Reclaiming Spirit in the Black Faith Tradition [Hardcover]

This work attempts to uncover the function of religion for those degraded on the basis of race. Accordingly, Recalibrating Spirit reveals the role of religion in critical reflection on and active protest against negative assertions about racial identity in general, and the abuse of black life in particular.Introduction: A Formulary on the Mechanics of Black Faith Preface: On the Paradox of the Plantation Church Part One: Wounding the Body 1 The Void 2 The Debasement Campaign 3 Politics and the Macabre Arena Part Two: Reclaiming the Spirit 4 Self-Amending Notions of Black Faith 5 Toward a Hermeneutic of Reclamation in the Study of Black Faith 6 Curative Recalibration: The Function of Religion within Black Faith 7 Curative Recalibration in Action: Engaging Oppositional Language and Religion Conclusion: Recalibrational Spirituality Cast on the Contemporary Scene

Reclaiming Spirit in the Black Faith Tradition ambitiously combines an impressive engagement with the theoretical claims of scholars like Giorgio Agamben with a meticulous and careful scouring of the archives. Derek Hicks takes on the macro-structural forces that explain how and why African Americans have come to embrace the kind/s of Christianity they embrace/embody while providing compellingly close readings of how different African American thinkers and believers have deployed that faith to confront political and existential threats alike. This brilliant book also demonstrates an amazing facility for transcending any ostensible boundaries between the humanities and the social sciences, offering a wildly interdisciplinary journey into the lives of 19th century Americans. The author's historical focus even resonates with the complex screams from contemporary figures like hip-hop emcee DMX (in/famous for praying to God and boasting about pumping people with bullets on the same rap albums) - and this is because Hicks has given us a language and a framework for talking not just about where Black religionlcÀ