Black religion in America topic of two upcoming MSU lectures

Contact: Phil Hearn

Black religion in America will be the focus of two public presentations during the spring semester at Mississippi State University.

Professor and author Anthony Pinn will explore black religion in America as an implicit strike against the dehumanizing consequences of poverty Feb. 25; and social ethics expert Michael Haspel will compare black churches of the American civil rights era with East German protestant churches during an April 7 lecture.

Part of the department of philosophy and religion's 2004 Spring Lecture Series, both presentations will start at 5 p.m. in MSU's Bost Auditorium. D. Lynn Holt heads the department.

Pinn, professor of religion at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minn., will discuss, "Religious Protest after the Dream: African-American Religion's Response to Poverty in the Post-civil Rights Era."

While noting religious communities frequently seek to address issues of poverty through food programs and other activities dependent on economic resources, Pinn points out that many churches also demonstrate a resistance to the dehumanizing consequences of poverty through theological and ritual formulations that may include healing rituals and spirit possession.

Haspel's presentation is entitled, "Engaging Society: A Comparison of the Black Churches in the Modern Southern American Civil Rights Movement and the Protestant Churches in East Germany." He will examine social ethics of the grassroots movements.

Haspel's research has found that, although situated in different cultural contexts, black churches in the American South and Protestant churches of East Germany both supported social movements that led to significant social transformation. He says both churches provided infrastructures that served as the backbones of protest movements.

Pinn received a B.A. from Columbia University in 1986 and a doctorate from Harvard University in 1994. He is the author of "The Black Church in the Post-Civil Rights Era," published by Orbis Books in 2002; and "Terror and Triumph: The Nature of Black Religion," published by Augsburg Fortress Publishers in 2003.

Haspel received a Master of Theology degree from Harvard University in 1991 and earned a doctorate in 1995 from the University of Marburg, Germany, where he currently serves as a social ethics lecturer in the theology department. His publications include, "African-American Collective Identity in the Early Modern Civil Rights Movement: Religious Tradition and Ethical Universality," found in Michael Wala's "Constructing Identities in American History" (forthcoming by Berghahn Books).

(For more information, contact Eve Mullen at (662) 325-4724 or elm67@ra.msstate.edu.)