The Cambridge Companion to Black Theology

Cambridge Companions to Religion

by Brian R. Hamnett

This volume discusses normative theological categories from a black perspective and argues that there is no major Christian doctrine on which black theology has not commented. Part One explores introductory questions such as: what have been the historical and social factors fostering a black theology, and what are some of the internal factors key to its growth? Part Two examines major doctrines which have been important for black theology in terms of clarifying key intellectual foci common to the study of religion. The final part discusses black theology as a world-wide development constituted by interdisciplinary approaches. The volume has an important role in bringing Christian thought into confrontation with one of the central challenges of modernity, namely the problem of race and racism. This Companion puts theological themes in conversation with issues of ethnicity, gender, social analysis, politics and class and is ideal for undergraduate and graduate students.

Genres: Theology, Christianity

400 pages, Paperback

First published July 26, 2012

About the author

Brian Hamnett is a Research Professor in History Emeritus at the University of Essex, where he taught from 1990 until his retirement. Hamnett studied as an undergraduate and postgraduate at Peterhouse, Cambridge, and then became Assistant Professor in History at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, USA, from 1968 to 1972. After a period at the University of Reading (1972-74), he taught at the University of Strathclyde (1974-90) where he became a Reader in 1989. From 1990-95 he was joint Editor of the Bulletin of Latin American Research, and has been a member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Latin American Studies and of the International Advisory Boards of the European Review of Latin American and Caribbean Studies, and is also a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and Correspondent of the Academia Mexicana de la Historia. He was Director of the Latin American Centre (1994-97). In March 2010, Professor Hamnett was awarded a Banco Nacional de Mexico prize for Foreign Scholar working on Mexican Regional History.