In this thought-provoking episode, our guest, Charline Manuel, shares how she searched for answers to her questions, found Unity Church and ensured that New Thought religions are included in global interfaith communities.

Highlights:

• Charline’s childhood belief that God created her for joy
• How Charline got “New Thought” a seat at the table of the world’s religions
• Where Charline finds “diversity on steroids”
• The Unity Church history of “The Daily Word” booklet
• What Thanksgiving dinner is like as her whole family isn’t Unity

Mentioned in This Episode:

• Unity Church: https://www.unity.org/en
• Parliament of the World’s Religions: https://parliamentofreligions.org/
• Unity Church and Race: https://www.unity.org/en/article/unity-and-race-truthful-history

Books by Charline Manuel:

• The Power of One Accord: 7 Spiritual Keys to Consensus Building for Spirit-Led Boards: https://amzn.to/4qA4nCw
• Shaping Hope: Harnessing the Power of Grace in Your Life Stories: https://amzn.to/4owXeAQ
• Pray Up Your Life: Self-Exploration Companion Workbook: https://amzn.to/3LwfP1G
• Do Puppies Pray: https://amzn.to/4qlBIAS
• Pray Up Your Life: 50 Powerful Prayer Practices to Help You Create the Life You Desire: https://amzn.to/47wx7mY
• The Metaphysics of Shoes: 12 Extraordinary Steps to Empower Your Sole’s Journey: https://amzn.to/430I9zl
• The Power of One Accord: 7 Spiritual Keys to Harness Synergy in the Boardroom: https://amzn.to/4oE9lMI
• Boardroom Culture Shock: 7 Strategies to Amplify the Competence and Capacity of Board Culture: https://amzn.to/4oJzWIq

Books available here: https://amazon.com/author/charline

Guest Information:

Charline Manuel is an inspirational Author, Speaker, Board Consultant and Unity Minister of thirty years. In her work she has encouraged small and large audiences nationally and internationally through her writings, keynote messages, workshops, seminars, and retreats. Charline has been active in international initiatives bringing water to villages in Africa, building a school in Haiti, and peace immersion in Costa Rica. She served as a church pastor for twenty-two years before moving into training church leaders and their boards to be more effective leaders. Charline served on the Board of Directors of Unity World Headquarters and was the first person of color to serve as Chair of the board in the organization’s 130-year history. Charline currently serves as Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Parliament of World’s Religions headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. She is a faculty instructor of the Unity Urban Ministerial School helping to develop spiritual leaders for ministry since 2012. Charline is the author of nine books including titles: Pray Up Your Life and The Metaphysics of Shoes, Boardroom Culture Shock and The Power of One Accord: 7 Keys to Harnessing Synergy in the Boardroom. However, if you ask Charline of all her books which is closest to her heart she will tell you children’s book, Do Puppies Pray? Written with her two grandchildren in mind. She is a proud mother and grandmother, making her home just outside of Orlando, Florida.

https://charlinemanuel.com/

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In this thought-provoking episode, our guest, William D. Hart, shares how his penchant for religious autobiographies led him to critique what he coins as “the standard narrative of Black religion” and how Afro-ecentric forms of spirituality develop strong communities and fight for freedom.

Highlights:

• What William D. Hart means by “the standard narrative of Black religion”
• The Black church as a school of leadership, business and virtue – the “outsized” role that the Black church played in the lives of African Americans
• How historians and sociologists created an entity called “The Black Church”
• The positive and negative sides of strong communities
• Afro-Eccentric forms of spirituality as distinct from the norms of “the Black Church”
• Black freedom movements for the unchurched and anti-church

Mentioned in This Episode:

• E.B. DuBois, The Negro Church: https://amzn.to/4nkJZm1
• Judith Weisenfeld, New World A-Coming: Black Religion and Racial Identity during the Great Migration: https://amzn.to/3Wisp7a
• Anthony Hoekema, The Four Major Cults: Christian Science, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormonism, Seventh-Day Adventism: https://amzn.to/3L04mYe
• Arthur Huff Fauset, Black Gods of the Metropolis: Negro Religious Cults: https://amzn.to/48J3uRG
• Joseph Murphy, Working the Spirit: Ceremonies of the African Diaspora: https://amzn.to/4qoes5e
• Tracy E. Hucks, Yoruba Traditions and African American Nationalism: https://amzn.to/49hGHwn
• Tracey E. Hucks: Obeah, Orisa and Religious Identity in Trinidad, Vol. 1, Obeah: Africans in the White Colonial Imagination: https://amzn.to/47D6ZrG
• Robert Farris Thompson, Flash of the Spirit: African and Afro-American Art and Philosophy: https://amzn.to/4hkfZoS
• Antioch Missionary Baptist Church, Phoenix, AZ: https://ambc-az.org/
• Cornel West: http://www.cornelwest.com/

Books by William D. Hart:

Edward Said and the Religious Effects of Culture: https://amzn.to/4o48FAs

Black Religion: Malcolm X, Julius Lester, and Jan Willis: https://amzn.to/4hr4Um3

Afro-Eccentricity: Beyond the Standard Narrative of Black Religion: https://amzn.to/47eGKq5

The Blackness of Black: Key Concepts in Critical Discourse: https://amzn.to/4hjUNPO

Guest Information:

William David Hart is the Margaret W. Harmon Professor of Religious Studies at Macalester College. He is the author of The Blackness of Black: Key Concepts in Critical Discourse (Lexington 2020); Afro-Eccentricity: Beyond the Standard Narrative of Black Religion (Palgrave (2011); Black Religion: Malcolm X, Julius Lester, and Jan Willis (Palgrave 2008); and Edward Said and the Religious Effects of Culture (Cambridge 2000). His research interests include Black studies, social theory, philosophy of race, American philosophy, and the intersections of religion, ethics, and politics.

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In this thought-provoking episode, our guest, Will Coleman, shares how hoodoo is his religion of origin, his interests in African retentions in African American culture, and why he considers his spiritual practice to be expansive rather than eclectic.

Highlights:

• How hoodoo underlies Will Coleman’s rearing in Black Christianity
• How years of learning led to a year of initiations
• How tarot cards led him to “ancestral intelligence”
• Will’s connection between memory and being engaged in movements for liberation

Mentioned in This Episode:

• Henry Louis Gates Jr., Signifying Monkey: a Theory of African American Literary Criticism: https://amzn.to/42Ameig
• Michael Beckwith: https://www.michaelbeckwith.com/
• Presbyterian Church USA: https://pcusa.org/
• Where'd He Get That?: A Biblical Cross-Reference to Ernest Holmes' the Science of Mind by Margo Ruark: https://amzn.to/4n2CrEq
• Rosicrucianism/ Fraternity of the Rosy Cross: https://www.rosicrucian.org/
• Oba Adebolu Fatunmise: https://youtu.be/W_ohdHEhNbs?si=t8rrZyRhqLW0jU2v

Books by Will Coleman:

Tribal Talk: Black Theology, Hermeneutics, and African/American Ways of “Telling the Story”: https://amzn.to/47lxxNW

African Traditional Religions Textbook: Ifa (open source): https://research.auctr.edu/Ifa

Guest Information:

Will Coleman, Ph.D. is a theologian and teacher of Biblical spirituality. He was born and grew up in Memphis, Tennessee. After completing his Bachelor of Arts degree in religion at Rhodes College in Memphis, he moved to Decatur, Georgia in order to attend Columbia Theological Seminary where he received his Master of Divinity degree, with a focus in theology. A few years later, he went on to receive the Ph.D. from the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California. His areas of concentration were in philosophical and systematic theology, philosophy of religion and interpretation theory. He is Associate Professor of Theology and World Religions Emeritus from the Interdenominational Theological Center; The Holmes Institute; and The Johnnie Colman Theological Seminary. He is an honorably retired minster of the presbyterian church (U.S.A.). He teaches and tutors individuals and groups in a variety of contexts in the areas of theology and Biblical spirituality, which interprets the Bible as a guide for transformation of consciousness in the original sounds, symbols and languages of the Hebrew, Greek and Latin texts than in English translations

wcolemanphd33 at gmail dot com

FB: https://www.facebook.com/will.coleman.56

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Have thoughts about this episode? We’d love to hear from you! Send us your comments or questions at www.DiverseDevotions.com