Beyond Christianity
Beyond Christianity
Beyond Christianity
African Americans in a New Thought Church
Beyond Christianity draws on rich ethnographic work in a Religious Science church in Oakland, California, to illuminate the ways a group of African Americans has adapted a religion typically thought of as white to fit their needs and circumstances.
This predominantly African American congregation is an anomalous phenomenon for both Religious Science and African American religious studies. It stands at the intersection of New Thought doctrine, characterized by personal empowerment teachings,and a culturally familiar liturgical style reminiscent of Black Pentecostals and Black Spiritualists. This group challenges oversimplified concepts of the Black church experience and broadens the concept of Black religion outside the boundaries of Christianity—raising questions about what it means to be an African American congregation, and about the nature of blackness itself. Beyond Christianity adds a new dimension to the scholarship on Black religion.
Cloth: $45.00
ISBN: 9780814756935
208 pages
Click here to order on Amazon.com
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Dr. Darnise on New Thought Radio
Dr. Darnise was interviewed on Achieve Radio with Yale Devereaux October, 2008. Listen in on this revealing 57 minute interview on Spirituality and Self Esteem.
Dr. Darnise was featured on The Tavis Smiley radio program on Public Radio International (PRI) on July 11, 2008.
Mp3 now available, Program runs approximately 11 minutes
New Thought Radio
If you missed this program, you can listen to the podcast. See link below:
Original air date Thursday, July 19, 2007 8:00 am Pacific, 11:00am Eastern.www.tantalk1340am.com
My radio host was hungry for a lot of information so we covered a lot of ground, including a brief history of New Thought Religions, African Americans in New Thought, and the future of spirituality in light of the great influence these teachings are now having in the world. Listen In
Past Events with Dr. Darnise
Join me for an New Online course that I’ll be teaching in October through Loyola Marymount University, called Who Was Jesus: Early and Later Historical Ideas About Him.
No need to leave home, the whole class is conducted online with materials and assignments posted weekly.
I’m also conducting a retreat for a local school, St. Albert’s the Great on August 22 here in Los Angeles. The retreat is to help inspire and motivate educators as we all gear up for a new school year.
Keep up with Dr. Darnise and get uplifting, enlightening information you can use to transform your life. Sign up below for the FREE monthly E-newsletter, Living Life Consciously.
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So, What Is A New Thought Religion?
New Thought Religion is not really just one religion. It is an umbrella term, as we might use the word Protestant to lump together some of the non-Catholic Christian religions. There are many individual religions that fit into the New Thought category that are independent but share certain core beliefs.
Three of these distinguishing Core Beliefs in New Thought Religion are:
Monistic understanding of God
God is a unified deity, who is the source and substance of all creation. God is not thought of as trinity for example. New Thought also affirms a pantheistic universe in which all of creation is God in manifestation, created out of God stuff, if you will…
Secondly, New Thought religions teach that the nature of reality is idealism – underlying all matter is creative thought (everything begins in mind)
These various teachings explain the nature of reality as a type of metaphysical idealism, in other words, that thoughts are things, thoughts or ideas are the underlying basis of matter, much like what quantum physics is confirming with sub-atomic wave/particle theories. What seems like solid matter is actually energy in motion and these wave/particles respond differently according to the thoughts and expectations of the observer. Reality is malleable and subject to our thought.
Finally, New Thought religion teaches that human beings have the power to create their own circumstances through thought.
Not only do these religions believe in the power of thought to affect outer experiences, these religions ask followers to ask themselves if they believe the world to be a hostile or a friendly place, and then to take responsibility for their own experiences as reflections of their own thoughts. You may be familiar with this as the power of positive thinking.
Founder and History
Started as a healing movement in 19th century New England, as Mind Science by Phineas Parkhurst Quimby, and later became known as New Thought around 1895. The environment of liberal Christianity forged by the Unitarians and Transcendentalists, for example, paved the way for the movement to develop.
Quimby’s own interests centered on mental healing and were further piqued after he was himself miraculously cured of tuberculosis, a disease which had already taken the lives of many of his family members. His own healing led him on a quest to understand the relationship between illness and health.
Quimby came to the basis of his theory of mental healing stating that, “I say there is no principle in disease. It is an error that truth can correct.” While his method of healing could be perceived as strictly secular, Quimby defined his method as that embodied by Jesus. Making a distinction between Jesus and the Christ, he believed the Christ to be the Wisdom or Truth of God about which Jesus taught and used himself. In fact Quimby felt that he had rediscovered the healing technique of Jesus in the sense that he had tapped into the same source that Jesus had and therefore manifested the same effect.
While he is considered the founder of the whole New Thought movement in America, he was not a systematic theologian or an organizer of a new religion. His followers came to the forefront as systematizers and organizers. Many in this initial group went on to become prominent leaders in New Thought as well, including Julius Dresser and his wife Annetta Seabury Dresser, Warren Felt Evans and Mary Baker Patterson (later Eddy). Each of these students had initially come to Quimby for personal healing and consequently became interested in learning his techniques themselves.
Find out more about New Thought Religion history and current denominations
Religious Science United Federation for Better Living Unity School of Christianity Divine Science
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What the Bleep Do You Know About Spiritual Metaphysics?
Or New Thought Religions? Maybe what you know about spiritual metaphysics comes from the docu-film, What the Bleep Do We Know? Maybe you’re a serious student who has studied great philosophers and metaphysicians of the ages. Perhaps you have an interest in spiritual metaphysics because you’re interested in a New Thought religion. Maybe you’re already wondering what I am talking about. Let me give a little background.
Metaphysics is generally defined as a philosophical enterprise that attempts to understand the nature of reality, both the visible and invisible. What is reality at its most basic, simple level? Is it dull matter, is it dull energy, or is it dynamic energy, responsive to thought? Metaphysicians, then, are people engaged in trying to answer these questions. They may be scientists, philosophers, theologians, ministers or anything else. There are scholars, teachers, and spiritual leaders in all camps.
In the realm of spiritual metaphysics, where I reside, we understand the nature of reality to be dynamic, responsive energy. In spiritual metaphysics we understand the universe and everything in it, human, divine, animal, mineral, at its most basic component, to be made up of dynamic energy. In essence, everything is made up of the same “stuff.” We understand this stuff to be God-stuff, or God essence. Everything that is, is created out of God’s own being. That leads metaphysical religions, like New Thought and others to their primary truth claim, that “all is one.”
These religions also affirm that the dynamic and responsive nature of the universe means that everyone has the capacity to shape his or her own experiences. You’ve probably heard of this as positive thinking, name it and claim it prayer or affirmative prayer, in which individuals seem to get what they desire just by thinking about it. Well, it is this understanding of spiritual metaphysics that underlies these types of beliefs and activities.
New Thought religions are a particular branch of spiritual metaphysics that have recently enjoyed an increase in popularity. I have been practicing one of these religions, Religious Science, for about 10 years now, and I have published a book on the subject, Beyond Christianity: African-Americans in a New Thought Church (New York University Press, 2005). The book gives the history and development of Religious Science while also presenting an interesting case study of a particular church in Oakland, California.
The film, What the Bleep Do We Know, has also sparked a great interest in metaphysics. If you have not seen it, I encourage you to rent it. It presents insights from scientists, and spiritual teachers about the nature of reality and our relationship to it. While I know many physicists who are not entirely pleased with the science in the film, one cannot argue with the credentials of the scientists in the film, and it is a good starting point for a lot of people with no background in physics or metaphysics. At the very least, it will help you begin to think about your own ideas on the nature of reality.
If this subject matter is of ongoing interest to you then you might also be interested in my Advanced Studies page.
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