Evangelicals, Catholics, and Vodouyizan in Haiti - by Celucien L Joseph & Lewis A Clorméus (Hardcover)

About the Book

"Explores the antagonistic history of Haiti's two dominant religious traditions - Christianity and Vodou - an antipathy which has had a marked impact on nation-building in Haiti, weakening Haitian democracy and challenging the widespread acceptance of religious freedom and expression. Using different theoretical frameworks and epistemological traditions, this volume examines the misunderstandings between the two faiths and provides a manifesto for building constructive channels towards mutual cooperation and peace"--

Book Synopsis

Exploring the subject through many different theoretical frameworks and epistemological traditions, this book confronts the history of Haiti's three major practicing religious faiths: Vodou, Roman Catholicism, and Protestant Evangelicalism.

Scholars, researchers, and faith practitioners have often depicted relations between these traditions as antagonistic, conflicting, unproductive, and lacking in mutual understanding. With the aim of exploring the possibility of nation building in Haiti and the benefits of interreligious collaboration, contributors to this book consider topics such as the obstacles to interfaith dialogue, religious conflict, interreligious dialogue in schools, race and identity, and religious pluralism.

This book will be beneficial to scholars, practitioners, historians, and sociologists of religion, as well as the religious communities themselves in Haiti and the Haitian Diaspora.

Review Quotes

"Combining the insightful voices of seasoned Haiti experts and exciting emergent scholars, this timely and compelling volume is a must read for anyone interested in religious pluralism in general and contemporary Caribbean religion in particular. Highly recommended!"
Terry Rey, Professor or Religion, Temple University, USA

"This landmark interdisciplinary volume illuminates religious plurality, transformation, conflict, and interconnection across Haiti and in the Haitian diaspora. The collection's wide-ranging contributions spotlight the complexity of Haiti's religious landscape transhistorically and transnationally, with particular attention to the roots of division and the dynamics of coexistence. This book advances scholarship across multiple fields as well as the project of interfaith dialogue in and beyond Haiti."
Kate Ramsey, Associate Professor Department of History, University of Miami, USA

About the Author

Celucien L. Joseph is Professor and Chair of the English Department at San Jacinto College, USA.
Lewis A. Clorméus is an associate research scholar in the Department of African American Studies
at Yale University, USA.