T&T Clark Handbook of African American Theology

Description

This handbook explores the central theme of Christian faith from various disciplinary approaches and different contexts of black experience in the United States. The central unifying theme is freedom; an important concept both in American culture and Christianity. African American theology represents a Christian understanding of God’s freedom and the good news of God’s call for all humankind to enter life—true human identity and moral responsibility—in genuine and just community. Contributors to the volume argue that African American theology highlights how racism and other intersecting forms of oppression complicate the human predicament; and that their eradication requires an expansion of salvation to include the liberation of persons who lack full participation in society and enjoyment of the good (and goods) made possible by that society. The essays in this handbook employ the tools of biblical criticism, history, cultural and social analysis, religious studies, philosophy, and systematic theology, in order to explore and assess the nature and impact of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, class, immigration, and cultural and moral pluralism in America—as well as the intersections between African American and African diasporan religious thought and life. Cover Half title Title Copyright Dedication Contents List of Contributors Acknowledgment Introduction Part One Historical Investigations 1 The African American Struggle for Human Dignity in Chattel Slavery and Afterwards 2 Re-evaluating Roots: Slavery as Source and Challenge for African American Theology 3 Then and Now: Salvation, White Supremacy, and Black Agency in the Aftermath of the White Supremacy Campaign of 1898 and Presidential Election of 2016 4 Engaging History Theologically: Early Afro-Pentecostal Interracial Communities as Sites of Emancipatory Politics 5 “Peace Be Still”: James Cleveland and the Paradox of Peace in the Civil Rights Movement 6 African American Evangelicals 7 The Classroom and Pulpit of the Public Theologian: A Brief Survey of Black Faith Tradition(s) Part Two Theological Method and Construction 8 The Hebrew Bible and Black Theology: Fresh Hermeneutical Considerations for Liberation Theologies and Situating the Teachings of Jesus 9 From Ideology to Theology: Toward a More Liberating Doctrine of Revelation 10 The Reality of God and Racism: Shifting Paradigms in Race, Culture, and the Church 11 Is Racism in America a Functional Refutation of the Classical Philosophical View of Understanding as Pertaining to Universal Concepts? 12 Theological Considerations of Being Human while Black 13 Pneumatology and Contemporary Theological Discourse 14 Mad with Supernatural Joy: On Representations of Pentecostalism in the Black Religious Imagination 15 Baptism and Holy Communion: Affirming that Black Lives Matter 16 God and Time: Exploring Black Notions of Prophetic and Apocalyptic Eschatology 17 Methodological Development in African American Theology: The Influence of Past Historical Periods upon Contemporary Black and Womanist Thought 18 The Ethics, Politics, and Civic Engagement of African American Theological Production 19 The Church and the Tangent: Everybody’s Protest Theology Part Three Church, Ministry, and Leadership 20 Prophetic Preaching and Theological Reflection 21 Plenty Good Room Revisited: The Quest for a Radically Inclusive Twenty-first-century Black Church 22 Black Ecumenism and the Ecumenical Movement: Four Perspectives 23 Receiving the Body as Gift: African American Christian Ethics and the Harlem Renaissance as a Theo-Ethical Intervention 24 Theology, Praxis, and Leadership: Paradigm for Black Churches 25 Black Church Pastors as Chief Executive Officers: A Theoretical Reframing of the Debate Part Four Dialogues 26 Black Theology and Black Humanism 27 White Feminist Theologies and Black Womanist Theologies 28 Jewish Theology and African American Theology in Dialogue 29 Black Theology and the Care of the Soul, Mind, and Body: Reading African American Theology from a Black British Perspective 30 African American Theology and Her Siblings in the Caribbean Diaspora: Toward a Theology of a Plurality of Praxis in the Black Atlantic World 31 Metals and Movens of Colored Television: The Spirit is a Bone: A Response to Marla F. Frederick’s Colored Television: American Religion Gone Global Epilogue Biblical Citations Index Subject Index