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African American religion

The Author’s Corner with Leah Mickens

Rachel Petroziello   |  December 15, 2022

Leah Mickens is August Wilson Project Archivist at the University of Pittsburgh. This interview is based on her new book, In the Shadow of Ebenezer: A Black Catholic Parish in the Age of Civil Rights and Vatican II (NYU Press,...

The Author’s Corner with Jeroen Dewulf

Rachel Petroziello   |  August 19, 2022

Jeroen Dewulf is Queen Beatrix Professor in the Department of German & Dutch Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. This interview is based on his new book, Afro-Atlantic Catholics: America’s First Black Christians (University of Notre Dame Press, 2022)....

Bringing the Bible to the Jim Crow South

John Fea   |  February 8, 2022

In 1900, Henry Nelson Payne, a missionary and president of Mary Holmes Seminary in West Point, Mississippi, a school for Black women, was frustrated that many Bible societies in the former Confederacy were not willing to distribute Bibles to African...

Albert Raboteau, RIP

John Fea   |  September 29, 2021

Princeton University religion professor Albert Raboteau‘s book Slave Religion was the first book I ever read on the history of the religion and the African American experience. Here is Adelle Banks at Religion News Service: Albert J. Raboteau, an American...

Evangelical leader Tony Evans offers “Kingdom race theology” as an an alternative to “critical race theory”

John Fea   |  July 27, 2021

Evans recently gave a two-part presentation on the subject at his Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship in Dallas. Here is Part 1: Here is Part 2: A couple of quick thoughts: First, Evans clearly believes in systemic racism and the value...

Video of the day:

John Fea   |  June 17, 2021

Amazing Grace:...

Episode 3: “The Audacity to Hope”

John Fea   |  May 4, 2021

Barack Obama’s pastor is known for three sermons. In this episode, we put them in historical context. Episode 3: “The Audacity to Hope” (our fourth episode) dropped last night. Subscribers to Current at the Longshore level and above receive this brand new narrative...

Episode 2 of “A History of Evangelicals and Politics” podcast is here!

John Fea   |  April 27, 2021

Episode 2: “Obama Goes to Church” (our third episode) dropped last night. Subscribers to Current at the Longshore level and above receive this brand new narrative history podcast. In this episode I talk about Obama’s first encounter with Jeremiah Wright and what the...

Jeremiah Wright Jr. on Ben Carson, circa 1990s

John Fea   |  April 24, 2021

How things change. Today I was reading some of Jeremiah Wright‘s sermons and came across this line in a sermon titled “Good News for Good Parents”: When all the boys want to wear their pants halfway down their hips with...

Black Southern Baptists are “deeply disappointed” that seminary presidents continue to reject critical race theory in “all its forms”

John Fea   |  March 31, 2021

The debate over critical race theory continues to divide the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). Last November, the presidents of the six denominational seminaries published a statement declaring that critical race theory is incompatible with Southern Baptist theology. In response to...

Esau McCaulley’s Christian view of social justice

John Fea   |  March 19, 2021

I am looking forward to reading Wheaton College professor Esau McCaulley‘s book Reading While Black: African American Biblical Interpretation As An Exercise in Hope. He talks about it here: And here: Over at The New York Times, David Brooks writes...

Black Protestants are anxious about getting the COVID-19 vaccine. White evangelicals are more anxious.

John Fea   |  March 6, 2021

Here is Yonat Shimron at Religion News Service: Since before the COVID-19 vaccines hit the market, it has been predicted that Black Americans would choose to be vaccinated at dramatically lower rates than white Americans due to a historic mistrust...

Are you watching “The Black Church” on PBS?

John Fea   |  February 18, 2021

I haven’t had a chance to watch the new PBS series, “The Black Church: This Is Our Story, This Is Our Song,” but I am reading some rave reviews. Henry Louis Gates‘s series is streaming here. I am hoping to...

Melvin Banks, RIP

John Fea   |  February 16, 2021

Here is a taste of Daniel Silliman’s obituary of a major player in twentieth-century evangelicalism. I am guessing most white evangelicals have never heard of him: Melvin E. Banks, founder of the largest black Christian publishing house in the United...

Unearthing First Baptist Williamsburg

John Fea   |  February 4, 2021

Over at Christianity Today, Dan Silliman reports on the excavation at First Baptist Church, an African-American church founded in 1776 by free and enslaved Blacks in Williamsburg, Virginia. Here is a taste: They dug up broken bits of lamp, the...

Why white evangelicals criticize the Black church

John Fea   |  December 22, 2020

In the 1980s, when I was a student at a small Christian college, some of my professors warned us about the “liberal theology” of the civil rights movement. What Martin Luther King Jr. did was notable, they said, but he...

Episode 76: Howard Thurman: Theologian, Mystic, Activist

John Fea   |  November 22, 2020

Howard Thurman was a mid-20th century theologian, writer, activist, and mystic who had a profound influence on the leaders of the Civil Rights movement. Thurman’s writings–especially his 1949 work Jesus and the Disinherited–provided an intellectual and spiritual guide to those trying to...

Study: White Evangelicals are “cultural others” and the culture wars are getting worse

John Fea   |  November 17, 2020

The Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia just released its 2020 survey of American political culture. It is titled Democracy in Dark Times. James Davison Hunter and Carl Desportes Bowman are the primary investigators/authors. It...

GOP Convention: Night 2

John Fea   |  August 26, 2020

I didn’t get to listen very carefully to many of the speeches on night 2 of the GOP convention. I was preparing for my return to the classroom today.  At least my nightmares were different last night. Instead of dreaming...

The Author’s Corner with Jeffrey Einboden

Annie Thorn   |  June 29, 2020

Jeffrey Einboden is Presidential Research, Scholarship and Artistry Professor at Northern Illinois University. This interview is based on his new book, Jefferson’s Muslim Fugitives: The Lost Story of Enslaved Africans, their Arabic Letters, and an American President (Oxford University Press, 2020)....

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Episode 51: “The Politics of Tinky Winky”

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