Black Bodies and the Black Church A Blues Slant [Hardcover]

Blues is absolutely vital to black theological reflection and to the black church's existence. In Black Bodies and the Black Church , author Kelly Douglas Brown develops a blues crossroad theology, which allows the black church to remain true to itself and relevant in black lives.Introduction: Black Body/Black Church: A Blues Slant PART I: BLUES NOTE 1. Crazy Blues 2. Somebody's Angel Child 3. The Devil's Gonna Get You Blues PART II: BLUES TRUTH 4. Hear Me Talkin' To Ya PART III: BLUES CROSSROAD 5. Down at the Crossroads 6. A Crossroads God 7. Black and Blues Church Blues Coda: Back to the Crossroads

Dr. Kelly Brown Douglas' book is a must-read, full of theological insights about personal God-consciousness and prophetic religious vitality embedded in the heavy-hearted music genre, the blues. - Katie G. Cannon, Union Presbyterian Seminary, USA.

Kelly Brown Douglas recognizes that the Obama presidential campaign carried the Black Church to a critical crossroads in American life and culture. Black Bodies and the Black Church carries the Calvary cross, the Congo cross and the crises of post-modernity to the social, cultural, and spiritual crossroads confronted by bluespeople like Robert Johnson and Ma Rainey. Douglas's analysis of blues and boundaries helps us to understand the ways confrontations with white racism drive the Black Church to engage in exclusionary practices, especially with reference to gender and sexality. This book will provoke new conversations and revive old ones about the nature and relevance of the Black Church and its engagements with theodicy. Black Bodies and the Black Church is a serious moving train that will allow no neutrality for its readers. - Cheryl Townsend Gilkes, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Professor, Colby College, USA.

Once again, Kelly Brown Douglas brilliantly, creatively, and powerfully exposes the unholy alliance between the Black Church and internalized forms of lÓ6