African American in The Books Store

In this unique book, Pastor Eric Redmond confronts the important question of “Where are the black men in the African-American church?” with a candid approach that combines wisdom with a conversational tone.

Instead of side-stepping issues, Redmond converses with readers about some of their reasons for not going to church—the church seems geared toward women, the preacher is just an ordinary man, Islam appears to offer more for the black man, organized religion is not necessary, churches are just after your money—and approaches their skepticism with respect but also with corrective truth. On these and other topics, Where Are All the Brothers? speaks about the things that men think about in private or discuss at the barbershop when it comes to church and religion, challenging them to reexamine their long-held assumptions.

Redmond, who has used this material in a variety of settings with great success, also gives eight things to look for when considering a good church so that readers can find a healthy, biblical church home. And it’s all in this unintimidating book that can easily be read in ten minutes a day.

“With trained head and tender heart the author enters the domain of the reader just as a physician enters the examining room. He responds to disturbing questions by giving biblical and practical prescriptions for help and healing.”
Sheila M. Bailey, President, E. K. Bailey Ministries, Dallas

“I don’t believe anyone could read this book without being compellingly affected. If you miss any other book this year, don’t miss this one.”
Paige Patterson, President, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Fort Worth

“Redmond gingerly affirms the black man while taking biblical truths to dispel myths surrounding the church. Men, keep this evangelistic tool in your pocket!”
Monique Robinson, Pastor of Women’s Discipleship, Faithful Central Bible Church, Inglewood, California; author of Longing for Daddy

Starting with the 1960s, the book traces the dynamic interplay of social change, cultural awakening, and charismatic leadership that have sparked the emergence of distinctive styles of black Catholic worship. In their historical overview, McGann and Eva Marie Lumas chronicle the liturgical and pastoral issues of a Black Catholic liturgical movement that has transformed the larger American church. McGann then examines the foundational vision of Rev. Clarence R. J. Rivers, who promoted forms of black worship, music, preaching, and prayer that have enabled African American Catholics to reclaim the fullness of their religious identity.

Finally, Harbor constructs a black Catholic aesthetic based on the theological, ethical, and liturgical insights of four African American scholars and expressed through twenty-three performative values. This liturgical aesthetic illuminates the distinctive gift of black Catholics to the multicultural tapestry of lived faith in the American church, and can also serve as a pastoral model for other cultural communities.

African American Muslims and South Asian Muslim immigrants are two of the largest ethnic Muslim groups in the U.S. Yet there are few sites in which African Americans and South Asian immigrants come together, and South Asians are often held up as a “model minority” against African Americans. However, the American ummah, or American Muslim community, stands as a unique site for interethnic solidarity in a time of increased tensions between native-born Americans and immigrants.

This ethnographic study of African American and South Asian immigrant Muslims in Chicago and Atlanta explores how Islamic ideals of racial harmony and equality create hopeful possibilities in an American society that remains challenged by race and class inequalities. The volume focuses on women who, due to gender inequalities, are sometimes more likely to move outside of their ethnic Muslim spaces and interact with other Muslim ethnic groups in search of gender justice.

American Muslim Women explores the relationships and sometimes alliances between African Americans and South Asian immigrants, drawing on interviews with a diverse group of women from these two communities. Karim investigates what it means to negotiate religious sisterhood against America's race and class hierarchies, and how those in the American Muslim community both construct and cross ethnic boundaries.

American Muslim Women reveals the ways in which multiple forms of identity frame the American Muslim experience, in some moments reinforcing ethnic boundaries, and at other times, resisting them.