Overview

Then We'll Sing a New Song is a fascinating examination of how African religions have shaped belief and practices in America. Not just the story of the development of African American religions or the black church, this book tells the often-unrecognized, but important story of how African religions have shaped religion in America more broadly.   Mary Ann Clark introduces readers to the cultures of three African kingdoms that contributed significant numbers of their population to the African slave trade, and also profoundly shaped religion in America—the Kingdom of Kongo, the Oyo Empire, and the Kingdom of Dahomey. Each of these groups has a unique history within the long history of the Atlantic slave trade and interacts with the Americas at a specific point in history. Clark shows how each may have had an influence on contemporary American beliefs and culture, sometimes in surprising ways. The book features a glossary, timeline, and maps.

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9781442208797

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Reviews

The last few years have seen a continuing and important reevaluation of the black experience of Christianity in America; this contribution by independent scholar Clark (religious studies, Univ. of Houston, Clear Lake) is one of the more readable and thoughtful studies. In well-researched chapters, Clark shows the profound and distinctive contributions of three of the African regions from which many slaves were brought to the New World: the kingdom of Kongo, the Oyo empire, and the kingdom of Dahomey. VERDICT A brief, concise, and flowingly written narrative of some of the most telling components of black religion in America, this book will be a fine introduction for the general reader, as well as a resource for black churches and university courses. Library Journal Mary Ann Clark's brilliant and balanced book explores African influences on religions in the Americas without sacrificing evidence for either the African sources or the independent religious communities in the Americas. The strength of this remarkable book is the careful manner in which Clark has brought together different religious sensitivities that have shaped religious experience in Africa and the Americas. -- Elias Kifon Bongmba, Harry and Hazel Chavanne Chair in Christian Theology, professor of religious studies, Rice University; president of the African Association for the Study of Religion Mary Ann Clark's book is a much needed revision of the standard picture of religion in America. Instead of presenting African culture as lost in the sea of European Christianity, this book reveals that African sensibilities and ideas were formative for the development of Protestantism as we know it. I recommend this book to everyone who is used to treating the development of Protestantism in America and the history of the Black Church as separate fields. It should be required reading for any course in the history of religion in America. -- Alice Wood, Bethune-Cookman University Mary Ann Clark has skillfully and creatively presented Then We'll Sing a New Song, a book that should make a major and immediate impact on the study of religion in America, African religions, and world religions. -- Stephen C. Finley, Louisana State University

Author Information

Mary Ann Clark is the author of several books, including Santería: Correcting the Myths and Uncovering the Realities of a Growing Religion, and has been interviewed in publications such as the L.A. Times and the Houston Chronicle. She is an independent scholar, teaches at Yavapai College, and lives in Prescott, Arizona. To learn more about the author, click here.

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