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Black Liberation and the Catholic Church: The Louisiana Experience
Get PDFThe following pages discuss the role of religion, specifically the Catholic Church and its conduct during the long struggle of American black people for social and political liberation. Since the American South was the most active battle ground of this fight for human dignity, I have focused my study on Louisiana, a state which is surely a part of the South, but also one which is uniquely southern for a number of reasons, not the least of which is its large population of black and white Catholics
Taste and See the God of Your Ancestors: Drama in the African-American Church
Get PDFFrom the beginning of time we have been a people of expression, a people of emotion, a people of intensity, and a people of action. Our worship services have traditionally reflected these characteristics. This tradition is rooted in African holistic worship where God’s creation worships God with being and life. Yet as Africa’s descendant generations have integrated into Western culture’s version of Christianity, some assimilation hasoccurred. This began when many African descendants decided the “right” way to worship was similar to the Christianity oftheir foreparents. With education and sophistication came an abandonment of roots and an acquisition of a style of worship not true to their heritage. Today we are living in that inheritance of restrictive worship of and to God
The Church’s Contribution to Patriarchy: Destruction of the Mental, Emotional, Spiritual, and Physical Health of Women
Get PDFThe female’s sense of inferiority is socially determined and conditioned at birth. Because of societal pressures regarding the assigned sex roles of women, they suffer low self esteem, distorted self-image (including body-image), and confusion regarding their purpose in life. These factors play a crucial role in the decided increase of depression, suicide, drug, and alcohol use among women. Not only are these results destroying the lives of millions of women daily, but they further devastate families and communities, resulting in a universal impact on the mental, emotional, and physical health of communities
African-American Liturgical Music in a Global Context
Get PDF“Tell Old Pharaoh, Let my people go!” This Swahili translation of “Go Down Moses,” one of the most familiar of over 6,000 extant African-American spirituals, sets the context of this study of “African-American Liturgical Music in a Global Context.” To hear this translation emotionally rendered in services of worship in Limuru and Nairobi, Kenya, and translations of this and other texts of African-American songs in Debrechen, Hungary; Johannesburg, South Africa, and at numerous ecumenical meetings in other places around the world, awakened a new awareness of the impact of African-American songs on the global community. Not only is there evidence of cross cultural sharing of biblical interpretations and experiences of the faith of a people captured and enslaved in an alien land, there is also a reminder of God’s gift of song through people in a variety of circumstanees. Like many of the songs created by African-American communities, “Go Down Moses” is a universal call to obedience to God with a special concern for social justice, which transcends time and liturgical boundaries. This and other songs are classical examples of ways in which God speaks to the world through sincere expressions of the faith of a people. African-American liturgical music has impacted the world in ways that have not yet been fully explored
Toward a Womanist Hermeneutic: A Reading of Judges 19-21
Get PDFPhyllis Trible, in her book, Texts of Terror, applies a feminist hermeneutic to the story found in Judges 19-21.1 Her emphasis is on the power dynamics which men have over women. She portrays the women as powerless victims, and the men as powerful, uncaring victimizers. While such a dynamic may be found in the story, it does not reflect the only power dynamic. Such a one dimensional perspective of this story—which does not account for the various types of victimization—can only have a limited use for women of color, who experience multivariate victimization. This work will examine the social dynamics of the relationships in the rhetorical segments found in Judges 19-21. After a critique of Phyllis Trible’s interpretation, I shall offer a womanist interpretation of the segments of the story. A brief review of the societal setting in which the story takes place is in order
Response to the Responses of Stony the Road We Trod: African American Biblical Interpretation
Get PDFWe have filled a vacuum by the writing of this book. It is well received as indicated by the fact that within five months the book was in its third printing. It is a unique project in that for the first time in a single volume, cross generational African American biblical scholars have collaborated in a confessional, communitarian, scholarly approach in an attempt to speak to the African American Church and the scholarly community
Martin Luther King, Jr.: Sixty-Fifth Anniversary Overview and Assessment
Get PDFNo one made a greater impact upon the struggle for racial justice in America than Martin Luther King, Jr. Before King, America was a contented segregated society—de jure in the South and de facto in the North. The idea of racial equality and freedom was a marginal issue in American life, seldom mentioned by government officials and other public figures, and largely confined to the legal work of the NAACP and the academic writings of a few scholars. Looking back over the years from the vantage point of what would he his sixty-fifth birthday—he was born on January 15, 1929—it is clear that Martin King changed all that. Through his civil rights activity, public speeches, and writings, he placed the problem of race at the center of American life and forced this nation to acknowledge racism as its greatest moral dilemma
Journal of the Interdenominational Theological Center, Back Matter, 1993
No full textJournal of the Interdenominational Theological Center, Back Matter, 199
From Whence Cometh the Enemy: An Exploration Into Christian Traditions
Get PDFExamining the history of Christian traditions forces one to confront some fascinating but disturbing contradictions. One of the most blatant of these contradictions is the claim of universality and the practice of exclusivity. While this contradiction is characteristic of other dualistic world views and value frameworks, we will focus on Christian traditions
Reflections Upon Black Theology: A European Theological Perspective
Get PDF“Black theology is too important to be left exclusively in the hands of the Black theologians” This is one of the messages, perhaps the most important one, to come through loud and clear from the groundbreaking book by Theo Witvliet, a Dutch liberation theologian who teaches at the University of Amsterdam. I agree with these words of Professor Gayraud Wilmore in the Foreword of this book. I have received a great deal of stimulation from this work by Witvliet. It is the best thing so far that has been written in Europe on Black theology