Black Christian Women’s Spirituality in Beyoncé’s “Lemonade”
In Lemonade, religion is indisputably one of Beyoncé biggest motivators for reconciling with her husband, Jay-Z. Traditionally, Christianity holds a lot of specific rules and regulations centered around marriage and lawful unions, especially concerning divorce. Within black christian culture wives are expected to be subservient to husbands and forgiveness must always be exercised when the man “makes a mistake” e.g. cheats. We see this play out throughout the storyline of Lemonade, as her personal relationship issues are the main focus of the album, and in every other scene Beyoncé references religion whilst reciting poems about the hurt and suffering caused by generational trauma and the struggle to repair ruined relationships.
Despite international superstardom, many people forget that Beyoncé is a Southern church girl steeped in the Black church aesthetic and traditions. While her music and iconic status boast an unapologetic sexuality, in her personal life she seems not to detour far from the instructions church girls have been given. There have been countless debates about Beyoncé’s perceived reconciliation with her Jay-Z as an encouragement to remain in bad relationships. However, I think it can be interpreted as quite the opposite. We are actually being encouraged to leave places that do not hold and love us. We are being encouraged to love ourselves first. It does not mean we no longer love the spaces we have left. It means we love ourselves well enough to trust that life outside damaging spaces is fruitful. This is not limited to Black women’s personal relationships. Black christianity remains implicated in the gendered violence against black women, and it must reckon with the reality that Black women can be well elsewhere. Black Christian women must also be willing to admit the damage done by the church and demand better treatment.
Unfortunately, the church often dismisses these messages of self-actualization and Black male accountability as the result of women stepping outside their roles and speaking out of turn. In her book, Plenty Good Rood: Women Versus Male Power in the Black Church, Marcia Y. Riggs writes that “the paradoxical coexistence of a women’s tradition of resistance and male gatekeepers stands at the heart of the complexity and duplicity of sexual-gender relations in the African American church and tends to lead the leadership and membership to dismiss or excuse the ways that sexual-gender oppression occurs in the church.” But Beyoncé did this in “Lemonade” with a holy boldness, often depicting herself as goddesses from non-Christian faiths e.g. Erzulie Red-Eyes, Oshun, Nefertiti. This was done seemingly to reflect the divinity within herself and to raise black women to a pedestal within the church.
The seeming conclusion of Lemonade is that forgiveness is the most significant outcome; it is perhaps the ultimate message being conveyed throughout the album. Beyoncé employs the concept of a generational curse and used the music and poetry of Lemonade to exemplify the pain men have historically caused their spouses within her family. A generational curse is believed to be a habit or behavior that is passed down from one generation to another due to ‘rebellion against god’. If your family line is marked by divorce, incest, poverty, anger ‘or other ungodly patterns’, you’re likely under a generational curse. In Beyoncé’s Lemonade album, the song “Sandcastles” signifies the pain of the generational curse put upon the African American community, and Beyoncé allows a real look into how she views the reconciliation with her husband with significantly less confusing imagery and more metaphors as well as creating a cultural connectivity for her audience that revealed the frequency of male infidelity within the African American community.
In the spoken word piece “Redemption,” Beyoncé gives voice to a piece written by poet Warsan Shire that evokes a near religious mysticism to the generations of women who have come before her.
“Grandmother, The alchemist. You spun gold out of this hard life. Conjured beauty from the things left behind. Found healing where it did not live. Discovered the antidote in your own kitchen. Broke the curse with your own two hands. You passed them down to her daughter, who then passed them down to her daughter.”
Addressing the pain between black men and women encourages both to be viewed as equals and, much like Beyoncé’s relationship, allows them to heal together against a deeply racist society. This moment in Lemonade reflects the strength that black women have shown; despite the countless hardships forced upon them by society, they continue their lives and prosper.
