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In a pluralistic world where the tendency is to dismiss or silence ethnic and racial differences, Africentric Approaches to Christian Ministry: Strengthening Urban Congregations in African American Communities offers invaluable insight into the ordering of urban congregational life, Christian ministry, and urban missiology from a worldview perspective that values the centrality of African people. Theological leaders and framers of African American religious studies, such as the following persons provide provocative insight for theological reflection and praxis: Gayraud Wilmore (The Black Church); J. Deotis Roberts (Africentric Christianity); Katie Geneva Cannon (Diaspora Ethics); and Cain Hope Fielder (New Testament Studies). The opening and closing chapters by co-editors Ronald Edward Peters and Marsha Snulligan Haney provide a critical knowledge base that frames Africentric Approaches to Christian Ministry. In light of the rapidly changing nature of Christianity globally (non-Western and non-European), this is a significant study on African American religious consciousness and urban praxis.
Africentrism has captured the imagination of many in the black community who are intent on discovering their cultural heritage on the African continent. In this book, a highly esteemed theologian, who is also one of the architects and leading scholars of black theology today, provides a theological assessment of Africentrism and its relationship with Christianity.
As Presbyterians, Lutherans, Methodists, Disciples of Christ, and other predominantly European-centered Christian denominations of North America seek to respond as a faith community to the increasingly dynamic ethnic and cultural diversity within our society, this book offers a sobering yet valuable perspective. By understanding the ministry of Christian evangelism as a construct that speaks of the power of divine transformation (personal and communal) and the embrace of a way of life, this work argues for a multi-variant approach that values the philosophical aspects of cultural differences, which are effective and faithful models of Christian evangelism. An analysis of key missiological concepts, such as mission histories, ethno-theologies, worldview, culture, ethnic cohesion, and contextualization is appropriated to illuminate the theological voices and evangelical practices of a specific people, or ethnicity, shaped by a journey of spiritual faith. While the numerical significance of self-identified African-American Presbyterians may appear small, their synergistic encounter of human identity and religious faith, historical experience in the church, and the impact of their evangelical presence provide an excellent case study for discerning the twenty-first-century challenges of evangelism. This thorough study of history, theology, organizational structures, methods, and techniques will serve as a valuable tool in evaluating the impact of the faith journey of African-American Presbyterians and its challenges for today and the future.
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.
Today, many black churches still struggle with what it means to be both black and Christian. This resource can assist black congregations as they try to embrace both their cultural identity and their spirituality.
A guide for pastors, church leaders, and all who help African Americans in their search for a meaningful Christian lifestyle. Forming Christians--leading fallen and flawed human beings into the path of discipleship to a crucified and risen Lord--is one of the central, if not the central, tasks of all Christian churches. It is a difficult enough task anywhere, but for African Americans, beset by racial conflict, personal crises, generational separation, and other concerns, it is especially so. African American churches must work particularly hard to counter the messages their members receive from the dominant and often unfriendly culture. This book employs the biblical text and African tradition to draw on the idea of the search for wisdom as a potent way to help African Americans in their pursuit of genuine Christian discipleship. Wisdom in African American tradition is not simply knowledge; rather, it is those insights, attitudes, beliefs, behaviors, and practices that create and sustain a life of hope and that produce an inherent sense of the worth of one's self. If their members are to engage in the search for wisdom, African American churches must build an intentional ministry of faith formation. Wisdom can be gained, the authors argue, when African Americans listen to the black oral tradition with its proverbial sayings, revered Bible stories, songs, and narratives from the lives of exemplary individuals. The book offers several similar avenues for the search for wisdom, including helpful models of black males mentoring younger black males, as a remedy to the destructive effects that contemporary culture has on this segment of the African American community.
The book benefits anyone who desires an approach to preaching that gets at listeners' felt needs. What we have been taught about preaching and our chosen approach to preaching may not serve us or our listeners well. Thus, the preacher's fidelity to an ineffective approach to preaching lies at the heart of the problem. This book helps preachers resolve this issue with life-situation preaching, an approach that begins with listeners' needs. Herein readers will experience the power of life-situation preaching to address the spiritual and practical problems--challenges, struggles, and unique experiences--African-Americans face daily.
How easily we forget that it was Africans who brought the gospel to Africa, not foreign missionaries! Evangelism has always been central to African Christianity, ever since Egyptians and Libyans returned home from Jerusalem following the day of Pentecost (Acts 2). In this brief history of the church in Africa, Dr. John Kurewa highlights the major approaches to evangelism that the church employed over the centuries, for better and for worse. Then, in historical context, Kurewa zeroes in on those distinctive methods of evangelism, proclamation and disciple formation that shaped a diverse yet vibrant African Methodism. Thanks to this historical review, we stand to gain fresh vision for ministries of evangelism that truly can fulfill the Great Commission—to make disciples of Jesus Christ.
The key to creating and growing a more unified and holistic church is the multi-ethnic and Christ-centered community that offers a strong connection between theology and practical ministry models, and that nurtures believers who are wrestling with what it means to be the church of the Bible today. Most books on racial reconciliation or multi-ethnic ministry center on the theological foundations, history, or social problem aspects of the topic. The Post-Black and Post-White Church offers a practical, hands-on blueprint for developing and sustaining a multi-ethnic and Christ-centered community. Written by Efrem Smith, an innovative and passionate African American leader of the Covenant Evangelical Church and founding pastor of Sanctuary Covenant Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota, this groundbreaking book shares his skills, experience, and wisdom for congregations who want to grow into a multi-ethnic, missional identity. The Post-Black and Post-White Church connects theology and practical ministry models for wrestling with what it means to be church in an increasingly multi-ethnic world that is polarized by class, politics, and race. The book embraces Jesus as one who was both Jewish and multi-ethnic and focuses on a theology of reconciled, multi-ethnic, and missional leadership.