Religious Humanism and the African Americans

If you think that religious humanism is an invention of dominant culture intellectuals rooted in the European enlightenment, then you might be surprised by this anthology of writings. Anthony B. Pinn has assembled a collection which includes slave narratives, selections from novels, essays, and theological analysis that shows a religious humanism that arose out struggle for liberation of African Americans in the United States, a religious humanism that is engaged in an ongoing dialogue with African American Christianity and earth centered spirituality. By these hands: A documentary history of African American Humanism is essential reading for Unitarian Universalists who seek to understand the intellectual history of the United States, and the contribution of African Americans to that history. Discover a rich, engaged religious humanism in the writings of Frederick Douglas, James Baldwin, Zora Neale Hurston, Alice Walker, William Jones, Richard Wright and many other writers. The writings reveal a different struggle than the one usually raised by Enlightenment based "scientific humanism." The struggle for African American religious humanism is not "does God exist given science," but rather "is God an old white man." This humanism does not seek to liberate from "superstition" as much as it seeks freedom from submission to the dominant culture's God game. Reading these writers one receives the gift of a liberating theology not imported from another land, and not rooted in an alienating supernaturalism.

The publishers blurb sums the book up in this manner: "The Black church is often praised for its contribution to Black culture and politics. More recently Islam has been recognized as an important force in African American liberation. Anthony Pinn's new anthology By These Hands demonstrates the crucial, often overlooked role that Humanism has played in African American struggles for dignity, power and justice. Pinn collects the finest examples of African American Humanism and shows how it's embrace by a variety of prominent figures in African American thought and letters has served as the basis for activism and resistance to American racism and sexism."

"Pinn uncovers little known treasures of African American Literature such as The Slave Narrative of James Hay, where an abused slave decides to rely on himself, rather than God, for deliverance from the horrors of slavery, and a letter from Frederick Douglass which scandalized his religious friends by proclaiming that "One honest Abolitionist was a greater terror to slaveholders than whole acres of camp-meeting preachers shouting glory to God."