The first syllabus comes from Anthea Butler, current president of the Society for Pentecostal Studies and Assistant Professor of Theological Studies at Loyola Marymount University, and it deals with African American Pentecostalism.

For many years a lack of readily available resources combined with personal agendas to make difficult a critical look at the complexities that riddle the subject of race and Pentecostalism. Those who wrote about Pentecostalism tended to seize on one brief quotation or another to stress either the movement's racism or its inclusiveness. Some-building on Frank Bartleman's quip about the Azusa Street Revival ("the color line was washed away in the blood")-argued that racial inclusiveness belonged at the core of Pentecostal identity and saw the movement's history as declension. Butler's academic work addresses this contested subject, and her syllabus suggests resources and topics that scholars of American Christianity may find helpful for learning and teaching about a neglected segment of the African American church.

Click here to view a syllabus in Adobe Acrobat Reader on Pentecostalism and African American Religion

Close this window and return to the Teaching Pentecostalism main page
Back - IV. Course Syllabi

-Continue to next syllabus by Barbara Cavaness