Baptized In Dirty Water

"Baptized in Dirty Water" is a story about a young boy born in 1928 who was raised in the Baptist Children's Home in Monroe, Louisiana. At age seventy-six, he finally decided to write this book about his thirteen years of mistreatment and abuse by the house mothers (matrons) who were employed there. Some of the matrons were very sweet, kind, and understanding, but most of them were mean and cruel and, in my book, don't even come close to being loving and caring Christian house mothers. Child abuse affects different people in different ways. What you are about to read contains some very serious events and strong accusations and, according to the author, are all true. "Baptized in Dirty Water" is a must read for all devout Christians and especially for those of you who have children.

Tupac Amaru Shakur was considered a Hip Hop prophet. His spiritual journey has not had much attention given to it until now. This book looks at Tupac’s gospel message from a Hip Hop context. Tupac presents a theological message needed now even twenty-plus years after his death.

In the Mississippi Delta, creativity, community, and a rich expressive culture persist despite widespread poverty. Over five years of extensive work in the region, author Ali Colleen Neff collected a wealth of materials that demonstrate a vibrant musical scene. Let the World Listen Right draws from classic studies of the blues as well as extensive ethnographic work to document the “changing same” of Delta music making. From the neighborhood juke joints of the contemporary Delta to the international hip-hop stage, this study traces the musical networks that join the region's African American communities to both traditional forms and new global styles. The book features the words and describes performances of contemporary artists, including blues musicians, gospel singers, radio and club DJs, barroom toast-tellers, preachers, poets, and a spectrum of Delta hip-hop artists. Contemporary Delta hip-hop artists Jerome “TopNotch the Villain” Williams, Kimyata “Yata” Dear, and DA F.A.M. have contributed freestyle poetry, extensive interview materials, and their own commentaries. The book focuses particularly on the biography of TopNotch, whose hip-hop poetics emerge from a lifetime of schoolyard dozens and training in the gospel church.

When the basic conceptions of the world held by whole generations in the West are formed by popular culture, and in particular by the music that serves as its soundtrack, can theology remain unchanged? The authors of the essays in this important volume insist that the answer is no. These gifted theologians help readers make sense of what happens to religious experience in a world heavily influenced by popular media culture, a world in which songs, musicians, and celebrities influence our individual and collective imaginations about how we might live. Readers will consider the theological relationship between music and the creative process, investigate ways that music helps create communities of heightened moral consciousness, and explore the theological significance of songs. Contributors to this fascinating collection include: David Dalt Maeve Heaney Daniel White Hodge Michael J. Iafrate Jeffrey F. Keuss Mary McDonough Gina Messina-Dysert Christian Scharen Myles Werntz Tom Beaudoin is associate professor of theology at Fordham University, specializing inpractical theology. His books include Witness to Dispossession: The Vocation of a Postmodern Theologian; Consuming Faith: Integrating Who We Are with What We Buy; and Virtual Faith: The Irreverent Spiritual Faith of Generation X. He has given nearly 200 papers, lectures, or presentations on religion and culture over the last thirteen years. He has been playing bass in rock bands since 1986 and directs the Rock and Theology Project for Liturgical Press (www.rockandtheology.com). "

Using Savannah, Georgia, as a case study, Sacred Mission, Worldly Ambition tells the story of the rise and decline of Black Christian Nationalism. This nationalism emerged from the experiences of segregation, as an intersection between the sacred world of religion and church and the secular world of business. The premise of Black Christian Nationalism was a belief in a dual understanding of redemption, at the same time earthly and otherworldly, and the conviction that black Christians, once delivered from psychic, spiritual, and material want, would release all of America from the suffering that prevented it from achieving its noble ideals. The study's use of local sources in Savannah, especially behind-the-scenes church records, provides a rare glimpse into church life and ritual, depicting scenes never before described. Blending history, ethnography, and Geertzian dramaturgy, it traces the evolution of black southern society from a communitarian, nationalist system of hierarchy, patriarchy, and interclass fellowship to an individualistic one that accompanied the appearance of a new black civil society. Although not a study of the civil rights movement, Sacred Mission, Worldly Ambition advances a bold, revisionist interpretation of black religion at the eve of the movement. It shows that the institutional primacy of the churches had to give way to a more diversified secular sphere before an overtly politicized struggle for freedom could take place. The unambiguously political movement of the 1950s and 1960s that drew on black Christianity and radiated from many black churches was possible only when the churches came to exert less control over members' quotidian lives. A Sarah Mills Hodge Fund Publication.

Typically, more than half the top rap songs in the country are the work of Southern artists. In a world still stuck in the East/West coast paradigm of the '90s, Southern hip hop has dominated the genre-and defined the culture-for years. And the South's leading lights, most notably OutKast, Timbaland, and more recently, crunk superstars like the Ying Yang Twins and Lil Jon, have expanded the parameters of hip hop. Third Coast is the first book to deal with Southern hip hop as a matter of cultural history, and the first to explain the character and significance of down South rapping to fans as well as outsiders. It tells the story of recent hip hop, marking how far the music has come sonically and culturally since its well-documented New York-centered early years.

The new edition of the groundbreaking chronicle of forty years of black music in America