Abstract
This handbook is a very welcome addition to the growing volumes on academic Black theology. The 1970s were filled with the first set of collections on the origins, development, and future of Black theology, culminating in 1979 with Black Theology: A Documentary History, 1966–1979, edited by James H. Cone and Gayraud S. Wilmore. Over the past ten years, there has been a resurgence of similar volumes published in 2012 (Cambridge) and 2014 (Oxford), re-evaluating and re-charting Black theology in the 21st century. The T&T Clark Handbook is the newest addition. It seeks to build upon those previous volumes by giving overdue attention to music, specifically what contributor Johari Jabir calls “sonic politics,” Black British and Caribbean perspectives, and rethinking the role of slavery in African American theology. David Daniel’s intriguing essay redirects our historical analysis of Afro-Pentecostalism away from “the reception of racial minorities within majority white institutions” to “the emancipatory sites of black-led interracial religious communities” (47).
In between the publications of the previous volumes in 2014 and 2019, one of the most significant social movements in the 21st century was born—#BlackLivesMatter. It might, however, surprise the reader that it did not receive sustained treatment by any of the contributors. The reader might be even more surprised that there is not a single chapter that focuses entirely on womanist theologies, gender, or sexuality. To be sure, Marica Riggs does have a chapter that revisits her 2003 monograph that grapples with what she describes as “sexual-gender injustice” in African American churches. It is still likely that the reader, while appreciating the importance of that chapter, would expect to find other related topics, such as on Black queerness and Black trans and gender non-conforming lives. Although this handbook asks more traditional yet important theological questions, we still need a volume that seriously takes up new and broader areas of study like racial capitalism, environmental studies, carceral studies, science, and technology. Meanwhile, I will eagerly await a volume that will push and be pushed by those wider disciplinary conversations and beyond.