ABOUT THIS BOOK

In Kincraft Todne Thomas explores the internal dynamics of community life among black evangelicals, who are often overshadowed by white evangelicals and the common equation of the “Black Church” with an Afro-Protestant mainline. Drawing on fieldwork in an Afro-Caribbean and African American church association in Atlanta, Thomas locates black evangelicals at the center of their own religious story, presenting their determined spiritual relatedness as a form of insurgency. She outlines how church members cocreate themselves as spiritual kin through what she calls kincraft—the construction of one another as brothers and sisters in Christ. Kincraft, which Thomas traces back to the diasporic histories and migration experiences of church members, reflects black evangelicals' understanding of Christian familial connection as transcending racial, ethnic, and denominational boundaries in ways that go beyond the patriarchal nuclear family. Church members also use their spiritual relationships to navigate racial and ethnic discrimination within the majority-white evangelical movement. By charting kincraft's functions and significance, Thomas demonstrates the ways in which black evangelical social life is more varied and multidimensional than standard narratives of evangelicalism would otherwise suggest.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Todne Thomas is Assistant Professor of African American Religions at Harvard Divinity School, Harvard University and coeditor of New Directions in Spiritual Kinship: Sacred Ties across the Abrahamic Religions.

REVIEWS

"Kincraft illustrates how Black evangelicals in the United States, drawing on their own Afro-diasporic orientations and sacred imaginaries, have worked to create their own mechanisms of spiritual and relational belonging against the fixed racial and social positionalities reinscribed by White evangelical culture. Moreover, Thomas’ exploration of the spiritual and racial kinship endemic to kincraft can and should be read furthermore as an example of Africana religious agency."

-- Darrius D. Hills Reading Religion

"Kincraft is a rich, rewarding, intellectually challenging ethnographic study of a community of Afro-Caribbean churchgoers, in the Atlanta area, who were historically associated with the Plymouth Brethren. . . . Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty."

-- P. Harvey Choice

"Kincraft reorients the ways we think about how religion manifests in people’s daily lives at both institutional and interpersonal levels. Thomas’ work reminds scholars how important it is to account for both ethno-racial and denominational differences when analyzing religious groups and behaviors, and what is overlooked when we do not."

-- Shaonta' E. Allen Sociology of Religion

"One of the fascinating tensions Thomas conveys is between Black evangelicals’ theological reckoning with racial struggles and a commitment to prioritize 'Christian family' over 'worldly' concerns (p. 53). The ethnographic material is robustly presented, complemented by a revealing archival analysis of the founding evangelist’s ministry career. . . . [A] powerful testimony to how centrally racialization figures in the formation and lived expression of the varieties of US evangelicalism."

-- James S. Bielo American Anthropologist

"Some books serve notice to the academy that it needs to rethink its approaches. Todne Thomas’s Kincraft is such a book which will reshape the field of African American religious studies in profound ways."

-- Mary Beth S. Mathews Journal of Contemporary Religion

"Kincraft is an intimate, revealing portrayal of the inner workings of a biblical community. . . . [T]his is an intellectually stimulating, rigorous, and important work that reveals the deeper spirituality of a church tradition that has been largely overlooked in both Black church and white evangelical circles. Thomas has done an excellent job of bringing this tradition to the foreground and, in so doing, forcing a timely reconsideration of what we define and understand as the Black church and mainstream evangelicalism."

-- William Ackah Journal of Anthropological Research

"Kincraft is a refreshing inclusion as a source for studying US religious history and culture. . . . Thomas shows how Black religious actors have tapped into their religious tradition to create meaningful communities and a sense of belonging that is unmoved by the racism of the broader evangelical movement."

-- Tejai Beulah Howard Journal of the American Academy of Religion

"Kincraft is an exemplar of ethnographic research and writing. Thomas is meticulous in her approach, thoughtfully weaving ethnographic details and scholarly analysis with depth and precision."

-- Aimee Villarreal New Directions in the Anthropology of Christianity

TABLE OF CONTENTS

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