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

Claude Atcho

May 2022 · Christian Audio · Narrated by Amir Abdullah

About this audiobook

Learning from Black voices means listening to more than snippets. It means attending to Black stories. Reading Black Books helps Christians hear and learn from enduring Black voices and stories as captured in classic African American literature. Pastor and teacher Claude Atcho offers a theological approach to ten seminal texts of twentieth-century African American literature. Each chapter takes up a theological category for inquiry through a close literary reading and theological reflection on a primary literary text, from Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man and Richard Wright's Native Son to Zora Neale Hurston's Moses, Man of the Mountain and James Baldwin's Go Tell It on the Mountain. The book includes end-of-chapter discussion questions. Reading Black Books helps readers of all backgrounds learn from the contours of Christian faith formed and forged by Black stories, and it spurs continued conversations about racial justice in the church. It demonstrates that reading about Black experience as shown in the literature of great African American writers can guide us toward sharper theological thinking and more faithful living.

About the author

Claude Atcho is pastor of Church of the Resurrection in Charlottesville, Virginia. He has taught African American literature at the collegiate level and is a writer and podcast contributor for Think Christian. He has written for Christ & Pop Culture, The Gospel Coalition, and The Witness: A Black Christian Collective.

Amir Abdullah is an actor, playwright, and audiobook narrator residing in Los Angeles. He is a four-time Golden Earphone Award winner and an ALSC Notable Children's Recording recipient.