African American Spirituality

Charlie Dates, Romell Williams, George Parks, Jr., Terry D. Streeter and a cast of pastors and preaching professors collaborate to demonstrate the power of exposition in the cradle of the Black pulpit. The contributors in this volume give examples of African American biblical exposition in every section of the Old Testament and New Testament. They also explain how to preach from narrative, poetical, prophetic, epistolary, and apocalyptic genres throughout the Scriptures.

With high expectations, Vanguards of a Missionary Uprising calls on Christian African-American students to step forward and lead a new international missionary movement. Celebrating their leadership potential, a veteran urban missionary makes this positive challenge from Jesus Christ's Great Commission in the Bible.

Encouraged shares the struggles that Black women ministers face. The various challenges shared may not be experienced by all but many have walked this walk. It is about loving God and yourself enough to stand strong in what God has called you to do. It is vital across denominational understandings that African American women ministers give sacred support to one another to spread the good news of the Gospel.

Willie Johnson. Granddaughter of a slave. Rejected by her father. Sold by her mother. Abused by her husband. How did a biracial woman become accepted to preach revivals in the Deep South and coast to coast during segregation and the Civil Rights movement. Listen to Through the Waters and learn how to rise above your obstacles from the inspiring life and ministry of Willie Johnson.

Can’t Nothing Bring Me Down is the memoir of 104-year-old world-record-holding runner Ida Keeling. Miss Ida, as she’s known throughout her Bronx community, isn’t your typical runner. Her fierce independence helped her through the Depression and the civil rights movement. But her greatest trials were yet to come.

The African-American community represents a paradox of sorts. While collective success has been achieved in many areas, African-Americans still disproportionately suffer from a variety of social ills. The residual impact of years of slavery and exclusion from the major institutions of American life are still trenchant. Yet there is hope. As we move forward into a new millennium, our greatest answers can be found by exploring the past.

This dissertation is an effort to think through the complexities of how African American literature interacts with what I am terming the notion of uncalling made visible by the heterodox Christianities that fall out of the scope of the Black. In other words, I analyze Black religiosity as an enactment of radical Black collectivity in counterdistinction to a politics of recognition. I argue it is this figure of the uncalled, operating out of heterodox Black religiosities, that can offer an alternative model for liberation and healing that is not bound up in outward cries for recognition.

Taking up that challenge and drawing from Baldwin's fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and interviews, You Mean It or You Don't will spur today's progressives from conviction to action. It is not enough, authors Hollowell and McGhee urge us, to hold progressive views on racial justice, LGBTQ+ identity, and economic inequality. True and lasting change demands a response to Baldwin's radical challenge for moral commitment. Called to move from dreams of justice to living it out in communities, churches, and neighborhoods, we can show that we truly mean it.

Brad Braxton and Anthony Pinn represent two traditions—Christianity and Secular Humanism respectively—that have for centuries existed in bitter opposition. For too long, people with different worldviews have disparaged and harmed one another. Instead of fighting each other, Braxton and Pinn talk with, listen to, and learn from one another. Their wide-ranging conversation demonstrates the possibility of fruitful exchange that accounts for—rather than masks—their differences.

What is the true nature and mission of the church? Is its proper Christian purpose to save souls, or to transform the social order? This question is especially fraught when the church is one built by an enslaved people and formed, from its beginning, at the center of an oppressed community's fight for personhood and freedom. Such is the central tension in the identity and mission of the Black church in the United States.

Racial Justice and the Catholic Church examines the presence of racism in America from its early history through the Civil Rights Movement and the election of Barack Obama. It also explores how Catholic social teaching has been used - and not used - to promote reconciliation and justice.

In this powerful and passionate memoir - his final work - Cone describes the obstacles he overcame to find his voice, to respond to the signs of the times, and to offer a voice for those - like the parents who raised him in Bearden, Arkansas, in the era of lynching and Jim Crow - who had no voice. Recounting lessons learned both from critics and students, and the ongoing challenge of his models King, Malcolm X, and James Baldwin, he describes his efforts to use theology as a tool in the struggle against oppression and for a better world.

From his enslavement to freedom, Frederick Douglass was one of America's most extraordinary champions of liberty and equality. Throughout his long life, Douglass was also a man of profound religious conviction. In this concise and original biography, D. H. Dilbeck offers a provocative interpretation of Douglass's life through the lens of his faith. In an era when the role of religion in public life is as contentious as ever, Dilbeck provides essential new perspective on Douglass's place in American history.

The 2012 killing of Trayvon Martin, an African American teenager in Florida, and the subsequent acquittal of his killer, brought public attention to controversial "Stand Your Ground" laws. The verdict, as much as the killing, sent shock waves through the African American community, recalling a history of similar deaths, and the long struggle for justice. On the Sunday morning following the verdict, black preachers around the country addressed the question, "Where is the justice of God? What are we to hope for?"

Jealousy, envy, and pure hateration. Maybe you've been there? Maybe you know someone that's going through it? Whatever the case you know when things get rough you can always count on your Sister Girls to be there for you. Take a look inside the lives of Crystal, Susan, Jewell, and Elsie. Their lives are laced with love, lust, and loyalty. Crystal must deal with a past she can't escape. Susan is in denial and needs to get real. Jewell is looking for a "good man." And Elsie is confused about her sexuality. When their issues explode, each woman is forced to confront her life and herself.

Alveda King, niece of the civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., shares 21 keys to help you unlock your spiritual potential. As your tour guide on this journey of discovery, she reveals how her famous family taught her that when you use your God-given gifts, you can impact the world. Sharing secrets to unlocking a divine family, divine salvation, divine forgiveness, and much more, King inspires you to unlock authority to use your spiritual gifts to their greatest potential. Learn how to live "in spirit and in truth" to discover what "to you it has been given" means for your life.

First published in 1997,

Little X chronicles the multigenerational experience of Tate's family, who broke from the traditional Black church in the 1950s to join the radical Nation of Islam, then struggled to remain intact through disillusionment, shifting loyalties, and forays into Orthodox Islam.

Little X offers a rare glimpse into the everyday experience of the Nation of Islam and into a little-understood part of America's history and heritage.

The Princess and the Prophet tells the story of the Black Broadway performer who, among the world of Arabian acrobats and equestrians, Muslim fakirs, and Wild West shows, discovered in Islam a greater measure of freedom and dignity, and a rebuttal to the racism and parochialism of white America.

Young, Gifted, and Black gives voice to the real stories of Black millennials and younger adults. If life was a race, it's assumed that every runner has a fair shot at winning. However, it's not always the case for young, gifted, and Black folks. Sheila Wise Rowe goes beyond the common narrative that focuses solely on their success or struggle. Her stories of celebration and lament point toward hope, joy, and healing. Drawing from her years of experience in counseling trauma and abuse survivors, she provides stories and tools for Black listeners of all ages and their allies.

On July 2, 1822, Denmark Vesey, a formerly enslaved man, was hanged in Charleston, South Carolina. He was convicted of plotting what might have been the largest insurrection against slaveholders in US history. Witnesses claimed that Vesey appealed to numerous biblical texts to promote and justify the revolt.