As a minister in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, an army chaplain, a college professor, and a prolific writer, Theophilus Gould Steward was one of America s leading black intellectuals during the half-century following Emancipation. He was not only a theologian
deeply committed to challenging his church s outlook, he also epitomized postbellum efforts to create an African American civil society through religious, educational, and social institutions integral to citizenship.
Steward actively constructed a theological discourse that challenged both black and white religious and...