Thesis (S.T.M.)--Yale University Divinity School, 1991. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 98-102).

Thesis (S.T.M.)--Yale University Divinity School, 1991. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 98-102).

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).