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African American Biblical Interpretation: Reflections on Stony the Road We Trod
Get PDFFirst of all, I would like to extend my deep congratulations to the authors of this marvelous book. In the history of biblical hermeneutics this is an epoch-making work that requires a turning point of our attention from a Eurocentric to an African American perspective. In this response, I will make affirmative comments at the outset and critical comments later
Review of Cain Hope Felder, ed. Stony the Road We Trod: African American Biblical Interpretation
Get PDFBefore I make my remarks, I would like to express my gratitude to the organizers of this panel for inviting me to participate in this discussion. Stony the Road We Trod is a landmark volume, an essay collection of rigorous scholarship, laying out the issues in African American Biblical Hermeneutics clearly, cogently, and prophetically. It is a great honor to read and review this book. It certainly has opened my Asian-American eyes to the subtle ways in which racism creeps into our biblical interpretation. Furthermore, on a practical level it has helped me in my teaching just three weeks ago. I successfully used Paul Lawrence Dunbar’s “AnteBellum Sermon,” as analyzed by David Shannon, in a discussion to introduce my students to prophecy. My students loved this poem and were able to understand the nature of orality, the contextualization of ancient traditions for the present, the prophetic challenge to an unjust society, among other things, by thoroughly examining it
The African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church and the Women's Ordination Controversy, 1898-1900: A Case Study on the Value of Racial Inclusivity in Religious Studies
Get PDFIn recent decades the discipline of religion and others have been called upon to he more inclusive or multicultural in their approach to both teaching and research. An ever increasing number of scholars from various racial, ethnic, geographical, and gender backgrounds or identities have posed daring new questions for what was once practically male, Eurocentric scholarship. To be sure, these new endeavors have occasioned a great deal of pain for many accustomed to the status quo. There have been many charges of excesses leveled against the newer inclusive scholarship and scholars that in some instances rival the very real, demonstrable excesses of the older approach. But this new research has brought all of us to a clearer understanding of our respective disciplines. We have found, for example, that explorations into African American religious history have clarified our understanding of American religious history in general. How can we truly claim to understand the rise, development, spread, and impact of American evangelicalism without comprehending the leadership and participation of African Americans in that enterprise? So, not only does a study of African American religion complete the picture from the perspective of inclusivity; it also illumines the general portrait of American religion. This same principle can be employed across the various fields and subfields of religious study regarding the utility of racial and cultural inclusivity
Black Religion: Strategies of Survival, Elevation, and Liberation
Get PDFIn a classic essay on Black religion W. E. B. DuBois wrote: “Three things characterized this religion of the slave—the Preacher, the Music, and the Frenzy.” Although this classic description captures the dynamic of the Africans’ earliest appropriation of evangelical Protestantism on both sides of the Atlantic, contemporary historical studies reveal a more complex and comprehensive pattern of religious development. From a perspective that includes not only what DuBois called “an adaptation and mingling of heathen rites . . . roughly designated as Voodooism,” but also the institutionalization of incipient slave worship in Black American churches of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, three dominant themes or motifs stand out as foundational from the Jamestown handing to the present. They are survival, elevation, and liberation
Mystical Religion as Social Leaven: An Excursus in The Sociology of Mysticism
Get PDFIn this paper we examine as a theme the relationship which obtains between mysticism and social change in the modern Western world. Contrary to classical depictions (Troeltsch, 1910, 1931; Weber, 1946, 1963), we contend that mysticism has positive ramifications for extant social relationships; that, in fact, it can and does actively impinge upon the social milieu. The time is ripe to move beyond conventionalwisdom in the sociological study of mysticism—which has characterized the mystic as escapist, life-denying and “other-worldly”—to present a more accurate assessment of the role of mysticism in the modern world. It is our task in part, therefore, to offer a brief review of three seminal perspectives in the sociology of Ernst Troeltsch, Max Weber and, more recently, Roland Robertson. From there, we seek to ascertain the adequacy of their typologies in light of the social regenerative efforts of a prominent recent proponent of mysticism, Howard Thurman
The Story of Pan-African Christianity and PACCC I
Get PDFThe story of Pan-Africanism, of Pan-African Christianity, and the First Pan-African Christian Church Conference (PACCC I) begins with the antecedent reality of African humanity and the plethora of traditional religious inheritances. Millions of Christian and non-Christian people who are the direct descendants of African ancestors populate not only the continent of Africa, but most of the continents of the world. There are varying concentrations in South, Central, and North America and the Caribbean basin, in Asia, Europe, and other regions of the world
African Traditional Religion: An Enduring Heritage
Get PDFAfrican Traditional Religion, it hardly needs pointing out, is part of the religious heritage of humankind. Born out of the experience and deep reflection of our African forebears, it provides answers to the stirrings of the human spirit and elaborates on the profundity of the experience of the divine-human encounter based on the resources of Africa’s own cultural heritage and insight. It also provides answers to the ultimate questions posed by men and women in Africa, gives meaning and significance to human life, explains the origin and destiny of human beings, how everything in the world came into being and the relationship that should exist between them. In short, it is Africa’s own way of coming to terms with Reality
Womanist Theology In North America
Get PDFI’ve been asked to share what I have been doing in the area of women and theology, and more specifically, Black women and theology, from the perspective that we call Womanist Theology. “Sexism is not a problem in the Black Community.’’ “Sexism is nota problem in the African community.” These statements, echoed by many, were the basis of an informal discussion just a few days ago at the Bossey Institute just outside Geneva, Switzerland, by myself and a Kenyan graduate student from Princeton Theological Seminary. We began the discussion by sharing our experiences as women in Religious Studies, African American Religious Studies and African Religious Studies
Opening Devotions: Solidarity With Cuba
Get PDFCall To WorshipLeader: Rejoice, all the earth!Rejoice, continents and numerous islands!Rejoice, Cuba! God reigns!People: We cannot help rejoicing in the celebrationbecause the powerful hand of God has been upon usand has sustained and directed us through all our life.Leader: The Lord rejoices in the work of God’s hand.People: And we rejoice in all the creation:for the palm trees that stand tall in continuous worship,for the birds that each new day sing a hymn of praise,for the sun that warms and gives light to the just andunjust,for women, men, youth and children who daily live withus and in one way or another serve us and in this wayspeak to us of your daily love,for the church that gathers together to worship and goesout in joyful service,for Christ who gives himself to us in bread and wine as asymbol of unity, solidarity and liberation.We rejoice and are glad in him. Halleluya
