African American Religious Life and the Story of Nimrod

ANTHONY B PINN is Agnes Cullen Arnold Professor of Humanities and Professor of Religious Studies at Rice University, USA. His publications include African American Humanist Principles: Living and Thinking Like the Children of Nimrod and (co-editor) Loving the Body: Black Religious Studies and the Erotic, both published by Palgrave Macmillan.   ALLEN DWIGHT CALLAHAN is Professor of New Testament at Seminário Teológico Batista do Nordeste in Bahia, Brazil. His publications include The Living Book: African Americans and the Bible and A Love Supreme: A History of the Johannine Tradition.

• Introduction: "Figures of the True" Part I: Nimrod as Hero Who Is the Man?...: Nimrod, Afrocentrism, and the African American Dream; L. H. Butler, Jr. The Hunter and the Game: Reappropriating the Legend of Nimrod from an African American Theological Perspective; J. H. Evans, Jr. Nimrod and the South African Context; D. Farisani "Lest We Be Scattered Abroad:" Nimrod, Marcus Garvey, and Black Religious Humanism in Harlem; J. M. Floyd-Thomas "I am Black and Beautiful, O Ye Daughters of Jerusalem:" African American Virtue Ethics and a Womanist Hermeneutics of Redemption; S. Floyd-Thomas God of Restraint: An African American Humanist Interpretation of Nimrod and the Tower of Babel; A. B. Pinn The Story of Nimrod: The Struggle with Otherness and the Search for Identity; A. L. Pressley More than a Mighty Hunter: George Washington Williams, Nineteenth-Century Racialized Discourse and the Reclamation of Nimrod; A. Smith Nimrod and Dead Prez: Walking Like a Warrior; R. C. Watkins Part II: Nimrod as Infamous "The Strength of Collective Man:" Nimrod and the Tower of Babel; A. Dwight Callahan Nimrod: Paradigm of Future Oppressive Systems; J. Kirby Beyond the Curse of Noah: African American Pastoral Theology as Political; E. P. Wimberly Part III: A Neutral Stance A Tower of Pulpits; D. P. Andrews Reorientation by Reference to "Wrong Way" Makers: Evaluating a Modern Signifying Mythicization of Ancient Mythicization; T. Walker, Jr.

Praise for African American Religious Life and the Story of Nimrod'This is an intriguing book from beginning to end. I learned a great deal from it both in terms of Biblical exegesis of the relevant texts, their historical usage for racist purposes, and their various contemporary uses by African Americans in their pursuit for enhanced dignity and cultural valorization. It can be an apt grounding for Biblical humanism on the one hand and for African American humanism on the other hand as some of the articles indicate. Yet, it can be used as a theological corrective for human aspirations towards domination, tyranny, and oppression as others demonstrate in their essays. The text results in a rich historical repository of racist interpretations that have demeaned the humanity of African peoples for many centuries. It is an important collective of essays on a subject of great interest to African peoples both within and without the theological and biblical academy.' Peter J. Paris, Elmer G. Homrighausen Professor Emeritus, Christian Social Ethics, Princeton Theology Seminary