Varieties of African American Religious Experience ─ Toward a Comparative Black Theology

Twenty years ago, Anthony Pinn's engrossing survey highlighted the rich diversity of black religious life in America, revealing expressions of an ever-changing black religious quest in four non-Christian religious movements. Based on extensive research, travel, and interviews--and embellished with photos, bibliographies, and case studies--Pinn's work provides a fascinating look especially at Voodoo, Santeria, the Nation of Islam, and black humanism in the United States, and uses the diversity of religious belief to begin formulation of a comparative black theology--the first of its kind.

Focusing less on institutional and doctrinal history and more on the varied popular religious practices and sites, this volume highlights, for example, the significant influence of Caribbean religions in the United States, practices of divination and healing, the surge of black Muslims, the emergence of black humanism, and the religious influence and ethical practices of black women. The unique contribution of this volume, however, isn't the description of these traditions but instead it is the new method of theological work it begins to outline.

This twentieth-anniversary edition is an expanded version, including a new preface and a new concluding chapter. An important contribution to classroom studies!

Anthony B. Pinn is Agnes Cullen Arnold Professor of Humanities and professor of religious studies at Rice University and teaches courses on African American religion, history of black religious thought, and black theology. He is the author of over thirty-five books, including The New Disciples: A Novel (2015), The End of God-Talk: An African American Humanist Theology (2012), Varieties of African American Religious Experience (Fortress Press, 1998), and Why Lord? Suffering and Evil in Black Theology (1995).