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Cure a nosebleed by holding a silver quarter on the back of the neck. Treat an earache with sweet oil drops. Wear plant roots to keep from catching colds. Within many African American families, these kinds of practices continue today, woven into the fabric of black culture, often communicated through women. Such folk practices shape the concepts about healing that are diffused throughout African American communities and are expressed in myriad ways, from faith healing to making a mojo. Stephanie Y. Mitchem presents a fascinating study of African American healing. She sheds light on a variety of folk practices and traces their development from the time of slavery through the Great Migrations....
This book examines race, religion, and politics in the United States, illuminating their intersections and what they reveal about power and privilege. Drawing on both historic and recent examples, Stephanie Mitchem introduces readers to the ways race has been constructed in the United States, discusses how race and religion influence each other, and assesses how they shape political influence. Mitchem concludes with a chapter looking toward possibilities for increased rights and justice for all.
Exploring prosperity preaching, the author uses history and sociology to consider the impact of these churches and their ideologies on black communities and the black church.
Offers an overview of the varieties of ways African Americans address healing and health, particularly through religion, faith, and spirituality.
—What is black theology? —What can black theology teach the evangelical church? —What is the future of black theology? These are the questions Bruce Fields addresses in Introducing Black Theology. Defining black theology as a theology of liberation offers insights into the history, future, and nature of black theology. Black theology developed in response to widespread racism and bigotry in the Christian church and seeks to understand the social and historical experiences of African Americans in light of their Christian confession. Fields discusses sources, hermeneutics, and implications of black theology and reflects upon the function and responsibilities of black theologians. This concise, accessible introduction to black theology draws upon history, hermeneutics, culture, and scripture and will create a dialogue of respect and reconciliation between blacks and whites within the evangelical church.
This book introduces the special dynamics of women and their close relationships with the gift in both past and contemporary religious settings. Written from a cross-cultural perspective, it challenges depictions of women’s roles in religion where they have been relegated to compliance with specifically designated gendered attributes. The different chapters contest the resultant stereotypes that deny women agency. Each chapter describes women as engaged in an aspect of religion, from that of ritual specialists, to benefactors and patrons, or even innovators. The volume examines topics such as sainthood and sacrifice so as to refine these ideas in constructive ways that do not devalue women. It also examines the meaning of the term “gift” today, embracing the term in both figurative and literal ways. Such a collection of diverse women’s writings and activities provides a significant contribution to their quest for recognition, and also suggests ways this can be understood and realized today.
A bold reconsideration of Hoodoo belief and practice Katrina Hazzard-Donald explores African Americans' experience and practice of the herbal, healing folk belief tradition known as Hoodoo. She examines Hoodoo culture and history by tracing its emergence from African traditions to religious practices in the Americas. Working against conventional scholarship, Hazzard-Donald argues that Hoodoo emerged first in three distinct regions she calls "regional Hoodoo clusters" and that after the turn of the nineteenth century, Hoodoo took on a national rather than regional profile. The spread came about through the mechanism of the "African Religion Complex," eight distinct cultural characteristics fa...
Americans have long been aware of the phenomenon loosely known as faith healing. Such practices most often received attention when they came into conflict with biomedical practice. During the 1990s, however, the American cultural landscape changed dramatically and religious healing became acommonplace feature of our society. The essays in this book chart this new reality. Insofar as healing traditions constitute the meeting ground or point of conflict between different groups, argue the authors, they provide a powerful lens through which to examine cultural changes at work. Each ofthe papers offers a particular case study. Many emphasize gender, race, ethnicity, and class as key components of healing experiences.
Based on a thematic and topical structure, this handbook provides scholars and advanced students detailed description, analysis, and constructive discussions concerning African American theology - in the forms of black and womanist theologies. This volume surveys the academic content of African American theology 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.