Overview

As a distinguished Baptist pastor, educator, and public servant, Samuel DeWitt Proctor made it his mission to serve American life by fighting against racism. In The Imposing Preacher, Adam Bond shows how Proctor, as the product of a prophetic black church tradition, a social gospel-laced liberal Protestantism, and a black middle-class integrationist ethos, envisioned a type of pulpit activism through which the United States could realize a civil society and genuine community, and was able to anticipate and contest some of the themes articulated in the black religious movements of the late twentieth century. Bond shows Proctor to be a public theologian committed to developing an inclusive and racially pluralistic global society that confronts racism as the social crisis of its time. Proctor did not respond to segregation through marches and visible protests. Instead he saw the classroom and the pulpit as the sacred spaces for dialogue about race in America. In this way, he presents an alternative model of religious and social leadership and for studies of African American religion in the twentieth century.

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9780800699727

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Reviews

The Imposing Preacher is a rich biography - bringing the master preacher and public theologian Samuel DeWitt Proctor to life for current and future generations. Bond points us to the genius of Proctor's preaching being forged in the powerful matrix of social Christianity and a Black social gospel. Proctor's faith was not personal as he tackled in the thorn of racial inequality as a vexing theological problem that the church must work to eradicate. Bond gives us a marvelous blend of homiletical insights and social witness. A must read for those who care deeply about the craft of preaching in troubling times. Emilie M. Townes Vanderbilt Divinity School

Author Information

Adam L. Bondis assistant professor of historical studies at The Samuel DeWitt Proctor School of Theology, Virginia Union University

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