Re-envisioning Black Pentecostalism in Twentieth-Century America

The 2026 publication of two books—More Than Tongues Can Tell (Eric Lewis Williams) and The Subversive Pulpit (Dara Coleby Delgado)—confronts readers with the disjunction between the received historiography and the social and theological reality of African American Pentecostalism in the twentieth century. Though often associated with white churches and characterized as an ecstatic, exclusivist, or socially unengaged movement, Pentecostalism has offered an empowering spiritual home to Black theologians, church leaders, and congregants for more than a century. Through close analyses of the lives and works of key leaders in Black Pentecostalism, these volumes reveal a vibrant history of intellectual work as well as racial and gender justice advocacy. Drawing together both theological and social-historical studies of these figures, this joint book review panel will ask how their stories might inform liberatory paths for the study and practice of Pentecostalism in our troubled political present and future.