What is the proper place of the Bible in Black Churches? Baker-Fletcher explores the Bible as a uniquely authoritative text within the context of Black church worship and service to the world. He analyzes the Bible's central role in three forms of witness: translation, proclamation, and empowerment. Trusting that the Bible is authentically "God's Word" that uses human language, Baker-Fletcher affirms the uniqueness of the Bible in the church's multiple tasks of preaching, teaching, and prophetic ministries. Finally, finding proverbial wisdom in rap music, the book concludes with a case study of the book of Romans.

For four decades now, Marc H. Ellis has sought to rethink Jewish tradition in light of the prophetic imperative, especially with regard to the need for geopolitical justice in the context of Israel/Palestine. Here, twenty-two contributors offer intellectual, theological, political, and journalistic insight intoEllis's work, connecting his theological scholarship to the particularities of their own contexts. Some contributors reflect specifically on Israel/Palestine while others transfer Ellis's theopolitical discussions to other geopolitical, cultural, or religious concerns. Yet all of them rely on Ellis's work to understand the connections of prophetic discourses, religious demands, social movements, and projects of social justice. Paying particular attention to global racism, sexism, ethnocentrism, white supremacy, and current neocolonial practices, the contributors also address minoritized liberation theologies, the role of memory, exile and forgiveness, biblical hermeneutics, and political thought. In diverse and powerful ways, the contributors ground their scholarship with the activist drive to deepen, enrich, and strengthen intellectual work in meaningful ways.

Baker-Fletcher explores the Bible as a uniquely authoritative text within the context of Black church worship and service to the world, as well as analysing the Bible's central role in three forms of witness: translation, proclamation, and empowerment.

Dancing With God is an exploration of the divine gifts of courage and grace in the face of evil. Moreover, it is a doctrine of God as the source of that courage. Baker-Fletcher presents an understanding of the work of the Trinity with regard to the problem of crucifixion, a metaphor she uses for unnecessary violence. She develops a process-relational, womanist theology that considers the empathetic omnipresence of God in the midst of unnecessary suffering and the healing power of God in movement of the Holy Spirit. She engages the contributions of a diversity of theologians like Paul Tillich, Karl Barth, Gordon Kaufman, John Cobb, Jr., Majorie Suchocki, Charles Hartshorne, Andrew Sung Park, and Katie Cannon in her discussion of the dance of the Trinity.

How can one make the ethical and "right" decision in a deeply ambiguous moral world? Baker-Fletcher's basic introduction to Christian Ethics-with attitude-examines the fundamental ethical problems of moral decision-making, in which knowledge will always be unsure, time short, decisions ambiguous, and consequences multiple and unforseeable. Baker-Fletcher treats ethics as engagement, getting one's hand's "dirty with life." He employs a journey motif in order to aid readers in plotting their own "moralscape" (the fundamental commitments that affect their own decisions.

Karen Baker-Fletcher here seeks to recover and renew that strong historic tie of black peoples to the land, sometimes broken by migration and urbanization. Cultivating the ecological side of black womanism, she combines a keen awareness of environmental racism with reflection on her own journey and a constructive theological vision. She works the biblical and literary metaphors of dust and spirit to address the embodiment of God, Spirit, Christ, creation, and humans and to fashion a powerful justice-oriented spirituality of creation.

Baker-Fletcher evinces a strong sense of God in nature, and its earnest, reflective character makes this small volume ideal for individual, adult study, or classroom use.

Written in a bold, inventive style, Xodus aims at a new, positive "reconstruction" of African American maleness in light of the black womanist movement, the men's movement, the recent vision of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr., and the theological sensibilities of Howard Thurman.