The burden of Black religion

Religion has always been a focal element in the long and tortured history of American ideas about race. In The Burden of Black Religion , Curtis Evans traces ideas about African American religion from the antebellum period to the middle of the twentieth century. Central to the story, he argues, was the deep-rooted notion that blacks were somehow "naturally" religious. At first, this assumed natural impulse toward religion served as a signal trait of black people's humanity -- potentially their unique contribution to American culture. Abolitionists seized on this point, linking black religion to the black capacity for freedom. Soon, however, these first halting steps toward a multiracial democracy were reversed. As Americans began to value reason, rationality, and science over religious piety, the idea of an innate black religiosity was used to justify preserving the inequalities of the status quo. Later, social scientists -- both black and white -- sought to reverse the damage caused by these racist ideas and in the process proved that blacks were in fact fully capable of incorporation into white American culture. This important work reveals how interpretations of black religion played a crucial role in shaping broader views of African Americans and had real consequences in their lives. In the process, Evans offers an intellectual and cultural history of race in a crucial period of American history.

Religion has always been a focal element in the long and tortured history of American ideas about race. In The Burden of Black Religion, Curtis Evans traces ideas about African American religion from the antebellum period to the middle of the twentieth century.

Central to the story, he argues, is the deep-rooted notion that blacks were somehow "naturally" religious. At first, this assumed natural impulse toward religion served as a signal trait of black people's humanity-potentially their unique contribution to American culture. Abolitionists seized on this point, linking black religion to the black capacity for freedom. Soon, however, these first halting steps toward a multiracial democracy were reversed.

As Americans began to value reason, rationality, and science over religious piety, the idea of an innate black religiosity was used to justify preserving the inequalities of the status quo. Later, social scientists-both black and white-sought to reverse the damage caused by these racist ideas and in the process proved that blacks were in fact fully capable of incorporation into white American culture.

This important work reveals how interpretations of black religion played a crucial role in shaping broader views of African Americans and had real consequences in their lives. In the process, Evans offers an intellectual and cultural history of race in a crucial period of American history.

About the Author:
Curtis J. Evans is Assistant Professor of the History of Christianity at the University of Chicago Divinity School

Religion has always been a focal element in the long and tortured history of American ideas about race. In The Burden of Black Religion, Curtis Evans traces ideas about African American religion from the antebellum period to the middle of the twentieth century.

Central to the story, he argues, was the deep-rooted notion that blacks were somehow naturally religious. At first, this assumed natural impulse toward religion served as a signal trait of black people's humanity — potentially their unique contribution to American culture. Abolitionists seized on this point, linking black religion to the black capacity for freedom. Soon, however, these first halting steps toward a multiracial democracy were reversed.

As Americans began to value reason, rationality, and science over religious piety, the idea of an innate black religiosity was used to justify preserving the inequalities of the status quo. Later, social scientists — both black and white — sought to reverse the damage caused by these racist ideas and in the process proved that blacks were in fact fully capable of incorporation into white American culture.

This important work reveals how interpretations of black religion played a crucial role in shaping broader views of African Americans and had real consequences in their lives. In the process, Evans offers an intellectual and cultural history of race in a crucial period of American history.

"This book is about the crucial role that black religion has played in the United States as an imagined community or a united nation. The book argues that cultural images and interpretations of African American religion placed an enormous burden on black religious capacities as the source for black contributions to American culture until the 1940s. Attention to black religion as the chief bearer of meaning for black life was also a result of longstanding debates about what constituted the "human person" and an implicit assertion of the intellectual inferiority of peoples of African descent. Intellectual and religious capacities were reshaped and reconceptualized in various crucial historical moments in American history because of real world debates about blacks' place in the nation and continuing discussions about what it meant to be fully human. Only within the last half century has this older paradigm of black religion (and the concomitant assumption of a genetic deficiency in "intelligence") been challenged with any degree of cultural authority. Black innate religiosity had to be denied before sufficient attention could be paid to actual proposals about black equal participation in the nation, though this should not be interpreted as a call for insufficient attention to the role of religion in the lives of African Americans and other ethnic groups"--Publisher's description Frontmatter Introduction (page 3) 1. The Meaning of Slave Religion (page 17) 2. Black Religion in the New Nation: Outside the Boundaries of Whiteness (page 65) 3. The Social Sciences and the Professional Discipline of Black Religion (page 105) 4. The Creation and the Burden of the Negro Church (page 141) 5. The Drama of Black Life (page 177) 6. The Religious and the Cultural Meaning of The Green Pastures (page 203) 7. Urbanization and the End of Black Religion in the Modern World (page 223) Epiloge (page 265) Notes (page 281) Selected Bibliography (page 351) Index (page 369) In the long and tortured history of American ideas about race, religion has played a prominent role. In this book, Curtis Evans traces ideas about African American religion from the antebellum period to the middle of the 20th century. Central to the story, he argues, is the popular notion that blacks were somehow 'naturally' religious