Black women, among the country’s most religious groups, have long been praised as “the backbone of the church.” Yet, they have also been among its most marginalized. A podcast from award-winning journalist Jemele Hill explores Black women’s varied “religious and cultural conditioning” exclusively on Spotify.
Actress and singer Deborah Joy Winans and body- and sex-positive womanist preacher and author Lyvonne Briggs host the “Sanctified” podcast, which debuted in November 2022 via Hill’s Unbothered Network.
“‘Sanctified’ is a sacred storytelling space for recovering church girls who now want to be liberated women of faith,” Briggs told Faithfully Magazine. “We are righteous and we are ratchet. We listen to Megan Thee Stallion and Mahalia Jackson. We twerk and we talk about theology. We get to be both/and.”
It is important for Black women to “feel welcomed, and loved, and sheltered, and feel a sense of community,” said Winans, who initially declined Hill’s invitation to host the podcast.