Abstract

Working through oral traditions, this book illustrates the importance of spirituality and the family in African-Caribbean culture. The author shows how inter-generational conversations, where elders share personal experiences and reflections from their life with children and young people, encourage, inspire and educate the younger generation and contribute to their sense of identity.

The author's approach can be applied in different cultural settings and both outlines and affirms an active role for older people in the community. It also provides useful historical background on the migration of people coming from the Caribbean to Britain. Containing case studies, it is a practical and reflective resource for religious professionals, social workers and anyone seeking to understand the meaning of religion and faith for Britain's African and Caribbean communities.

A short, stimulating and grounded book…Reddie, working through oral traditions, illustrates the importance of family in African-Caribbean culture. He shows how intergenerational conversations, where elders share personal experiences and reflections from their life with children and young people, encourage, inspire and educate the younger generation and contribute to their sense of identity…Reddie provides an important model for pastoral theology.
Leveson Newsletter
Anthony Reddie's work will be intriguing to those who continue to think of ways to support elders who must confront the hardship of their daily lives.
Transcultural Psychiatry
The book challenges us to remember how easily we forget the presence, contributions and achievements of Black elders in British society and churches. It also emphasises the importance of the oral tradition of telling stories as a way of strengthening and encouraging younger people. This is an issue of the nurture of children and the integration of older people through intergenerational conversations. This is a way available to us for the enriching of each other's lives through mutual encouragement and for the deepening of a shared identity. Reddie achieves this through the use of three broad approaches. He establishes the historical and theological background of the oral traditions of Black people. The second part outlines the methodology and framework used in order to gain access to these stories of faith and experience. The final section highlights some of the practical possibilites arising from the work...In our acknowledgement of cultural diversity racism pervades and Reddie leads us to a place where we can open ourselves up to learning from difference an diversity...I hope that this contribution to pastoral theology will be read and used. Reddie has provided us with tools to embrace a different way of understanding older people and ultimately of being Church.
Reviews in Religion and Theology.

This book is a practical and reflective resource for religious professionals, social workers and anyone seeking to understand the meaning of religion and faith for Britain's African and Caribbean communities. The author shows how intergenerational conversations, where elders share personal experiences and reflections from their lives with young people, encourage and educate the young and contribute

to their sense of identity. It also provides historical information on the migration of people coming from the Caribbean to Britain. The first part of the work describes the author's academic work that attempts to establish the historical and theological background of the oral traditions of Black people. The second part outlines the methodology and framework he created to gain access to these stories, and the third part highlights some of the implications for intergenerational work.

SAGE - Race Relations Abstracts

Anthony Reddie celebrates the theological creativity, educational aspirations, travails and triumphs of our Black Elders. It is good to know that the inevitable judgement of time has not completely replaced of songs of our Elders with an awkward silence. On the contrary, the author's work seeks to provide a voice for the so-called voiceless, ensuring that their stories live on.

At last we have an academic book that can be helpful to Ministers who are seeking to understand the world view and experiences of their Black constituency, assist Blacks of different generations in their intergenerational conversations, and empower the Black elders and their younger relatives to continue “Singing the Lonrds Song in a Strange Land”.

Ministry Today
The book presents a valuable history of the African Caribbean community in Britain and a coherent model of storyworking within that community. Here is an approach that, with the proper research and respect, can be applied in many other communities and help our ears to be ones with power to open mouths.
Storylines
Anthony G. Reddie is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Queens Foundation for Ecumenical Theological Education in Birmingham, and is a Consultant in Christian Education and Development to the Methodist Church. He is the author of Growing into Hope, the first Black African-centred work in Christian Education in Europe.