A well-researched look at black Americans and religion, dispelling
the notion that the slaves accepted their masters' beliefs without
question. Raboteau (Religion/Princeton Univ.; Slave Religion, 1978)
traces African-Americans' development of their own religious and
moral values as they founded churches and institutions through
which they could exercise these values. Part I offers a thorough,
but by no means boring, history of how Christianity was presented
to and propagated among the slaves. At the same time, the author
shows slaveholders grappling with the conflict between their own
Christian imperatives and the economic necessity of slavery. The
author convincingly argues that black people's social and political
lives were inextricably bound to their religious life until well
into the 20th century. As resolution to their conflict with white
Christianity, slaves began in the late 18th century to form their
own separate churches, ultimately breaking away from the white
denominations they had first known. "These black churches not only
formed the institutional core for the development of free black
communities," states Raboteau, "they also gave black Christians the
opportunity to articulate their own vision of Christianity,
standing in eloquent testimony to the existence of two Christian
Americas." He identifies the changes prompted by the 20th-century
migration to the North, which exposed blacks to religious doctrines
other than the Baptist, Methodist, and Episcopal churches, and by
shifts in social, economic, and political conditions that began
with the civil rights movement in the mid-1950s, which ushered in
black liberation theology and new challenges to American
Christians, black and white. Raboteau cogently delineates a complex
set of interrelated issues and gives evenhanded treatment to all
sides in each religious debate. Comprehensive, clearly organized,
and low-key - just the kind of thoughtful, undogmatic approach this
material needs. (Kirkus Reviews)
"A Fire in the Bones is more than a history of black Christians: it
is the compelling story of the ways in which black folk have turned
to Christianity to describe their history and plight in America and
to project their vision of redemption to the greater nation . . . A
must read." --Craig Steven Wilder, New York Newsday
"A major contribution . . . Beautifully narrated."
--Rembert Weakland, The New York Times Book Review
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