Christianity and the Limits of Minority Acceptance in America

Christianity and the Limits of Minority Acceptance in America
Author: J. E. Sumerau
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 129
Release: 2018-07-27
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1498563007

This book explores the ways Christian women in college make sense of bisexual, transgender, polyamorous, and atheist others. Specifically, it explores the ways they express tolerance for some sexual groups, such as lesbian and gay people, while maintaining condemnation of other sexual, gendered, or religious groups. In so doing, this book highlights the limits of Christian tolerance for the advancement of minority rights.

Urban Apologetics

Urban Apologetics
Author: Eric Mason
Publisher: Zondervan
Total Pages: 299
Release: 2021-04-06
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 031010095X

Urban Apologetics examines the legitimate issues that Black communities have with Western Christianity and shows how the gospel of Jesus Christ—rather than popular, socioreligious alternatives—restores our identity. African Americans have long confronted the challenge of dignity destruction caused by white supremacy. While many have found meaning and restoration of dignity in the black church, others have found it in ethnocentric socioreligious groups and philosophies. These ideologies have grown and developed deep traction in the black community and beyond. Revisionist history, conspiracy theories, and misinformation about Jesus and Christianity are the order of the day. Many young African Americans are disinterested in Christianity and others are leaving the church in search of what these false religious ideas appear to offer, a spirituality more indigenous to their history and ethnicity. Edited by Dr. Eric Mason and featuring a top-notch lineup of contributors, Urban Apologetics is the first book focused entirely on cults, religious groups, and ethnocentric ideologies prevalent in the black community. The book is divided into three main parts: Discussions on the unique context for urban apologetics so that you can better understand the cultural arguments against Christianity among the Black community. Detailed information on cults, religious groups, and ethnic identity groups that many urban evangelists encounter—such as the Nation of Islam, Kemetic spirituality, African mysticism, Hebrew Israelites, Black nationalism, and atheism. Specific tools for urban apologetics and community outreach. Ultimately, Urban Apologetics applies the gospel to black identity to show that Jesus is the only one who can restore it. This is an essential resource to equip those doing the work of ministry and apology in urban communities with the best available information.

Disability and Christian Theology Embodied Limits and Constructive Possibilities

Disability and Christian Theology Embodied Limits and Constructive Possibilities
Author: Deborah Beth Creamer
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 167
Release: 2009-01-05
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0199709076

Attention to embodiment and the religious significance of bodies is one of the most significant shifts in contemporary theology. In the midst of this, however, experiences of disability have received little attention. This book explores possibilities for theological engagement with disability, focusing on three primary alternatives: challenging existing theological models to engage with the disabled body, considering possibilities for a disability liberation theology, and exploring new theological options based on an understanding of the unsurprisingness of human limits. The overarching perspective of this book is that limits are an unavoidable aspect of being human, a fact we often seem to forget or deny. Yet not only do all humans experience limits, most of us also experience limits that take the form of disability at some point in our lives; in this way, disability is more "normal" than non-disability. If we take such experiences seriously and refuse to reduce them to mere instances of suffering, we discover insights that are lost when we take a perfect or generic body as our starting point for theological reflections. While possible applications of this insight are vast, this work focuses on two areas of particular interest: theological anthropology and metaphors for God. This project challenges theology to consider the undeniable diversity of human embodiment. It also enriches previous disability work by providing an alternative to the dominant medical and minority models, both of which fail to acknowledge the full diversity of disability experiences. Most notably, this project offers new images and possibilities for theological construction that attend appropriately and creatively to diversity in human embodiment.

Black Lives and Bathrooms

Black Lives and Bathrooms
Author: J. E. Sumerau
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 125
Release: 2020-08-25
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1793609810

Black Lives and Bathrooms: Racial and Gendered Reactions to Minority Rights Movements examines how people respond to minority movements in ways that maintain existing patterns of racial and gender inequality. By studying the Black Lives Matter and Transgender Bathroom Access movement efforts, J.E. Sumerau and Eric Anthony Grollman analyze how cisgender white people define minority movements in relation to their existing notions of United States social norms; react to minority movements utilizing racial, classed, gendered, and sexual stereotypes that reinforce racism, sexism, and cissexism in society; and propose ways that racial and gender minorities could gain conditional acceptance by behaving in ways cisgender white people find more comfortable and normal. Throughout this work, Sumerau and Grollman note how assumptions about whiteness and cisnormativity are spread as cisgender white people respond to racial and gender movements seeking social change.

Philosophy of Religion and the African American Experience

Philosophy of Religion and the African American Experience
Author: John H. McClendon III
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 411
Release: 2017-07-03
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9004332219

Most white philosophers of religion generally presume that philosophy of religion is based on what is a false universality; whereby the white/Western experience is paradigmatic of humanity at-large. The fact remains that Howard Thurman, James H. Cone and William R. Jones, among others, have produced a substantial amount of theological work quite worthy of consideration by philosophers of religion. Yet this corpus of thought is not reflected in the scholarly literature that constitutes the main body of philosophy of religion. Neglect and ignorance of African American Studies is widespread in the academy. By including chapters on Thurman, Cone and Jones, the present book functions as a corrective to this scholarly lacuna.

African-American Religion

African-American Religion
Author: Albert J. Raboteau
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 145
Release: 1999
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN: 0195106806

Throughout African-American history, religion has been indelibly intertwined with the fight against intolerance and racial prejudice. Martin Luther King, Jr.-America's best-known champion of civil liberties-was a Baptist minister. Father Divine, a fiery preacher who established a large following in the 1920s and 1930s, convinced his disciples that he could cure not only disease and infirmity, but also poverty and racism. An in-depth examination of African-American history and religion, this comprehensive and lively book provides panoramic coverage of the black religious and social experience in America. Renowned historian Albert J. Raboteau traces the subtle blending of African tribal customs with the powerful Christian establishment, the migration to cities, the growth of Islam, and the 200-year fight for freedom and identity which was so often centered around African-American churches. From the African Methodist Episcopal Church to the Nation of Islam and from the first African slaves to Louis Farrakhan, this far-reaching book chronicles the evolution of an important and influential component of our religious and historical heritage. African American Religion combines meticulously researched historical facts with a fast-paced, engaging narrative that will appeal to readers of any age. Religion in American Life explores the evolution, character, and dynamics of organized religion in America from 1500 to the present day. Written by distinguished religious historians, these books weave together the varying stories that compose the religious fabric of the United States, from Puritanism to alternative religious practices. Primary source material coupled with handsome illustrations and lucid text make these books essential in any exploration of America's diverse nature. Each book includes a chronology, suggestions for further reading, and index.

Peoples Temple and Black Religion in America

Peoples Temple and Black Religion in America
Author: Rebecca Moore
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Total Pages: 225
Release: 2004-03-11
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0253216559

Twenty-five years after the tragedy at Jonestown, they assess the impact of the black religious experience on Peoples Temple.

A Critical Introduction to Religion in the Americas

A Critical Introduction to Religion in the Americas
Author: Michelle A. Gonzalez
Publisher: NYU Press
Total Pages: 198
Release: 2014-07-18
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1479835234

A Critical Introduction to Religion in the Americas argues that we cannot understand religion in the Americas without understanding its marginalized communities. Despite frequently voiced doubts among religious studies scholars, it makes the case that theology, and particularly liberation theology, is still useful, but it must be reframed to attend to the ways in which religion is actually experienced on the ground. That is, a liberation theology that assumes a need to work on behalf of the poor can seem out of touch with a population experiencing huge Pentecostal and Charismatic growth, where the focus is not on inequality or social action but on individual relationships with the divine. By drawing on a combination of historical and ethnographic sources, this volume provides a basic introduction to the study of religion and theology in the Latino/a, Black, and Latin American contexts, and then shows how theology can be reframed to better speak to the concerns of both religious studies and the real people the theologians' work is meant to represent. Informed by the dialogue partners explored throughout the text, this volume presents a hemispheric approach to discussing lived religious movements. While not dismissive of liberation theologies, this approach is critical of their past and offers challenges to their future as well as suggestions for preventing their untimely demise. It is clear that the liberation theologies of tomorrow cannot look like the liberation theologies of today.

African American Religion

African American Religion
Author: Hans A. Baer
Publisher: Univ. of Tennessee Press
Total Pages: 356
Release: 2002
Genre: History
ISBN: 9781572331860

"Viewing African American sectarianism as a response to racism and social stratification in the larger society, the authors trace the history, beliefs, social organization, and ritual content of religious groups in four types of sects. These include the Black mainline churches; messianic-nationalist sects, such as the Nation of Islam; conversionist sects, such as the Holiness-Pentecostal groups and Primitive Baptists; and thaumaturgical sects, including the Spiritual churches.".