Description
Book SynopsisFeatures a concept of sacred humanity embedded in African-American religious thought historically and available for a more scientifically and morally grounded African-American religiosity in the present and future. Also traces indications of this concept in select writings of Anna Julia Cooper, W. E. B. Du Bois, and James Baldwin.
Trade Review"Carol Wayne White's Black Lives and Sacred Humanity is a major contribution to American religious thought. She deftly constructs a rationale for African American sacred humanism that accomplishes (at least) three important tasks. First, she establishes the compatibility of her notion of sacred humanism with the best of current scientific thought regarding deep relationality in biology and cosmology. Second, she provides a solidly argued alternative to dogmatically theistic assumptions about African American religiosity. Third, White traces an intellectual history of sacred humanism in key American intellectual texts (Du Bois, Cooper, and Baldwin). With narrative grace, White has created a conversation among figures and fields in American religious thought that cannot help but open new avenues of philosophical and theological possibility." -- -Laurel Schneider Chicago Theological Seminary
Table of ContentsPreface Introduction: In Search of a New Religious Ideal 1. African American Religious Sensibilities and the Question of the Human 2. Sacred Humanity as Stubborn, Irreducible Materiality 3. Anna Julia Cooper: Relational Humanity and the Interplay of One and All 4. W. E. B. Du Bois: Humans as Centers of Value and Creativity 5. James Baldwin: Race, Religion, and the Love of Humanity Conclusion: Toward an African American Religious Naturalism Acknowledgments Notes Index
