Search

Harriet Tubman's life has attracted the attention of disability scholars because she suffered from a disability while serving on the Underground Railroad. In this paper, I utilize historical and ethical methods to grapple with an ethical quandary in a small portion of her narrative, particularly her authoritarian rule regarding shooting weakened fugitive slaves who considered returning to slavery. Was Tubman, a former slave who had been abused by slaveholders, being insensitive toward feeble fugitive slaves under her direction? Was her threat inconsequential in lieu of her overall abolitionist feats and since she never shot anyone and was ultimately effective at leading passengers to freedom? While Tubman pragmatically employed the threat of violence to help lead enslaved Blacks to freedom, her rule to shoot weakened fugitive slaves who turned back problematically condoned corporal punishment, an assimilationist method slaveholders employed to control Blacks and to whip and shape them according to their will. Because Tubman employed the threat of violence to inspire weakened runaways to keep moving forward and not return to slavery parallels many African American Christian parents' affirmation of whipping Black youth to deter them from going down the wrong paths and from succumbing to the criminal justice system in our 21st-century society where white supremacy looms large, I consider the ethical lessons African American parents, especially of disabled children, can learn from this challenging part of her narrative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite being healed from smallpox in 1903, William Seymour incurred scarring in his left eye and lived with monocular vision. He wore a glass eye that somewhat concealed his disability, and few photographs reveal his deformity. Pentecostal scholars have reflected deeply on Seymour's race and class but have devoted little discussion to his disability. Seymour himself seemingly attributed his blindness to his own sin, but his theology assumed that healing was available to everyone, and that God aimed to cure all sick and disabled persons. The disjuncture between Seymour's theology and his personal experience of disability gives Pentecostals an opportunity to reflect anew on how the movement has unknowingly misunderstood and harmed many persons living with disabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although black Pentecostal leaders are known for their emphasis on holiness and spiritual empowerment, they are not renowned for having led and spearheaded political protest struggles during the Civil Rights movement. In this paper I discuss black Pentecostals' postures toward political protest struggles, and I analyze reasons why some black Pentecostals participated in the Civil Rights movement while others did not. My central argument is that critical consciousness formation played an integral role in motivating a minority of Church of God in Christ (COGIC) clergy and leaders to engage in Civil Rights protest struggles. That is to say, many black Pentecostals who took part in the movement reconciled their strivings for spiritual empowerment against evil with critical reflection upon complex social, political, and economic realities. They recognized the utility of opposing structures of oppression through direct, nonviolent means. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reviews the book "The Voice of Conscience: The Church in the Mind of Martin Luther King, Jr." by Lewis V. Baldwin.

The article reviews the book "Slavery and Sin: The Fight Against Slavery and the Rise of Liberal Protestantism" by Molly Oshatz.