Swing Low, volume 1: A History of Black Christianity in the United States (Volume 1) (Swing Low Set)
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Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Award FinalistA Groundbreaking Portrait of African American ChristianityThe 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 motivatedBlack Christianity across the centuries. Through his original research he has identified five theological anchors grounding African Americans in Christian orthodoxy:Big GodJesusConversion and walking in the SpiritThe Good BookDeliverance 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. Read more
Publisher : IVP Academic
Publication date : October 29, 2024
Language : English
Print length : 272 pages
ISBN-10 : 1514004208
ISBN-13 : 03
Item Weight : 13.6 ounces
Dimensions : 6 x 0.69 x 9 inches
Book 1 of 2 : Swing Low Set
Best Sellers Rank: #723,307 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #536 in Ecclesiology Christian Theology (Books) #1,071 in Black & African American History (Books) #1,456 in Christian Historical Theology (Books)
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Top Amazon Reviews
Format: Paperback
Walter Stickland has crafted an impeccably researched and thorough account of the development of African American Christianity and both its heralded and unsung heroes–from the dawn of the horrific institution of slavery followed by reconstruction and segregation, through the Civil Rights Movement, and up until the present day. Despite the heretical twisting of biblical doctrine by oppressive individuals and systems, true biblical Christianity and fervent faith began to take root in the lives and hearts of the nation’s earliest slaves who found the strength to endure, knowing the one true God saw them and grieved their mistreatment (which mistreatment was often justified by false biblical teachings). God preserved and called a beloved people upward in faith, promising that He would not only liberate them but also restore the dignity unjustly stolen from them by their fellow human beings. And He mightily used the Black Church to shine light in the darkness and lead the way upward. Throughout the evils of slavery and segregation, Black Christians often suffered betrayal by many white so-called “Christians” and churches who chose to remain in cultural captivity rather than adhere to and fight for biblical truth that should have brought freedom and dignity to all. The Bible contains many harsh words and promises punishment for these betrayers of both God and mankind. Strickland meticulously covers the whole range of Black Christianity and the different approaches to liberation and empowerment. Though sometimes these approaches experience conflict and tension with each other and are often misunderstood, all contribute to the overall redemptive narrative arc. Volume I is a historical testament to the strength and resilience of a people who knew great suffering and injustice yet demonstrated great strength, faith, and resilience. Everyone–Christian and non-Christian–should read Volume I (and Volume II, which furnishes an invaluable anthology of primary sources). Together it is a historical and theological masterpiece that provides context for understanding present-day issues and debates. Without a harsh and condemning tone, Swing Low invites the reader to grieve the evils of slavery and racialization and the consequences of the callous disregard of the doctrine of Imago Dei. It also compels awe toward our big God and a greater awareness of the challenges and contributions of Black American Christians. May we never stop looking back in horror at this part of our past, may we continue to remedy the lingering effects in the present, and may we always look to faithful Black Christians as models of faithfulness and perseverance for whatever suffering, oppression, or persecution that may come in the last days. Swing Low also serves as a warning for the Church. Where might the body of Christ be falling into cultural captivity today and ignoring biblical truths to remain “comfortable?” Will it be worth it to receive human praise and rewards at the cost of God’s condemnation and rejection? Who of us will remain a faithful remnant? Black American Christians continue to teach us that God is real, He is powerful, and He sees us all. He WILL make all things new and right every wrong. The spiritual and intellectual contributions of Black Christianity cannot be overstated. Every seminary student, church leader, and lay reader should read this scholarly theological masterpiece.
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Reviewed in the United States on October 30, 2024 by Michelle Zier
Format: Paperback
Dr. Strickland has a way of telling us this big, complicated narrative of history in a way that leads us to better understanding and engagement with the story. I appreciate the way he intentionally tells the many untold stories of women who have always been full participants in God’s mission but rarely are revealed on the pages of history books. I am thankful for the ways this book has impacted my thinking and will inform my actions in the future. This book is a much-needed voice in the chorus of those who sing our stories. I encourage you to read this book and watch the ripple effect from it go on for years and inform the way we think and act and live.
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Reviewed in the United States on October 29, 2024 Reviewed in the United States on October 29, 2024 by Peter Weinman
Format: Paperback
What I appreciated about this book is that while it does document a lot of historical people, events and even sharing primary source quotations, it is not just a data archive. The author helpfully categories different themes and movements and allows a multi-dimensional view of the various developments within Black Christian theology and praxis. It is not flat, it is not monolithic, and yet you see the kinship and echoes throughout the various strands of development and difference. The author remains quite objective and while conclusions must be drawn on some aspects of the story, the reader is allowed to think on their own and come to independent conclusions, and even spark new questions. Highly recommend!
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Reviewed in the United States on October 29, 2024 by Blake W
Format: Paperback
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.
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Reviewed in the United States on December 11, 2024 by Adam Shields
Format: Paperback
If you want to know what you have been missing start here…
Reviewed in the United States on May 21, 2026 by Amazon Customer
Format: Paperback
Excellent scholarly manuscript. Insightful and historically accurate.
Reviewed in the United States on October 24, 2025 by anonymous1
Format: Paperback
In this book Strickland takes a deeper look at the formation of the Black church and its theological significance in the context of race, class, and social impact. By underscoring the importance of the achievements cemented into church history by many unknown and underreported figures and events, Swing Low invites readers to reevaluate many of the stereotypes and conclusions popular theologians have made over the last 400 plus years of American Christian thought and practice regarding Black religious exercise.
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Reviewed in the United States on October 30, 2024 by Hozell Francis
Format: Hardcover
Very good. But how did he leave out LeMoyne-Owen College in his list of HBCU’s? This school traces its beginning to 1862 making it the 5th oldest HBCU in the United States. It’s the only HBCU in Memphis and has an illustrious history.
Reviewed in the United States on August 7, 2025 by Peter Gathje