In this episode I chat with Dr. Christena Cleveland, we dive into a beautiful conversation about Black liberation and the sacred feminine. We talk about her 400-mile walking pilgrimage across central France in search of ancient Black Madonna statues, and how she examines the relationship among race, gender, and cultural perceptions of the Divine.

Christena Cleveland Ph.D. is a social psychologist, public theologian, author, and activist. She is the founder and director of the  Center for Justice + Renewal, a non-profit dedicated to helping justice advocates sharpen their understanding of the social realities that maintain injustice while also stimulating the soul’s enormous capacity to resist and transform those realities. 

A weaver of Black liberation and the sacred feminine, Dr. Cleveland integrates psychology, theology, storytelling, and art to stimulate our spiritual imaginations. She recently completed her third full-length book, God is a Black Woman (HarperOne), which details her 400-mile walking pilgrimage across central France in search of ancient Black Madonna statues, and examines the relationship among race, gender, and cultural perceptions of the Divine. 

Dr. Cleveland holds a Ph.D. in social psychology from the University of California Santa Barbara as well as an honorary doctorate from the Virginia Theological Seminary. An award-winning researcher and author, Christena is a Ford Foundation Fellow who has held faculty positions at several institutions of higher education — most recently at Duke University’s Divinity School, where she led a research team investigating self-compassion as a buffer to racial stress. Though Dr. Cleveland loves scholarly inquiry, she is also a student of embodied wisdom. She recently completed the Art & Social Change intensive body wisdom training for millennial leaders, and is currently deepening her mind-body-spirit integration in a year-long life practice program for BIPOC. 

A bona fide tea snob, lover of Black art, and Ólafur Arnalds superfan — Christena makes her home in the wild high desert of northern New Mexico.

Enjoy the episode!