Scholars of African-American religious history have recently debated the significance of the black church in American history. Those that have, pro and con, have often considered the black church as a singular entity, despite the fact that African Americans affiliated with a number of different religious traditions under the umbrella of the black church. This article posits that it is useful to consider denominational and theological developments within different African-American churches. Doing so acknowledges plural creations and developments of black churches, rather than a singular black church, which better accounts for the historical experience of black religion. In this piece, I analyze four different denominational and theological traditions that blacks followed in the early Republic: the Anglican–Episcopalian, the Calvinist (Congregational–Presbyterian), the Methodist, and the Baptist. Each offered a unique ecclesiastical structure and set of theological assumptions within which black clergy and laity operated. Each required different levels of interaction with white coreligionists, and, although some tended to offer more direct opportunities for reform and resistance, all groups suffered differing constraints that limited such action. I argue that the two bodies connected to formalist traditions, the Episcopalian and Calvinist, were initially better developed despite their smaller size, and thus disproportionately shaped black community and reform efforts in the antebellum United States.
Four steeples over the city streets : religion and society in New York's early republic congregations / Kyle T. Bulthuis. pages cm. -(Early American places) Includes bibliographical references and index.
As a distinct generation, the first authors of the British black Atlantic – writers of African descent writing in English in the last half of the eighteenth century – bridged differing worlds. The authors shared common experiences, with most having suffered in the slave trade and having celebrated evangelical religious conversions. While scholars have tended to focus on the transoceanic connections of these authors, the political schism between Britain and the United States in the 1780s divided those authors who lived in what became the United States and those who remained within the British Empire. This article explores that division, first by separating the authors into two groups, those labelled American for remaining in the United States, and those called British for residing in the British Isles or imperial possessions at their lives' end. Second, the article explores the different experiences of each group, and the themes or approaches both groups took in their works. Black American writers generally de‐emphasised political issues, forged local patronage connections, and offered a personal piety that minimised the issue of slavery. Black British writers, by contrast, would stress their African or international identity, embraced a piety that was more socially active, and focused more on issues of political rights and antislavery. The contrasts reflect different life experiences of the two groups, in part because they adapted to being governed under different polities. The larger global context of the American Revolution helps account for differences in narrative and experience among this literary generation.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.