A former African American minister reveals his unusual journey from faith to atheism. Anthony Pinn preached his first sermon at age twelve. At eighteen he became one of the youngest ordained ministers in his denomination. He then quickly moved up the ministerial ranks. Eventually he graduated from Columbia University and then received a Master of Divinity in theology and a PhD in religion from Harvard University. All the while, Pinn was wrestling with a growing skepticism. As his intellectual horizons expanded, he became less and less confident in the theism of his upbringing. At the same time, he became aware that his church could offer only anemic responses to the acute social needs of the community. In his mid-twenties, he finally decided to leave the ministry and committed the rest of his life to academia. He went on to become a distinguished scholar of African American humanism and religious history. The once fully committed believer evolved into an equally committed nonbeliever convinced that a secular approach to life offers the best hope of solving humanity’s problems.
Given the unique history of African Americans and their diverse religious flowering in Black Christianity, the Nation of Islam, voodoo, and others, what is the heart and soul of African American religious life? As a leader in both Black religious studies and theology, Anthony Pinn has probed the dynamism and variety of African American religious expressions. In this work, based on the Edward Cadbury Lectures at the University of Birmingham, England, he searches out the basic structure of Black religion, tracing the Black religious spirit in its many historical manifestations. Pinn finds in the terrors of enslavement of Black bodies and subsequent oppressions the primal experience to which the Black religious impulse provides a perennial and cumulative response. Oppressions entailed the denial of personhood and creation of an object: the negro. Slave auctions, punishments, and, later, lynchings created an existential dread but also evoked a quest, a search, for complex subjectivity or authentic personhood that still fuels Black religion today. In this 20th anniversary edition of Pinn's groundbreaking work, the author offers a new reflection on the argument in retrospect and invites a panel of five contemporary scholars to examine what it means for current and future scholarship. Contributors include Keri Day, Sylvester Johnson, Anthony G. Reddie, Calvin Warren, and Carol Wayne White.
Twenty years ago, Anthony Pinn‘s engrossing survey highlighted the rich diversity of black religious life in America, revealing expressions of an ever-changing black religious quest. Based on extensive research, travel, and interviews, Pinn‘s work provides a fascinating look especially at Voodoo, Santeria, the Nation of Islam, and black humanism in the United States and uses the diversity of religious belief to begin formulation of a comparative black theology-the first of its kind. This twentieth-anniversary edition is an expanded version, including a new preface and a new concluding chapter. An important contribution to classroom studies!
In this groundbreaking study, Anthony B. Pinn challenges the long held assumption that African American theology is solely theist, arguing that this assumption has excluded a rapidly growing segment of the African American population - non-theists. Rejecting the assumption of theism as the African American orientation, Pinn poses a crucial question: What is a non-theistic theology?
Who are the "Nones"? What does humanism say about race, religion and popular culture? How do race, religion and popular culture inform and affect humanism? The demographics of the United States are changing, marked most profoundly by the religiously unaffiliated, or what we have to come to call the "Nones". Spread across generations in the United States, this group encompasses a wide range of philosophical and ideological perspectives, from some in line with various forms of theism to those who are atheistic, and all sorts of combinations in between. Similar changes to demographics are taking place in Europe and elsewhere. Humanism: Essays on Race, Religion and Popular Culture provides a much-needed humanities-based analysis and description of humanism in relation to these cultural markers. Whereas most existing analysis attempts to explain humanism through the natural and social sciences (the "what" of life), Anthony B. Pinn explores humanism in relation to "how" life is arranged, socialized, ritualized, and framed. This ground-breaking publication brings together old and new essays on a wide range of topics and themes, from the African-American experience, to the development of humanist churches, and the lyrics of Jay Z.
By challenging some of the most cherished theological beliefs to emerge within black Christian communities, Pinn encourages us to extend the range of our religious world views and embrace black cultural expressions that have been ignored and despised ... This book marks the debut of an important and exciting new voice in black religious thought." --Michael Eric Dyson, author of Between God and Gangsta Rap "Anthony Pinn's splendid book explores theological texts, folklore, preaching, spirituals, blues, and rap to unleash a tradition of African-American humanism. A remarkable tour de force not to be missed by anyone concerned with the religious and theological problems of evil and suffering." --Terrence W. Tilley, author of The Evils of Theodicy "The book is thought-provoking, schematic, and theologically unsettling. Not since William R. Jones' Is God A White Racist? Has the theodical problem been so central to the critique of African-American theology and ethics." --Religious Studies Review>
In Interplay of Things Anthony B. Pinn theorizes religion as a technology for interrogating human experiences and the boundaries between people and other things. Rather than considering religion in terms of institutions, doctrines, and creeds, Pinn shows how religion exposes the openness and porousness of all things and how they are always involved in processes of exchange and interplay. Pinn examines work by Nella Larsen and Richard Wright that illustrates an openness between things, and he traces how pop art and readymades point to the multidirectional nature of influence. He also shows how Ron Athey's and Clifford Owens's performance art draws out inherent interconnectedness to various cultural codes in ways that reveal the symbiotic relationship between art and religion as a technology. Theorizing that antiblack racism and gender- and class-based hostility constitute efforts to close off the porous nature of certain bodies, Pinn shows how many artists have rebelled against these attempts to counter openness. His analyses offer a means by which to understand the porous, unbounded, and open nature of humans and things.
What is the nature and purpose of the Black Church? What is the relationship of the scholar of religion to the Black Church? While black churches have been a major component of the religious landscape of African American communities for centuries, little critical attention has been given to these questions outside an apologetic stance. This book seeks to correct this trend by examining some of the major issues facing black churches in the twenty-first century. From a challenge to traditional ways of addressing sexism within black churches to African American Christianity's relationship to popular culture, this set of reflections seeks to offer new perspectives on what it might mean to be Black and Christian in the United States.
As Anthony Pinn argues in his latest collection, humanism comes in many colors. When more attention is given to issues of race as connected to other forms of oppression, it is easier to see the manner in which humanism has lived and functioned within African American communities. Using the biblical figure Nimrod as symbol, African American Humanist Principles demonstrates African American humanists' intellectual and praxis-related grounding in a history of rebellion against over-determined and oppressive limitations on human doing and being. Pinn maintains that it is this quest for a fuller sense of being - for greater existential and ontological worth - that informs the basic principles of African American humanism. African American Humanist Principles is one of the only books to present the inner workings of humanist principles as the foundation for humanism from the African American perspective - its form and content, nature and meaning.
Confessions, communions, sermons, and community service—Father Ford did it all. Although he never fully understood what led him to the priesthood and at times just went through the motions as best he could, he managed to avoid the conflicts and dilemmas that so often destroyed the careers of fellow clergy—no sexual misconduct of any kind, no stealing, nothing that would bring disgrace to the Church. But when the Church forces the closure of his low-income congregation and assigns him to a new church in a rich part of town, a hotbed of sin, he begins to question whether the Church establishment is truly honoring God's will. Challenged by a troubled parishioner who reminds him that violence and murder have long been a vital story within the saga of human salvation, Father Ford starts to understand that God has sent this messenger for a reason. He comes to the realization that perhaps his true calling is to do whatever is necessary to purify all who sin through extreme penance. In the sanctuary of the confessional, Father Ford and his unlikely partner commit to doing the work of Christ that the Church can't or won't do . . . bloody work—a divine charge to cleanse the congregation and safeguard the body of Christ from sinners. Together, in order to save, they resolve to kill.
A short introduction to Black Humanism: its history, its present, and the rich cultural sensibilities that infuse it In the United States, to be a Black American is to be a Black Christian. And there’s something to this assumption in that the vast majority of African Americans are Christian. However, in recent years a growing number of African Americans have said they claim no particular religious affiliation—they are Black "nones." And of these Black "nones," the most public and vocal are those who claim to be humanists. What does it mean to be a Black humanist? What do Black humanist believe, and what do they do? This slim volume answers these questions. Animated by six central principles, and discussed in terms of its history, practices, formations, and community rituals, this book argues that Black humanism can be understood as a religious movement. Pinn makes a distinction between theism and religion—which is simply a tool for examining, naming, and finding the meaning in human experience. Black humanism, based on this definition isn’t theistic but it is a religious system used to explore human experience and foster life meaning. It infuses humanism with rich cultural sensibilities drawn from Black experience. As shown in these pages, thinking about Black humanism this way frees readers from making unfounded assumptions and enables them to better appreciate the secular “beliefs,” ritual structures, and community formation constituted by Black humanists.
While humanist sensibilities have played a formative role in the advancement of our species, critical attention to humanism as a field of study is a more recent development. As a system of thought that values human needs and experiences over supernatural concerns, humanism has gained greater attention amid the rapidly shifting demographics of religious communities, especially in Europe and North America. This outlook on the world has taken on global dimensions as well, with activists, artists, and thinkers forming a humanistic response not only to traditional religion, but to the pressing social and political issues of the 21st century. With in-depth, scholarly chapters, The Oxford Handbook of Humanism aims to cover the subject by analyzing its history, its philosophical development, its influence on culture, and its engagement with social and political issues. In order to expand the field beyond more Western-focused works, the Handook discusses humanism as a worldwide phenomenon, with regional surveys that explore how the concept has developed in particular contexts. The Handbook also approaches humanism as both an opponent to traditional religion as well as a philosophy that some religions have explicitly adopted. By both synthesizing the field, and discussing how it continues to grow and develop, the Handbook promises to be a landmark volume, relevant to both humanism and the rapidly changing religious landscape.
The future of the United States rests in many ways on how the ongoing challenge of racial injustice in the country is addressed. Yet, humanists remain divided over what if any agenda should guide humanist thought and action toward questions of race. In this volume, Anthony B. Pinn makes a clear case for why humanism should embrace racial justice as part of its commitment to the well-being of life in general and human flourishing in particular. As a first step, humanists should stop asking why so many racial minorities remain committed to religious traditions that have destroyed lives, perverted justice, and justified racial discrimination. Rather, Pinn argues, humanists must first confront a more pertinent and pressing question: why has humanism failed to provide a more compelling alternative to theism for so many minority groups? For only with a bit of humility and perspective—and a recognition of the various ways in which we each contribute to racial injustice—can we truly fight for justice.
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.
This encyclopedia offers the most comprehensive presentation available on the diversity and richness of religious practices among African Americans, from traditions predating the era of the transatlantic slave trade to contemporary religious movements. Like no previous reference, African American Religious Cultures captures the full scope of African American religious identity, tracing the long history of African American engagement with spiritual practice while exploring the origins and complexities of current religious traditions. This breakthrough encyclopedia offers alphabetically organized entries on every major spiritual belief system as it has evolved among African American communities, covering its beginnings, development, major doctrinal points, rituals, important figures, and defining moments. In addition, the work illustrates how the social and economic realities of life for African Americans have shaped beliefs across the spectrum of religious cultures.
Creating Ourselves is a unique effort to lay the cultural and theological groundwork for cross-cultural collaboration between the African and Latino/a American communities. In the introduction, the editors contend that given overlapping histories and interests of the two communities, they should work together to challenge social injustices. Acknowledging that dialogue is a necessary precursor to collaboration, they maintain that African and Latino/a Americans need to cultivate the habit of engaging “the other” in substantive conversation. Toward that end, they have brought together theologians and scholars of religion from both communities. The contributors offer broadly comparative exchanges about the religious and theological significance of various forms of African American and Latino/a popular culture, including representations of the body, literature, music, television, visual arts, and cooking. Corresponding to a particular form of popular culture, each section features two essays, one by an African American scholar and one by a Latino/a scholar, as well as a short response by each scholar to the other’s essay. The essays and responses are lively, varied, and often personal. One contributor puts forth a “brown” theology of hip hop that celebrates hybridity, contradiction, and cultural miscegenation. Another analyzes the content of the message transmitted by African American evangelical preachers who have become popular sensations through television broadcasts, video distribution, and Internet promotions. The other essays include a theological reading of the Latina body, a consideration of the “authenticity” of representations of Jesus as white, a theological account of the popularity of telenovelas, and a reading of African American ideas of paradise in one of Toni Morrison’s novels. Creating Ourselves helps to make popular culture available as a resource for theology and religious studies and for facilitating meaningful discussions across racial and ethnic boundaries. Contributors. Teresa Delgado, James H. Evans Jr., Joseph De León, Cheryl Kirk-Duggan, Angel F. Méndez Montoya, Alexander Nava, Anthony B. Pinn, Mayra Rivera, Suzanne E. Hoeferkamp Segovia, Benjamín Valentín, Jonathan L. Walton, Traci C. West, Nancy Lynne Westfield, Sheila F. Winborne
In this study, Anthony B. Pinn challenges the long held assumption that African American theology is solely theist arguing that this assumption has excluded a rapidly growing segment of the African American population - non-theists.
Given the unique history of African Americans and their diverse religious flowering in Black Christianity, the Nation of Islam, voodoo, and others, what is the heart and soul of African American religious life? As a leader in both Black religious studies and theology, Anthony Pinn has probed the dynamism and variety of African American religious expressions. In this work, based on the Edward Cadbury Lectures at the University of Birmingham, England, he searches out the basic structure of Black religion, tracing the Black religious spirit in its many historical manifestations. Pinn finds in the terrors of enslavement of Black bodies and subsequent oppressions the primal experience to which the Black religious impulse provides a perennial and cumulative response. Oppressions entailed the denial of personhood and creation of an object: the negro. Slave auctions, punishments, and, later, lynchings created an existential dread but also evoked a quest, a search, for complex subjectivity or authentic personhood that still fuels Black religion today. In this 20th anniversary edition of Pinn's groundbreaking work, the author offers a new reflection on the argument in retrospect and invites a panel of five contemporary scholars to examine what it means for current and future scholarship. Contributors include Keri Day, Sylvester Johnson, Anthony G. Reddie, Calvin Warren, and Carol Wayne White.
While humanist sensibilities have played a formative role in the advancement of our species, critical attention to humanism as a field of study is a more recent development. As a system of thought that values human needs and experiences over supernatural concerns, humanism has gained greater attention amid the rapidly shifting demographics of religious communities, especially in Europe and North America. This outlook on the world has taken on global dimensions as well, with activists, artists, and thinkers forming a humanistic response not only to traditional religion, but to the pressing social and political issues of the 21st century. With in-depth, scholarly chapters, The Oxford Handbook of Humanism aims to cover the subject by analyzing its history, its philosophical development, its influence on culture, and its engagement with social and political issues. In order to expand the field beyond more Western-focused works, the Handook discusses humanism as a worldwide phenomenon, with regional surveys that explore how the concept has developed in particular contexts. The Handbook also approaches humanism as both an opponent to traditional religion as well as a philosophy that some religions have explicitly adopted. By both synthesizing the field, and discussing how it continues to grow and develop, the Handbook promises to be a landmark volume, relevant to both humanism and the rapidly changing religious landscape.
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.
We live in a world of social, political, economic, and religious rupture. Ideologies polarise to fuel confrontation within communities, nations and regions of the world. At this point in the twenty-first century, humanism's focus on reason, ethics and justice offers the potential to rethink and re-engage in new ways. "What Is Humanism, and Why Does It Matter?" brings together leading humanist thinkers and activists to examine humanism and how it can work in the world. Humanism is often misunderstood. The movement includes both atheists and agnostics, who seek to make ethical sense of the world based on shared human values and a concern for human welfare, happiness and fulfillment. "What Is Humanism, and Why Does It Matter?" presents an overview and exploration of the meaning and nature of humanism, both as a philosophy and as a way of engaging with the challenges of the world.
In this groundbreaking study, Anthony B. Pinn challenges the long held assumption that African American theology is solely theist, arguing that this assumption has excluded a rapidly growing segment of the African American population - non-theists. Rejecting the assumption of theism as the African American orientation, Pinn poses a crucial question: What is a non-theistic theology?
Christianity has been both the cause of oppression among Black communities and a source of liberation. Black Christianity has sought solace in the redemptive figure of Christ in its struggle for human dignity and freedom. 'Working Against the Grain' addresses the displacement of Black theology in Diasporan African churches by charismatic and conservative neo-Pentecostalism. The essays present a radical Black theology that empowers disenfranchised Black people whilst challenging White power to see and act differently. 'Working Against the Grain' is an essential text for all those interested in the pursuit of racial justice and other forms of anti-oppressive practice, both inside the church and beyond it.
Twenty years ago, Anthony Pinn‘s engrossing survey highlighted the rich diversity of black religious life in America, revealing expressions of an ever-changing black religious quest. Based on extensive research, travel, and interviews, Pinn‘s work provides a fascinating look especially at Voodoo, Santeria, the Nation of Islam, and black humanism in the United States and uses the diversity of religious belief to begin formulation of a comparative black theology-the first of its kind. This twentieth-anniversary edition is an expanded version, including a new preface and a new concluding chapter. An important contribution to classroom studies!
Who are the "Nones"? What does humanism say about race, religion and popular culture? How do race, religion and popular culture inform and affect humanism? The demographics of the United States are changing, marked most profoundly by the religiously unaffiliated, or what we have to come to call the "Nones". Spread across generations in the United States, this group encompasses a wide range of philosophical and ideological perspectives, from some in line with various forms of theism to those who are atheistic, and all sorts of combinations in between. Similar changes to demographics are taking place in Europe and elsewhere. Humanism: Essays on Race, Religion and Popular Culture provides a much-needed humanities-based analysis and description of humanism in relation to these cultural markers. Whereas most existing analysis attempts to explain humanism through the natural and social sciences (the "what" of life), Anthony B. Pinn explores humanism in relation to "how" life is arranged, socialized, ritualized, and framed. This ground-breaking publication brings together old and new essays on a wide range of topics and themes, from the African-American experience, to the development of humanist churches, and the lyrics of Jay Z.
Black theology has flourished within the academy. Its theories, however, have not always translated into practical use for Black people. 'Dramatizing Theologies' outlines the strong practical dimension of Black theology. Combining Black theology with dramatic, dialogical sketch material, the book produces an accessible approach to Black theological dialogue. The chasm between the academy, church and grassroots communities is overcome through the use of drama. 'Dramatizing Theologies' offers a unique methodology for Black theological conversation with the poor, marginalized and disenfranchised.
Liberation Theologies in the United States reveals how the critical use of religion can be utilized to challenge and combat oppression in America. In the nascent United States, religion often functioned as a justifier of oppression. Yet while religious discourse buttressed such oppressive activities as slavery and the destruction of native populations, oppressed communities have also made use of religion to critique and challenge this abuse. As Liberation Theologies in the United States demonstrates, this critical use of religion has often taken the form of liberation theologies, which use primarily Christian principles to address questions of social justice, including racism, poverty, and other types of oppression. Stacey M. Floyd-Thomas and Anthony B. Pinn have brought together a stellar group of liberation theology scholars to provide a synthetic introduction to the historical development, context, theory, and goals of a range of U.S.-born liberation theologies: Black Theology—Anthony B. Pinn Womanist Theology—Stacey M. Floyd-Thomas Latina Theology—Nancy Pineda-Madrid Hispanic/Latino(a) Theology—Benjamín Valentín Asian American Theology—Andrew Sung Park Asian American Feminist Theology—Grace Ji-Sun Kim Native Feminist Theology—Andrea Smith Native American Theology—George (Tink) Tinker Gay and Lesbian Theology—Robert E. Shore-Goss Feminist Theology—Mary McClintock Fulkerson “An extraordinary resource for understanding the vitality of liberation theologies and their relation to social transformation in the changing U.S. context. Written in an accessible and engaged way, this powerful and informative text will inspire beginners and scholars alike. I highly recommend it."—Kwok Pui-lan, author of Postcolonial Imagination and Feminist Theology “A delight to read . . . [and] an exemplary account of the genre of liberation theologies." ―Religious Studies Review
What is the nature and purpose of the Black Church? What is the relationship of the scholar of religion to the Black Church? While black churches have been a major component of the religious landscape of African American communities for centuries, little critical attention has been given to these questions outside an apologetic stance. This book seeks to correct this trend by examining some of the major issues facing black churches in the twenty-first century. From a challenge to traditional ways of addressing sexism within black churches to African American Christianity's relationship to popular culture, this set of reflections seeks to offer new perspectives on what it might mean to be Black and Christian in the United States. "Anthony Pinn's volume seeks to critically understand and sympathetically transform the Black Church. Carrying on in the tradition of William R. Jones, Pinn's perspective on the Black Church is suspicious, loving, critical, committed, exasperating, and exhilarating. One may not always agree with his conclusions, but one cannot ignore his penchant for ferreting out the truth. This book is a passionate yet balanced argument which must be heard by anyone who is interested in the future of the black church."---James H. Evans JR. Robert K. Davies Professor of Systematic Theology, Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School "Pinn is required reading in every Black Church Studies department and theological curriculum that seeks self-understanding, transformation, and healing; and an indispensable interlocutor in the broader public conversation about the American dilemma and its democratic possibilities."---Walter Earl Fluker Coca-Cola Professor of Leadership Studies Morehouse College
The future of the United States rests in many ways on how the ongoing challenge of racial injustice in the country is addressed. Yet, humanists remain divided over what if any agenda should guide humanist thought and action toward questions of race. In this volume, Anthony B. Pinn makes a clear case for why humanism should embrace racial justice as part of its commitment to the well-being of life in general and human flourishing in particular. As a first step, humanists should stop asking why so many racial minorities remain committed to religious traditions that have destroyed lives, perverted justice, and justified racial discrimination. Rather, Pinn argues, humanists must first confront a more pertinent and pressing question: why has humanism failed to provide a more compelling alternative to theism for so many minority groups? For only with a bit of humility and perspective—and a recognition of the various ways in which we each contribute to racial injustice—can we truly fight for justice.
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