Womanist and Black Feminist Responses to Tyler Perry's Productions Europe, Africa, and North America

Christianity's numerical, cultural, and political predominance within Europe, North America, and the former colonial capitals of Africa has been challenged in recent decades by reconfigured social dynamics and demographics within these contexts. As large numbers of persons from Africa, Asia, and Latin America have migrated to Europe and North America, these contexts once deeply rooted in white Christian identity are being racially and religiously transformed, with embodiments and articulations of increased social difference viewed as an indicator of either healthy diversities or harmful divisions - depending upon the vantage point. Churches, Blackness, and Contested Multiculturalism assesses contemporary church responses to multicultural diversity and resisted categories of social difference, with a central focus on whether or how racial, ethnic, religious, sexual, and gender differences are validated by churches (and especially black churches) torn between competing inclusive and exclusive tendencies.

R. Drew Smith is Professor of Urban Ministry at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, USA.

William Ackah is Lecturer in Community and Voluntary Sector Studies at Birkbeck College, University of London, UK.

Anthony G. Reddie is a Visiting Research Fellow at Aston University, UK.

Introduction; R. Drew Smith and William Ackah
PART I: FOUNDATIONAL DIMENSIONS OF NASCENT 20TH CENTURY MULTICULTURALISMS
1. Anti-Black Problematics in Imperial and Contemporary British Christianity; Anthony G. Reddie
2. Multiculturalisms and Black Christianities in Canada; Carol B. Duncan
3. The Changing Roles of Women in the Church: A Case Study of Women in Calabar, Nigeria, 1900-2000; Ekwutosi Essien Offiong
4. William Stuart Nelson and the Interfaith Origins of the Civil Rights Movement; Dennis C. Dickerson
PART II: EXPANDING CONTEMPORARY DIVERSITIES AND ENTRENCHED MAJORITY CULTURES
5. The Significance of Multicultural Churches in Britain: A Case Study of Crofton Park Baptist; Israel Oluwole Olofinjana
6. Churches, Multiculturalism, and Justice in Canada: An Anglican Perspective; Sonia Hinds
7. The Changing Demographics of Global Christianity: the Case of West African Immigrants Within the Pacific Southwest Conference in the Mennonite Church, USA; Olufemi A Fatunmbi
8. Balancing Christianity, Culture, and Race: African Pentecostals in Italy; Annalisa Butticci
9. Identity and Ecumenical Partnership of Churches of African Origin in Germany; Benjamin Simon
10. Clergy as Bridgebuilders: The Role of the Presbytery in Facilitating Culturally Diverse Faith Communities in South Africa; Wessel Bentley
11. The Language of 'Diversity' in Reconstructing Whiteness in the Dutch Reformed Church; Cobus van Wyngaard
12. A Multicultural Theology of Difference; Gordon Dames
PART III: RESISTANT BLACKNESS, PERSISTENT POVERTY, AND HESITANT MULTICULTURALISMS
13. London's Burning: Riots, Gangs, and Moral Formation of Young People; R. David Muir
14. Life-giving Assets at a Johannesburg Informal Settlement: Black Faith and the False Gods of Multiculturalism in the 21st Century; Vuyani S. Vellum
15. Inspired Hymns as a Belief System in the Kimbanguist Church: A Revelation of the Meanings of Blackness; Aurélien Mokoko Gampiot
16. Whose Black Church? Voices of Oppression and Resistance in Response to the Murder of a Lesbian Teenager; Gayle R. Baldwin
17. The Preachers and the Powers that BET: Black Activist Clergy and the Quest for Social Justice in the Era of Hip Hop; Michael Brandon McCormack