African American Religion

Now in an updated second edition, African American Religion remains an invaluable overview of the great diversity of religious groups within the modern African American community. This plethora of forms reflects a tension that has characterized African American religion since its beginningsa tension between accommodation to and protest against white society's domination. Viewing African American sectarianism as a response to racism and social stratification in the larger society, the authors trace the history, beliefs, social organization, and ritual content of religious groups in four types of sects. These include the Black mainline churches; messianic-nationalist sects, such as the Nation of Islam; conversionist sects, such as the Holiness-Pentecostal groups and Primitive Baptists; and thaumaturgical sects, including the Spiritual churches. For this new edition, the authors have incorporated research that has appeared since the books original appearance in 1992 and have added two new chaptersAfrican Religious Healing and Folk Medicine and African American Sacred Musicbecause of these topics enormous significance to the African American religious experience.