COGIC ethic of self-surrender: an interpretation of the tradition of protest inherent to Black Pentecostal practices

Scholarship on Black American religious life has historically understood Black Pentecostalism as unconcerned with the socially-challenging lived experiences of its congregants. Many scholars and lay observers, maintaining that such Pentecostal religious life has no identifiable political dimension, have consequently overlooked the political nature of the ritual practices animating the worship event. Centering the Church of God in Christ (COGIC) as a case study, this dissertation argues that the ritual practices of COGIC worship events carry a tradition of political protest that contest dominant ideas of what it means to be “human” as both a social-political identity and an ontological category. To accomplish its task, this dissertation reinterprets turn-of-the-twentieth-century historical events and employs social theory to investigate the social practices of Black Pentecostals. It is the contention of this dissertation that COGIC congregants have historically embodied and expressed their political commitments through the adoption, adaptation, and engagement with Christian rituals. The project demonstrates how the ritual practices of worship (relating to preaching, music-making, tarrying, and ecstasy) allow COGIC congregants to remake themselves and their world, challenging the larger society to reconsider what it means to be “human.” Through the examination of four ritual practices of COGIC worship, this project explains how that group participates in the political dimension of human life as a necessary part of its religious activity. Through the activity of worship, congregants participate in the work of making themselves anew, which impacts how the greater society relates to them as people who are due the rights and privileges of U.S. American citizenship. Simultaneously, COGIC worship provides the ontological discourse or tools for congregants to become “new beings,” which directly corresponds to—and contests (racist) dominant ideas of—what it means to be human.

Author dc:creator

• Washington, Austin Blake

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Wariboko, Nimi

• Theology
• Black American politics
• Church of God in Christ
• Pentecostalism
• Social ethics
• Social practices
• Social theory

Statement dc:rights

• Attribution 4.0 International

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Language dc:language.iso

en_US

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/2144/48769

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:open.bu.edu:2144/48769