Thesis (M.C.S.)--Regent College, 2000. / Abstract and vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 206-214).

Thesis (M.C.S.)--Regent College, 2000. / Abstract and vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 206-214).

Thesis (M.A.)--Columbia Graduate School of Bible and Missions, 1986. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 212-226).

No description available.

My dissertation explores the minimizing, and often dismissal, of the evangelical conservative tradition of African-American Christianity within African-American studies. I argue that the primary cause of this development derives from the hermeneutics and methodologies employed by contemporary Black theologians and “Afrocentric-liberationist” scholars. Generally, these hermeneutics and methodologies were originally proposed by secular Black Nationalist and Black Power advocates during the Civil Rights Movement. This is seen in three areas: First, there is an interpretation of “Whiteness,” or European-Americans as completely corrupt and unredeemable. Second, there are calls for “Blackness,” or African-Americans to racially and socially segregate from Whiteness. Last, there are concepts of an “Ideal-Blackness,” a renewed or transformed Blackness created independently from Whiteness. These and other principles were employed by many contemporary Black scholars to various degrees. Furthermore, I argue that these principles sustain influential Black Nationalist/Black Power historiographies, and shape the dominant trends within the discipline. I maintain that there are two conflicting traditions within African American culture: the religious tradition of conservative evangelicalism that was established during colonialism, and the secularist tradition of Black Nationalism and Black Power which originated during the civil rights movement. These traditions opposed one another during the civil rights movement. Later, this conflict was grafted into the academy, where it continues through the scholarship of many Black theologians and Afrocentric-liberationist scholars. Finally, I discuss the theology of Jupiter Hammon, an 18th century Christian slave, as a representative of the conservative tradition of African American Christianity. I argue that it is essential that scholars explore Hammon's theology, and the conservative tradition of African-American Christianity during colonialism, for a variety of reasons: first, it is important to understand this tradition, as it has shaped African-American Christianity and the Black church more than any other; second, exploring the conservative tradition during colonialism provides the constructive theologies, and alternative conservative historiographies, that complement the Black Nationalist/Black Power historiographies advocated by many contemporary Black scholars.

The current study seeks to insert African American Pentecostal theologies as a generative subject of examination for scholars of American and African Atlantic religious history and theology. By providing close and critical readings of newly-found sources of African American Pentecostal theology by four significant African American Pentecostal theologians, this study situates African American Pentecostal thought as a distinctive theological trajectory within both African Atlantic Christianity and North American religious thought. The writings of theologians Ozro Thurston Jones, Jr., Ithiel Conrad Clemmons, James Alexander Forbes, Jr., and William Clair Turner, Jr., will be explored to expose the contours of a distinctive African American Pentecostal theology. An examination of the writings of this cohort demonstrates that African American Pentecostal thought is contextual (marked by an openness to and engagement with various Christian and philosophical traditions) and liberationist (deeply committed to a revitalization of Christian witness in the pursuit of social justice). In this comparative analysis of their respective theological programs, with a focus on recurring theological ideas, values, and themes, this study provides a phenomenology of African American Pentecostal theology. Within the field of modern black theology, there has been a call by scholars for more attention to be paid to pneumatology, which has been generally neglected; while within the field of North American Pentecostalism, a glossocentric pneumatology has been the dominant theological framework. The four theologians examined in this study resist both limitations, and in the diversity of their methods and theological perspectives, these scholars participate in a broader, more generous theological enterprise. This project seeks to both unsettle and complexify anew various reductionist readings of African American Pentecostal theologies and to create space for a deepened exchange between the broader traditions of African Atlantic Christian theologies and African American religious thought. The methodologies employed in this study include biographical criticism, phenomenological analysis, and religious ethnography. Biographical criticism underscores the critical importance of social contexts in the formation of black religious consciousness. Phenomenological analysis allows for an examination of African American Pentecostalism as its own distinctive religious phenomenon. And critical religious ethnography is employed to assess the reception and impact of each theologian’s overall theological production. Given the growth and theological maturation of Pentecostalism, and the social, cultural and ecumenical impact it has exerted worldwide, this dissertation examines what the theology of the African American Pentecostal movement has contributed to contemporary Christian thought amidst the shifting theological contours of World Christianity and North American religious thought.

Thesis (PhD(Theology)--University of Pretoria, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 389-408)

Thesis (J.C.L.)--Catholic University of America, 1988. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves [154]-159).

Thesis (M. A.)--Catholic Theological Union at Chicago, 1997. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves [86]-91).

The structure of this study is a complex inter-relationship of a variety of sources in a theological work, namely, personal experience, African social and politico-economic context, philosophical reflection, wisdom traditions and Christian theology. These sources form a coherent inter-relationship which is foundational for an African theology of wisdom. The introduction gives an overview of my moral and theological formation. This is intended to provide a perspective through which the issue of moral orientation in African context has been approached. It is therefore entitled: Moral formation and the shaping of a theological mind. The first chapter answers the question: Why is Africa in need of a wisdom theology that addresses the issue of moral regeneration? This question is posed in the broader context of the current African Renaissance debates. The links between the Italian (European) and African Renaissance indicate that moral regeneration is a crucial part of the socio-political, intellectual and economic re-birth of Africa. This “socio-historical” source gives the context and urgency of a wisdom theology. It is therefore entitled: A contextual analysis: The European and African Renaissance. The second chapter re-asserts the rise of virtue ethics as an alternative ethical theory to the predominant deontological and utilitarian traditions. This is achieved through analysing Alisdair MacIntyre’s earlier work, After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory (1981), set in the context of Iris Murdoch and Elizabeth Anscombe, the modern initiators of a virtue ethic. This “philosophical” source gives the theoretical framework that addresses the question of moral formation. It is therefore entitled: A philosophical analysis: The rise of virtue ethics as alternative ethical theory. The third chapter is devoted to two related “wisdom” themes: Firstly, the seven traditional virtues are briefly described highlighting the virtue of wisdom as foundational. Secondly, the idea of wisdom is further developed via three wisdom traditions, namely: wisdom in the Hellenistic, Judeo-Christian and African traditions. This “sapiential” source gives this African theology of wisdom its most important building blocks. This chapter is therefore entitled: A sapiential analysis: Wisdom as foundation for virtue ethics in Africa. The last chapter brings the previous sources together under a specific theological perspective. It draws on aspects of recent African theologians’ work, notably: Kwame Gyekye and Benezet Bujo who engage with and bring together Western and African theological traditions. I answer a pertinent question, “What does such a ‘theological’ perspective entail?” I draw on Scripture and its Trinitarian tradition to demonstrate how African wisdom, reinforced by the framework of virtue theory, and developed in the context of present-day Africa by an African student of theology, has the potential to contribute to the moral transformation of Africa. This more overt “theological” source is the distinctive Christian enterprise of an African wisdom theology. The chapter title is aligned with the overall title of this study: A theological analysis: Toward an African virtue ethics? To this end, this study achieves its attempt to construct an inter-related framework from which an African theology of wisdom may emerge.