Black Life and Christian Spirituality

Although Black life and Christian spirituality are not identical, they do converge in numerous obvious and not-so-obvious ways. At their best, they are mutually illuminating and strengthening. For Black Christians, of course, they are inseparable. Every morning after I wake, the racial determinations of my existence and the divine whispers in my conscience are immediately present in my embodied thoughts, feelings, and actions, and there is no way to pull them apart. However, this intermingling also happens in the wider culture, as artefacts of anti-Black racism and movements of resistance to it interact with an ambient Christianity that is both complicit in and antagonistic toward worldly powers of domination. In the midst of such a potentially confusing swirl of associations, I hope that this book will provide some clarity. If any of its arguments remain obscure (and I grant that some chapters veer toward dense, technical discussions), a safe bet is to return to the central thesis, which is that Black people are made to be loved. This is God's unambiguous will, and anything that contravenes it is incompatible with true Christian spirituality.