Pub Date : 2019-08-13DOI: 10.5325/JAFRIRELI.7.2.2019.0310
D. Stewart
Abstract:"In An Intimate Rebuke, Laura Grillo uncovers for Western audiences what is taken for granted in numerous sub-Saharan African societies: the ontological status and cosmic authority postmenopausal Mothers have to disrupt injustice and restore stability during periods of social violence. Through her ethnographic research, she contributes new insights to the conversation on matriarchy, matricentricity (Amadiume), and mothernity (Oyěwùmí) in Africa."
{"title":"Matri-archive: A New Portal to Knowledge Production in African Studies","authors":"D. Stewart","doi":"10.5325/JAFRIRELI.7.2.2019.0310","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/JAFRIRELI.7.2.2019.0310","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:\"In An Intimate Rebuke, Laura Grillo uncovers for Western audiences what is taken for granted in numerous sub-Saharan African societies: the ontological status and cosmic authority postmenopausal Mothers have to disrupt injustice and restore stability during periods of social violence. Through her ethnographic research, she contributes new insights to the conversation on matriarchy, matricentricity (Amadiume), and mothernity (Oyěwùmí) in Africa.\"","PeriodicalId":41877,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Africana Religions","volume":"7 1","pages":"310 - 315"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2019-08-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47058037","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-08-13DOI: 10.5325/JAFRIRELI.7.2.2019.0307
Jacob J. Olupọna
Abstract:This response to Laura Grillo's An Intimate Rebuke concentrates on how feminine ritual power, sometime hidden and underplayed in male-dominated politics and public life more generally, has had revolutionary implications in modern African political history and has the potential to affect change in contemporary African states.
{"title":"Feminine Ritual Power and African Politics","authors":"Jacob J. Olupọna","doi":"10.5325/JAFRIRELI.7.2.2019.0307","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/JAFRIRELI.7.2.2019.0307","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:This response to Laura Grillo's An Intimate Rebuke concentrates on how feminine ritual power, sometime hidden and underplayed in male-dominated politics and public life more generally, has had revolutionary implications in modern African political history and has the potential to affect change in contemporary African states.","PeriodicalId":41877,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Africana Religions","volume":"7 1","pages":"307 - 310"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2019-08-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49103979","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-08-13DOI: 10.5325/JAFRIRELI.7.2.2019.0282
N’Kosi Oates
Abstract:When I interviewed Professor James Cone nearly four years ago, he reflected on his seminal text, Black Theology and Black Power. He admitted, "I was trying to write a theology that would speak to the spirit of the times in my community and I wanted to share that one can be both black and Christian." This would be one of the last interviews Cone gave. Most interviews of Cone over the past seven years have centered on his latest book, The Cross and the Lynching Tree. This interview, however, distinguishes itself from those interviews because it places attention on Black Theology and Black Power and captures Cone's thoughts on the theologian's role in society, Black Lives Matter, and his legacy.
{"title":"James Cone: A Black Theologian's Reflection","authors":"N’Kosi Oates","doi":"10.5325/JAFRIRELI.7.2.2019.0282","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/JAFRIRELI.7.2.2019.0282","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:When I interviewed Professor James Cone nearly four years ago, he reflected on his seminal text, Black Theology and Black Power. He admitted, \"I was trying to write a theology that would speak to the spirit of the times in my community and I wanted to share that one can be both black and Christian.\" This would be one of the last interviews Cone gave. Most interviews of Cone over the past seven years have centered on his latest book, The Cross and the Lynching Tree. This interview, however, distinguishes itself from those interviews because it places attention on Black Theology and Black Power and captures Cone's thoughts on the theologian's role in society, Black Lives Matter, and his legacy.","PeriodicalId":41877,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Africana Religions","volume":"7 1","pages":"282 - 286"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2019-08-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47122979","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-08-13DOI: 10.5325/jafrireli.7.2.2019.v
Sylvester A. Johnson, Edward E. Curtis
Black Power. It foregrounds the intellectual legacy of James H. Cone himself. It also examines the broader scholarship on Africana religions that has emerged through the paradigm shifts that Black liberation theology embodies— liberationist political movements, Black consciousness, anticolonial movements, and religious activism rooted in social justice. When James Hal Cone (1936–2018) first published Black Theology and Black Power in 1969, he launched a fundamental transformation in the study of race through its connection to the institutional life of religion, Black political insurgency, and the scholarly study of Black religious thought. As Cone often explained in retrospect, Black Theology and Black Power derived from his experience of “metanoia,” a conversion to embracing a radical notion of Black identity manifested in a global Black consciousness movement, the soulful music of Billie Holiday, the rebellions underway in Black ghettoes, the prophetic theology of Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and the unapologetic affirmation of Black identity and Black culture espoused by the Muslim minister Malik Shabazz (Malcolm X). Cone’s work also connected to the global formations of anticolonialism that emphasized decolonizing the intellectual apparatus of Black scholars and affirming the aesthetic dimensions of Blackness—the Black Arts movement and such writers as Frantz Fanon exemplify the stakes of this radical transformation. This seminal text by Cone marked the rise of the modern liberation theology movement and established Black theology’s radical departure from the epistemological norms of white theology. The transnational dynamics of Black theology also emerged in such movements as the anti-apartheid activism of Black theologians in South Africa. Over the course of his career, Cone produced more than a dozen books attesting to the Black radical tradition’s urgent significance for the social life of religious institutions and the intellectual imagination that might guide the scholarly study of Black religious thought, liberation imperatives, and Black Introduction: James H. Cone and Black Theology in Africana Perspective
{"title":"Introduction: James H. Cone and Black Theology in Africana Perspective","authors":"Sylvester A. Johnson, Edward E. Curtis","doi":"10.5325/jafrireli.7.2.2019.v","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/jafrireli.7.2.2019.v","url":null,"abstract":"Black Power. It foregrounds the intellectual legacy of James H. Cone himself. It also examines the broader scholarship on Africana religions that has emerged through the paradigm shifts that Black liberation theology embodies— liberationist political movements, Black consciousness, anticolonial movements, and religious activism rooted in social justice. When James Hal Cone (1936–2018) first published Black Theology and Black Power in 1969, he launched a fundamental transformation in the study of race through its connection to the institutional life of religion, Black political insurgency, and the scholarly study of Black religious thought. As Cone often explained in retrospect, Black Theology and Black Power derived from his experience of “metanoia,” a conversion to embracing a radical notion of Black identity manifested in a global Black consciousness movement, the soulful music of Billie Holiday, the rebellions underway in Black ghettoes, the prophetic theology of Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and the unapologetic affirmation of Black identity and Black culture espoused by the Muslim minister Malik Shabazz (Malcolm X). Cone’s work also connected to the global formations of anticolonialism that emphasized decolonizing the intellectual apparatus of Black scholars and affirming the aesthetic dimensions of Blackness—the Black Arts movement and such writers as Frantz Fanon exemplify the stakes of this radical transformation. This seminal text by Cone marked the rise of the modern liberation theology movement and established Black theology’s radical departure from the epistemological norms of white theology. The transnational dynamics of Black theology also emerged in such movements as the anti-apartheid activism of Black theologians in South Africa. Over the course of his career, Cone produced more than a dozen books attesting to the Black radical tradition’s urgent significance for the social life of religious institutions and the intellectual imagination that might guide the scholarly study of Black religious thought, liberation imperatives, and Black Introduction: James H. Cone and Black Theology in Africana Perspective","PeriodicalId":41877,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Africana Religions","volume":"7 1","pages":"v - vi"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2019-08-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46329827","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-08-13DOI: 10.5325/JAFRIRELI.7.2.2019.0234
Alphonso F. Saville
Abstract:This article emphasizes the generative impact of West African religious culture on early African American Christians by analyzing the use of two symbols, wilderness and blood, in the autobiographical accounts of John Marrant, Nat Turner, and Frederick Douglass. I use Theophus Smith's notion of conjure to reconstruct the hermeneutical lens through which early African Americans read and understood the Bible and to explain how the repetition of symbols evinces Africana religious consciousness. While the Bible provided these authors and narrators with a narrative model for storytelling, the structural patterns and thematic emphases repeated in their texts suggest that Africana spirituality, rather than the doctrines of Euro-American Protestantism, primarily informs the processes by which these narrators construct religious meaning. The repetition of the Bible's symbols, tropes, and themes establishes a written tradition of biblical interpretation—a midrash of the Black Church—a hitherto-unacknowledged phenomenon in African diaspora religious history.
{"title":"I Know It Was the Blood: Prophetic Initiation and Retributive Justice in the Narratives of John Marrant, Nat Turner, and Frederick Douglass","authors":"Alphonso F. Saville","doi":"10.5325/JAFRIRELI.7.2.2019.0234","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/JAFRIRELI.7.2.2019.0234","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:This article emphasizes the generative impact of West African religious culture on early African American Christians by analyzing the use of two symbols, wilderness and blood, in the autobiographical accounts of John Marrant, Nat Turner, and Frederick Douglass. I use Theophus Smith's notion of conjure to reconstruct the hermeneutical lens through which early African Americans read and understood the Bible and to explain how the repetition of symbols evinces Africana religious consciousness. While the Bible provided these authors and narrators with a narrative model for storytelling, the structural patterns and thematic emphases repeated in their texts suggest that Africana spirituality, rather than the doctrines of Euro-American Protestantism, primarily informs the processes by which these narrators construct religious meaning. The repetition of the Bible's symbols, tropes, and themes establishes a written tradition of biblical interpretation—a midrash of the Black Church—a hitherto-unacknowledged phenomenon in African diaspora religious history.","PeriodicalId":41877,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Africana Religions","volume":"7 1","pages":"234 - 254"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2019-08-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43656655","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-08-13DOI: 10.5325/JAFRIRELI.7.2.2019.0213
Christophe D. Ringer
Abstract:In this article, I argue that James Cone's Black Theology and Black Power inaugurates a theological project that contributes to the field of Africana philosophies of existence as conceptualized by Lewis Gordon. The article examines the importance of historical concrete situations, provides a phenomenological analysis of anti-Blackness as bad faith, and explores identity and identification in Cone's theological method. Finally, I argue that these themes contribute to the global relevance of Cone's theology of existence by analyzing the work of South African anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko.
{"title":"The Rupture of Identity and Identification in James Cone's Africana Theology of Existence","authors":"Christophe D. Ringer","doi":"10.5325/JAFRIRELI.7.2.2019.0213","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/JAFRIRELI.7.2.2019.0213","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:In this article, I argue that James Cone's Black Theology and Black Power inaugurates a theological project that contributes to the field of Africana philosophies of existence as conceptualized by Lewis Gordon. The article examines the importance of historical concrete situations, provides a phenomenological analysis of anti-Blackness as bad faith, and explores identity and identification in Cone's theological method. Finally, I argue that these themes contribute to the global relevance of Cone's theology of existence by analyzing the work of South African anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko.","PeriodicalId":41877,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Africana Religions","volume":"7 1","pages":"213 - 233"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2019-08-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48959764","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-08-13DOI: 10.5325/JAFRIRELI.7.2.2019.0189
M. Harris, T. Davis
Abstract:James Cone views Black theology as of a piece with Third World theology. Contrary to lingering criticisms that Cone's writings are politically limited by metaphysical and cultural nationalism, this article contends that for Cone the internationalist standpoint is essential to a "new way of making theology." To this end we offer an alternative frame for appreciating Cone's theological vision by attending to his project to link Black liberation theology to Third World theology through his writings, relationships, and affiliations and through his concomitant critique of racial capitalist civilization. Our argument is that these global connections are central to understanding Cone's theology and that Cone's endorsement of a new economic order is a material corollary internal to his participation in these networks. Our goal is to attend to these neglected features in Cone's theology in order to recast his writings as a resource for the contemporary Black radical imagination.
{"title":"\"In the Hope That They Can Make Their Own Future\": James H. Cone and the Third World","authors":"M. Harris, T. Davis","doi":"10.5325/JAFRIRELI.7.2.2019.0189","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/JAFRIRELI.7.2.2019.0189","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:James Cone views Black theology as of a piece with Third World theology. Contrary to lingering criticisms that Cone's writings are politically limited by metaphysical and cultural nationalism, this article contends that for Cone the internationalist standpoint is essential to a \"new way of making theology.\" To this end we offer an alternative frame for appreciating Cone's theological vision by attending to his project to link Black liberation theology to Third World theology through his writings, relationships, and affiliations and through his concomitant critique of racial capitalist civilization. Our argument is that these global connections are central to understanding Cone's theology and that Cone's endorsement of a new economic order is a material corollary internal to his participation in these networks. Our goal is to attend to these neglected features in Cone's theology in order to recast his writings as a resource for the contemporary Black radical imagination.","PeriodicalId":41877,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Africana Religions","volume":"7 1","pages":"189 - 212"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2019-08-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49617002","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-08-13DOI: 10.1163/1873-5363_jciv_a1765
Adriaan van Klinken
{"title":"Introduction","authors":"Adriaan van Klinken","doi":"10.1163/1873-5363_jciv_a1765","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/1873-5363_jciv_a1765","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":41877,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Africana Religions","volume":"7 1","pages":"287 - 291"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2019-08-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45164085","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-08-13DOI: 10.5325/JAFRIRELI.7.2.2019.0255
Demaine J. Solomons, J. Klaasen
Abstract:As a metaphor, "liberation" was at the heart of the Black theological project in South Africa. However, after centuries of colonial and apartheid rule, Black liberation and its association with Black theology need to be examined in light of democracy in South Africa. Some have asserted that the end of apartheid together with the democratization of the country renders Black theology irrelevant. These views are taken further by suggesting that it is not Black people alone who are in need of liberation. The dawn of democracy, therefore, is a significant variable for those seeking to replace liberation with metaphors deemed more "suitable" for the current context. The most significant proposal—which has generated much debate—suggests that Black theology should shift emphasis from "liberation" to "reconstruction." Often these debates question the continued relevance of "liberation" as a root metaphor. Moreover, they highlight the need for a clearly defined framework for Black theology following the demise of apartheid.
{"title":"Liberation or Reconstruction? Black Theology as Unfinished Business in South Africa","authors":"Demaine J. Solomons, J. Klaasen","doi":"10.5325/JAFRIRELI.7.2.2019.0255","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/JAFRIRELI.7.2.2019.0255","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:As a metaphor, \"liberation\" was at the heart of the Black theological project in South Africa. However, after centuries of colonial and apartheid rule, Black liberation and its association with Black theology need to be examined in light of democracy in South Africa. Some have asserted that the end of apartheid together with the democratization of the country renders Black theology irrelevant. These views are taken further by suggesting that it is not Black people alone who are in need of liberation. The dawn of democracy, therefore, is a significant variable for those seeking to replace liberation with metaphors deemed more \"suitable\" for the current context. The most significant proposal—which has generated much debate—suggests that Black theology should shift emphasis from \"liberation\" to \"reconstruction.\" Often these debates question the continued relevance of \"liberation\" as a root metaphor. Moreover, they highlight the need for a clearly defined framework for Black theology following the demise of apartheid.","PeriodicalId":41877,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Africana Religions","volume":"7 1","pages":"255 - 272"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2019-08-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41643441","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-01-30DOI: 10.5325/JAFRIRELI.7.1.0172
W. Caldwell
Abstract:FBI repression of "Black Muslim" groups such as the Moorish Science Temple of America and the Nation of Islam emerged from institutionalized forms of Islamophobia preceding the War on Terror. This article examines the broader Cold War policies that criminalized Black conversion to Islam as a treasonous affiliation with "un-American" forces.
{"title":"\"A Sword of Wrath, the Executor of Sinister Adventures\": Domestic Islamophobia and International Black Muslim Solidarities during the Cold War","authors":"W. Caldwell","doi":"10.5325/JAFRIRELI.7.1.0172","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/JAFRIRELI.7.1.0172","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:FBI repression of \"Black Muslim\" groups such as the Moorish Science Temple of America and the Nation of Islam emerged from institutionalized forms of Islamophobia preceding the War on Terror. This article examines the broader Cold War policies that criminalized Black conversion to Islam as a treasonous affiliation with \"un-American\" forces.","PeriodicalId":41877,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Africana Religions","volume":"7 1","pages":"172 - 179"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2019-01-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49347592","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}