A Darkly Radiant Vision

The third and final volume in the first comprehensive history of Black social Christianity, by the “greatest theological ethicist of the twenty-first century” (Michael Eric Dyson).

The Black social gospel is a tradition of unsurpassed importance in American life, and it remains ongoing. So Gary Dorrien argues in his groundbreaking trilogy of books on the history of Black social Christianity. Following his Grawemeyer Award–winning book The New Abolition: W. E. B. Du Bois and the Black Social Gospel (2015) and his Breaking White Supremacy: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Black Social Gospel (2018), this third, concluding volume offers an interpretation of Black social Christianity since the early 1970s.

Beginning in the shadow of Martin Luther King Jr., it examines the past fifty years of this intellectual and activist tradition, interpreting its politics, theology, ethics, social criticism, and social justice organising. Considering the intersection of Black social Christianity with liberation theology, womanist theology, the LGBTQ+ movement, critical theory, antiracism efforts, progressive religion, broad-based interfaith organising, global solidarity politics, and more, Dorrien shows how those who carried on the struggle in King’s name were often lifted by King’s moral example.

A Darkly Radiant Vision features in-depth discussions of Andrew Young, Jesse Jackson, Samuel DeWitt Proctor, James Cone, Katie Geneva Cannon, Stacey Floyd-Thomas, Traci Blackmon, William J. Barber II, Raphael G. Warnock, and many others.