“We desire to plead our own case,” said sociology professor Michelle Loyd-Paige as she opened a panel presentation of Afro-Christian scholarship. “For so long, we have had other people speak for us.”

The Feb. 6 discussion at the Meeter Center — one event in a celebration of Black History Month titled “Five Days in the Black World” — was a survey of scholarship done by Loyd-Paige, education professor Denise Isom, Spanish professor Ed Miller and multicultural affairs Dean Barbara Omolade.

“One of my mentors advised me not to teach in areas that deal with race,” Loyd-Paige continued, pleading for the essential contextual nature of Afro-Christian scholarship. “I wish I had had sense enough to say at that time, ‘Are you saying I shouldn’t speak about my own experience?’”

Loyd-Paige said Afro-Christian scholarship is marked by three other characteristics: It is transcultural. “It speaks to a variety of audiences. It’s not just for African-Americans. It’s not just for Africans.” It is also, she explained, integrative, absorbing and articulating the Christian faith of the scholar who does it. And Afro-Christian scholarship is, she said, prophetic.

“We should speak to the injustices that exist,” Loyd-Paige urged. “We should have justice sooner rather than later.”

Isom was the first of the scholars to present, sharing her research on racial-ized gender identity constructs. It was a project, she said, inspired by the reaction of her “fabulous nephew” to a music video. Using ethnography, focus groups and qualitative questionnaires, Isom studied fifth-, sixth- and seventh-graders from an after-school program in an urban metropolitan community, looking at how they identified maleness, femaleness, masculinity, femininity, blackness and the intersection of all of those concepts.

Isom’s upcoming project, a study of African-American fifth-, sixth- and seventh-graders from a particular church, will explore the impact of religiosity (specifically Christianity) on racial-ized gender constructs. “I’m looking to see how their explicit conversation about religion changes their image of maleness and femaleness,” she said.

Omolade, a sociologist, explained that part of her current research focuses on the origins of social evils such as racism and genocide. She described the crucifixion of Jesus as an act of public torture, comparing it to a lynching. “I believe,” she posited, “that social evil did not begin in the garden but actually began at the foot of the cross.” Another scholarly focus for Omolade is the African-American Christians of the 20th century who waged the war against segregation. “They looked at their relationship with God as action that was confronting evil,” she said.

Miller’s research took him to libraries in South America to compile an annotated bibliography of the black press in Uruguay and Argentina. He said recovery of this “almost lost work” is important in both the cultural context that produced it and in the wider context of the African diaspora.

“This document will show, I believe, how important a vehicle these newspapers were for black writers, since in many cases they provided the only literary outlet for their creative work and an accessible way of describing the life of the community during those years,” Miller said. “The second part of my project will be the recovery and preservation of the materials that were published in these newspapers. To date there has not been an attempt to preserve the literary and cultural content of these newspapers.”

Loyd-Paige completed the presentation with a summary of her own research, one part of which is a study of “just worship.” As an African-American clergywoman, she said, she is intrigued by the question, “What is gender equity?” in the context of just worship. Another project, she said chuckling, is an anthology of the work of African-American female vegans. “There are two of us!” Isom interjected.

Loyd-Paige said that Afro-Christian scholarship is a subject she didn’t fully examine or understand until she participated in the Consultation of Afro-Christian Scholars in Higher Education, an annual summer gathering of black Christian scholars at Calvin College. “What’s nice about it for me is being challenged as a scholar about my discipline and to think more critically about my place and my work,” she said. “It’s a very affirming as well as a very challenging time.”

Events such as the Feb. 6 panel are important, too, Loyd-Paige said: “It’s the celebration of the mind that we all cherish at Calvin.”