In this, the first full-scale black systematic theology in twenty years, James Evans emerges as a major and distinctive voice in American theology.Seeking to overcome the chasm between church practice and theological reflection, Evans situates theology squarely in the nexus of faith with freedom. There, with a sure touch, he uplifts revelatory aspects of black religious experience that reanimate classical areas of theology, and he creates a theology with a heart, a soul and a voice that speaks directly to our condition.

Named an Honor Book for Nonfiction by the Black Caucus of the American Library Association African American theology has a long and important history. With modern roots in the civil rights movements of the 1960s, African American theology has gone beyond issues of justice and social transformation to participate in broader dialogues of theological inquiry. The Oxford Handbook of African American Theology brings together leading scholars in the field to offer a critical and comprehensive analysis of this theological tradition in its many forms and contexts. Using an interdisciplinary approach, this Oxford Handbook examines the nature, structures, and functions of African American Theology. The volume surveys the field by highlighting its sources, doctrines, internal debates, current challenges, and future prospects in order to present key topics related to the wider palette of Black Religion in a sustained scholarly format. This formative collection presents current scholarship on African American Theology and scripture, eschatology, Christology, womanist theology, sexuality, ontology, the global economy, and much more. The contributors represent a diverse set of faith perspectives, adding to the layered discourses within the volume. These essays further important discussions on the pressing debates and challenges that shape black and womanist theologies.

In this book, immigrant minorities from Africa and the Caribbean tell their unique stories. These new Americans recount their travels in the American maze, and thus, allow their voices to be heard. Who really cares for these voices? They do care and Americans should care! Foreign born African Americans frequently find themselves in precarious situations. They confront three intriguing questions: How Black are they? How much racism do they endure? And how do they survive in spite of the odds? In reality, they are Blacks who are Black enough to encounter problems that other Blacks in America experience. However, they also understand that they must succeed in a competitive complex society like America. On the one hand, they are grateful to be in America; but on the other hand, they wonder why they must cross so many rubicons to achieve their goals. This book is unique! Never before have voices of Africans (from Africa and the Caribbean) been heard in this manner!! These voices provide multidimensional cases for scholars, educators, program planners, community leaders, and politicians. education, intercultural education, and multicultural education. It could also be a supplementary text for courses in general education and African/American Studies. In fact, it should be on the reading list of every American interested in making our world a better place to live.

Travel with revered preacher and author Fred Craddock through his early years as he considers what made him take to the pulpit. ?For some reason, I felt I had to say ?Yes? or ?No? to the ministry so I could feel free again. My siblings and friends talked almost casually about options and preferences as to careers, but with no evident sense of urgency. Not so with me. I did not then nor do I now know whether the burden of choice was a trait of personality, a kind of super-conscientiousness, whether the calling to ministry itself carried a weight, a burden, peculiar to the task itself. Rightly or wrongly, when I thought of possibly becoming a journalist, that would be a choice, 100 percent mine. When I considered becoming a minister, that was not totally my decision; I was responding to God?s will for me. Of course, I had been told that journalists, lawyers, teachers, merchants, farmers?all could understand their lives as a vocation, a calling, but what I am telling you is that I perceived, I felt, I experienced the idea of being a preacher as different, and that difference was sobering, even burdensome. That?s why advice about not being in a hurry, taking my time, was not helpful even if wise. If it was my decision, why could I not make it now; if it was God?s decision, why did not God tell me, or at least tell my father or my mother? I prayed for the ache to leave me.? ?Excerpt from Reflections on My Call to Preach

This book explores the poetry, pottery, and culture of David Drake, an antebellum slave who distinguished himself by composing verse on the ceramics he produced in the years leading up to the Civil War. From the 1830s to 1850s, he incised couplets and signatures (a singular "Dave") onto the incredibly large storage vessels that he made. In fact, his stoneware pots and jars are among the largest made in North America during the antebellum era. Rich with biblical allusions, historical facts, and personal opinions, his art provides insights into the lives of slaves, craftsmen, and the culture of the American South in the first half of the nineteenth century. The essays here engage with the historical context and major issues that Drake's work provokes, among them: prohibitions against slave literacy; Drake's privileged status compared to other slaves at the time; the interpretive status of his material craft objects; the influence of contemporary African American poet George Moses Horton; and Drake's ability to sell his pottery despite the fact that slaves were not officially permitted to participate in a cash economy.

The third installment in a wide and deep constructive theology for our time This third volume of Veli-Matti Karkkainen’s ambitious five volume theology project develops a Christian theology of creation and humanity (theological anthropology) in dialogue with the Christian tradition, with contemporary theology in all its global and contextual diversity, and with other major living faiths -- Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism. In constructing his theology of creation and humanity, Karkkainen uniquely engages the natural sciences, including physical, cosmological, and neuroscientific theories. He devotes particular attention to the topics of divine action in a world subjected to scientific study, environmental pollution, human flourishing, and the theological implications of evolutionary theory -- with regard to both cosmos and humanity.

African American spirituality was forged in the fiery furnace of slavery, segregation, and ongoing racial discrimination in both church and society. But African Americans are a people who are strengthened rather than weakened by their experience. This volume traces how African Americans have articulated their faith and love of God in language, song, and daily living. Beginning with its spiritual roots in Africa, Hayes shows how African American spirituality encompassed and incorporated the experience of slavery and the encounter with Christianity. Remarkably, African American slaves were able to find in the religion of their oppressors a message of hope, affirmation, and resistance. Through stories, song, distinctive forms of prayer, celebration, and prophetic witness, Hayes shows how the spirituality of African Americans has nurtured their survival as well as promoting action on behalf of the community and the greater society.

This book is a study of the works of Margaret Walker (1915–1998) in chronological order, in the social and intellectual context of twentieth century America. Walker is a writer who is known by name for her works; however, very little criticism is written on her literary contributions. This is the first monograph on Walker’s work by a single author and is an attempt to establish the importance of Walker’s representation of twentieth-century America against its critical obscurity. This book shows that Walker is a woman writer who slipped to the margins of the African American literary canon for improper reasons. Material presented in this study is based on research on available criticism published on Walker’s work. It is also based on research on the social, intellectual, and political aspects of twentieth-century America. This text also incorporates information derived from the researcher’s close reading of Walker’s work. It argues that issues of race, gender, and class are always connected in twentieth-century America and in Walker’s work as reflective of this century in America. It also argues that Walker’s feminist consciousness develops from one work to another until it reaches its peak in her later poetry.