A leading womanist biblical scholar reads passages from the New Testament in dialogue with modern-day issues of racial justice. The narratives and letters of the New Testament emerged from a particular set of historical contexts that differ from today’s, but they resonate with us because of how the issues they raise “rhyme” with subjects of contemporary relevance. Listening for these echoes of the present in the past, Love Sechrest utilizes her cultural experience and her perspective as a Black woman scholar to reassess passages in the New Testament that deal with intergroup conflict, ethnoracial tension, and power dynamics between dominant and minoritized groups. After providing an overview of womanist biblical interpretation and related terminology, Sechrest utilizes an approach she calls “associative hermeneutics” to place select New Testament texts in dialogue with modern-day issues of racial justice. Topics include: antiracist allyship and Jesus’s interaction with marginalized individuals in the Gospel of Matthew cultural assimilation and Jesus’s teachings about family and acceptance in the Gospel of Luke gendered stereotypes and the story of the Samaritan woman in the Gospel of John the experience of Black women and girls in the American criminal justice system and the woman accused of adultery in the Gospel of John group identity and the incorporation of Gentiles into the early Jesus movement in Acts privilege and Paul’s claims to apostolic authority in 2 Corinthians coalition-building between diverse groups and the discussion of unity in Ephesians government’s role in providing social welfare and early Christians’ relationship to the Roman Empire in Romans and Revelation Through these creative and illuminating connections, Sechrest offers a rich bounty of new insights from Scripture—drawing out matters of justice and human dignity that spoke to early Christians and can speak still to Christians willing to listen today.

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Contributions by Janet Allured, Lisa Pertillar Brevard, Jami L. Carlacio, Cheryl J. Fish, Angela Hornsby-Gutting, Jennifer McFarlane-Harris, Neely McLaughlin, Darcy Metcalfe, Phillip Luke Sinitiere, P. Jane Splawn, Laura L. Sullivan, and Hettie V. Williams Activism in the Name of God: Religion and Black Feminist Public Intellectuals from the Nineteenth Century to the Present recognizes and celebrates twelve Black feminists who have made an indelible mark not just on Black women’s intellectual history but on American intellectual history in general. The volume includes essays on Jarena Lee, Theressa Hoover, Pauli Murray, and Alexis Pauline Gumbs, to name a few. These women’s commitment to the social, political, and economic well-being of oppressed people in the United States shaped their work in the public sphere, which took the form of preaching, writing, singing, marching, presiding over religious institutions, teaching, assuming leadership roles in the civil rights movement, and creating politically subversive print and digital art. This anthology offers readers exemplars with whose minds and spirits we can engage, from whose ideas we can learn, and upon whose social justice work we can build. The volume joins a burgeoning chorus of texts that calls attention to the creativity of Black women who galvanized their readers, listeners, and fellow activists to seek justice for the oppressed. Pushing back on centuries of institutionalized injustices that have relegated Black women to the sidelines, the work of these Black feminist public intellectuals reflects both Christian gospel ethics and non-Christian religious traditions that celebrate the wholeness of Black people.

As one of the most influential and popular genres of the last three decades, rap has cultivated a mainstream audience and become a multimillion-dollar industry by promoting highly visible and often controversial representations of blackness. Sounding Race in Rap Songs argues that rap music allows us not only to see but also to hear how mass-mediated culture engenders new understandings of race. The book traces the changing sounds of race across some of the best-known rap songs of the past thirty-five years, combining song-level analysis with historical contextualization to show how these representations of identity depend on specific artistic decisions, such as those related to how producers make beats. Each chapter explores the process behind the production of hit songs by musicians including Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, The Sugarhill Gang, Run-D.M.C., Public Enemy, N.W.A., Dr. Dre, and Eminem. This series of case studies highlights stylistic differences in sound, lyrics, and imagery, with musical examples and illustrations that help answer the core question: can we hear race in rap songs? Integrating theory from interdisciplinary areas, this book will resonate with students and scholars of popular music, race relations, urban culture, ethnomusicology, sound studies, and beyond.