Shows that African people have been agents of their own religious, ritual, and theological formation. This book examines the African-derived and African-centered traditions in historical Jamaica: Myal, Obeah, Native Baptist, Revival/Zion, Kumina, and Rastafari, and draws on them to forge a womanist liberation theology for the Caribbean.
Studies of African-derived religious traditions have generally focused on their retention of African elements. This emphasis, says Dianne Stewart, slights the ways in which communities in the African diaspora have created and formed religious meaning. In this fieldwork-based study Stewart shows that African people have been agents of their own religious, ritual, and theological formation.
What Stewart is speaking for in a remarkable trans-discipline manner is a revision which allows religions to be able to talk with--rather than howl at--one another. Stewarts scholarship makes a major pathfinding and breakthrough contribution to theological studies, Caribbean theology in particular, and Caribbean studies.
