Abstract
Africa and her diasporas are not religiously monolithic but dynamic, yet the diasporic authors throughout this groundbreaking anthology uncover the sacred bridges unifying the embodiment of black religions. This conceptualization of embodiment is explored through common expressions such as dance, memory ritual, ancestral honor, hip-hop music, and religious dark matter or (dis)embodiment in relation to gender. For example, W.E.B. Du Bois further identifies the root of colonialist thinking in black religious embodiment, whereas colorism and racism are expressed through white as “good” (301) and black as “the devil.” (301) Dark bodies become holy as they dance to the beats of the Togolese Mama Tchamba rituals evoking ancestral memory while black bodies are met with suspicion while dancing to British Black Muslim hip hop music.
Because of these racial legacies and colonialist impacts, undertaking the dynamic range of black religion as venerated worship is no easy feat. This collection embraces both diversity and divergences in localities such as Ghana, Congo, Britain, Nigeria, Haiti, Congo, and Togo. Because of its unique focus on the Africana, it can be useful in missiological attempts to decolonize the “mind-body dualisms” (vii) present in Western hermeneutical traditions while upholding blackness as good. These authors provide an internal perspective of black rituals that, for centuries, have been misconstrued, misinterpreted, or diabolized in Western attempts to proselytize. The first-hand anthropological data included in this resource has the potential to dismantle gender, racial, and cultural barriers to more accurately understanding African, African American, Afro-Caribbean, and AfroBritish identities.
Furthermore, the worldview of the Africana is strikingly similar in regards to not only mind-body unification but the intergenerational continuity beyond time, space, or invisibility. This is modeled as embodied ancestral honor vis-a-vis Trinidadian Yoruba practices or “spiritual citizenship” linking bodies across various “transnational formations” (71). In the case of Haitian protestants in the Bahamas, embodied mind-body worship is expressed through Haitian shared “collusio (the field within which people interact)” (154) of the removal of distance between the invisible and visible realm. Haitians in the Bahamas use embodiment through dance, song, “swaying one’s hands in the air”, “shouting”, “kneeling at the altar”, or “standing” (161) to combat dehumanizing experiences.
Through embracing the imago dei in the Africana, Embodying Black Religions in Africa and its Diasporas has the potential to aid the global missiological community in advancing scriptural veracity while avoiding cultural hegemony.