A THEOLOGICAL NORMATIVE TO THE UNDERSTANDING OF FATHERHOOD IN THE AFRICAN AMERICAN COMMUNITY

ABSTRACT

This thesis examines the theological correlation between the role of the church, the identity and role of the African American male, and the effectiveness of fatherhood. The study begins with an in-depth analysis of how absentee fathers cause a crisis in the family. The absence of fathers from the home causes children to suffer financially, socially and psychologically, and therefore causes a disruption in the community as a whole. Focus on the Family founder and leader, Dr. James Dobson, confirms that “our very survival as a people will depend upon the presence or absence of masculine leadership in millions of homes.” In person interviews of African American Christian males and interpretation of the scriptures are just two of the methods used in this study to explore the theological norm of fatherhood. Collectively, the case studies and statistical data within this study explore attempts to remedy the crisis through governmental policies and networking within the community. The final chapter examines the role of urban churches and clergy in teaching effective fatherhood practices. Within the conclusion, it is made clear that the church is responsible for establishing the theological framework and principles for understanding the intended role of being a father. Another conclusion of this study is the acknowledgement of the African American community’s role in shaping and reforming the identity and role of the African American male as a father in the home. The African American community and the church must continue working in tandem to encourage organic social networks that will promote a model for effective fatherhood practices.

Common Bound: The Small Groups of Methodism

The system of small groups John Wesley established to promote a proper life of discipleship in early Methodist converts was, in many respects, the strength of the Methodist movement. Those who responded to Wesley’s initial invitation to “flee the wrath to come” were organized into large gatherings called “societies,” which were then subdivided into smaller bands, class meetings, select societies, and penitent bands. The smaller groups gave Wesley the opportunity, through a system of appointed leaders, to keep track of the spiritual progress of every member in his movement, which grew to tens of thousands by the time of his death in 1791. As Methodism shifted from renewal movement to institutional church in the nineteenth century, however, growth slowed, and participation in such groups declined rapidly. By the early twentieth century, classes and bands were virtually extinct in every sector of Methodism save the African-American tradition. In recent years, scholars in various sectors of the Wesleyan tradition, particularly David Lowes Watson and Kevin Watson, have called for a recovery of these small groups for purposes of renewal in the church. There is no consensus, however, concerning what exactly contributed to the vitality of these groups during Wesley’s ministry.

Over the last century, sociological studies of group dynamics have revealed three common traits that are crucial to highly functioning groups: interdependence created by the existence of a common goal, interaction among group members that is “promotive” or cooperative in nature, and high levels of feedback associated with personal responsibility and individual accountability. All three of these were prevalent in the early Methodist groups. Interdependence existed around a shared goal, which for Wesley and the Methodists was holiness. That interdependence was cooperative in nature; individuals experienced the empowering grace of God as they each pursued the goal in the company of fellow pilgrims. Finally, the groups existed for purposes of feedback and accountability as individuals took responsibility both for themselves and others as they progressed together toward the goal of holy living. Wesley seemed to instinctively understand the essential nature of each of these characteristics in maintaining the vitality of the movement when he spoke of the importance of preserving the “doctrine, spirit and discipline” of early Methodism. Analysis of some of the present-day attempts to restore Wesley’s groups reveals frequent neglect to one or more of these three components. Perhaps most critical to recovering the vitality of the early Methodist groups will be reclaiming the goal of sanctification and coming to a consensus on what its pursuit means in the present day.

Infused: Millennials and the Future of the Black Church

Deep societal trends impact the religious fervency and participation of millennials in the Black Church. Many young adults, though remaining Christian, have fallen away from their faith communities, finding them irrelevant for their daily lives. Even the most religiously committed have shown signs of waning faith, as evidenced by limited participation, and theological and ideological dissonance with the Black Church. Historically strong across all indicators, the Black Church is ideally positioned to stave off the attrition of youth and young adults, having a missional mindset toward this cohort—prioritizing them in their ministry development and programming. African American congregational leaders must develop disciples who have cohesive identities, live integrated lives, and experience an infusion of their personal vocation and the mission of the Church. Thus the future of the Black Church depends on the development of millennials who have an integrated faith life, which is distinguishable by its practices, disciplines, and virtues that are nurtured by an understanding of the Church’s mission and their role in it. Key will be establishing mentoring relationships that allow for questioning, exploration and discovery. To enact the changes necessary the church must understand the cultural worlds of young adults and engage them in holistic ministry that is reflective of the mission of God through Christ (missio dei)—activity that culminates with reaching the world with God’s redemptive plan for humanity.

Who Do You Say I Am?: African American Women Clergy and the Construction of Ministerial Identity

The purpose of this study was to examine how African American women in ordained ministry construct and develop ministerial identity in the context of the Black Church. This study employed a qualitative multicase study methodology and the purposive participant sample was comprised of 13 women who were ordained or pursuing ordination in the Baltimore or Washington conferences of the AME Church. Semistructured in-depth interviews were conducted with the participants, and member checks were employed as a triangulation method. This study reveals that the primary factor impacting ministerial identity development is the relationship with the senior pastor and explores the various ways in which that impact is felt. This study also connects aspects of that relationship and its resulting impact to African American cultural traditions and values, as well as offers several suggestions to women cultivating ministerial identity and the organizational systems within which that process occurs.

In Whose Image: The Emergence, Development, and Challenge of African-American Evangelicalism

The current era of American Christianity marks the transition from a Western, white-dominated U.S. Evangelicalism to an ethnically diverse demographic for evangelicalism. Despite this increasing diversity, U.S. Evangelicalism has demonstrated a stubborn inability to address the entrenched assumption of white supremacy. The 1970s witnessed the rise in prominence of Evangelicalism in the United States. At the same time, the era witnessed a burgeoning movement of African-American evangelicals, who often experienced marginalization from the larger movement. What factors prevented the integration between two seemingly theologically compatible movements? How do these factors impact the challenge of integration and reconciliation in the changing demographic reality of early twenty-first Evangelicalism?

The question is examined through the unpacking of the diseased theological imagination rooted in U.S. Evangelicalism. The theological categories of Creation, Anthropology, Christology, Soteriology, and Ecclesiology are discussed to determine specific deficiencies that lead to assumptions of white supremacy. The larger history of U.S. Evangelicalism and the larger story of the African-American church are explored to provide a context for the unique expression of African-American evangelicalism in the last third of the twentieth century. Through the use of primary sources — personal interviews, archival documents, writings by principals, and private collection documents — the specific history of African-American evangelicals in the 1960s and 1970s is described. The stories of the National Black Evangelical Association, Tom Skinner, John Perkins, and Circle Church provide historical snapshots that illuminate the relationship between the larger U.S. Evangelical movement and African-American evangelicals.

Various attempts at integration and shared leadership were made in the 1970s as African-American evangelicals engaged with white Evangelical institutions. However, the failure of these attempts point to the challenges to diversity for U.S. Evangelicalism and the failure of the Evangelical theological imagination. The diseased theological imagination of U.S. Evangelical Christianity prevented engagement with the needed challenge of African American evangelicalism, resulting in dysfunctional racial dynamics evident in twenty-first century Evangelical Christianity. The historical problem of situating African American evangelicals reveals the theological problem of white supremacy in U.S. Evangelicalism.

Host determinants of HIV-1 control in African Americans.

We performed a whole-genome association study of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) set point among a cohort of African Americans (n = 515), and an intronic single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) in the HLA-B gene showed one of the strongest associations. We use a subset of patients to demonstrate that this SNP reflects the effect of the HLA-B*5703 allele, which shows a genome-wide statistically significant association with viral load set point (P = 5.6 x 10(-10)). These analyses therefore confirm a member of the HLA-B*57 group of alleles as the most important common variant that influences viral load variation in African Americans, which is consistent with what has been observed for individuals of European ancestry, among whom the most important common variant is HLA-B*5701.

Variability in frontotemporal brain structure: the importance of recruitment of African Americans in neuroscience research.

BACKGROUND: Variation in brain structure is both genetically and environmentally influenced. The question about potential differences in brain anatomy across populations of differing race and ethnicity remains a controversial issue. There are few studies specifically examining racial or ethnic differences and also few studies that test for race-related differences in context of other neuropsychiatric research, possibly due to the underrepresentation of ethnic minorities in clinical research. It is within this context that we conducted a secondary data analysis examining volumetric MRI data from healthy participants and compared the volumes of the amygdala, hippocampus, lateral ventricles, caudate nucleus, orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) and total cerebral volume between Caucasian and African-American participants. We discuss the importance of this finding in context of neuroimaging methodology, but also the need for improved recruitment of African Americans in clinical research and its broader implications for a better understanding of the neural basis of neuropsychiatric disorders. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: This was a case control study in the setting of an academic medical center outpatient service. Participants consisted of 44 Caucasians and 33 ethnic minorities. The following volumetric data were obtained: amygdala, hippocampus, lateral ventricles, caudate nucleus, orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) and total cerebrum. Each participant completed a 1.5 T magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Our primary finding in analyses of brain subregions was that when compared to Caucasians, African Americans exhibited larger left OFC volumes (F (1,68) = 7.50, p = 0.008). CONCLUSIONS: The biological implications of our findings are unclear as we do not know what factors may be contributing to these observed differences. However, this study raises several questions that have important implications for the future of neuropsychiatric research.

Inhibition of adaptive immune responses leads to a fatal clinical outcome in SIV-infected pigtailed macaques but not vervet African green monkeys.

African green monkeys (AGM) and other natural hosts for simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) do not develop an AIDS-like disease following SIV infection. To evaluate differences in the role of SIV-specific adaptive immune responses between natural and nonnatural hosts, we used SIV(agmVer90) to infect vervet AGM and pigtailed macaques (PTM). This infection results in robust viral replication in both vervet AGM and pigtailed macaques (PTM) but only induces AIDS in the latter species. We delayed the development of adaptive immune responses through combined administration of anti-CD8 and anti-CD20 lymphocyte-depleting antibodies during primary infection of PTM (n = 4) and AGM (n = 4), and compared these animals to historical controls infected with the same virus. Lymphocyte depletion resulted in a 1-log increase in primary viremia and a 4-log increase in post-acute viremia in PTM. Three of the four PTM had to be euthanized within 6 weeks of inoculation due to massive CMV reactivation and disease. In contrast, all four lymphocyte-depleted AGM remained healthy. The lymphocyte-depleted AGM showed only a trend toward a prolongation in peak viremia but the groups were indistinguishable during chronic infection. These data show that adaptive immune responses are critical for controlling disease progression in pathogenic SIV infection in PTM. However, the maintenance of a disease-free course of SIV infection in AGM likely depends on a number of mechanisms including non-adaptive immune mechanisms.

The impact of structured support groups for pregnant South African women recently diagnosed HIV positive.

The authors of this study evaluated a structured 10-session psychosocial support group intervention for newly HIV-diagnosed pregnant South African women. Participants were expected to display increases in HIV disclosure, self-esteem, active coping and positive social support, and decreases in depression, avoidant coping, and negative social support. Three hundred sixty-one pregnant HIV-infected women were recruited from four antenatal clinics in Tshwane townships from April 2005 to September 2006. Using a quasi-experimental design, assessments were conducted at baseline and two and eight months post-intervention. A series of random effects regression analyses were conducted, with the three assessment points treated as a random effect of time. At both follow-ups, the rate of disclosure in the intervention group was significantly higher than that of the comparison group (p<0.001). Compared to the comparison group at the first follow-up, the intervention group displayed higher levels of active coping (t=2.68, p<0.05) and lower levels of avoidant coping (t=-2.02, p<0.05), and those who attended at least half of the intervention sessions exhibited improved self-esteem (t=2.11, p<0.05). Group interventions tailored for newly HIV positive pregnant women, implemented in resource-limited settings, may accelerate the process of adjusting to one's HIV status, but may not have sustainable benefits over time.

Genetic variants in IGF-I, IGF-II, IGFBP-3, and adiponectin genes and colon cancer risk in African Americans and Whites.

PURPOSE: Evaluating genetic susceptibility may clarify effects of known environmental factors and also identify individuals at high risk. We evaluated the association of four insulin-related pathway gene polymorphisms in insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-I) (CA)( n ) repeat, insulin-like growth factor-2 (IGF-II) (rs680), insulin-like growth factor-binding protein-3 (IGFBP-3) (rs2854744), and adiponectin (APM1 rs1501299) with colon cancer risk, as well as relationships with circulating IGF-I, IGF-II, IGFBP-3, and C-peptide in a population-based study. METHODS: Participants were African Americans (231 cases and 306 controls) and Whites (297 cases, 530 controls). Consenting subjects provided blood specimens and lifestyle/diet information. Genotyping for all genes except IGF-I was performed by the 5'-exonuclease (Taqman) assay. The IGF-I (CA)(n) repeat was assayed by PCR and fragment analysis. Circulating proteins were measured by enzyme immunoassays. Odds ratios (ORs) and 95 % confidence intervals (CIs) were calculated by logistic regression. RESULTS: The IGF-I (CA)( 19 ) repeat was higher in White controls (50 %) than African American controls (31 %). Whites homozygous for the IGF-I (CA)(19) repeat had a nearly twofold increase in risk of colon cancer (OR = 1.77; 95 % CI = 1.15-2.73), but not African Americans (OR = 0.73, 95 % CI 0.50-1.51). We observed an inverse association between the IGF-II Apa1 A-variant and colon cancer risk (OR = 0.49, 95 % CI 0.28-0.88) in Whites only. Carrying the IGFBP-3 variant alleles was associated with lower IGFBP-3 protein levels, a difference most pronounced in Whites (p-trend <0.05). CONCLUSIONS: These results support an association between insulin pathway-related genes and elevated colon cancer risk in Whites but not in African Americans.

Recasting 'Black Venus' in the new African Diaspora

This article explores the ways in which transnational feminist analysis can be deployed to reconfigure new gendered and racialized cartographies of the African Diaspora in Europe. First, I position contemporary film representations of trafficked Nigerian sex workers in Italy in dialogical relation to 19th century discourses of black sexuality - in particular, Sharpley-Whiting's (1999) reinscribed 'Black Venus Master Narrative' - and assess historical and geographical (dis)continuities in their modes of signification. Second, by linking endemic factors feeding the supply of Nigerian women for the purposes of (in)voluntary participation in the Italian sex industry, such as the localized feminization of poverty and regionally specific perceptions of sex work as a temporary economic strategy, I engage with broader feminist debates on victimization and agency in global sex work and migration literatures. In doing so, this dialectical think piece highlights the gendered complexities of new African diasporic formations and the ways in which their growth is facilitated by broader illegal networks that shape and are shaped by vicissitudes in glocalized economies. © 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.