African American Religion: Varieties of Protest and Accommodation

Front Cover
Univ. of Tennessee Press, 2002 - History - 327 pages
Now in an updated second edition, African American Religion remains an invaluable overview of the great diversity of religious groups within the modern African American community. This plethora of forms reflects a tension that has characterized African American religion since its beginnings--a tension between accommodation to and protest against white society's domination.

Viewing African American sectarianism as a response to racism and social stratification in the larger society, the authors trace the history, beliefs, social organization, and ritual content of religious groups in four types of sects. These include the Black mainline churches; messianic-nationalist sects, such as the Nation of Islam; conversionist sects, such as the Holiness-Pentecostal groups and Primitive Baptists; and thaumaturgical sects, including the Spiritual churches.

For this new edition, the authors have incorporated research that has appeared since the book's original appearance in 1992 and have added two new chapters--"African Religious Healing and Folk Medicine" and "African American Sacred Music"--because of these topics' enormous significance to the African American religious experience.
 

Contents

The Cultural Background
1
Religious Diversification during the
27
Mainstream Churches
83
MessianicNationalist Sects
113
Conversionist Sects
152
Thaumaturgical Sects
183
Social Transformations in African
216
African American Religious Healing
232
African American
245
Conclusion
273
References
286
Index
323
Copyright

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

About the author (2002)

Hans A. Baer is professor of anthropology at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. Has has published nine books.

Bibliographic information