Being human is neither abstract nor hypothetical. It is concrete, visceral, and embodied in the everyday experience and relationships that determine who we are. In that case, argues distinguished theologian Shawn Copeland, we have much to learn from the embodied experience of Black women who, for centuries, have borne in their bodies the identities and pathologies of those in power. With rare insight and conviction, Copeland demonstrates how Black womens experience and oppression cast a completely different light on our theological theorems and pious platitudes and reveal them as a kind of mental colonization that still operates powerfully in our economic and political configurations today. Further, Copeland argues, race and embodiment and relations of power not only reframe theological anthropology but also our notions of discipleship, church, and Christ as well. In fact, she argues, our postmodern situation marked decidedly by the realities of race, conflict, the remains of colonizing myths, and the health of bodies affords an opportunity to be human (and to be the body of Christ) with new clarity and effect.

M. Shawn Copeland is professor emerita of systematic theology at Boston College. She has been president of the Catholic Theological Society of America. She has taught at Marquette University, Yale University Divinity School, and the Institute for Black Catholic Studies, Xavier University of Louisiana, New Orleans.

Shawn Copelands Enfleshing Freedom: Body, Race, and Being responds to the perpetual Christian theological inquiry about the meaning of being human with a refreshing reclamation of liberation theologys foundational premise that Jesus calls disciples to know and to contest the wounding of persons. A womanist theological anthropology that uses accumulated traumas of Black womens bodies to unmask the depths of human horrors and divine love, Enfleshing Freedom identifies countering division and domination as what it means to truly be human. The human body, Enfleshing Freedom maintains, is a facilitator of divine revelation, a source of human relationality, and divine affirmation of diversity. Citing Black womens historic opposition to Black pain and contemporary #BlackLivesMatter practices as signs, Enfleshing Freedom asserts that Jesus calls disciples to enact assembly (ekklesia) and communion (Eucharist) through solidarity in "bodily living" that both combats indignities against persons within Christian communities and extends assembly and communion as the solidarity of combating indignity through wide-open welcome and camaraderie. --Rosetta Ross, professor of religious studies, Spelman College

Enfleshing Freedom is a masterpiece--one of the most important works of Catholic theology since the Second Vatican Council. It speaks lovingly of our raced, gendered, wounded, and joyous bodies and unites them in the liberating body of Christ. This second edition features expanded treatments of Toni Morrisons Beloved, the historical context of Jesus of Nazareth, recent US immigration policy, evolving Catholic views on same-sex relationships, and the phenomenon of "neo-lynching." It also includes a stunning new chapter, "Enfleshing Struggle," that interprets #BlackLivesMatter and #SayHerName. It is a must-read! --Andrew Prevot, Amaturo Chair in Catholic Studies, Georgetown University, author of The Mysticism of Ordinary Life: Theology, Philosophy, and Feminism

Impossibly, Copeland has lifted the second edition of Enfleshing Freedom to even higher heights than the first. Strongly theological and philosophical, the pastoral intent of her work is to center a womanist constructive theology to counter racist heterosexism. Copeland challenges and inspires all theological thinking to pay close attention to the metaphysics of raced being, the continuing violence of slaving histories, the exclusions of some bodies from ecclesial spaces, to fashion a theology, Christology, and ecclesiology that actively resist prejudice and bigotry. Constructively, the book is a nuanced and careful mapping of the urgent need for Christians to create and sustain complex solidarities that have the potential to transform the despair of hate and anger into communities "ordered by the Eucharist" of love and care. --Susan Abraham, vice president of Academic Affairs and dean, Pacific School of Religion