Black Church and Black Community

This book investigates the black church and black community in James Baldwin''s Go Tell It on the Mountain. It probes how and why the religion, namely Christianity, casts a loaded shadow for African Americans. Baldwin on the one hand vigorously illustrates a bodily pious black community. On the other hand, he serenely indicts a spiritually hollow black church. By borrowing God''s spear and shield--the language in the Bible and the music played inside (and later outside) the Black Church-- as his writing tool to tell a gospel-like parable. Baldwin has sung a blues gospel to the secular world.

Identity and race could be as crucial as oxygen to life; yet, few could survive with pure oxygen. Baldwin complicates my life and aides me to breathe more freely.