Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dsjbd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-29T15:31:03.967Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

11 - African-American women's spiritual narratives

from Part 3 - Case studies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 May 2006

By
Yolanda Pierce
Edited by
Dale M. Bauer  and
Philip Gould
Dale M. Bauer
Affiliation:
University of Kentucky
Philip Gould
Affiliation:
Brown University, Rhode Island
Get access

Summary

Within African-American spiritual narratives, conversion most often happens during intense times of loss, grief, misery, pain, and despair, as both a psychological and physical reaction to conditions on earth. Hell is real and it exists on earth; conversion offers deliverance and salvation both for the spiritual body and the physical body. During times of the deepest despair, during the agonies of slavery, during “hell without fires,” most African-American converts reveal that they have been transformed. The rhetoric of conversion relies not just on “otherworldly” experience: for the new believer, conversion offers hope that God can bring healing, comfort, and deliverance to everyday life. Theologian Orlando Costas explains why the conversion experience has special meaning for the “least” of a society:

Conversion is, therefore, a passage from a dehumanized and dehumanizing existence to a humanized and humanizing life . . . it is the passage from death and decay to life and freedom. In conversion, men and women are liberated from the enslavement of the past and given the freedom of the future; they are turned from the God of this age, who passes away, to the God who is always the future of every past. (“Conversion as a Complex Experience,” 21)

Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Companion to Nineteenth-Century American Women's Writing , pp. 244 - 261
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2001

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×