Donyelle C. McCray's Books

Is It a Sermon?

Art, Activism, and Genre Fluidity in African American Preaching

By: Donyelle C. McCray

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Is It a Sermon?

Art, Activism, and Genre Fluidity in African American Preaching

By: Donyelle C. McCray

Is It a Sermon? is an informative and daring call to blur the boundaries of the sermon genre, exploring the “shoreline” of homiletics, or the place where preaching laps up against other modes of discourse. In this book, Donyelle McCray explores how preaching merges with prayer, song, performance, and activism—the gospel dancing in and out of the forms we create for it. Consider the sermonic performance of Isaiah walking naked and barefoot for three years, the deaconess whose morning prayer rhythmically flows into sermon, or the gospel soloist who pauses in her song to tell a story or break into a sermonette. McCray is interested in the possibilities that emerge when we play at the shoreline, and she questions what modes of preaching get overlooked due to genre classifications. She seeks to discover what we might learn from these shoreline preachers about bearing witness, enacting Scripture, and listening to life. While these questions could be explored generally, McCray focuses on African American preachers who play at the boundaries of the sermon genre, with attention to how genre fluidity provides a means of drawing on ancestral wisdom. Key figures like Mahalia Jackson, Harriet Powers, Rosie Lee Tomkins, Thea Bowman, Howard Thurman, and Toni Morrison are examined as artists, activists, and proclaimers. She shines a new light on their work and points out how they reform preacherly identities and refuse traditional patterns of holding authority. Ultimately, in blurring the boundaries of sermon genre, this book offers readers strategies for embracing their voices more fully within and beyond the pulpit.

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Page Count

218

Publisher

Presbyterian Publishing Corp

Published Date

ISBN 10

1646983947

ISBN 13

9781646983940

The Censored Pulpit

Julian of Norwich as Preacher

By: Donyelle C. McCray

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The Censored Pulpit

Julian of Norwich as Preacher

By: Donyelle C. McCray

Few have consoled the church as ably as the fourteenth-century mystic Julian of Norwich. However, her prophetic gifts have received little scholarly attention. Drawing on contemporary homiletical theory and the history of Christian spirituality, Donyelle C. McCray presents Julian as a preacher, examining the apostolic dimensions of Julian’s vocation as an anchoress and highlighting the steps she took to align herself with renowned preachers like Saint Cecelia, Mary Magdalene, and the apostle Paul. Like Paul, Julian saw Jesus’ body as her primary text, placed human weakness at the center of her theology, and used her own confined body as a rhetorical tool. Yet she navigated a web of censorship that threatened to silence her. To voice her convictions, Julian developed a novel approach to authority and exploited the fluidity of the medieval English sermon genre. McCray charts this process, revealing Julian as a central personality in the history of preaching whose best contemporary parallels operate outside the pulpit in august figures like retreat leader Evelyn Underhill, gospel singer Mother Willie Mae Ford Smith, and street preacher Reverend Billy.

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Page Count

142

Publisher

Rowman & Littlefield

Published Date

ISBN 10

1978709676

ISBN 13

9781978709676

A Surprising God

Advent Devotions for an Uncertain Time

By: Thomas G. Long,Donyelle C. McCray

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A Surprising God

Advent Devotions for an Uncertain Time

By: Thomas G. Long,Donyelle C. McCray

The world is slowly emerging from the worst global emergency in a century, and the myriad struggles of the contemporary moment—division, isolation, illness, and uncertainty—make living our faith a challenge. For Christians, a number of questions have gained new urgency: Where do we find hope when it seems in such short supply? Where are the signs of God's peace in this divided world? Where do we find a deeper sense of joy? Thomas G. Long and Donyelle C. McCray remind us that these are the questions of Advent in their new daily devotional, A Surprising God. Mindful of the stresses of life today in a world torn apart by conflict, marked by political division, and in the midst of a global health crisis, these devotions for Advent and Christmas invite readers to honest reflection on the challenges of being people of faith in this moment. Long and McCray explore what it means to wait for our salvation, to be open to the surprising thing that God is about to do, and to find hope in God's choice of the small and the insignificant.

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Page Count

131

Publisher

Westminster John Knox Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1646982150

ISBN 13

9781646982158

Is It a Sermon?

Art, Activism, and Genre Fluidity in African American Preaching

By: Donyelle C. McCray

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Is It a Sermon?

Art, Activism, and Genre Fluidity in African American Preaching

By: Donyelle C. McCray

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N/A

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Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

218

Publisher

Presbyterian Publishing Corp

Published Date

ISBN 10

1646983947

ISBN 13

9781646983940

A Surprising God

Advent Devotions for an Uncertain Time

By: Thomas G. Long,Donyelle C. McCray

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A Surprising God

Advent Devotions for an Uncertain Time

By: Thomas G. Long,Donyelle C. McCray

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Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

131

Publisher

Westminster John Knox Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1646982150

ISBN 13

9781646982158

The Censored Pulpit

Julian of Norwich as Preacher

By: Donyelle C. McCray

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The Censored Pulpit

Julian of Norwich as Preacher

By: Donyelle C. McCray

Average ratings

N/A

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Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

142

Publisher

Rowman & Littlefield

Published Date

ISBN 10

1978709676

ISBN 13

9781978709676

Book's by Donyelle C. McCray

Is It a Sermon?

Is It a Sermon?

The Censored Pulpit

The Censored Pulpit

A Surprising God

A Surprising God

Is It a Sermon?

Is It a Sermon?

A Surprising God

A Surprising God

The Censored Pulpit

The Censored Pulpit

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