| This dissertation continues women religionists' explorations of the social construction of female identity, with particular interest in African-American Pentecostal women. Women's texts and narratives facilitate closer examination of the intersection of socio-political matrices (of race, class and gender) and religio-cultural realities fundamental to processes of self-construction. This exploration is contextual and thus uses a womanist approach as its methodological entree (as experience is the starting point for theologizing).;This self-constructive process converges in salient themes of salvation, work, spiritual power and dialectics of authority. These impact heavily upon and are interactive with prevailing roles and images of African-American womanhood. They are crystallized in a dialectical identity, colloquially expressed, as "being in the world, but not of it." This identity provides a rather fluid category in which African and North American religio-cultural experiences are negotiated. As such, it houses both liberative and debilitating notions of personhood espoused in Christianity and culture.;Further, this dialectical identity formation houses competing authorities (of experience, traditions of scriptural interpretation and cultures of obedience), which often undergird oppressive systems. This hinders women's ability to fully legitimate their experience and render it an authoritative source for theologizing. Consequent competitive paradigms often place in opposition, divine calling and female identity, prophetic and liberative praxis. However, this tension can also creatively serve the self-constructive/transformation process by adopting paradigms of resistance.;As such, this research discloses some of the ways in which some African-American women in the Church of God in Christ navigate the process of self-construction within competing authorities and ideologies. Both Pentecostal and womanist approaches are concerned with positive societal transformation and liberation, and are prophetic in aim and task. In dialogue, they present a dynamic forum for informing the constitutive elements of Pentecostal women's self-formation. |
