Significations: Signs, Symbols, and Images in the Interpretation of Religion

Significations is a criticism of several major approaches (phenomenological, historical, theological) to the study of religion in the United States, in which the author attempts (1) a reevaluation of some of the basic issues forming the study of religion in America, (2) an outline of a hermeneutics of conquest and colonialism generated during the formation of the social and symbolic order called the "New World," and (3) a critique of the categories of civil religion, innocence, and theology from the perspective of the black experience and the experience of colonized peoples.