PROGRAMS  |  BLACK CHURCH INITIATIVE AND LA INICIATIVA LATINA

Clearing House and Resource Center - Theology

The MultiCultural Programs Department Clearing House and Resource Center features a collection of theological books, sermons, speeches,  workshop presentations, youth and adult sexuality curriculums. The Clearing House and Resource Center serves as a resource to clergy, seminarians, health and human service educators, parents and youth. Resources are available for loan. For more information, contact bciinfo@rcrc.org or call 202-628-7700.

Books

Down, Up, and Over: Slave Religion and Black Theology, Dwight N. Hopkins
The lives of enslaved African Americans, Dwight Hopkins contends, are a foundational source of liberating faith and practice for African Americans today. Down, Up, and Over draws on their religious experience, and the example of their faith and witness, to develop a constructive theology of liberation.  

The Black Church In America: African American Christian Spirituality, Michael Battle
This book gives readers a broad understanding of the Black Church in America and a sense of its uniqueness in the wider world. It explores the history of the Black Church in America, its African roots, beliefs, practices, politics, and contemporary moral dilemmas and argues that in the Black Church, individual and communal destiny are bound together. 

White Women’s Christ and Black Women’s Jesus: Feminist Christology and Womanist Response, Jacquelyn Grant
Christology is especially problematic for feminists. Because Jesus was undeniably male and because the Christian church claims him as the unique God-bearer, feminists Christology confronts the dual tasks of explaining the significance of a male God-bearer for women and creating an adequate Christological model adequate to feminist experience. This work rehearses the development and challenges of feminist Christology and argues that, because it has reflected the experience of White women predominantly, it fails to reflect the concerns of non-White and non-western women. In response to this failure, and as distinguished from feminist theology, the author proposes a womanist theology and Christology that emerges from and is adequate to the reality of contemporary Black women.

Introducing Womanist Theology, Stephanie Y. Mitchem
Introducing Womanist Theology demonstrates how theology by women of color is firmly rooted in their varied life experiences. By participating fully in the construction of theology instead of simply learning theology from others, black women are able to analyze church teaching, develop meaningful systems of ethics, and challenge ecclesiastical structures, if needed. This book describes the unique experiences of African American women and explores not only what theology is but, but how it is constructed. It lays out the major components of womanist theology and womanist ethics.

Stony The Road We Trod: African American Biblical Interpretation, Cain Hope Felder
This is a splendid collection of 11 essays by African American biblical scholars; the introduction puts the essays, and the consultation out of which they grew, into context. The essays consider biblical authority, African American sources for enhancing biblical interpretation, and the issue of race in the Bible. They also offer reinterpretation of specific biblical texts, while revealing the role blacks played within the Bible. These essays are important for both scholars and general readers, making the book essential for many libraries.

Black Theology A Documentary History, Volume II, James H. Core & Gayraud S. Wilmore
First published as a single volume in 1979, Black Theology: A Documentary History soon became the classic sourcebook for the emergence of Black theology in the United States. Born out of the Civil Rights Movement and the emerging demand of Black Power, Black theology has struggled for twenty-five years to relate the gospel to the African-American experience. Volume II brings the development of Black theology up to the 1990’s, covering such issues as the relevance of Black theology to pastoral ministry, Black biblical interpretation, womanist theology, and the increased dialogue with other third-world theologies.  

How to Talk So Teens Will Listen & Listen So Teens Will Talk, Adele Faber & Elaine Mazlish
In this book Faber and Mazlish teach parents and adults how to listen and respon helpfully to your teenager’s concerns, express your irritation or anger without being hurtful, take action without punishing, encourage your teen to assume responsibility, work out problems together, and talk about sex and drugs without preaching or alienating.

Black Spirituality & Black Consciousness, Carlyle Fielding Stewart, III
This book by Carlyle Stewart focuses on the central thesis that African-American spirituality, by the way it shapes, informs and strengthens black life, creates a unique matrix of freedom that accentuates the power, resiliency, and creativity of black people as the means of overcoming their plight.  

Africentric Christianity: A Theological Appraisal For Ministry, J. Deotis Roberts

We Have Been Believers: An African American Systematic Theology, James H. Evans, Jr.
Seeking to overcome the chasm between church practice and theological reflection, Evans situates theology squarely in the nexus of faith with freedom. There, with a sure touch, he uplifts revelatory aspects of black religious experience that reanimate classical areas of theology, and he creates a theology with a heart, a soul, and a voice that speaks directly to our condition.

The Bible and African American: A Brief History, Vincent L. Wimbush
The unique encounter of African Americans with the Bible has shaped centuries of the spirituality and social engagement of a whole continent. Highly respected biblical scholar Vincent Wimbush here outlines five phases of African American biblical reading and shows how the language of the Bible enabled African Americans to negotiate the strange world into which they were thrust.

Black Theology & Black Power, James H. Cone
Newly updated and expanded, this classic work is a product of the Civil Rights and Black Power movements in America during the 1960’s. Black Theology and Black Power is James H. Cone’s initial attempt to identify liberation as the heart of the Christian gospel, and blackness as the primary mode of God’s presence. As he explains in an introduction written for this edition, “I wanted to speak on behalf of the voiceless black masses in the name of Jesus whose gospel I believed had been greatly distorted by the preaching and theology of white churches.”   

A Theology of Liberation, Gustavo Gutierrez
Gutierrez has revised a key section of his masterwork and has added an essay  that reviews the evolution of liberation theology and delineates key themes of the present and future. The text has been completely re-edited to employ inclusive language throughout. A Theology of Liberation is the single most lucid, direct and powerful statement of the heart of liberation theology.  

Jesus and the Disinherited, Howard Thurman
First published in 1949, Jesus and the Disinherited is a brilliant and compassionate look at God’s work in our lives. As we struggle today with issues of poverty, racism, and spiritual disengagements, Howard Thurman’s discerning reading of the message of renewal through self-love as exemplified in the life of Jesus resonates powerfully once again.

Deeper Shades of Purple: Womanism in Religion and Society, Stacey Floyd-Thomas Editor
Deeper Shades of Purple brings together a who’s who of scholars in the study of Black women and religious who view their scholarship through a womanist critical lens. The contributors revisit Alice Walker’s definition of womanist for it’s viability for the approaches to discourses in religion of Black women scholars. Whereas Walker has defined what it means to be womanist, these contributors define what it means to practice womanism, and illuminate how womanism has been used as a vantage point for the theoretical orientations and methodological approaches of Black women scholar-activists.   

Introducing Latino/a Theologies, Miguel De La Torre and Edwin David Aponte
The author articulates the fundamental principles and perspectives with which Hispanics from different faith traditions do theology. They show who Latino/as are and how their various cultures have been shaped by historical movements such as colonialism and Christian mission.

Mujerista Theology, Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz

Hispanic/Latino Theology, Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz and Fernando Segovia
U.S Hispanic/Latino voices have emerged in the last ten years to become one of the strongest and most creative theological movements in the Americas. Fully ecumenical and organized in systematic, collaborative framework, this major volume features Hispanic theology’s sources (the Bible, church history, cultural memory, literature, oral tradition, Pentecostalism), loci (urban barrios, Puerto Rico, exile, liberation, social sciences, Latina feminists), and rich and vigorous expressions (mujerista theology, popular religion, theopoetics). Hispanic/Latino Theology not only celebrates the full flowering of U.S. Latino work, it also splendidly reveals the exciting possibilities and future shape of contextual theologies in close touch with the daily realities of struggling people.

Good News! Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr.
In Good News: Sermons of Hope for Today’s Families, Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr., preaches a word of hope and challenge to family members—married or single, bad or good, accepted or outcast. Never one to shy away from controversy, Dr. Wright sheds new light on some of the most vulnerable and troublesome spots Christians find themselves in—family settings.

Spiritual Leadership: Moving People On To God’s Agenda, Henry & Richard Blackaby
This book offers insightful counsel into the ways God develops, guides, and empowers spiritual leaders. Clear guidance is given on how leaders can make a positive impact on the people and organizations they are currently leading.

The Courage to Lead: Leadership in the African American Urban Church, James Harris
In this book, Harris examines pastoral and lay leadership in the African American church, drawing on first-hand experience as a church leader as well as data gathered through a survey of African American church members. Harris describes the challenges that face church leaders, including the tendency toward bifurcated religion (the belief that the church should be divided into two branches, the spiritual and the financial); the tendency of some church members to treat participation in church as an extension of their civic duties and social status rather than a spiritual endeavor; clergy/laity relations; and the rold of the church in public policy. Harris argues that ministers and laity in the Black church must actively engage themselves in overcoming the inequities that are still endemic to life in urban America and that affirmative action policies are more important than ever in obtaining a degree of social justice.

God in Her Midst: Preaching Healing to Wounded Women, Elaine M. Flake
Elaine Flake, a consummate womanist theologian, a powerful preacher, and one who cares deeply about women’s issues, had written a book for preachers and teachers and illustrated effective methods for preaching healing and liberation to hurting women.

African Women, Religion, and Health, Phiri & Nadar
Mercy Amba Oduyoye, from Ghana, founded the Circle of Concerned African Women Theologians and is the first deputy general secretary of the World Council of Churches. The essays in this volume describe the key contributions she has made to African theology in our time, and then apply her insights to issue of scripture, health and poverty, and women as peacemakers.