The Burden of Black Religion

by Curtis J. Evans

Overview

Religion has always been a focal element in the long and tortured history of American ideas about race. In The Burden of Black Religion, Curtis Evans traces ideas about African American religion from the antebellum period to the middle of the twentieth century. This important work reveals how interpretations of black religion played a crucial role in shaping broader views of African Americans and had real consequences in their lives. In the process, Evans offers an intellectual and cultural history of race in a crucial period of American history.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780199716548
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	04/17/2008
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	841 KB

About the Author

Curtis J. Evans is Assistant Professor of the History of Christianity, University of Chicago Divinity School.

Table of Contents

Introduction     3
The Meaning of Slave Religion     17
Black Religion in the New Nation: Outside the Boundaries of Whiteness     65
The Social Sciences and the Professional Discipline of Black Religion     105
The Creation and the Burden of the Negro Church     141
The Drama of Black Life     177
The Religious and Cultural Meaning of The Green Pastures     203
Urbanization and the End of Black Religion in the Modern World     223
Epilogue     265
Notes     281
Selected Bibliography     351
Index     369

Editorial Reviews

"This important book offers a fresh and provocative take on the manner in which religion has been used to frame and shape the place and function of African Americans within the United States in particular as well as the creation of the nation in more general terms. The challenges this book offers are vital. I highly recommend it." —Anthony B. Pinn, Rice University, author of Terror and Triumph: The Nature of Black Religion

"Marvelously meticulous." —Church History

"The Burden of Black Religion is a very rich and rewarding book. . . It certainly bears repeated readings and in these times when religion in general has attained the spotlight it can be profitably read for understanding how African Americans have created, expressed, and conducted their religious experience. In the end, one can only hope that America can eventually come to embrace the spiritual multicultural diversity that is embedded within its history, especially that of African Americans."

—Journal of Social History

"[Evans] offers a substantial engagement of black religion that covers primarily the period after the Civil War through the 1940s with tenuous continuing conversation about the implications for the Civil Rights Movement and beyond."—Religious Studies Review

From the Publisher