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Pastoral Counseling With African-American Male Youth Offenders, 2002
Get PDFThis article emerges from the writer’s experience working with youth offenders entangled in the juvenile justice system in Georgia. They are younger than seventeen years of age and have been involved in juvenile courts because of a legal violation. The subjects represent those youth to whom pastoral care and counseling services were provided when they were sixteen. They were primarily male and African American, resided in the family of origin, and were in public schools or alternative public schools
The Black Church in Town and Rural Settings, 2001
No full textWhen we visualize our churches, we often see them as large urban structures involving large numbers of people in worship and service. In reality, half of all the congregations in the United States have fewer than 100 regularly participating adults and just over half are located in small town and rural settings. In fact, a full quarter of congregations have fewer than fifty regularly participating adults, while less than 10 percent have more than 1,000. The large urban church is the exception, not the rule. The small membership church located in town and rural settings is certainly more the case than the so-called megachurch
Aspects of American Pluralism
Get PDFCatholics, Protestants and Jews constitute the reigning religious triumvirate in America, and so perceive themselves; and while all three groups have black constituencies of varying degrees of significance, the collective significance of Blacks as Catholics, Protestants and Jews is considered insufficient to be a meaningful factor in assessing the position of the religious mainstream in America. Hence, any serious discussion of religion in America almost inevitably becomes a discussion about “religion” and “black religion.” Civil religion is not excluded, for in talking about civil religion, we are in a larger sense talking about the peculiar establishment of a religious pluralism as an epiphenomenon behind an official posture of sectarianism and the alleged separation of church and state. It was once believed that civil religion could never be a factor of consequence in the United States, for that possibility had been anticipated and forever precluded by a provision of the First Amendment, to wit: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or preventing the free exercise thereof.
Biblical Hermeneutics and The Black Preacher
Get PDFThere are two truisms which can be stated about the black community in America. The first is that the Church is the most important institution within the black community, as has been noted by W.E.B. DuBois in his classic, The Souls of Black Folk (1903).1 The second is that the Holy Bible is the foundation stone upon which that Church and its preaching is firmly established. Howard Thurman has already demonstrated this in his studies on spirituals, The Negro Spiritual Speaks of Life and Death (1947), and Deep River (1955).2 James Cone reaffirms the same in his A Black Theology of Liberation (1970), and Spiritualsand the Blues (1972).3 The emerging discipline of Black Theology, discourse about God from the perspective of black folk, also recognizes the centrality of Church and Bible
Black Theology: Vanguard of Pan-African Christianity in America
Get PDFAs a particular theological formulation and system, Black theology attempts to engage some religious descriptions, interpretations and expressions of the life styles and God-consciousness of Black peoples, beginning in the African context and moving into the Black diaspora. In Black consciousness, the revelation of God is experience with special kinds of universal implications. As “the” theology it is the relevant message (kerygma) of God-activity in the contemporary situation. God has called Black people into the center of history. (He has called and calls others also.) Salvation history, in terms of Black experience, is for a divine purpose. Black history is not purposeless. The Black religious experience has become a reference point in the drama of human redemption. Black theology, whether “a” or “the” theology, is not the only theology, but it is the most relevant revelation of God-activity to accomplish a “Providential design” in the contemporary world, -certainly from the Black point of view. Probably it is the only theological enterprise in contemporary history that can serve the circumstantial will of God in moving the Black experience toward a historical and universal mission
The History of the A.M.E. Church In Zambia
Get PDFIn all the literature that has been compiled about the black church in America, very little has been written about its rather extensive missionary activity. This fact is surprising since the major black denominations have had branches in Africa for over one hundred years. Given the desire to understand the history of relationships between black America and Africa, as well as amass more data on the black church, more attention should have been paid to the missionary activities of black denominations. The history of the A.M.E. Church in Zambia is but one example of how a major black denomination became established in a relatively remote part of Africa, how it thrived, how it had a great future, but how time passed it by. It is also an example of how the most significant blackAmerican institution — the black church — was transferred back to Africa, becoming a cultural contribution from black America to mother Africa. The story could be told for other black denominations in other parts of Africa. The purpose of this article is to provide ethnography about one case — the A.M.E. church in Zambia1 — and to demonstrate the need for more research on black missionary activities in Africa
Concern for Spiritual and Moral Input
Get PDFIf we do, indeed, have a concern for spiritual input, then we must acknowledge that such input comes into our lives not just by our profession of Christian faith and our acceptance of Christian teachings, but that it comes in more vivid and tangible form as the result of the living, moving operation of the Holy Spirit
Journal of the Interdenominational Theological Center, Front Matter, 1976
No full textThe Journal of The Interdenominational Theological Center is published semi-annually by The Interdenominational Theological Center, 671 Beckwith St., S. W.,Atlanta, Georgia 30314. It is published in the interest of the alumni and the constituent seminaries of The Interdenominational Theological Center (Gammon Theological Seminary, Absalom Jones Episcopal Institute, Charles H. Mason Theological Seminary, Morehouse School of Religion, Phillips School of Theology, Johnson C. Smith Theological Seminary and Turner Theological Seminary)