The Holy Spirit and Incarnational Living: Ecowomanist Reflections

Abstract

This article asks, ‘Who is the Holy Spirit in the Christian message and what specifically is the cultural understanding of the Holy Spirit in the thought of womanist theologians?’ First, it offers a description of the meaning of ‘womanist’, particularly according to Alice Walker, who coined the term, in part to lift up African American women’s cultural understanding of ‘womanish’, particularly with reference to daughters who claim agency as freedom fighters. Second, it states who the Holy Spirit is in relation to God and to the Trinity as a whole. Third, as a Christian ecowomanist essay that employs Walker’s description of ‘womanist’, it is attentive to God’s redemptive aim for all creation, heaven and earth, in other words for the entire cosmos.