Race and New Religious Movements in the USA: A Documentary Reader

Description

Organized in chronological order of the founding of each movement, this documentary reader brings to life new religious movements from the 18th century to the present. It provides students with the tools to understand questions of race, religion, and American religious history. Movements covered include the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormonism), the Native American Church, the Moorish Science Temple, the Nation of Islam, and more. The voices included come from both men and women. Each chapter focuses on a different new religious movement and features: - an introduction to the movement, including the context of its founding - two to four primary source documents about or from the movement - suggestions for further reading.

Emily Suzanne Clark is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Gonzaga University, USA. She is author of A Luminous Brotherhood: Afro-Creole Spiritualism in Nineteenth-Century New Orleans (2016). Brad Stoddard is Assistant Professor of religious studies at McDaniel College, USA. He is the co-editor of Stereotyping Religion: Critiquing Cliches (Bloomsbury, 2017) and President of the North American Association for the Study of Religion.

With Race and New Religious Movements in the USA, Clark and Stoddard have produced a novel and accessible documentary reader. * Nova Religio * Featuring texts as varied as scriptures, prayers, sermons, treatises, newspaper columns, legal decisions, and FBI surveillance files, this rich collection offers invaluable insight into the significance of race in the theologies and practices of new religious movements in U.S. history. * Judith Weisenfeld, Professor of Religion, Princeton University, USA * This is a fascinating trove of primary sources from movements that are either little known or understudied. Taken together, these documents reveal a nation where the idea of racial difference is being endlessly re-examined by the religious imagination. * Joseph P. Laycock, Assistant Professor of Religious Studies, Texas State University, USA * This documentary reader deftly reveals the role of the production and maintenance of religious-racial categories within the long history of new and alternative American religiosity. It highlights the diversity of this process across time periods, regions, and ethnic groups. It is a welcome resource. * Benjamin E. Zeller, Associate Professor of Religion, Lake Forest College, USA *