Flesh & Fire Theology
A body is not sin. A body is text. A body is a protest.
What Is Flesh & Fire Theology?
Definition:
Flesh & Fire Theology is a body-centred, intersectional approach to scripture, history, and theology. It affirms bodily autonomy as sacred and reads the Bible and history through the lens of women and gender-diverse people whose bodies were regulated, violated, commodified, or erased and yet remained sources of power, protest, and divine presence.
This theology is rooted in:
Feminist & womanist theory
Historical-critical methods
Queer and postcolonial readings
Intersectionality (Crenshaw)
Narrative theory and trauma theory
2. Flesh & Fire Herstory
Every scar is scripture. Every silence is an archive.
Definition:
A retelling of ancient and biblical history centred on the body as a site of resistance, focusing on women, enslaved people, children, and gender-diverse bodies within the empire.
Key themes:
Consent and age
Gender and sexuality
State and sacred violence
Migration, slavery, and empire
Reproductive autonomy
Sacred rage and refusal
3. Sacred Skin Bible
The Sacred Skin Bible: A Body-Liberating Reading of Scripture
Definition:
A narrative and theological reading of the Bible that centers bodies especially Black, brown, female, enslaved, queer, and colonized bodies as sites of divine revelation, resistance, and renewal. It treats flesh not as sinful, but as a sacred archive.
Uses:
Intersectionality as a reading lens
Narrative theory to explore character agency and silence
Feminist theory to address consent, control, and trauma
Historical-critical methods to expose empire and institutional
Includes figures like:
Dinah (Genesis): a case study in silence, rape, and patriarchal revenge
Hagar: forced surrogacy and divine encounter in exile
Mary of Nazareth: teenage consent, divine conception, and colonial violence
Pharaoh’s Daughter: disobedience and inter-ethnic adoption
The bleeding woman: medicalised bodies, isolation, and healing.
By Princess O'Nika Auguste, June 18th and 19th, 2025
