Pragmatic Spirituality : : The Christian Faith through an Africentric Lens / / Gayraud S. Wilmore.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter New York University Press Backlist eBook-Package 2000-2013
• VerfasserIn: Wilmore, Gayraud S.,
• Place / Publishing House: New York, NY : : New York University Press, , [2004]; ©2004
• Year of Publication: 2004
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource

Gayraud S. Wilmore, an internationally renowned scholar of the history of the African American church, is one of the founders of black theology and author of Black Religion and Black Radicalism. Pragmatic Spirituality brings together some of his most compelling writings to speak to continuing issues in African American Christianity and black theology. The volume makes available for the first time several of Wilmore's previously unpublished essays, including a new chapter on womanist theology written for this book. Each chapter has been thoroughly reviewed and where appropriate reworked for this volume in order to create a coherent work which reveals a consistent "pragmatic spirituality" in African and African American religious practice. This book presents a view of the Christian faith and life at variance with the quest for personal sanctity by emphasizing communal empowerment for humanization and justice. Pragmatic Spirituality incorporates some of the most engaging of Wilmore's voluminous writings to reinstate a persistent theme: that black or Africentric faith transposes itself from basically numinous and ecstatic elements in African and African diasporic religions to the immediate and practical work of healing and empowering the poor and marginalized. This book transcends a narrow Africentrism to call for a broad acquaintance with a historic motif in black faith that has to do with compassion, justice, equality, and the liberation of all people. This illuminating volume displays Wilmore's influence on the development of black theology for over fifty years, and introduces his work to a new generation of scholars.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- Part I Teaching African American Religious Studies -- 1 What Is African American Religious Studies? -- 2 Reinterpretation in Black Church History -- 3 Black Religion: Strategies of Survival, Elevation, and Liberation -- 4 Womanist Thought as a Recovery of Liberation Theology -- 5 “Doing the Truth” Some Criteria for Researching and Teaching African American Religious History -- 6 What Is African American Christianity? -- 7 African Beginnings -- 8 The Black Messiah: Revising the Color Symbolism of Western Christology -- 9 Black Consciousness: Stumbling Block or Battering Ram? -- Part III Black Theology History and Major Motifs -- 10 What Is Black Theology? -- 11 Eschatology in Black -- 12 Black Power, Black People, and Theological Renewal -- 13 The Role of African America in the Rise of Third-World Theology: A Historical Reappraisal -- Part IV Africentric Pastoral Ministry -- 14 What Is the Relevance of Black Theology for Pastoral Ministry? -- 15 Black Christians, Church Unity, and One Common Expression of Apostolic Faith -- 16 Lessons from My Father’s World: A Sermon -- 17 Struggling against Racism with Realism and Hope -- Notes -- Index -- About the Author