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AAMSM (African American men who have sex with men) endure homophobia and racism in their political realities because of their identity. How do multiple oppressions impact the experiences of AAMSM participating within Black churches? Despite the Black church's legacy for liberating African Americans, AAMSM feel demonized and alienated while enduring religion-based homophobia espoused within many Black churches. In the church, AAMSM are pushed further down the hierarchy of oppression and privilege. In response to these observations, this thesis employs a sexual discourse of resistance. I engage this discourse with a literature review in order to discover links between homophobia and AAMSM in an interdisciplinary manner. Jungian psychology is then utilized to interpret internalized oppression. This leads to a discussion of social and religious justice for AAMSM in the Black church through the lens of liberation theology. While the oppressed have become oppressors within the Black church as regards AAMSM, liberation theology affirms all of humanity. Liberation theology provides a message of love for AAMSM and a source of Christian ethics for the Black church.

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This research is an ethnography which investigates the effects of Hurricane Katrina upon the capacity of African American Protestant churches in New Orleans to provide spiritual and social ministry to the city's underprivileged. More than three years after Hurricane Katrina unleashed its fury upon the city, fifty per cent of the churches remain as the hurricane left them. Pre-Katrina, fifty per cent of the population lived at or below the poverty line and depended upon faith-based programs as part of their support network and ladder toward selfsufficiency. Because of the disaster, there was substantive loss of parishioners, financial resources, and program operational infrastructure that severely limited or destroyed faith-based capacity to serve. The purpose of the study is to examine what social vulnerabilities and barriers hinder churches' capacity to serve community needs in four particular areas, including providing and advocating for affordable housing, quality health care, strategies for eliminating poverty, and disaster evacuation education, preparedness and response. The researcher hypothesizes that structural and institutional racism were already undermining that capacity pre-Katrina and continues to hinder it more than three years since. The study investigates the veracity of this hypothesis. It attempts to offer strategies to help mitigate the social vulnerabilities and increase the community's resiliency and sustainability against future disasters. This research is important because it provides increased awareness and understanding of how pre-existing social vulnerabilities in combination with Hurricane Katrina contributed to the lingering diminished capacity of the church and community. It also provides insight into how the faith community's attitude and action toward handling its vulnerabilities lead to increased resiliency and sustainability, and suggest a course of action toward the alleviation of marginalization of both the faith institutions and the people they serve.

The purpose of this qualitative study was to give voice to the experiences of African American female pastors of African American churches and their perceptions of gender and equity as it pertains to their role in the pastorate. This phenomenological study identified the lived experiences of each participant through her personal narrative, which reflects her path from birth to present. Participants’ experiences as a senior pastor provided a personal historical path of the journey of female pastors for a span of four decades. This dissertation shares the challenges, barriers, and support to female pastors. This study examined personal characteristics, acts of leadership, and acts of negotiating the system within the African American church. The participants’ ages ranged from 40-70+. The findings of this study indicated that there has been a slow change in the acceptance of female pastors. Female pastors have been a part of our culture since biblical times, but resistance is still present.

abstract: The purpose of my dissertation project is to understand how Same-Gender Loving (SGL) Black Christian men negotiate their sexuality and spirituality in spaces that are not always accepting of SGL people, by examining on how Black SGL men perform their sexual identities within hegemonic institutions that often deny their existence or outwardly seek to exclude them from their communities. I have identified three scripts that Black SGL men often follow within Black religious settings. The first script that SGL people often follow in the church is that of deliverance-- confessing their same-gender desires and maintaining that they have been delivered from those desires The second is "don't ask don't tell" performed by men who many believe and suspect of being SGL; so long as they do not publicly affirm these beliefs they are able to hold a variety of positions in their religious communities.. The last script involves accepting one's same-gender desires and also affirming one's Christian beliefs, proclaiming that the two are not at odds with one another. I examine how these scripts and/or others are performed by and on the bodies of Black SGL males in two distinct sites. The first is the career and music of former gospel star Anthony Charles Williams II (Tonex / B. Slade), who has utilized the three scripts at various times in his career. The next site is that of theatre, where I explore how these scripts have been employed in dramatic texts. By reading Christian Black SGL performance through its theological parameters, I aim to discern the avenues in which Black people in the United States are able to perform same-gender sexual identities in spaces that are constructed as "homophobic," and in so doing combat the narrative of hyper-homophobia in Black communities. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Theatre 2013

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博士(神学) / Doctor of Theology / 同志社大学 / Doshisha University

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