Afro-American Studies 232 - THE BLACK CHURCH IN THE U.S.

This course is a sociocultural view of the black church. It focuses attention on the development of the black church in the United States while locating the black church within the African diaspora. We will explore the history of black religious expression during slavery that created the merging of African spiritually and Protestantism in the Afro-Caribbean and the United States. We will also explore the contemporary growth of the Pentecostal/holiness tradition in the Caribbean and Africa, as well as the more recent influence of Judaism and Islam on the African American religious experience. The exploration of each will be grounded in investigating the ways religion, spirituality and church have been used to imagine freedom for variously oppressed groups. We will utilize scholarly texts as well as film and ethnography. Students will conduct exploratory/qualitative research as a major component of the class requirements.