Prophetic Peril - Thomas Fuerst M

Focusing on the prophetic-call narratives of Maria Stewart, Nat Turner, Julia Foote, and Richard Allen, author Thomas M. Fuerst offers insight into the unique contributions this tradition makes to American oratory, storytelling, history, ethics, theology, and protest. As Fuerst demonstrates, Turner's call narrative subverts white, political interests and expands politics to include the resistance rhetoric and witness of those on the margins. Allen's apologetic narration combines deeply thoughtful Protestant exegesis with a liberation theology shaped by the experience of enslavement, anchoring his rhetorical power in the experience of Black people in the nineteenth century. The call narratives of Stewart and Foote circumvent patriarchy and resist patriarchal interpretations of the Bible through biblical, embodied, dramatic, visionary appeals that sidestep persuasion and demand either acceptance or rejection. Taken together, these case studies reveal how antebellum Black preachers used religious storytelling to resist white, patriarchal oppression and assert their own voices, offering unique insight to our understanding of prophecy and resistance.

EAN: 9781496855435