Swing Low, volume 1: A History of Black Christianity in the United States (Volume 1)

by Walter R. Strickland II

A Groundbreaking Portrait of African American Christianity

The history of African American Christianity is one of the determined faith of a people driven to pursue spiritual and social uplift for themselves and others to God's glory. Yet stories of faithful Black Christians have often been forgotten or minimized. The dynamic witness of the Black church in the United States is an essential part of Christian history that must be heard and dependably retold.

In this groundbreaking two-volume work, Walter R. Strickland II does just that through a theological-intellectual history highlighting the ways theology has formed and motivated Black Christianity across the centuries. Through his original research he has identified five theological anchors grounding African Americans in Christian orthodoxy:
* Big God
* Jesus
* Conversion and walking in the Spirit
* The Good Book
* Deliverance

In volume 1, a narrative history, Strickland tells the story of these themes from the 1600s to the present. He explores the crucial ecclesiastical, social, and theological developments, including the rise of Black evangelicalism as well as broader contributions to politics and culture.

Swing Low offers a defining rubric under which to observe, understand, and learn from the diverse and living entity that is African American Christianity. Volume 2, a companion anthology, covers the breadth of these historical developments by presenting primary-source documents so we can listen to Black Christianity in its own words.

Genres: History, Christian, Nonfiction, Christian Living, Christianity, African American, Faith

272 pages, Paperback

Published October 29, 2024

Reviews

[Mr. Perry · Rating 5 out of 5]

20241212 init: Not sure if you will find a single resource that is as exhaustive on the history and developments of "the black church" as we have here. If this is something that you find of interest, just check the book out - no stone is left unturned. Sheesh.

20241212.1: I...think I'm going to flesh this review out a good deal more in light of a lower-rated review I read as well. Stay tuned, and when I come back...buckle up.

[Kylie Nguyen · Rating 5 out of 5]

As you would expect, excellently reasoned and beautifully articulated. I’m left still reflecting on, and increasingly grateful for, the ways the black church’s legacy has impacted my own doctrine and devotion.

[George Trudeau · Rating 5 out of 5]

Walter Strickland’s Swing Low: Volume 1 tells a compelling story of Black theology, focusing not on what happened to African American Christians but on how they saw God at work in their lives and ministries. Strickland reframes a narrative often told exclusively through the lens of liberation, to a richer history with key anchors he calls: Big God, Jesus, the good book, walking in the spirit, and deliverance. His work highlights the agency of Black Christians, demonstrating how their faith and biblicism shaped their vision of justice and their work of gospel proclamation.

[Jermaine Van Buren · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great historical introduction to the history of black faith in the world. Strickland traces the development of six theological anchors that are prominent among black Christianity since the first century to the 21st century. Throughout states, continents, denominations, and seminaries, black folks have consistently prioritized and/or disproportionally emphasized Big God, Jesus, The Good Book, Conversion, Walking in the Spirit, and Deliverance. At times Deliverance takes the lead (black liberationists) at times Walking in the Spirit takes the lead (holiness movements) at times Conversion takes the lead (revivalists, fundamentalists). Ultimately, a full orbed Christian faith must hold all 6 of these anchors in balance and tandem, waiting for our blessed Hope, the revelation of Jesus Christ, the Jewish man with Gentile friends, the one who transforms the oppressed and oppressor under the same cross.

[Gini · Rating 4 out of 5]

Slow start, but stay with it. Here's some truly enlightening views, names, descriptions, perspectives, history, and more. All of which I was totally ignorant. Quite readable. I'm glad I stepped out of my comfort zone.

[Andrew Hanna · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve gotta chew on this review for a while. But it was good.

[Amanda McDowell · Rating 3 out of 5]

Walter R. Strickland II’s Swing Low, Volume 1: A History of Black Christianity in the United States surveys the practice and theology of Black Christianity in the United States, beginning with a discussion of influences from Africa and ending with the present moment, as Black Christians seek to respond to on-going police brutality, needs for decolonization, and continued need for liberation. Throughout this book, Stickland traces the development of five key theological tenets or “anchors” that characterize Black Christianity: Big God, Jesus, Conversion and Walking in the Spirit, The Good Book, and Deliverance. These anchors act as a means of identifying what is unique about Black Christianity and provide unity across his history.

The first thing a potential reader needs to know about this book is that it comes from a fairly theologically conservative place and that it takes that conservative theology for granted. While it does, toward the end, discuss some theologians that are more progressive, commentary subtly alerts us to the fact that the book’s perspective is fairly fundamentalist. For example, the power and inerrancy of the protestant Bible seem to be assumed, as demonstrated by the fact that scripture is used as straight-forward evidence of facts. For example, it cites Hebrews 4:12 to argue that “when the Bible is opened often belief is kindled or the flame of faith is fanned.” Later, it uses scripture as proof that god created “biological designations that distinguish people groups” that are distinct from race.

We also see earmarks of a belief in Christian superiority, something that is common in theologically conservative spaces. For example, the book asserts that the family and the church are the “most fundamental units in society to support people in the struggle of daily living,” ignoring the fact that people in the U.S. have varied relationships with these institutions and that some people have no interactions with churches at all. Similarly, we see a devaluing and misconstruing of non-Christian logic and ethics when the book argues that “A human being or a group has value because he or it is valuable for God. Any other valuation is based entirely on human judgement and is, therefore, both selfish and from a particularist point of view.”

I also suspect that I see the signs of a penal substitutionary atonement orientation toward the crucifixion and resurrection (in other words, the belief that people are born sinful and are damned to hell until they accept that Jesus died in their place on the cross and then rose again), though I am less sure about that. The book also assumes, in one brief statement, the existence of demons, which, I must admit, I was not expecting in this context.

While I do find the indicated doctrine to be harmful (and that does impact the rating I gave the book), I am more frustrated that the doctrine is left implied, rather than directly called out so that readers can effectively consider how it might impact the book’s reaction to the history and sources it deals with (or chooses not to deal with).

The second thing a potential reader needs to know is that the intended audience of this book seems to be undergraduate students taking a history of Black Christianity class at a Christian college/university. If for no other reason than that the book takes for granted some tenets of conservative Christianity, the book seems to be written for Christians. It is also laid out like a textbook, with key vocabulary words and the names of important people put in bold for easy identification. Having taught undergraduates in a different discipline, I estimate that this book would be very readable for undergraduate students, even those in their first or second year, because the prose is generally clear and simple, and even basic concepts (like The Harlem Renaissance and eschatology) are defined. In fact, in my opinion, one of this book’s strength’s is its readability.

Even as someone outside of the target audience, I found some moments in this book really enjoyable (in the “This is important and interesting,” way, not in the “This is fun,” way, of course), though. For example, I liked reading about the reconstruction era, which I didn’t know much about; the role that Black Christianity played in the Civil Rights movement; and especially, how the doctrine of major figures of Black Liberation theology compare to each other. This last part was my favorite because it presented the most opportunities for me to think critically about multiple competing doctrinal options. In fact, it was so interesting that I noted a couple of cited books that I’d like to read as a follow-up.

I do think, however, this book floundered at attempting to reconcile it’s takes on key ethical issues with its confidence in the Bible. For example, in a section called “Distinguishing Race, Ethnicity, and Culture,” the book compares the concepts of race (which it says is human-made and harmful) ethnicity (which it doesn’t define at all and is possibly collapsing into the following concept), and “ethnē,” which it says is from the Bible and denotes “God-given biological designations that distinguish people groups (Matthew 28:19, Revelation 5:9).” And it does this without explaining how ethnē differs from race or ethnicity or why it’s a more ethical way of discussing difference than race is. Because this section is underdeveloped and provides scripture that isn’t obviously relevant, it comes across as an ineffective scramble to explain how the Bible doesn’t reinforce the very racial distinctions that the book (justifiably) argues against. Something similar happens when the book argues that “Biblical slavery” is different than chattel slavery, and, therefore, morally acceptable, without providing evidence for its definition of biblical slavery or acknowledging that slavery appears in many different forms in the Bible. For example, Sarah’s handmaiden Hagar isn’t called a slave, but she clearly was one since she was “given” to Abraham so that he could rape her and sire a child. How do we account for the fact that this event doesn’t fall under Strickland’s definition of biblical slavery but also isn’t clearly condemned in the Bible? I wouldn’t think for a second that the writer supports that kind of treatment, but his attempt to argue that the Bible’s stance on slavery is moral fails to account for these types of situations.

Overall, the book was just okay-ish. I definitely learned useful things about Black Christianity and Black history, so I’m glad I read it. But I worry about people who don’t have the training in critical analysis that I have (analyzing texts is a huge chunk of what I learned to do while getting both my B.A. and M.A. in English) imbibing the doctrinal underpinnings without having the opportunity to decide for themselves if they agree with it. Please proceed with caution, readers, and, especially, instructors.

CW: slavery, racism, colonization, suicide, murder, gun violence, violence, police brutality

Thanks to the publisher, IVP Academic, for providing an advanced reader copy of this book via NetGalley.

[Bob · Rating 4 out of 5]

Summary: A history of African-American Christianity tracing stories of social uplift and the lives of faithful Black Christians.

A number of writers and scholars have written about African-American history. The Black church has always played an important part in that history as a source of comfort and hope during slavery and reconstruction, a center of community and cultural life, and a pivotal place of resistance and social uplift.

This new history by Walter R. Strickland II goes deeper in two ways. Along with others, he traces a historical narrative from 1620 up to the present. Distinctive among narratives, he introduces us to numerous faithful Christians in each period of this history. Furthermore, he argues for five theological commitments which he terms “Anchors” that he traces through the historical narrative. They are:

Anchor 1: Big God
Anchor 2: Jesus
Anchor 3: Conversion and Walking in the Spirit
Anchor 4: The Good Book
Anchor 5: Deliverance

The Anchors are not theological abstractions. Instead, Strickland shows the outworking in praxis of the anchors throughout his history.

The first four chapters show the early spread and adaptation of Christianity among African-Americans. One noteworthy contribution of this history is to establish that there were Christians among the Africans imported to the United States. Slavery didn’t introduce Christianity to Africans! Strickland then traces the spread of Christianity through American revivals, the distortion of slave-master faith, and the move from Blacks in White churches to their own, sometimes illegal, gatherings. At this time, the church was an ‘invisible institution,” albeit one with its own distinctive worship practices, such as the “ring shout.”

Chapters Five and Six trace the emergence of Black churches following Emancipation and how it became the central institution in Black communities. This includes educational opportunities and it was during this period when many of the great Black colleges got their start.

Chapters Seven to Nine cover the period from the rise of Jim Crow through the beginning of the Civil Rights movement. Jim Crow led to the Great Migration north and west. Strickland traces the new church bodies formed during this period including distinctive churches like Harlem’s Abyssinian Baptist Church, which played a formative role in Bonhoeffer’s faith. He also features figures liker W.E.B. DuBois and Ida B. Wells and their influence in the beginnings of the NAACP. Then Chapter 8 focuses on Black Pentecostalism and Black Fundamentalism. For example, we are reminded that William Seymour, a catalytic preacher and Black was at the heart of the Azusa Street revival, marking the beginning of American Pentecostalism. Chapter Nine traces the intellectual beginnings from Mordecai Wyatt Johnson through Howard Thurman and Martin Luther King, Jr. Along with these leaders, we learn of the foot soldiers engage in non-violent direct action.

Strickland pauses his narrative at this point to consider the rise of Black consciousness and the two distinctive responses to it within Black Christianity. One was Black evangelicalism, which is then elaborated in Chapters Ten through Twelve, including key figures like Tom Skinner and efforts at racial reconciliation through parachurch ministries. The other was Black liberationism, discussed in Chapters Thirteen and Fourteen. He concludes with a short account of twenty-first century developments, ending more hopefully than I might have.

I think the “Anchors” play a key role in his optimism. Amid the challenges of slavery, Jim Crow, and persistent racism, he traces persisting belief in a big God, a saving Jesus, a Good Book that relevantly speaks, a transforming Spirit, and the promise of deliverance. Strickland concludes with the words of an old spiritual. “There is a balm in Gilead.”

I so appreciated the profiles of so many key leaders, organizations, and movements during this history. A number were familiar but many were new. I began reading this book on Juneteenth. It indeed emancipated my understanding of African-American Christianity. And I discovered there is more. Volume Two features primary source readings from sermons to contemporary podcast transcripts. Look for my review of that volume later this summer!

____________________

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

[Adam Shields · Rating 4 out of 5]

Summary: A broad overview of the history of Black Christianity, with a second volume that is a collection of writing from Black Christianity.

Black Christianity in the United States is unquestionably tied to the (racial) history of the United States. That is a very basic statement but I think it is a good place to start when thinking about Walter Strickland’s new history of Black Christianity, Swing Low. Certainly good histories are contextually aware of the broader history while telling a narrower story. But it is not really possible to tell the story of Black Christianity without grappling with the racial history of the US because Black Christians in the US have always been subjected to that history.

I grappled with how to write that last line, because “subjected to” is a passive framing, and the Black Church has been anything but passive. At the same time, another incorrect framing would be to suggest that anti-Black racism in the US is a “Black problem”. James Baldwin was asked by Dick Cavett a variety of questions about that the “Black problem” in the United States. Baldwin answered Cavett’s questions about hope and frustration, but Baldwin also reframed the question to center racism as not a Black problem but a White problem. The problem of racism is not about the subject of the discrimination but the ones doing the discrimination. Part of what Strickland is doing in Swing Low is to show how Black Christians responded to racism by forming their own institutions and communities and theological beliefs and practices, but also that not everything in the Black church is a response to racism.

I have read several histories of the Black Church, most recently Anthony Pinn’s Black Church History, Henry Louis Gates’ companion book to his documentary This is Our Story, This is Our Song, Isaiah Robinson’s Black Church Empowered and Raphael Warnock’s The Divided Mind of the Black Church. These are four different approaches to telling the story of the black church. Of those four books Swing Low is most similar to Isaiah Robinson’s Black Church Empowered. Strickland is an academics historian and theologian, while Isaiah Robinson is a local church pastor. But they are telling the story as Black churchmen.

Esau McCaulley in Reading While Black talks about (and expands in a number of interviews later) the difficulty of who gets to tell the story of the Black church. Generally, the academy has prioritized Black Liberation theologians in the more liberal academic world. And those few Black professors in the predominately White Evangelical seminaries are similarly narrow. McCaulley suggests that the third group, the Black church pastors and preacher (like Isaiah Robinson) are rarely invited to the academy. Swing Low I think oriented toward that third group. Strickland is a professor at Southeastern Baptist Seminary, one of only a handful of Black professors at SBC seminaries. But the story here is framed to center the middle of the Black church and prioritizes theological orthodoxy in his five pillars of the Black church. Claude Acho details those five pillars in his review, so I won’t detail them here.

The last pillar is deliverance or liberation. And it is exactly in that last pillar that much of the controversy rests. Warnock suggests that Black theology must center liberation and the parts of the Black church which do not prioritize all forms of liberation are rejecting Black theology. Strickland is less polemical and more descriptive in his approach. The final five chapters of the book are split between telling the story of Black Evangelicals and Black Liberation Theology since the 1950-60s. As McCaulley talks about in Reading While Black, there has been a choice on whether to pursue higher education in more liberal schools where liberal and liberation theology is centered, which is often contrary to Black church orthodoxy or going to predominately white conservative seminaries that tend to be more conservative and orthodox, but are often more overtly opposed to the black church. That racism within the white evangelical world, one which has tended to spiritualize and individualize liberation has created significant frustration as well as organizations like the National Black Evangelical Association and The Witness.

The liberation theology side of the story starts with James Cone and J Deotis Roberts among others in the first generation and then continues with the following generations of womanist theologians and the second and third generation of liberation theologians. It is clear that Strickland places himself and most Black Christians in the Black Evangelical camp, but I do think he is pretty fair in his presentation of the liberation theology side. There are weaknesses every approach to theology and I think that Strickland is trying to present those weaknesses while maintaining his evangelical convictions. Strickland was called to be fired just for talking about Cone in his seminary classes when it was mentioned in a NYT article in 2019. The calls for his firing are a good example of the problems of staying in predominately white seminaries as a Black Evangelicals that he details in the three chapters on Black evangelicalism. But Strickland is also pointing out that there are many areas where liberation theology strays from his conception of orthodoxy, not just in the embrace of sexual minorities as Warnock details, but in what Christ did on the cross and the role of suffering among other areas.

Part of what I appreciate about this project is the second volume which I have not picked up yet. That second volume is a collection of writings from the whole history and tradition of Black Christianity in the US. I have previously read significant parts of Plain Theology for Plain People by Charles Octavius Boothe, which Strickland wrote a new introduction to and republished. Reclaiming older works by Black Christians in the US is part of the work of reclaiming the black church’s role in US Christianity. Swing Low is a project not just about telling the history of the black church, but also about recovering the voices of the Black church for a new audience so that they can tell their own story.

This was originally posted on my blog at https://bookwi.se/swing-low/

[Amanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

To put is simply: this is a book the church needs! When we are lost in our hubris and inability to look openly at our history, Dr. Strickland's straightforward and honest review of the history of Black Christianity in America is a timely primer on many of the issues currently facing the white church. I appreciated Dr. Strickland's ability to address many of the charges against the church in ways that kept pointing us back to our shared humanity and the cross. As someone who grew up in a church environment that minimized the influence of early African teachers, as well as downplaying the impact of the white's church's complicity in where we find ourselves today, It was refreshing to read an account that was un-accusatory and yet unapologetically honest. I cannot wait for vol. 2 to come out and am recommending this book to my network as a way to recalibrate and honestly come to terms with our shared history and faith.

[George W. Robertson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Walter Strickland’s Swing Low is a monumental work. While there are occasions to lament the suffering African Americans have suffered in American Christianity, Strickland prohibits pity by skillfully and artfully relating the distinct contributions they have made to Biblical faith. The precision of his scholarship leaves it impossible to view African American scholarship and piety as a subset or version of current Christ-centered Christianity. Instead, one must conclude that wherever Christian belief and practice is genuinely Gospel centered, it is so because of the historic contribution of Christ-centered African Americans. To Reading these volumes will deepen any Christian’s love for a beautiful Jesus, not merely grow in his or her knowledge of history.

[Matthew · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the history of Black Christianity that I have been looking for for a while. It is up to date and it actually looks at the history of Black Christianity as a Christian history rather than as an extension of the civil rights movement. It covers a wide sweep pretty quickly but does a good job bringing the history down to the present.

[Joel Wentz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good, especially tracing the trajectories of "black evangelicalism" and "black theology" after the Civil Rights era. I would have actually liked an even longer book that gave more space to certain issues, but it's an extremely thoughtful and well-presented historical summary. Volume 2 is absolutely essential.

Full video review here: https://youtu.be/8ma6pGGi0Vs

[Christian Thompson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very well done and thorough examination at a part of church history that I am pretty ignorant at. I love the little details and stories weaved throughout the chronology, highlighting the pillars that distinguish black American Christianity. Really insightful but I will add it reads like a text book (no offense to the author)

[Ethan Britton · Rating 5 out of 5]

excellent historical overview of the cultural and spiritual significance of the Black Church.

[Alexandria Joy]

the testimony of black Christian faith in America is that the gospel has something to say about all of life for all of life.