An estimated twelve million Africans were forced into slavery from the seventeenth century until Emancipation. Torn from their land, separated from family and kin, their bodies were stolen and their very identities were at risk of annihilation. So Africans became African Americans. Years before Reconstruction, they began reconstructing their own past. Many of them combined patriotism, racial lineage, and Christian scripture to tell their stories, to remember who they were. To save themselves.
Laurie Maffly-Kipp joins us in this episode to talk about this history from her acclaimed book, Setting Down the Sacred Past: African American Race Histories. Maffly-Kipp recently visited Brigham Young University to present at our conference, “The Living Reformation.” Her presentation will be available to watch online in the coming weeks.
About the Guest
Laurie Maffly-Kipp is the Archer Alexander Distinguished Professor at the John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics. She taught religious studies and American studies for twenty-four years at University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, and is a prior president of the Mormon History Association. She’s written and edited many books about topics including African American religions, Mormonism, and Protestantism.
The post Setting down the sacred past of African Americans, with Laurie Maffly-Kipp [MIPodcast #69] appeared first on Neal A. Maxwell Institute | BYU.
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Martin Luther believed the Bible proved that the Catholic Church had gone astray. His efforts to bring reform to the church wound up leading to his excommunication and the Reformation was off and running. In the previous two episodes we heard from Craig Harline and Brad Gregory, talking about Martin Luther’s life and the Reformation more broadly. In this episode, Jennifer Powell McNutt talks about the Bible during the Reformation.
Jennifer Powell McNutt
Brad S. Gregory is a professor of European history at the University of Notre Dame and an award-winning author of books like Salvation at Stake and The Unintended Reformation: How a Religious Revolution Secularized Society. His latest book is called 
What was Martin Luther trying to accomplish when he nailed his ninety-five theses to the Wittenburg church door? Would you believe he didn’t intend to start a new religious movement at all? Down the centuries Martin Luther has been lauded by some, lambasted by others. Was he an amazing hero or an arch heretic, or perhaps something different altogether?
Craig Harline is a professor of history at Brigham Young University and an award-winning author of books including Sunday: A History of the First Day from Babylonia to the Super Bowl and Way Below the Angels, a memoir of his service as a Mormon missionary in Belgium. He specializes in Reformation-era Christianity. His latest book is called A World Ablaze: The Rise of Martin Luther and the Birth of the Reformation.