Rhetoric of identity : the African Methodist Episcopal Church and what it means to be children of God and children of Ham -- It is salvation we want : the path to spiritual redemption and social uplift -- Saving the heathen : the AMEC and it's Africanist discourse -- Africa for Christ : the voice of mission and African redemption -- We have been believers : revisiting AMEC rhetoric of evangelical Christianity
Summary
Exploring the parameters of the African Methodist Episcopal Church's dual existence as evangelical Christians and as children of Ham, this book explains how the denomination relies on the rhetoric of evangelicalism and heathenism to construct an identity. A. Nevell Owens shows how the "Voice of Mission", the missionary newspaper of the church, played an integral role in the definition of the denomination as evangelical vis-a-vis the "heathen African." By looking at the "Voice of Mission" as a primary source document, this book further examines the extent to which the African Methodist Episcopal Church affectively lived out its existence in two different worlds that were more often than not diametrically opposed to each other