Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Contributors
- Introduction
- Part I Music
- Chapter 1 Satanism and Popular Music
- Chapter 2 Between Hymn and Horror Film: How do we Listen to Cradle of Filth?
- Chapter 3 When Demons Come Calling: Dealing with the Devil and Paradigms of Life in African American Music
- Chapter 4 Dark Theology: Dissident Commerce, Gothic Capitalism, and the Spirit of Rock and Roll
- Part II Film
- Part III Literature
- Bibliography
- Index of Subjects
- Index of Names
Chapter 3 - When Demons Come Calling: Dealing with the Devil and Paradigms of Life in African American Music
from Part I - Music
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Contributors
- Introduction
- Part I Music
- Chapter 1 Satanism and Popular Music
- Chapter 2 Between Hymn and Horror Film: How do we Listen to Cradle of Filth?
- Chapter 3 When Demons Come Calling: Dealing with the Devil and Paradigms of Life in African American Music
- Chapter 4 Dark Theology: Dissident Commerce, Gothic Capitalism, and the Spirit of Rock and Roll
- Part II Film
- Part III Literature
- Bibliography
- Index of Subjects
- Index of Names
Summary
Finally, be strong in the Lord, and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.
For we wrestle not against flesh and but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
Ephesians 6:10–12 (KJV)The imagery and assumed theo-existential truth of the above passage has both explicitly and implicitly haunted and guided the ethical sensibilities of the dominant modalities of African American religion in the United States—i.e., African American Christian churches—for centuries. African American Christianity has drawn its vocabulary and grammar, its imagery, symbolism, and posture toward the world from the rich stories that make up the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament. Perspectives on the complex nature and framework of human relationships are given their weight and content in large part from the workings of situations outlined in scripture. In this regard, African American Christianity, as Ephesians 6:10–12 (above) would suggest, presents life struggles as tension between physical forces and non-physical forces, between transcendent realities and mundane presences intertwined within human history—angelic and demonic personalities.
Theological imagery and doctrinal assertions, in various regions of the United States, speak to this arrangement of synergy between celestial and mundane forces. This is certainly the case within African American evangelical circles, where this rhetoric and perception of the workings of the world are most vividly expressed.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Lure of the Dark SideSatan and Western Demonology in Popular Culture, pp. 60 - 73Publisher: Acumen PublishingPrint publication year: 2009