The Spirituality of African Peoples
The Search for a Common Moral Discourse
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The Spirituality of African Peoples: The Search for a Common Moral Discourse
Current interest in Afrocentricity is but
one moment in the longstanding post-colonial
search by African peoples, both on the
continent and in the diaspora, for cultural
beacons.
Preeminent black social ethicist Peter Paris here sharpens and focuses that quest on African "spirituality"—that is, the religious and moral values embodied in African experience and pervading traditional African religious worldviews. From extensive comparative research and personal travel, Paris shows how such values were retained and modified in the diaspora, most notably in African American religious and moral thought and its practice. Traditional understandings of God, ancestral spirits, tribal community, family belonging, reciprocity, personal destiny, and agency have not only survived great cultural upheavals but remarkably even been enriched and enlivened.
Paris's pan-African focus, careful scholarship, and eye for ultimate values in varying cultural milieus combine here to model comparative cultural analysis and to clarify the cultural foundations of black ethical life.
Preeminent black social ethicist Peter Paris here sharpens and focuses that quest on African "spirituality"—that is, the religious and moral values embodied in African experience and pervading traditional African religious worldviews. From extensive comparative research and personal travel, Paris shows how such values were retained and modified in the diaspora, most notably in African American religious and moral thought and its practice. Traditional understandings of God, ancestral spirits, tribal community, family belonging, reciprocity, personal destiny, and agency have not only survived great cultural upheavals but remarkably even been enriched and enlivened.
Paris's pan-African focus, careful scholarship, and eye for ultimate values in varying cultural milieus combine here to model comparative cultural analysis and to clarify the cultural foundations of black ethical life.
- Publisher Fortress Press
- Format Paperback
- ISBN 9780800628543
- Dimensions 5.5 x 8.5
- Pages 208
- Publication Date November 1, 1994
Endorsements
"Dr. Paris returns in this book to an old question….of African survivals and continuities in African American religious life and culture, and brings to his reformation a fresh ethical sensitivity concerning the condition of black people in the contemporary age. His book is a valuable statement on the enduring traditions of Africa in the hostile setting of transplantation, suppression and discrimination and on their positive effects on black political and religious life. In this context "spirituality" partakes of the material and historical conditions of black people rather than being only a flaky, subjective retreat into utopia. I welcome this book."
— Lamin Sanneh, Yale Divinity School
"Through Paris' characteristic sharp scholarly eye, we are given work that combines a pan-African focus with an enduring quest for values and meanings. This search for a usable African past is a productive one that provides a wider context to explore how the spirituality of the generations of the African diaspora shaped and continue to shape a moral discourse of collective radical social change."
— Emilie M. Townes, Saint Paul School of Theology
— Lamin Sanneh, Yale Divinity School
"Through Paris' characteristic sharp scholarly eye, we are given work that combines a pan-African focus with an enduring quest for values and meanings. This search for a usable African past is a productive one that provides a wider context to explore how the spirituality of the generations of the African diaspora shaped and continue to shape a moral discourse of collective radical social change."
— Emilie M. Townes, Saint Paul School of Theology
Reviews
"This is an enormously insightful book. It explains much that we observe in the 'double consciousness' of African-American Christianity and self-understanding. ... It is smoothly written and a delight to read. A very important book for African-Americans to find cultural rootedness, and for European-Americans to find healing for a huge rift in understanding."
— Review and Expositor
— Review and Expositor
Table of Contents
-
Preface
- Africa: Revolution in Understanding
- God: The Source and Ground of All Life
- Community: The Goal of the Moral Life
- Family: The Locus of Moral Development
- Person: The Embodiment of Moral Virture
- Ethics: African and African American Social Ethics
Acknowledgments
Moral Challenges to Scholarship
African Challenges to Colonial Scholarship
African American Challenges to Racist Scholarship
African and African American Challenges to Social Ethics
African Understanding of God
African American Theological Syncretism
African and African American Moral Syncretism
African and African American Survival Theologies
African and African American Understandings of Ancestral Life
African and African American Understandings of Leadership
African and African American Understandings of Slavery
African and African American Views of Pluralism and Unity
The African Family: Typical Features of Moral Significance
The African American Family: Typical Features of Moral Significance
The African View of Personhood
African Views of Personal Destiny
Conflicting Views of Liberty and Authority
African American Views of Personhood
The African Factor in the African American Experience
Virtue Theory
Some African and African American Moral Virtues
The Christian Factor in African and African American Social Ethics
Postscript
Notes
Index