The Imposing Preacher

by Adam L. Bond

Overview

As a distinguished Baptist pastor, educator, and public servant, Samuel DeWitt Proctor made it his mission to serve American life by fighting against racism. In The Imposing Preacher, Adam Bond shows how Proctor, as the product of a prophetic black church tradition, a social gospel-laced liberal Protestantism, and a black middle-class integrationist ethos, envisioned a type of pulpit activism through which the United States could realize a civil society and genuine community, and was able to anticipate and contest some of the themes articulated in the black religious movements of the late twentieth century.

Bond shows Proctor to be a public theologian committed to developing an inclusive and racially pluralistic global society that confronts racism as the social crisis of its time. Proctor did not respond to segregation through marches and visible protests. Instead he saw the classroom and the pulpit as the sacred spaces for dialogue about race in America. In this way, he presents an alternative model of religious and social leadership and for studies of African American religion in the twentieth century.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781451452242
Publisher:	Augsburg Fortress, Publishers
Publication date:	06/01/2013
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	264
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Adam L. Bond is assistant professor of historical studies at The Samuel DeWitt Proctor School of Theology, Virginia Union University.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments vii

Abbreviations xi

Introduction 1

1 Racism and the Post-Segregation Witness of Black Public Faith 7

2 On the Making of a Public Theologian Proctor's Cultural Roots 35

3 On the Making of a Public Faith Proctor's Intellectual Roots 75

4 Everybody Is God's Somebody A Defense of Black Humanity 115

5 Preparing Public Theologians Black Preachers and Racial Uplift 149

6 Creating a Genuine Community A Black Christian Vision for Transforming American Public Space 179

Conclusion 209

Appendix: Photo Gallery 219

Bibliography 223

Index of Names and Subjects 235

Index of Biblical References 247