Scholars @ Hallwalls - Life for Life: Tithes and Blessings in Buffalo's African-American Churches
Select Fridays between September 2014 and May 2015, Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center becomes an intellectual salon. Scholars at Hallwalls features eight thought-provoking, award-winning lectures in the humanities, presented in the intellectual and inspiring setting of Hallwalls. Faculty Fellows will present their cutting-edge humanities research in terms accessible to those in other disciplines and outside academia. The events will continue to be social occasions as well, with complimentary hors d'oeuvres...
All lectures are free and open to the public.
In this talk, he will discuss his ethnographic work on how members of predominantly African-American charismatic churches in east Buffalo make tithes and donations in order to secure material and spiritual benefits for themselves and others. In a context of impoverishment, many believers hope to receive "blessings" from God by "planting a seed in the Kingdom" in the form of substantial cash offerings and tithes. Believers regard tithes and offerings not merely as expenditures but as forms of work that they must perform to bring about well-being for themselves, their families, and their communities under circumstances that deeply jeopardize them.
Frederick Klaits is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University at Buffalo who works on issues of religion, healing, and inequality. His past work has explored the efforts of members of healing churches in Botswana to sustain relationships of care and love in the context of the HIV/AIDS pandemic.
