The Doctrine and Discipline of the AME Zion Church 2012 is the Book of Discipline for this 218-year-old denomination. Based upon the original tenets of Wesleyan theology and doctrine and under girded by its founders of African birth, the churchs mission is to promote freedom and liberty to the lost and disenfranchised.
W. E. B. Du Bois is the founding figure of the sociological study of the Black Church. His discussion of the six functions of Philadelphia’s Black Church in The Philadelphia Negro (1899) represented an early example of a “functional analysis” of a religious group. In The Negro Church (1903), he integrated the findings from religious census data, denominational statistics, small area surveys, ethnographic fieldwork, and historical studies to paint a picture of the vibrant role the Black Church played in the African American community. Du Bois discusses the Black Church in three of the essays included in The Souls of Black Folk (1903), other sociological essays and several Atlanta University Conference annual reports. Additionally, Du Bois’ perspective on the Black Church and the role of religion in the African American community can be gleaned from various poetic works, prayers, and editorials. W.E.B. Du Bois and the Sociological Study of the Black Church and Religion, 1897–1914 showcases a representative sample of classic studies on the Black Church and religion by a pioneer of American sociology.
In this second volume, David H. Bradley picks up the story of the African Methodist Episcopal Church Zion in 1873. From there he follows A. M. E. Zion’s growth through Reconstruction, Jim Crow, and the Civil Rights Movement, showing the denomination’s special capacity for empowering lay people to be crucial to African American organization in the Civil Rights Movement. Throughout, Bradley explores the dynamics of organizational institutionalization in the midst of new growth and transformation through the Great Migration and the flowering of A. M. E. Zion churches in new African American communities on the West Coast.
