Reading Black Books: How African American Literature Can Make Our Faith More Whole and Just by Claude Atcho

Reading Black Books: How African American Literature Can Make Our Faith More Whole and Just Reviews

• 
  Erin Straza

  Have you ever finished a book so heavy with truth and beauty and goodness that you don’t know how to sum it up? That’s where I am today upon completing Claude Atcho’s Reading Black Books: How African American Literature Can Make Our Faith More Whole and Just. I’m the sort who marks up books with notes, underlining, and asterisks. Pages with ideas I want to return to get a folded corner. More pages are folded than not and a flip through the book reveals copious amounts of fuschia markings.
  
  Full disclosure: Claude is a writer friend; we’ve chatted about faith, books, work, writing, and podcasting. I’ve been eagerly awaiting the release of his book, knowing it would be fantastic. You might think I was biased in that assumption, considering our previous connection, considering I received an ARC from Brazos Press.
  
  What I found from the first pages was my friend as pastor, shepherd, prophet, counselor, guide. Claude features 10 key creative African American works to cast a vision for human flourishing rooted in the power and love of God found in Jesus Christ. Just listen to this moving excerpt: “Healing is found in the constant individual and communal turn toward the tender mercies of God, who calls us to a theological remembrance: to locate our history in his, to make sense of our memory in his memory, to process our wounds in his wounds” (126). This book is beautifully written, theologically robust, and desperately needed. I cannot recommend this book highly enough. It is stunning.
• 
  Haley Baumeister

  What an illuminating walk through several well-known (and some lesser-known) texts! I had read a few of these books in recent years, and am inspired to re-read those. There are others I'm now eyeing to read for the first time. These chapters would ideally be read alongside the actual texts to get its full value, but still stands on its own.
  
  He's a pastor with graduate degrees in both English Literature & Theological Studies - and that experience shows in the best way. Learning how to learn from novels that have been born of culture (even and especially from authors who are not necessary Christians) is something that shines through. Humility is being able to learn from anyone. Atcho shows how all truth is God's truth, whether or not a particular author would say so. But stories have a way of revealing the nuances of the human condition and the light of Truth that shines through. African American Literature has much to teach us, and Atcho elevates these texts with beautiful theological precision.
  
  This book fits nicely into the wonderful genre of books that talk about books - and how novels interact with our spiritual lives. Others that come to mind are Karen Swallow Prior's "On Reading Well" and Jessica Hooten Wilson's "The Scandal Of Holiness" and "Reading For The Love Of God." (Atcho talked with Hooten Wilson on her podcast The Scandal Of Reading, and they had a conversation together with The Trinity Forum - both of which would be great listens.)
• 
  Barry

  Atcho here examines works of literature written by African Americans through a theological lens. His insights are often illuminating and insightful. I thought his analysis of
  Native Son was especially helpful. Of course I got more out of the chapters covering the books that I’ve already read, but the others inspired me to read the books that I haven’t.
  
  
  Each chapter discusses a particular theme illustrated by a specific novel or poem(s):
  
  Image of God: Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man
  
  Sin: Richard Wright's Native Son
  
  God: James Baldwin's Go Tell It on the Mountain
  
  Jesus: Countee Cullen's "Christ Recrucified" and "The Black Christ"

  Salvation: Zora Neale Hurston's Moses, Man of the Mountain
  
  Racism: Nella Larsen's Passing
  
  Healing and Memory: Toni Morrison's Beloved
  
  Lament: W. E. B. Du Bois's "The Litany of Atlanta"
  
  Justice: Richard Wright's The Man Who Lived Underground
  
  Hope: Margaret Walker's "For My People"
• 
  Josh Olds

  I read a lot. Fiction. Non-fiction. Lifeisstory.com was started an outlet for that obsession for stories—real and imagined—and how they effect and change individuals and societies. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve become more cognizant of the fact my high school English and Literature classes were pretty much exclusively white. It’s only been recently that I’ve started to purposefully read fiction and non-fiction by Black authors. Even then, being white, I’ve often found myself missing some educational or cultural element. Claude Atcho’s Reading Black Books introduces readers to a selection of important Black American literature and provides in-depth discussion on them through the lens of faith and justice.
  
  Reading Black Books is a masterpiece of literary and theological reflection. Even without diving into the specificities of the books or their authors, Atcho models how to read fiction theologically. His insight goes way beyond the superficial and cut to the heart of what these books and their authors are consciously and unconsciously saying about God, faith, and justice. Atcho is a current pastor who has, in the past, taught collegiate African American literature. Reading Black Books combines his two areas of expertise, making him uniquely qualified for this book.
  
  Atcho covers ten different themes, as seen through the lens of ten different Black authors. Seven of the chapters cover novels; three focus on poetry:
  
  1. Image of God: Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man
  2. Sin: Richard Wright’s Native Son
  3. God: James Baldwin’s Go Tell It on the Mountain
  4. Jesus: Countree Cullen’s “Christ Recrucified” and “The Black Christ”
  5. Salvation: Sora Neale Hurston’s Moses, Man of the Mountain
  6. Racism: Nella Larsen’s Passing
  7. Healing and Memory: Toni Morrison’s Beloved
  8. Lament: W.E.B. Du Bois’s “The Litany of Atlanta”
  9. Justice: Richard Wright’s The Man Who Lived Underground
  10. Hope: Margaret Walker’s “For My People”
  
  Each chapter is 12-18 pages long, introducing the cultural context of the work before diving into its primary themes, images, metaphors, and messages. The chapters end with a contemporary reflection on what we do with what we’ve learned through the work.
  
  The best way to read Reading Black Books would be to use it as a literature class, using Atcho’s reflections as a guide for reading through the actual source material.
  
  One criticism of the book is that it assumes the reader already has a working knowledge of the books it is discussing. Even for readers who have read a book or are familiar with it, it can still be a bit discombobulating to be dropped right into the middle of a discussion about it. Taking a few extra pages and the beginning of each chapter to summarize the content about to be analyzed would have made Reading Black Books more accessible and drawn readers into the analysis more smoothly. Also, while there are discussion questions for each chapter, they are reserved for the end of the book. Stylistically, I think it would have been more helpful to have had those at the end of each chapter.
  
  But the only place I can really criticize is structure. The quality of the content that is there is engaging, thoughtful, nuanced, and robust. Atcho’s love for each of the works discussed comes through his words as he cogently and passionately shares the Black experience as seen through these writers. Stories matter. Black stories matter. Reading Black Books is Christian literary criticism at its finest. This is a needed work and Atcho could easily pen several more volumes like this and I would read each one.
  
  
  
• 
  Bob

  Summary: Theological reflections on ten key pieces of Black literature.
  
  A number of books have been written about reading diverse literature, for example, the literature of the Black community, to gain understanding and empathy for that experience. Reading Black Books does that and more. Claude Atcho considers a variety of key works of Black literature from a theological perspective, focusing on one major theme for each work. He considers this not only edifying, but also offering insights into our theological “blind spots” and deficiencies. Particularly, he believes this reading can lead to a more whole and just faith. He also warns that such reading may not be easy. Black literature reflects the trauma of the Black experience, often in all of its rawness.
  
  The collection opens with considering the theme of the image of God in Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man. He then moves to the nature of sin in Richard Wright’s Native Son, the story of Bigger Thomas, who begins by killing a rat and ends up committing multiple murders. Wright’s work explores both the personal and systemic aspects of sin. James Baldwin’s Go Tell It on the Mountain considers God and Gabriel’s toxic faith lacking in God’s redemptive love. Countee Cullen, in his poems “Christ Recrucified” and “The Black Christ” draws the connection later drawn by James Cone between the cross and the lynching tree, and the powerful connection that Christ’s cross has for many Blacks. Salvation is the theme of his consideration of Zora Neale Hurston’s Moses, Man of the Mountain. For Atcho, it presents a stifled liberation, more dependent on Moses than the liberating work of God.
  
  Nella Larsen’s Passing, serves as a lens for considering racism through the phenomenon of “passing” and Clare’s decision to “pass” to attain an upper class lifestyle. In Beloved, by Toni Morrison, Atcho considers the healing and memory, the issue of racial trauma through the story of the very unfriendly ghost of Beloved. W. E. B DuBois’s, “The Litany of Atlanta” considers something alien to much of white experience–lament–the sense of loss, the absence of God, confronting God, being formed in lament, and dealing with pain through the cross. A second Richard Wright story, The Man Who Lived Underground serves as a reflection on justice as we encounter the injustices faced by model Black citizen Fred Daniels who is unjustly arrested for a crime he didn’t commit, escapes custody and hides in the sewer system. Finally, Margaret Walker’s “For My People” reflects on the meaning of hope in a communal setting.
  
  Each chapter combines critical consideration and theological reflection. Having not read a number of the works commended by Atcho, I can say his treatment whetted my appetite for reading these works. This book serves both as a basic reading list for seminal works of Black literature and a rich theological reflection on those works. Ideally, one would read this work in conjunction with the books and verse that serve as the focus of each chapter, perhaps for a course like “Reading Black Books with the Eyes of Faith” or a book group of Christians eager to grow in theologically-informed reading of Black works. To aid in this, the book includes discussion questions for each chapter/work. Now to go and buy/borrow the books in this book!
  
  ____________________________
  
  Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher through LibraryThing’s Early Reviewer Program.
• 
  Jared

  Claude Atcho is a godly man, a faithful pastor, and a thoughtful reader. So I've been eager to dig into this for a while. He's produced a beautiful work of literary criticism and theological reflection on selected works from the African American tradition. I most appreciated Atcho's chapters on God's image (Ellison's Invisible Man), on seeing sin as personal, systemic, and cosmic (Wright's Native Son), on justice as dignifying, retributive, and restorative (Wright's The Man Who Lived Underground), and his reflection on resurrection hope in light of Margaret Walker's "For My People." The chapters on Zora Neale Hurston's conceptions of salvation and Countee Cullen's vision of Jesus raised questions for me. Atcho seems to imply that covenant theology's doctrine of supercessionism necessarily leads to colonialism and stands against belief in a future for ethnic Israel; I may have misunderstood Atcho here, but if not, I'd want to ask whether he's ruling out doctrines long held by orthodox believers simply because those doctrines have been abused. Also, when reflecting on Christ's sensory solidarity with the despised and lynched, Atcho (who, to be clear, strongly affirms substitutionary atonement) appeals to Peter Abelard's moral influence atonement theory. This is valid logic, but I wonder if a more Protestant approach would be to link the Harlem Renaissance's emphasis on solidarity to Luther's "theology of the cross" as Reggie Williams does in Bonhoeffer's Black Jesus. Despite these minor questions, Atcho's book is a treasure. As a result of his reflections, I've added a number of the volumes he's reviewed to my future reading.
  
  One last thing: Because I'm a sci-fi nerd, I was a little disappointed that Atcho didn't reflect on any of Octavia Butler's novels. I'd love to see a bonus chapter on Kindred or Parable of the Sower in the future!
• 
  Leslie

  Reading Black Books: How African-American Literature Can Make Our Faith More Whole and Just by Claude Atcho belongs on your shelf if you are a literature buff or professor, an avid reader who wants to diversify your reading, or a Christian who wants to learn more about racial issues. In this recent book published by Brazos Press, author Claude Atcho combines his degrees in both literature and theology to help readers more fully see and grasp theological themes in 10 works by African-American authors.
  
  Reading Black Books is not a book to read quickly. While one can read the book by itself simply for the content, this book is much better when read in tandem with the books Atcho is analyzing. Another option would be to read Atcho's commentary before reading the book that he analyzes to help readers watch for these themes. With a background in both theology and literature, Atcho easily pulls from both disciplines and weaves in his own experiences as well. As such this is a delightful work. Reading Black Books would be a wonderful textbook for a course in African-American Literature or would serve as a reading guide for book clubs or study groups who wish to encounter diverse literature. Highly recommended for academic libraries.
  
  Disclosure of Material Connection: I received Reading Black Books from Baker Publishing-Brazos Books via NetGalley. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.
• 
  Nathan Meyers

  Fantastic book about books. I read it rather slowly, as African American literature is quite heavy and I wanted to sit with the themes of each chapter. It was great to reflect and "dig in" on both books I've already read (Native Son, Moses Man of the Mountain) and books I was motivated to read because of this book (Passing, Go Tell it on the Mountain)
• 
  Walter Wittwer

  This is an excellent book, which engaged me immediately. Atcho has a balanced view of history, a way with words that is interesting, and a creative mind and heart which invites you into each book and poem he reviews. He is convincing in his assessment of each author’s intent, or at least what the reader can find in these writings. His eyes are sharp, and he shares what he sees with clarity. There is a sense of, “come and see what I’ve discovered!” I sensed his enthusiasm and felt I was part of the discovery. As a white man, I felt included, and I desired to know better the psyche of the Black man and woman, to understand more fully the damage done to African people through their enslavement, and the generational pain that continues into the present.
  In the introduction, Mr. Atcho describes beautifully why I so love to read, “to read literature is to incarnate and inhabit the experience of another.” This is why I love reading the Bible, because I can increasingly inhabit those ancient times, and those people who, increasingly, are just like me, and I like them. Mr. Atcho’s book reminds me that, to take life seriously, as a Christian, everything written should be read through a theological lens, or “the grid of Divine revelation; it’s the sacred, dignifying task of placing our collective story, told through literature, in conversation with God’s story.” Like Scripture, the books, and poems he examines, are excruciatingly honest about humanity’s inhumanity and depravity. And he reminds us that, as in the Bible, “description does not mean prescription or endorsement.”
  He begins with “Invisible Man” by Ralph Ellison, published in 1952, and shows us how this book spoke of the imago Dei, which was denied the invisible man. Pastor Atcho explains how even though the truth is that we were all created in the image of God, if we are not allowed to image Him in our flesh, we are being deprived something essential to life. If we do not see each other as fellow image bearers, we are, in essence, erasing the other, deconstructing their image. “The freedom to be all that God has made a person to be is an indispensable part of what it means to carry the mantle of image bearer.”
  Rev. Atcho reminds us that dignity is not earned, but given, by God, to each of His creatures. Christ was denied that dignity; stripped naked, hung on a cross, mocked, murdered, His blood drained out with the tip of a spear. And for so long, the Black woman and man’s experience has been the same. Denying a person’s dignity is akin to draining them of their blood. As God told us, “the life is in the blood.” (Lev.17:11) To render one invisible, is to kill. Even in today’s cancel culture, we attempt to render each other invisible. But we know that God sees us still, and we cannot be made invisible in His eyes.
  He moves next to “Native Son” by Richard Wright, published in 1940, a brutal story that shows sin as not individual, but communal. Much like Achan’s supposed private sin (no one else knew, except, of course, God) which caused the death of 36 innocent men, as well as, his entire family, sin is never individual, and Mr. Atcho does well in reminding us of this fact through his critique of Native Son. Sin is sin, and the perpetrator deserves his/her punishment, but there are always innocent bystanders who also reap what we sow. Though not excusing the protagonist’s crime, the author explains why, by quoting Howard Thurman: “there are few things more devastating than to have it burned into you that you do not count.”
  Once again, we are exhorted to remember what Paul so brilliantly expounded on in Romans 12 and 1 Corinthians 12, that we are one body and that when one part is sick, the whole body is sick. We are called to heal each other for the sake of the whole body, which by make-up, means for our own sake. “Wright’s tragic tale reminds God's people that it is not sufficient to call sinners to repent of their sins and not work to remedy the structures in which Sin is perpetuated and exacerbated.”
  “Go Tell It on The Mountain” by James Baldwin, published in 1953, comes next. Here Atcho shows us how Baldwin painted a picture of a life, a church, and a family, devoid of grace and dignity, and the devastation that brings. I have not read this book, but it sounds like, 70 years ago, we were the same as we are, too often, now. A pastor in love with power more than God, a church more enamored with judgement than grace, destroys lives like a string of dominoes. This seems to me more of an everyman tale of being, as the Beatles put it, a Nowhere Man, which inclines one to seek after power. This is not to take away from Mr. Atcho’s point that the lack of love in the White church has caused many in the Black church to wonder if Christianity is a White man’s religion.
  Father Atcho then moves to poetry, looking at, “Christ Recrucified” and “Black Christ” by Countee Cullen, I believe first published in 1929. Here he educates us as to the end of slavery being the beginning of lynchings, the hanging of Black men from trees, much like the hanging of Christ from a tree. These were public spectacles, meant to send a message. He shows that this comparison underlines that Christ did not just suffer for us, but also with us, “in solidarity with the world’s despised and forsaken.” Dying on a tree is an ancient way of humiliation that we can’t seem to get enough of, and “Christianity is the only major religion to have as its central focus the suffering and degradation of its God.”
  Next comes Zora Neale Hurston’s book, “Moses, Man of the Mountain,” published in 1939, which immerses Black liberation in Exodus, and Moses as a Black savior of sorts. This Moses is not an Israelite, but a grandson of Pharoah. In the “founding” of America, colonizers likened themselves as the new Israel, being rescued from an oppressive government and an oppressive church. Ironically, they brought slavery with them and became oppressors themselves, creating the need for yet a non-Israelite Moses, to rescue the newly oppressed. We intelligent humans do seem to live our lives on carousels.
  From Genesis to Revelation, the Bible is a book about liberation, from sin, from slavery, from oppression, from our own regrettable stupidity, so I suppose stories of liberation will always need to be told. Although every country has its own version of slavery, ours is ours and we need to acknowledge it if we are ever going to move past it.
  Rev. Atcho says of “Passing” by Nella Larsen, published in 1929, that it is successful at questioning the whole idea and nature of race. This has also been done in excellent books like, “One Blood” by John Perkins who reminds us that we are all born as one race, one bloodline, and we are called to be one people. What has happened in America, in the church, is a despoiling of faith, a melding of the Bible with the culture. Racism is not faith in the blood of Christ, but faith in “racial blood.” He reminds us that “99.9% of our DNA is identical from one person to the next,” and it is merely the amount of melanin in our skin that separates us.
  And this separation even brings tension among African Americans. But too often, we people with less melanin provoke this tension. I have seen it at my work. The more “color” someone has, the leerier of them are those without. Through this book, we are called to stop and reflect on the, perhaps, latent racism remaining in our souls (if we’re honest). Pastor Atcho warns us that, “a lack of critical reflection on the notion of race has produced in our churches and society a sort of dissonant racial understanding…. Many of us have quietly imbibed this dueling racial consciousness, having been taught equity as the ideal but difference as the reality, and thus hierarchy is our quiet, latent, unchecked assumption.”
  “Beloved” by Toni Morrison, published in 1987, is a hard book to read. It’s a brutal but important book because it gives us a sense of the amount of damage done to Black people in this country and digs into the depth of the hurt and the immense difficulty in healing such all-encompassing pain. I believe too, many of us feel that everyone should just get over it, things are better now. But the reality is, even if one were to take a beginning course in General Psychology, it ain’t so easy. And, this attitude belies the fact that racist winds still buffet these old wounds, and like someone who keeps pulling a scab off a cut, the healing process is constantly interrupted. These are my thoughts, let me move to Father Atcho’s take.
  He rightly tells us that, “honesty is where healing begins, and in “Beloved,” historical honesty is hard to bear.” Much of the book is a “litany of suffering” and rage. In his own words, “without righteous anger, healing is unlikely, for rage is proof that we stared suffering in the eye and saw it for what it is: an affront to the reign of God and the value of his image bearers.”
  The author brilliantly shows us that true healing, deep healing, to-the-source healing, occurs in community, and only occurs in community. Yes, Jesus called Lazarus out of the tomb, but it is the people around him, the community, who were told to “unbind him, and let him go.” (Jn.11:44) Mr. Atcho laments, “no wonder our country fails to heal from racial sins. There is contested debate about the history of our nation and the haunting legacy of that history upon the present. “Beloved” can help us - if we risk the retraumatization that comes with memory.” It will be a hard walk that must be taken by all sides, but its rewards will be glorious. Are we willing to go? It is the church that should take the lead, and if she is willing, she will reap the benefits of mattering again.
  “Healing is found in the constant individual and communal turn toward the tender mercies of God, who calls us to a theological remembrance: to locate our history in his, to make sense of our memory in his memory, to process our wounds in his wounds…. We heal in the light. We heal in redemptive community. We heal through the truth.”
  Lament is the theme of “The Litany of Atlanta” by W.E.B. DuBois, published in 1906 in response to three days of violence against the Black community in Atlanta, at least partially caused by false accusations of Black men violating White women, published in the newspapers. The poem/prayer does not deny God but wonders where He is and why He has abandoned his people. In the Reverend Atcho’s growing call for reconciliation, he issues the question, “what, then, might happen if non-Black persons took up lament over the loss of Black life in the mold of Psalm 13, Psalm 44, or “The Litany of Atlanta”? Might lament be the secret, vulnerable path to the promised land of a united church?”
  We have become such an “entertainment” society, that lament is thought of as a downer, raining on my parade. But without lament there can be no healing, only deafening silence, which eventually breaks out in violence. Martin Luther King Jr. was right when he said, “Violence is the language of the unheard.”
  Mr. Atcho returns to Richard Wright in the next chapter, looking at “The Man Who Lived Underground,” published in 1942. Here he looks at the complexity of justice juxtaposed against the two-dimensional justice system in place then and still now. His answer is profound, I think, although I have little hope of much progress this side of Christ’s second coming. But here, the author has hope, and his hope gives me hope.
  “Doing justice is reconfiguring the senseless world according to the life and logic of the kingdom – and doing so joyfully and relentlessly – even as some stand opposed to our good works. For to try to improve society is not worldliness but love. To wash your hands of society is not love but worldliness. Christian commitment to the world and age to come means tangible and countercultural engagement with the world that is.”
  In fact, his book ends with Hope as his last chapter in which he scrutinizes the poem “For My People” by Margaret Walker, published in 1942. It’s a beautiful poem filled with lament and hope, anger and mercy, longing, and more longing. It’s easy to find online and I would encourage everyone to read it. It is an Ode to a great people minimized, a misunderstood people understood, and an encouragement to continue to rise up and become.
  In his contemplation of this poem, Rev. Atcho adopts Paul’s promise in 2 Cor.4:8, reflecting that “as a people, we have been afflicted in every way but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; (adding) lynched but not forsaken; enslaved but not destroyed; assaulted but not vanquished; accused but not guilty; rejected by all manner of people but embraced by the God who stands over all.” This is an almost surprising ending but only for those who have never had to survive by hope alone. Genocide is an ongoing evil, but hope endures. Martyrdom is a daily event, but hope cannot be quenched. God is not dead.
  Father Atcho, who is an Anglican priest, sums it up beautifully and I end with his words:
  “My hope is not wrapped up in the enlightening of people, white or otherwise, as much as that is to be pursued. My hope is not tied to social progress, as much as that is to be desired. These are secondary causes for hope. My hope is wrapped up in nothing less than the one whose death conquered death and in whose life I find my own and through whose resurrection the new creation has launched and landed on this old broken world. The foundation of hope is the empty tomb.”
  All I can say is Amen!
  
  
• 
  CJ

  This book is an excellent read. Claude gives a fresh eye to some of the most important texts in Black literature. Highly recommend this book.
• 
  Scott J Pearson

  The year 2022 resides in an era where there is renewed interest in the African American experience. That experience, of course, is incredibly rich and deep and historically spans Slavery, Reconstruction, the Harlem Renaissance, and the Civil Rights Movement. Atcho, a Christian pastor, brings out that spiritual depth by highlighting ten pieces of literature that illuminate the African American experience and the African American perspective on theology.
  
  This book in unabashedly in the Christian tradition. In some places, it reads more like Atcho’s sermons than a piece of literary criticism. Because of that, readers who are turned off by religious thought may not like this exploration. In contrast, Christians might find these chapters helpful in understanding African American theology and history. It’s no secret that American Christianity is splintered by race. The “faithful” – especially religious leaders – can benefit from trying to overcome this bifurcation. Atcho provides a way for Christian white folk (like me) to better understand black Christianity while expanding our reading lists in the process.
  
  A number of newer books explore how to overcome racist divisions. This work takes this publishing movement a step further. It overcomes those racist divisions by citing a huge number of white authors alongside black authors while making a comprehensive thesis. Further, it builds an intellectual foundation for anti-racism based in the universal human experience. It does not merely teach us how to act towards the other; instead, it leads us towards understanding the black soul. It teaches us how racist discrimination can alter a person’s self-concept and how religious faith can lend a hopeful grounding to those experiences.
  
  This book is poised to make an impact in the American Christian community. In particular, I’m optimistic that those in predominantly white churches (again, like me) might pick up this book. I’m optimistic that some white preachers might purchase some of these books and begin to cite them in their sermons. Atcho’s theology and list of readings aren’t especially novel; what’s more new is the combination of the two in a post-George Floyd era. This book can lend us in understanding each other’s faiths. Our beliefs can only be made “more whole and just” by learning from each other.
  
  
• 
  Jack Heller

  I am not a person who needs convincing to read Black books. You can see this by looking through my Goodreads, and I've read more than I've noted in this app. I am a literature professor, so I have a bias towards good discussions of literature. I am also a professing Christian. Claude Atcho is the pastor of the Church of the Resurrection in Charlottesville, VA. The purpose of Reading Black Books is to persuade Christian readers to read Black literature for what it can show them about their faith.
  
  Most of the novels and poems Atcho discusses are classics in African American literature, most written before 1960, with the exception of Toni Morrison's Beloved. I have read most of the literary works Atcho discusses, and works by all of the authors. I am persuaded that I would like to read the Richard Wright and Zora Neale Hurston works I haven't read previously, and perhaps revisit the Countee Cullen poems I last read in graduate school.
  
  With books like Atcho's, I think authors should be modest in their claims. Nothing will drive a literature scholar crazy quite like a reading that Christianizes an author or the author's work in ways the author clearly did not intend. Atcho works more with intersections. Thus, though Ralph Ellison was not writing Christian literature with Invisible Man, Atcho identifies a shared concern between Christian theology and Ellison for human dignity. He discusses Ellison in chapter one, on the theology of the image of God, without claiming that Ellison had that theological concept specifically in mind.
  
  Being, I think, reasonably well-read in African American literature, I can think of some works I wish he had discussed, particularly by Gwendolyn Brooks, Colson Whitehead, and Ernest Gaines. (Christian readers can learn something about Gaines in Jessica Hooten Wilson's The Scandal of Holiness.) As a literature professor, I can affirm that in so far as Atcho reads closely in the literary texts, I think his readings are valid and enlightening. Occasionally, as with Go Tell It on the Mountain and Invisible Man, I wish he had developed the literary analysis further. But on balance, this is the work of a theologian-pastor with a deep appreciation for literature. I would welcome more books like this one.
• 
  Emma Hinkle

  This book focuses on 10 works of literature by Black authors and delves into them with a Christian theological lense. Not all the works are Christian, but reading through the lens really identifies common themes and patterns between the Bible and these works. This book is very similar to Karen Swallow Prior's 'On Reading Well'!
  
  I loved this book and appreciated the deep dive into themes of God, race, justice, mercy, lament, and hope that were found in most of the books. Now, I also have an expanded reading list of Black authors I haven't read before! Parts of the book were hard to read, but in a good way and challenged my thinking. The chapter on lament was particularly striking and challenged me to more quickly enter into the hard things of my brothers and sisters. The chapter on Jesus too also drew strong parallels with 'The Cross and the Lynching Tree' by James Cone which was a good reminder to ask: 'Which Jesus is figuratively enfkeshed through the practice of my life, my love, and my faith?'
• 
  Fred Christopherson

  At first glance the title “Reading Black Books” seems unnecessary, if not pretentious. I know how to read. Instead of reading Mr. Atcho’s book, why not just read the books he covers? His book, however, proved my reservations to be unfounded. Reading Black Books helps to better understand the books that are covered. This is partly because Atcho has not only read these books but has studied them. The books he covers are then understood in the contexts of the authors’ lives and in the contexts of their authors’ bodies of work.
  
  Atcho not only describes the books he covers. He reflects on them, suggesting applications for living the Christian life in contemporary America. The book is enlightening for anyone. It is helpful for Christians who seek to understand and to respond appropriately to the Black experience in America. The books described were written in the 20th century but apply to our 21st century context.
  
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  Luke Mohnasky

  This book is beautiful. The wide range of art that Atcho addresses through the chapters provides, in a real way, understandings of humanity that make us more human. Its easy for the reader to fly through the chapters. Towards the back end of the book, it got repetitive but it was still wonderful to learn about the themes of poems and art.
  I am sad that Atcho didn't feel great about James Cone's theology. The authors work from different interpretations of theology and I lean much more towards Cone. Atcho's interpretation is that God's wrath was satisfied by Christ's death and resurrection, which seems antithetical to black liberation theology or compassionate theology in general. To live in a way that understands God the Father as a violent judge needing to kill is not faithful to God revealed in Christ. Nevertheless, the book is worth the read for understanding more the spirituality of classic African American literature.
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  Jacob Vahle

  Phenomenal. I've read lots of books about books, and this one has to be the best one I've ever read. Really thoughtful look at African American novels and poetry through the lens of key doctrinal concepts. I've read some Baldwin, Ellison, and Morrison, though this makes me want to read each of the books he interacts with. Theologically and literarily incredible.
  
  Image of God - Ellison's "Invisible Man"
  Sin - Wright's "Native Son"
  Memory - Morrison's "Beloved"
  God - Baldwin's "Go Tell It on the Mountain"
  Jesus - Cullen's "Christ Recrucified"
  Racism - Larsen's "Passing"
  Lament - DuBois "Litany for Atlanta"
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  Curtis

  This is a book that delivers. Atcho's exploration of several quintessential examples of African American literature is extremely accessible, informative, enlightening, and thought-provoking. The tone of the book is one of exploration, with the reader invited to find the lessons in each example. And each chapter is written in a way that one does not have to be intimately familiar with the text in question, while not offering up spoilers that would preclude one from wanting to go back and give each of these books a read (or two).
  
  (Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book from the publisher as part of LibaryThing's Early Reviewers program in exchange for an honest review.)
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  Kenny

  This book is a great survey of seminal works of fiction and poetry as well as theological reflections on the works. Choosing different themes for each chapter and work, in
  Reading Black Books, Atcho helps us see dimensions of Christian truth in profoundly new ways through African-American experience with racism and suffering. He is use a wealth of theological images and concepts from diverse traditions to illuminate the imagination in new ways. Highly recommended.
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  David

  Absolutely incredible and I would have read 200 more pages of it. Each chapter examines a classic Black book and focuses on a theological theme in the novel. Spoilers abound if these stories are new to you, but I left each chapter wanting to read these books. This book is theologically rich. He even critiques the novels well at points where they might conflict or bump up against Christian doctrine. If you love books and theology, then this is a good one to read.
  
  It is very similar to Karren Swallow Prior's "On Reading Well." If you liked that book, then you should check out this one.
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  Karen Lemmons

  I thought this book was a fascinating read. Using seminal African American literature, Invisible Man, Native Son, Beloved, Go Tell it on the Mountain, and a few more, Atcho discusses and analyses these literary works with a Christian perspective. Thought provoking and interesting, these analyses brings both a literary interpretation and a Christian perspective that will either challenge or confirm one's belief about Jesus' life, teachings, death, and resurrection.
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  Jaz Boon

  Magnificent. Pastor Atcho does a masterful job of extracting underlying themes from major works of black literature and connecting those themes to broader Christian truths. The book is at once educational and inspiring and demonstrates how black literature can deepen our sense of who God is and His heart for Justice and wholeness. For any Christian interested in loving their black neighbors and creating a more just world, this is an excellent book to read.
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  Ruth

  I will read a book about books any day. Though I haven't read all the books and poems Atcho explores in this volume (yet), there was still richness to glean. I especially appreciated the chapter on lament.
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  Darrin Niday

  A really good book, I learned a lot about a culture I need to know more about.
  Loved reading about books I hadn’t heard about and how they relate to the Christian faith. An important book to have on your shelf
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  Daniel Mcgregor

  This is a helpful introduction and review of Black Liturature. I heard or come across most of the titles but a couple surprised me. Atcho does a good job of balancing what is worthy of theological critique and theological praise in these examples.
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  Jeff Mattison

  A wonderful lens through which to read important stories and gain some theological perspective. It helped me to reflect on my faith and that of African Americans.
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  Graydon Jones

  This is a fantastic book! Atcho offered deep insight into both Black authored literature and Christian theology. I highly recommend!
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  Kathleen

  Read CT's interview with author -
  https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/...