An intimate look at the afterlife of lynching through the personal stories of Black victims and survivors who lived through and beyond its trauma Mari N. Crabtree traces the long afterlife of lynching in the South through the traumatic memories it left in its wake. She unearths how African American victims and survivors found ways to live through and beyond the horrors of lynching, offering a theory of African American collective trauma and memory rooted in the ironic spirit of the blues sensibility—a spirit of misdirection and cunning that blends joy and pain. Black southerners often shielded their loved ones from the most painful memories of local lynchings with strategic silences but also told lynching stories about vengeful ghosts or a wrathful God or the deathbed confessions of a lyncher tormented by his past. They protested lynching and its legacies through art and activism, and they mourned those lost to a mob’s fury. They infused a blues element into their lynching narratives to confront traumatic memories and keep the blues at bay, even if just for a spell. Telling their stories troubles the simplistic binary of resistance or submission that has tended to dominate narratives of Black life and reminds us that amid the utter devastation of lynching were glimmers of hope and an affirmation of life.

This special collection assembles some of the most pre-eminent scholars in the field in African, African American, and American Studies to explore the ways writers reclaim the Black female body in African American literature using the theoretical, social, cultural, and religious frameworks of spirituality and religion. Central to these discussions is Black women’s agency within these realms—their uncanny ability to invent and reinvent themselves within individual and communal spaces that frame them as both outsider and insider, unworthy and worthy, deviant and sacred, excess and minimal. Scholars have sought to discuss these tensions, acknowledged and affirmed in prose, poetry, music, essays, speeches, written plays, or short stories. Forgiveness, healing, redemption, and reclamation provide entry into these vibrant explorations of self-discovery, passion, and self-creation that interrogate traditional views of what is spiritual and what is religious. Discussed writers include Toni Morrison, Phillis Wheatley, James Baldwin, Tina McElroy Ansa, Toni Cade Bambara, and Thomas Dorsey.

This detailed history of the famous Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, New York City, begins with its organization in 1809 and continues through its relocations, its famous senior pastors, and its many crises and triumphs, up to the present. Considered the largest Protestant congregation in the United States during the pre-megachurch 1930s, this church plays a very important part in the history of New York City.

In this accessible and provocative study, Brian Blount reads the book of Revelation through the lens of African American culture, drawing correspondences between Revelation's context and the long-standing suffering of African Americans. Applying the African American social, political, and religious experience as an interpretive cipher for the book's complicated imagery, he contends that Revelation is essentially a story of suffering and struggle amid oppressive assimilation. He examines the language of "martyr" and the image of the lamb, and shows that the thread of resistance to oppressive power that runs through John's hymns resonates with a parallel theme in the music of African America.

Under the rubric spirituals are subsumed sorrow songs, jubilee songs, shout songs, chants, homilies, mantras, affirmations, and collective, personal, and historical allegories. Their lyrics tell an impassioned story of an embattled people, while presenting a theology of salvation; in general, they encompass crucial aspects of the Afro-American world view. This research collection contains lyrics of 978 spirituals, including some variants, culled from numerous anthologies and collections. Codes are provided to guide the researcher to an original source with musical notations. The songs are organized in nine thematic categories as follows: lyrics of sorrow, alienation, and desolation; consolation and faith; resistance and defiance; deliverance; jubilation and triumph; judgment and reckoning; regeneration; spiritual progress; and transcendence. Each thematic section is prefaced by an interpretive statement, and the volume introduction discusses the historical background and analyzes the basic poetics of the spirituals with regard to structure, prosody, and figures of speech. Selective bibliographies of song collections and historical and theoretical works are included as well. The lyrics are indexed by title and by first line, and a general index provides access to topics, themes, persons, and places. The spirituals are pervasive in Afro-American life, and this collection will be a basic resource for researchers in all aspects of Afro-American culture, religion, and history, and useful, as well, for musicologists.

The Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1986, volume 1, contains messages given by Brother Witness Lee from January 4, 1986, through March 11, 1989. In 1986 Brother Lee spoke sixty-six messages that were published in The Conclusion of the New Testament. These Life-study messages are not included in The Collected Works of Witness Lee. During the first few days in January Brother Lee was in Irving, Texas. He then returned to Anaheim, California, and with the exception of a brief visit to Cerritos, California, he remained in Anaheim until the beginning of March. In the first week of March Brother Lee traveled to Taipei, Taiwan, where he remained until the beginning of June. From Taipei he returned to Anaheim and was there for a few days before traveling to Irving after the third week of June. He spent about two weeks in Irving, and from there he returned to Anaheim and ministered there until the end of August. The contents of this volume are divided into seven sections, as follows: 1. A message given in Irving, Texas, on January 4, 1986. This message is included in this volume under the title Spreading the Truths in the Lord's Recovery to All of God's Children. 2. Six messages given in Anaheim, California, on January 11 through August 25, 1986. These messages are included in this volume under the title Various Elders' Meetings in Anaheim. 3. Two messages given in Anaheim, California, on January 26 and 27, 1986. These messages are included in this volume under the title Avoiding Both the Exercise of Control over the Saints and the Cultivation of Natural Affection with Them and Having Genuine Oneness in Order to Enjoy the Lord's Blessing. 4. Eight messages given in Anaheim, California, on February 17 through 19 and March 2, 1986. They were previously published in a book entitled Elders' Training, Book 7: One Accord for the Lord's Move and are included in this volume under the same title. 5. Eleven messages given in Anaheim, California, on February 19 through 22, 1986. They were previously published in a book entitled Elders' Training, Book 8: The Life Pulse of the Lord's Present Move and are included in this volume under the same title. 6. A message given in Chinese in Cerritos, California, on March 1, 1986. This message is included in this volume under the title The Center of the Bible, the Center of the Universe, and the Center of the Human Life. 7. Twenty-two messages given in Taipei, Taiwan, on March 10 through 12, April 16 through 18, and June 2, 1986; April 15 through August 13, 1987; April 20 and 21, 1988; and March 9 through 11, 1989. These messages were previously published in Chinese and English in a book entitled Three Crucial Matters for the Increase and Building Up of the Church--Begetting, Nourishing, and Teaching and are included in this volume under the same title.

The Witness of the Spirit is a clear and comprehensive treatment of the teaching of the Word of God concerning the inner witness of the Spirit of God. The book opens with an account of Calvin's and Luther's contribution to this important theme, followed by a survey of the theological reflection upon this subject from the days of the early Church Fathers to the present time. Dr. Ramm shows that the work of the Holy Spirit is not a single subject to be discussed in isolation from the total area of Christian theology; therefore, he helpfully relates it to the doctrine of the Trinity, of revelation, redemption, and the Scripture; and to Christian fellowship and the spiritual life. Dr. Ramm's book is an invaluable and much needed contribution to a phase of the Spirit's ministry, an aspect long neglected in evangelical thought.

A New Witness for God is a three volume treatise by B. H. Roberts, one of the leaders in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, who wrote this work as a recapitulation of 75 years of the existence of "Mormonism" and "Mormon Church." The author's purpose was to prove that the world was in need of a new God's witness, and that Joseph Smith, a great modern prophet, was that witness. Dividing the work in thesis he firstly proves that the world was in necessity of a New Witness; then moves on to the state of the Christian church and how it was destroyed and there was an apostasy from the Christian religion; third thesis deals with the Scriptures declaring that the Gospel will be restored to the Earth; final thesis suggest that Joseph Smith is the New Witness for God who re-established the Church of Jesus Christ on Earth. Following these theses is the study of the Book of Mormon.