Manifesting the Primal Imagination: The Primal Spirituality of Black American Christian Faith

Manifesting the Primal Imagination explores a little known, but important, aspect of Black American Christianity--the primal spirituality of the Black Pentecostal and spiritual church. Set against the backdrop of a Christianity believed by many to be synonymous with White Western culture, Manifesting the Primal Imagination demonstrates how this image of Christianity came to be, and how it is false, through a historical and scriptural examination of Christianity itself. At a time in which the nature of Christian faith is hotly contested, with many rejecting Christianity on the basis of its historical association with White supremacist claims, Settles advocates for a rereading of the history of Black American faith in a way that recognizes the importance of the primal imagination to Christianity itself.

Joshua D. Settles is a Black American scholar and senior research fellow at the Akrofi-Christaller Institute of Theology, Mission and Culture, in Akropong-Akuapem, Ghana.