The T&T Clark Handbook of African American Theology brings together important scholars to address key issues in African American theology. The work is divided into four parts: “Historical Investigations”; “Theological Method and Construction,” which is the longest section; “Church, Ministry, and Leadership”; and “Dialogues.”
In the first section, Beverly Eileen Mitchell and Alexis S. Wells-Oghoghomeh establish chattel slavery as the diasporic root of Black religion. Mitchell's essay examines slave narratives as sources of resistance, turning to Black resilience and the struggle for human dignity in the face of the problematics of white supremacy, which Sharon Grant takes up in her essay on politics. Wells-Oghoghomeh examines institutional religious practices in the Black churches, and those outside of institutions, like conjure and hoodoo, to urge scholars to rethink religious diversity in historical and African American life. Her argument for slave medicine as a form of religious practice is particularly important. Adam L. Bond's essay, examining the task of the public theologian and activism beautifully interrogates Black theology's ongoing confrontation with racism and how voices in the public sphere—and Bond calls those of us who teach—can shape a conversation on racism, religion, and activism. These three essays, along with the introduction, lay the foundation for the volume.
The second section, the largest in the volume, offers a variety of approaches to Black theology. There are essays on the uses of the biblical text and the figure of Jesus, as we would expect, but a variety of voices speak. For example, we have an essay by William C. Turner, whose work on pneumatology and African American preaching is classic. Then, Eric Lewis Williams, the Curator of Religion for the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, engages Pentecostalism using the lenses of “Hurston (outsider), Baldwin (former insider) and Clemmons (reflective insider).”
I was particularly taken by Antonia Michelle Daymond's essay, “Theological Considerations of Being Human while Black.” Her reflection on the Enlightenment, colonial West's construction of the normative human being, leads her to interrogate the Christian uses of the imago dei, which is “impotent if/when applied to the particularity of the black subject” (152). Beginning with James Cone's challenge to Western epistemologies, she uses the work of, for example, Victor Anderson and Anthony Pinn to address the “fragilities” in Cone's work and shape an understanding of being human and raced. Her work is beautiful, moving from classical Black theology, like Cone, to a figure like poet and critic David Marriott.
The third section turns to ministry and leadership, with the theme of prophecy continuing, as in Forrest Harris's reflections on leadership in the Black church. Marcia Riggs expands the scope of the discussion, thinking about the place of the Black church in a global community. Reggie L. Williams uses the Harlem Renaissance to think about cultural production as interventions into ethics and theology, calling for interdisciplinary thought. The essay turns back to slavery, as it examines the horrors of the Middle Passage and white supremacy. Williams sees the artists of the Harlem Renaissance addressing Black dehumanization, making “black bodies the representation of Christ on the Cross” (320), arguing that this Black body is not fungible but is a symbol of human community.
The final section offers “Dialogues”: between Black theology and Black humanism, white feminism and Black womanist theology, and Jewish and African American theology. Delroy Hall looks at African American theology from a Black British perspective, calling for an expansion of thinking, with which I agree, given the differences between the ways that Blackness is constructed in Britain and its empire and in America. As Delroy A. Reid-Salmon suggests, engaging difference will lead us to see a plurality of religious practices in the diaspora, complexifying African American religious thought and theology. Nimi Wariboko, to conclude the section, engages Marla F. Frederick's Colored Television: American Religion Gone Global, to understand the transnational ecclesia. Wariboko thinks about place in the Black church when it goes on the air and virtual. Where, she asks, is the spirit of the Black church—in technological mechanisms or independent of them? A voice of the “next generation” (428), Wariboko asks whether we should watch nor not—or, whether we can keep ourselves from watching—doing a fine riff on/with Žižek, complicating this either/or choice to seek a middle. Eric Lewis Williams and Antonia Michelle Daymond, also young voices, encapsulate emerging themes of Black women, religious plurality, and Africa as a religious meaning.
This volume is incredibly rich with established and emergent voices. It can be read in an encyclopedic way, choosing entries, but I would suggest that the essays in the sections comment on one another and can be read together as complex tapestries. Throughout the volume, readers will find key classical thinkers such as James Cone, Delores Williams, M. Shawn Copeland, and Martin Luther King Jr; Black religious forms, particularly music; and key issues such as racism, freedom, liberation, and justice. The variety of voices speaking from established scholars to emerging scholars makes this a rich and valuable work.
