African American Religious Life and the Story of Nimrod

273 Pages·2008·1.065 MB·English

by  Anthony B. Pinn, Allen Dwight Callahan (eds.)

African American Religious
Life and the Story of Nimrod
Now these are the generations of the sons of Noah, Shem, Ham, and
Japheth: and unto them were sons born after the flood. The sons of Japheth;
Gomer, and Magog, and Madai, and Javan, and Tubal, and Meshech,
and Tiras. And the sons of Gomer; Ashkenaz, and Riphath, and
Togarmah. And the sons of Javan; Elishah, and Tarshish, Kittim, and
Dodanim. By these were the isles of the Gentiles divided in their lands;
every one after his tongue, after their families, in their nations. And the
sons of Ham; Cush, and Mizraim, and Phut, and Canaan. And the sons
of Cush; Seba, and Havilah, and Sabtah, and Raamah, and Sabtecha:
and the sons of Raamah; Sheba, and Dedan. And Cush begat Nimrod: he
began to be a mighty one in the earth. He was a mighty hunter before the
LORD: wherefore it is said, Even as Nimrod the mighty hunter before the
LORD. And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and
Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar.
Genesis 10:1–10
And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech. And it came
to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land
of Shinar; and they dwelt there. And they said one to another, Go to, let us
make brick, and burn them throughly. And they had brick for stone, and
slime had they for morter. And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and
a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest
we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth. And the LORD
came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded.
And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one
language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained
from them, which they have imagined to do. Go to, let us go down, and
there confound their language, that they may not understand one
another’s speech. So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon
the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city. Therefore is the
name of it called Babel; because the LORD did there confound the
language of all the earth: and from thence did the LORD scatter them
abroad upon the face of all the earth.
Genesis 11:1–9
African American Religious
Life and the Story of Nimrod
Edited by
Anthony B.Pinn
and
Allen Dwight Callahan
AFRICANAMERICANRELIGIOUSLIFEANDTHESTORYOFNIMROD
Copyright © Anthony B.Pinn and Allen Dwight Callahan,2008.
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2008 978-1-4039-6827-2
All rights reserved.No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any
manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief
quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
First published in 2008 by
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ISBN 978-1-349-53050-2 ISBN 978-0-230-61050-7 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9780230610507
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First edition:January 2008
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To the Ancestors who lived the legacy of Nimrod
and
to all their descendents who wrestle with
the meaning of Nimrod
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Contents
Acknowledgments ix
List of Contributors xi
Introduction: “Figures of the True” 1
Allen Dwight Callahan
Section One: Nimrod as Hero
1. The Hunter and the Game: Reappropriating the
Legend of Nimrod from an African American
Theological Perspective 15
James H. Evans, Jr.
2. God of Restraint: An African American Humanist
Interpretation of Nimrod and the Tower of Babel 27
Anthony B. Pinn
3. “I Am Black and Beautiful, O Ye Daughters of
Jerusalem...”: African American Virtue Ethics
and a Womanist Hermeneutics of Redemption 35
Stacey M. Floyd-Thomas
4. “Lest We Be Scattered Abroad”: Nimrod, Marcus
Garvey, and Black Religious Humanism in Harlem 53
Juan M. Floyd-Thomas
5. More than a Mighty Hunter: George Washington
Williams, Nineteenth-Century Racialized Discourse
and the Reclamation of Nimrod 69
Abraham Smith
6. The Story of Nimrod: A Struggle with Otherness
and the Search for Identity 85
Arthur L. Pressley
7. Nimrod: Reading the Bible with South African Eyes 97
Elelwani B. Farisani
viii CONTENTS
8. Nimrod and Dead Prez: Walking Like a Warrior 111
Ralph C. Watkins
9. Nimrod and the South African Context 121
Dorothy M. Farisani
10. Who Is the Man...?: Nimrod, Afrocentricism,
and the African American Dream 133
Lee H. Butler, Jr.
Section Two: Nimrod as Infamous
11. The Strength of Collective Man: Nimrod
and the Tower of Babel 147
Allen Dwight Callahan
12. Nimrod: Paradigm of Future Oppressive Systems 163
Jimmy Kirby
13. Beyond the Curse of Noah: African American Pastoral
Theology as Political 179
Edward P. Wimberly
Section Three: A Neutral Stance
14. A Tower of Pulpits 193
Dale P. Andrews
15. Reorientation by Reference to “Wrong Way” Makers:
Evaluating a Modern Signifying Mythicization of
an Ancient Mythicization 215
Theodore Walker, Jr.
Appendix 221
Stephen C. Finley
Selected Bibliography 257
Stephen C. Finley
Index 267
Acknowledgments
The editors would like to express gratitude to Amanda Johnson Moon of
Palgrave Macmillan for her support of this project. The editors would also
like to thank Missy Daniel of Religion and Ethics Newsweeklyfor her helpful
corrections and emendations of several chapters in this collection. In addi-
tion, the editors express gratitude to Stephen Finley, a PhD candidate in
Religious Studies at Rice University, for preparation of the documents in the
appendix, complete with the introductions for each, for compilation of the
bibliography, and for preparation of the index. Both entailed a complex
process to which he gave time with great cheer and enthusiasm. Stephen
Finley received assistance with the former: Thank you to Dr. Rachel
Vincent-Finley, A’Tousha Ricks, Jacquie Staton, and Kenya Tuttle for their
assistance with formatting documents and tracking down authors.
Allen Callahan would like to thank Peter Machinist for his astute and
judicious comments and criticisms in his review of an earlier draft of Allen
Callahan’s chapter on Nimrod and the Tower of Babel. Furthermore,
Callahan wishes to express his appreciation to students in the Doctor of
Ministry programs at United Theological Seminary and Pittsburgh
Theological Seminary for their thoughtful engagement of some of the key
ideas that inform his essay on Nimrod and the Tower of Babel presented
in lectures he gave at both institutions earlier this year. Finally, Callahan
would also like to thank Professors Vivian Johnson and Thomas
Dozeman of United Theological Seminary for giving so generously of
their time and expertise.
Anthony Pinn would like to thank a host of friends—particularly
Ramón Rentas, Robbie Seals, Benjamin Valentin, and Eli Valentin for
their good humor. Pinn would also like to thank Stacey and Juan Floyd-
Thomas for arranging an opportunity to discuss Nimrod in general, and
for the comments on an early draft of his chapter in particular. Pinn would
also like to thank colleagues at Rice University—Alexander Bryd, Edward
Cox, and especially Caroline F. Levander—for friendship and kind words.
Finally, the editors express their gratitude to the contributors, whose
various perspectives on Nimrod—both pro and con—serve as an initial
effort in a hermeneutic of recovery, a process of archaeological investigation,
by which renewed attention in Black Religious Studies is given to this
hunter, builder, and descendent of Ham.