Reclaiming the Spirituals: New Possibilities for African American Christian Education

by Yolanda Y. Smith

"To go back to tradition is the first step forward." --African proverb In Reclaiming the Spirituals, Smith encourages and aids contemporary African American churches in reclaiming their full heritage as Africans, African Americans, and Christians--their "triple-heritage," and invites them to draw upon the wisdom of their rich cultural and spiritual heritage as viable and relevant resources for the development of a model of Christian education that will empower African American Christians as they face the challenges of the 21st century. While integrating the three distinctive components of the triple heritage, this model of African American Christian education emphasizes and illuminates the central role of the spirituals and the ways in which their usage shows how the triple-heritage can be appropriated as a broader resource for multicultural approaches in contemporary Christian education. Chapters - Ain't Dat Good News? Teaching the Triple-Heritage - Deep Exploring the Triple-Heritage - I'm Gonna Exploring the Spirituals - This Little Light of Theology and Christian Education in the African American Church - Balm in The Theology of the Spirituals - Let Us Break Bread Using the Spirituals to Teach the Triple-Heritage - My Soul's Been Anchored in de Insights for Building a Triple-Heritage Model of Christian Education

192 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2004

About the author

Yolanda Smith is associate professor of Christian Education at the Yale Divinity School (New Haven, CT).