Anthony B. Pinn

Black theology tends to be a theology about no-body. Though one might assume that black and womanist theology have already given significant attention to the nature and meaning of black bodies as a theological issue, this inquiry has primarily taken the form of a focus on issues relating to liberation, treating the body in abstract terms rather than focusing on the experiencing of a material, fleshy reality. By focusing on the body as a physical entity and not just a metaphorical one, Pinn offers a new approach to theological thinking about race, gender, and sexuality. According to Pinn, the body is of profound theological importance. In this first text on black theology to take embodiment as its starting point and its goal, Pinn interrogates the traditional source materials for black theology, such as spirituals and slave narratives, seeking to link them to materials such as photography that highlight the theological importance of the body. Employing a multidisciplinary approach spanning from the sociology of the body and philosophy to anthropology and art history, Embodiment and the New Shape of Black Theological Thought pushes black theology to the next level.

Celebrating the African contribution to Mexican culture, this book shows how religious brotherhoods in New Spain both preserved a distinctive African identity and helped facilitate Afro-Mexican integration into colonial society. Called confraternities, these groups provided social connections, charity, and status for Africans and their descendants for over two centuries. Often organized by African women and dedicated to popular European and African saints, the confraternities enjoyed prestige in the Baroque religious milieu of 17th-century New Spain. One group, founded by Africans called Zapes, preserved their ethnic identity for decades even after they were enslaved and brought to the Americas. Despite ongoing legal divisions and racial hierarchies, by the end of the colonial era many descendants from African slaves had achieved a degree of status that enabled them to move up the social ladder in Hispanic society. Von Germeten reveals details of the organization and practices of more than 60 Afro-Mexican brotherhoods and examines changes in the social, family, and religious lives of their members. She presents the stories of individual Africans and their descendants - including many African women and the famous Baroque artist Juan Correa - almost entirely from evidence they themselves generated. Moving the historical focus away from negative stereotypes that have persisted for almost 500 years, this study is the first in English to deal with Afro-Mexican religious organizations.

Most who think about African American religion limit themselves to black churches, or perhaps to aspects of Islamic thought and practice. But a close look at the religious landscape of African American communities presents a much more complex, thick, and layered religious reality comprising many competing faiths and practices. The African American Religious Experience in America provides readers with an introduction to the tremendous religious diversity of African American communities in the United States, with snapshots of 11 religious traditions practiced by African Americans—from Buddhism to Catholicism, from Judaism to Voodoo. Each snapshot provides readers a better understanding of how African Americans practice their faiths in the United States.The African American Religious Experience in America provides resources for students taking classes on the history of American religion, African American Studies, and on American Studies. In addition to the in-depth discussion of the varieties of African American Religion, the volume includes a historical introduction to the development of African American Religion, a glossary of terms, a timeline of important events, a series of short biographies of important figures in the history of African American religion and a bibliography of sources for further study. Finally, the book includes a series of primary source documents that will provide students with first-person accounts of how religion is practiced in the African American community both today and in the past.

A collaborative effort of Christian scholar Lewis Baldwin and Muslim scholar Amiri Al-Hadid, Between Cross and Crescent details the interconnections between Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr.: their faith claims, their perspectives on culture, and their visions of the ideal society and world. The authors reject two common tendencies: to reduce Malcolm and Martin to ""misguided, angry Muslim imam"" and ""gentle, harmless Christian preacher"" and to treat the two men as polar opposites. The result is the most comprehensive and detailed work in print about the two leaders and the first to bring together a Muslim and a Christian scholar in dialogue about their relationship to such significant issues. Particularly original are the insights into how Martin and Malcolm viewed each other, family and children, and women (an entire chapter is devoted to the ""character of womanhood""). Of special importance is the skillful delineation of the historical and cultural forces underpinning the two leaders' religious and cultural perspectives - not the least being their common roots in traditions based in the American South. The authors also turn a careful scholar's eye to their perspectives on religion, interfaith dialogue, and the relationship between the African-American struggle and global liberation movements. There is no more detailed resource about the relationship between Martin King and Malcolm X. The depth of scholarship in this volume extends even to the extraordinary amount of information relegated to footnotes, themselves a gold mine of documentation for all readers interested in the interface between faith claims, politics, and social and cultural transformation.

Pinn describes themes in the history of the Black Church as well as the major beliefs and forms of worship that define this tradition. He then focuses on the practices of the Black Church, especially as it has engaged in issues of economic development and justice, and struggles with such issues as the full inclusion of women, sexuality, and health. Throughout, Pinn highlights the important and creative tension between "spiritual" and "mundane" concerns to which the Black Church must respond and by which it is shaped.