The End of God-Talk: An African American Humanist Theology

In this groundbreaking study, Anthony B. Pinn challenges the long held assumption that African American theology is solely theist, arguing that this assumption has stunted African American theological discourse and excluded a rapidly growing segment of the African American population - non-theists. Rejecting the assumption of theism as the African American orientation, Pinn poses a crucial question: What is a non-theistic theology?

The End of God-Talk outlines the first systematic African American non-theistic theology. Pinn offers a new center for theological inquiry, grounded in a more scientific notion of the human than the imago Dei ideas that dominates African American theistic theologies. He proposes a turn to Henry David Thoreau, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, and Alice Walker in order to effect a sense of ethical conduct consistent with African American non-theistic humanism. The End of God-Talk ends with an exploration of the religious significance of ordinary spaces and activities as settings for humanist theological engagement.

Through a turn to embodied human life as the proper arena and content of theologizing, Pinn opens up a new theological path with important implications for ongoing work in African American religious studies.


About the Author
Anthony Pinn is Agnes Cullen Arnold Professor of Humanities and Professor of Religious Studies at Rice University, as well as Director of Research for the Institute for Humanist Studies Think Tank. His areas of research include African American religious thought, religion and popular culture, constructive theologies, and African American religious aesthetics. He is the author or editor of more than two dozen books, including What Is African American Religion?, Embodiment and the New Shape of Black Theological Thought, and Understanding & Transforming the Black Church.