"Red Lip Theology will make you laugh, gasp, and call your bestie to read lines aloud."-Monica A. Coleman, author of Making a Way Out of No Way and Bipolar Faith
"The spiritual and material lives of so many will be changed because of Benbow's words."-Darnell L. Moore, author of No Ashes in the Fire
"Candice Benbow is the physical embodiment of a paradigm shift. Her work represents the new era of The Divine Feminine and through her essays of grace, faith, trauma, and creativity she teaches all not only how to experience God at the deepest level but how to unconditionally love themselves through the eyes of God."-Devi Brown, author of Crystal Bliss
"Red Lip Theology is more than a come-to-Jesus moment for the church; it's also a potent and fearless cry of hope and life for a new generation of believers."-Matthew Paul Turner, #1 New York Times bestselling author of What Is God Like? and When God Made You
"This book is a theological masterpiece, a love song, and a tender exploration of what it means to live and grow up and fail and get better and put the broken pieces of ourselves back together."-Danté Stewart, author of Shoutin' in the Fire
"Candice Marie Benbow is what we need in the world-a humane writer who provides a safe space for people who toggle between independence and institution as they navigate their beliefs."-Morgan Jerkins, New York Times bestselling author of This Will Be My Undoing and Caul Baby
"Red Lip Theology will make you laugh, gasp, and call your bestie to read lines aloud."-Monica A. Coleman, author of Making a Way Out of No Way and Bipolar Faith
"The spiritual and material lives of so many will be changed because of Benbow's words."-Darnell L. Moore, author of No Ashes in the Fire
"Candice Benbow is the physical embodiment of a paradigm shift. Her work represents the new era of The Divine Feminine and through her essays of grace, faith, trauma, and creativity she teaches all not only how to experience God at the deepest level but how to unconditionally love themselves through the eyes of God."-Devi Brown, author of Crystal Bliss
Readers Top Reviews
Dei Dei Brown
This book is everything! It in a way connected me to my personal walk with God and spirituality! I love it! It was an easy read (read in a day!) and it did not come from a place of judgement! Real, raw, amazing! Thanks to the author for this masterpiece!
LJDDei Dei Brown
I pre-ordered this book and it was delivered about an hour ago. I started reading it while waiting on a phone call, and now am already almost halfway through it. It is definitely one of those books you can't put down. CMB's writing is art. She is a glorious storyteller, and this book is above all, a love letter to her mother, and womanhood. Reading it is like having a really good conversation with your closest friends. 100000% recommend!
L. BrownNikita Ha
Candice is confrontational, controversial, and I am sure the topic of many conversations, and she really doesn't care. This book is NOT for "baby" saints nor the faint of heart. If you have experienced "church" in a way that left a bitter taste in your mouth and spirit, you will relate to Candice and her Red Lip Theology. My advice: Chew the meat and spit out the bones between the pages
That girlShernell
Where is the Theology? I don’t particularly agree with what I know about the authors theology but I still wanted an insight on why she thinks the way she does. This book was more of a biography. Very very little theology if any to be honest. God rest her mothers soul but I was so tired of hearing about her mother.
Short Excerpt Teaser
We Are Good Creation
As far as childhoods go, I had an amazing one. Surrounded by books I read under covers well past my bedtime and Barbie dolls whose feet I chewed and hair I cut into asymmetrical bobs. I took ballet, tap, and jazz at one of Winston-Salem's premier dance studios with rich White girls and middle-class Black ones like me. I had piano lessons after my private school recessed for the day; I was in Girl Scouts from the time I was in kindergarten till I graduated high school with my Gold Award; and I had every enrichment program in between. I had the best of everything and was given opportunities to excel in life. Despite this, though, I could not escape one fatal flaw: my mother wasn't married to my father.
Even as a child, I understood my mother's singleness as her fault. That's how family and church folk made it seem. Somehow, she'd gotten pregnant and had a baby by herself. Committed to ensuring I understood my responsibility to my community and to Black people, Mama took me to town hall meetings, public forums, and any other place where the state of Black America was discussed. There, I heard reports of how single motherhood gutted our community of its morals and standards. Daniel Patrick Moynihan released his "take" on the fate of Black America in 1965-summarized by the line, "In essence, the Negro community has been forced into a matriarchal structure which, because it is too out of line with the rest of the American society, seriously retards the progress of the group as a whole, and imposes a crushing burden on the Negro male and, in consequence, on a great many Negro women as well." And, though the report was met with great resistance and critique, many Black folks shared his sentiments. In those town hall meetings, some were extremely vocal in their belief the problem with Black America was Black women and had no qualms about saying that when given a microphone. Others refused to deny the crushing weight of inequality and how our communities suffered because of it, while at the same time subtly suggesting that we as Black people could do more to stop imposing added suffering onto our lives.
Black men couldn't be fathers for a number of reasons, they told us. Many were dead or incarcerated thanks to the drug trade and subsequent war on it. Others were unable to come to terms with the limitations America imposed on Black men and, consequently, couldn't be adequate and present fathers. The least single Black mothers could do was pick up the slack, keep their kids well groomed, adequately fed, off the streets and out of trouble for the sake of communal uplift. Taking responsibility wasn't too much to ask and doing so was their reasonable service, the penance they paid to God for being disobedient and getting knocked up in the first place.
Mama made sure I grew up in church. She told me she took the promise Hannah made to God in 1 Samuel seriously. If God got her and her child out of the despair of her circumstances, she'd give me back to God. As a single mother raising a Black girl during the height of the crack epidemic and the rise of gang violence, Mama believed the church would keep me safe. And with a teen growing up while hip-hop was still finding its way, she also believed the church would keep me chaste. The church was the solution for single, Christian Black women raising Black girls, as it had been the solution for so many Black women before them.
Black people have always been a spiritual people, but nobody is more spiritual than Black women. To love God and the Spirit is the legacy of Black women. But while mothers of millennial Black girls were sending their daughters to church to escape the perils of the world, we also became victims of the traps set in the holiest of places. It was in church where I learned, as a child, I had the butt and breasts of a grown woman. Too many of us were preyed upon in the places where our mothers thought we were safe. And we couldn't tell them because we didn't want them to feel the guilt of being unable to keep us protected.
Single motherhood is a stain, the scarlet letter in our community. Even the bright lights of my childhood couldn't blind me to the reality that my mother wasn't supposed to do this alone. And, on any given Sunday, we'd hear about it. I remember the sermons where pastors told single women to keep their legs closed so they wouldn't find themselves in whatever mess they were in. It was actually in church where I learned what it meant to be born "out of wedlock." One of my Sunday School teachers used me as an example to teach the concept. Decades later, Mama told me my teacher did that in retaliation for my mother being named to the pastoral search committee. In no uncertain terms, it was reinforced that, if my ...
As far as childhoods go, I had an amazing one. Surrounded by books I read under covers well past my bedtime and Barbie dolls whose feet I chewed and hair I cut into asymmetrical bobs. I took ballet, tap, and jazz at one of Winston-Salem's premier dance studios with rich White girls and middle-class Black ones like me. I had piano lessons after my private school recessed for the day; I was in Girl Scouts from the time I was in kindergarten till I graduated high school with my Gold Award; and I had every enrichment program in between. I had the best of everything and was given opportunities to excel in life. Despite this, though, I could not escape one fatal flaw: my mother wasn't married to my father.
Even as a child, I understood my mother's singleness as her fault. That's how family and church folk made it seem. Somehow, she'd gotten pregnant and had a baby by herself. Committed to ensuring I understood my responsibility to my community and to Black people, Mama took me to town hall meetings, public forums, and any other place where the state of Black America was discussed. There, I heard reports of how single motherhood gutted our community of its morals and standards. Daniel Patrick Moynihan released his "take" on the fate of Black America in 1965-summarized by the line, "In essence, the Negro community has been forced into a matriarchal structure which, because it is too out of line with the rest of the American society, seriously retards the progress of the group as a whole, and imposes a crushing burden on the Negro male and, in consequence, on a great many Negro women as well." And, though the report was met with great resistance and critique, many Black folks shared his sentiments. In those town hall meetings, some were extremely vocal in their belief the problem with Black America was Black women and had no qualms about saying that when given a microphone. Others refused to deny the crushing weight of inequality and how our communities suffered because of it, while at the same time subtly suggesting that we as Black people could do more to stop imposing added suffering onto our lives.
Black men couldn't be fathers for a number of reasons, they told us. Many were dead or incarcerated thanks to the drug trade and subsequent war on it. Others were unable to come to terms with the limitations America imposed on Black men and, consequently, couldn't be adequate and present fathers. The least single Black mothers could do was pick up the slack, keep their kids well groomed, adequately fed, off the streets and out of trouble for the sake of communal uplift. Taking responsibility wasn't too much to ask and doing so was their reasonable service, the penance they paid to God for being disobedient and getting knocked up in the first place.
Mama made sure I grew up in church. She told me she took the promise Hannah made to God in 1 Samuel seriously. If God got her and her child out of the despair of her circumstances, she'd give me back to God. As a single mother raising a Black girl during the height of the crack epidemic and the rise of gang violence, Mama believed the church would keep me safe. And with a teen growing up while hip-hop was still finding its way, she also believed the church would keep me chaste. The church was the solution for single, Christian Black women raising Black girls, as it had been the solution for so many Black women before them.
Black people have always been a spiritual people, but nobody is more spiritual than Black women. To love God and the Spirit is the legacy of Black women. But while mothers of millennial Black girls were sending their daughters to church to escape the perils of the world, we also became victims of the traps set in the holiest of places. It was in church where I learned, as a child, I had the butt and breasts of a grown woman. Too many of us were preyed upon in the places where our mothers thought we were safe. And we couldn't tell them because we didn't want them to feel the guilt of being unable to keep us protected.
Single motherhood is a stain, the scarlet letter in our community. Even the bright lights of my childhood couldn't blind me to the reality that my mother wasn't supposed to do this alone. And, on any given Sunday, we'd hear about it. I remember the sermons where pastors told single women to keep their legs closed so they wouldn't find themselves in whatever mess they were in. It was actually in church where I learned what it meant to be born "out of wedlock." One of my Sunday School teachers used me as an example to teach the concept. Decades later, Mama told me my teacher did that in retaliation for my mother being named to the pastoral search committee. In no uncertain terms, it was reinforced that, if my ...
