This issue of the Journal of Africana Religions features three interdisciplinary research articles. The first, by Christopher Tounsel, examines religion in Sudan under the shadow of war. Tounsel explicates the dynamic and often troubling dimensions of theology that can emerge under the duress of life-and-death conflicts. The second article, by Paul Christopher Johnson, is a lucid study of method that tackles the challenge that the subject of spirits poses for scholarly inquiry. Marcus Harvey, who authored the third article, examines the work of Zora Neale Hurston to elucidate the concept of opacity in Black religion. Both Harvey and Johnson, in fact, find important inspiration in the work of Hurston. So, it is fitting that their work shares this issue with a roundtable devoted to Hurston.
The intellectual study of Africana religions has a remarkable history that is distinctly marked by the creative work of scholars who have appreciated the utility...