Love, Auntie: Parables and Prayers for Sacred Belonging

Minister Hinton Hill (Black Girl Magic & Other Elixirs) draws on womanist theology—a system of Christian thought rooted in the experiences of Black women—for a collection of insightful and deeply felt meditations on how to build a more empowered faith. In brief, down-to-earth letters addressed to different audiences (including neurodivergent, gender-fluid, and Gen-Z readers), she frames vulnerability as central to spiritual “healing work” and truth-telling as key to a faith that requires believers to call out “things that don’t make sense in the Bible or our faith spaces.” In one especially moving section, she illustrates the ways in which spiritual community can be found in unexpected forms, recalling how she skipped a friend’s drag show in college due to her restrictive religious beliefs, but later came to realize that her friend’s willingness to be “his beautiful self” created “sanctuary for others... so that they could also have permission to walk in their own truth.” Hinton lays out a welcome and nonprescriptive alternative to obedience-focused notions of faith, anchoring her guidance in rich, resonant anecdotes. For example, she recalls how a pastor rejected her desire to minister because she was a woman, spurring her to cast off “biblical literalism” for a more expansive spirituality that opened up “new ways of seeing and being with the world.” Believers will be inspired. (Nov.)