Tyler Perry has made over half a billion dollars through the development of storylines about black women, black communities and black religion. Yet, a text that responds to his efforts from the perspective of these groups does not exist.

Lisa Allen, Interdenominational Theological Center, USA
Brittney Cooper, Rutgers, USA
Joy James, Williams College, USA
Nyasha Junior, Howard University, USA
Cheryl A. Kirk-Duggan, Shaw University, USA
Robert J. Patterson, Georgetown University, USA
Whitney Peoples, Emory University, USA
T. Denean Sharpley-Whiting, Vanderbilt University, USA
Yolande M. S. Tomlinson, Emory University, USA
Emilie M. Townes, Vanderbilt University, USA
Andrea C. White, Emory University, USA
Terrion L. Williamson, Michigan State University, USA

Foreword; Emilie M. Townes Introduction; LeRhonda S. Manigault-Bryant, Tamura Lomax, and Duncan Part I: Filmography Part II: Theology, Spirituality and Black Popular Religious Imaginations 1: Tyler Perry Reads Scripture; Nyasha Junior 2: Signifying Love and Embodied Relationality: Towards a Womanist Theological Anthropology; Cheryl A. Kirk-Duggan 3: Jesus Will Fix It, After While: The Purpose and Role of Gospel Music in Tyler Perry Productions; Lisa Allen-McLaurin 4: Screening God; Andrea C. White Part III: Theorizing Intersecting Identities and (Re)Envisioning Black Womanhood 5: A People That Would Take Care of Ourselves: Tyler Perry's Vision of Community and Gender Relations; Yolande M.S. Tomlinson 6: It aint where you comin' from, honey: Class, Social Mobility and Marriage in Tyler Perry's Madea's Family Reunion; Carol B. Duncan 7: Mad Black Bitches and Lady-like Saints: Representations of African American Women in Tyler Perry Films; Tamura A. Lomax 8: (Re)Mediating Black Womanhood: Tyler Perry, Black Feminist Cultural Criticism and the Politics of Appropriation; Whitney Peoples Part IV: The Politics of Performance 9: Pause, Auntie Momma!: Reading Religion in Tyler Perry's Fat Drag; LeRhonda S. Manigault-Bryant 10: Madea vs. Medea: Agape, and the Militarist or Murderous Maternal; Joy James Part V: Black Women as Religio-Cultural Capital 11: Tyler Perry and the (Mis)Representation of Religious Morality; Terrion L. Williamson 12: Talking Back and Taking My 'Amens' with Me: Tyler Perry and the Narrative Colonization of Black Women's Stories; Brittney Cooper 13: Do You Want to Be Well?: The Gospel Play, Womanist Theology, and Tyler Perry's Artistic Project; Robert J. Patterson Afterword: T. Denean Sharpley-Whiting