Abstract
The Afro-Jamaican Rastafarians and the African American Nation of Islam (NOI) are two nationalist religious groups that both emerged in urban centers in the Americas during the early 1930s. Following the activities of Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), both groups adopted religious approaches to the sociopolitical issues of the era. According to historian Michael Gomez, the black populations of the Americas during this period included three different groups that could be distinguished by their positions in relation to Christianity:
The first [group] extended a process that began with the African initial contact with European Christianity, whereby the religion was steadily Africanized both liturgically as well as theologically. The second … also continuing from previous periods, involved practices developed in Africa and transferred to the Americas, where they were renewed with some alteration but remained identifiably African. The third saw the creation of new religions, typically taken from the fabrics of Islamic-Judeo-Christian traditions, and woven into entirely novel patterns, informed by a vision of Africa as a historical power and, at least in one instance, a future destination. (Gomez 2005: 170)
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© 2007 Theodore Louis Trost
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Soumahoro, M. (2007). Christianity on Trial: The Nation of Islam and the Rastafari, 1930–1950. In: Trost, T.L. (eds) The African Diaspora and the Study of Religion. Religion/Culture/Critique. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230609938_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230609938_3
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