Jared’s Reviews > Reading Black Books: How African American Literature Can Make Our Faith More Whole and Just > Status Update

“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… The foundation of hope is the empty tomb.” (170)

“Christ's solidarity and identification with the suffering through his cross have historically been the sign, the whisper, the shout that sustains us in our suffering. Attending to the cross of Jesus does not halt our anguished tears, but it does reinterpret them. His lament becomes the interpretive frame for our own” (141).

To place "every man" in the lineage of the Lord's deliverance of Daniel is to believe that Daniel's Lord is not limited to the acts of old but is still active, still unfolding his drama of redemption, even in our time. (81)