Dark Salutations: Ritual, God, and Greetings in the African American Community (African American Religious Thought and Life) - Softcover

Earl Jr., Riggins R.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1563383586 ISBN 13: 9781563383588

Publisher: Trinity Press International, 2001

Synopsis

Although Henry Louis Gates examined the ways in which African slave language formed the metaphors for African American poetry and fiction in The Signifying Monkey, there have been no studies of the theological and ethical significance of the salutations of black Americans until now. In Dark Salutations, Riggins Earl examines black American's ethnocentric verbalized salutary expressions- "brotherman" and "sistergirl" for example-that dominate their ritualistic moments of social encounter. The noticeable religious content of some of these salutations drives us to examine blacks' understandings of God and brother/sisterhood challenges: Is God a respecter of persons? Or, have black people understood God to be "faithfully for them and with them" politically and spiritually? Have black people understood themselves to be "trustfully for and with" each other spiritually and politically? Have black people understood themselves to be "trustfully for and with" even the whites who oppressed them? Earl argues that these salutary expressions show how blacks have lived with the burdensome challenge of having to prove their sisterly and brotherly capacities, and with the insatiable desire to be treated as equal siblings in the family of God.

About this title

About the Author

Riggins R. Earl, Jr. is Professor of Ethics and Theology at the Interdenominational Theological Center in Atlanta, Georgia, and the author of Dark Symbols, Obscure Signs: God, Self, and Community in the Slave Mind

Edition details

• Publisher: Trinity Press International
• Publication date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1563383586
• ISBN 13: 9781563383588
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 264