In this fascinating new book, Sanders calls for a radical stepping out of the empty trappings of postmodernity. He confronts the illusory state of the black world by challenging it to analyze and redefine itself in light of certain relevant truths. Rather than blaming the white world for the problems of the black world, this book blames black people for their own conditions of existence. Rather than talking about symptoms, Sanders talks about root causes. Rather than embracing the usual measures offered by liberal and conservative social scientists on what ails the black world and how to fix it, Sanders deviates from widely accepted assessments and solutions. For him, the black world willed its own destruction and death by its decision to take the route of integration in America and by its decision to engage in neo-colonial behavior in Africa.  He argues that the gaunt appearance of Africans in America is due to a disease called integration. The gaunt appearance of Africans on the African continent is due to a disease called neo-colonial behavior. This book not only challenges the black world to face these truths, but it also provides a roadmap that promises a very different future.

“Professor Sanders offers a taut and scathing analysis of the Black self and world—a self caught in the struggle of balancing fiction and fact, liberation and oppression, justice and injustice. This book blazes new trails in evaluating the existential reality of our modern and postmodern culture. Moreover, it establishes Boykin Sanders as a serious culture critic whose hermeneutic is grounded in a broad biblical and theological understanding of life. This is must reading for the student and scholar in religion and the social sciences as well as clergy and community leaders.”

--James Henry Harris, Professor of Pastoral Theology and Homiletics,

School of Theology, Virginia Union University, Richmond, Virginia

“Boykin Sanders’ text recovers a prophetic style in his trenchant critique of Africans and African Americans for their failures to understand and act out of the religious and cultural resources of their traditions. Sanders invites peoples of African descent in the various parts of the world to recover the meaning of their past as an alternative source of meaning and value. These resources must be mined by those in these traditions as modes of critique and healing rather than being exploited and commodified within the structures of the modern world system. His prophetic critique informs the manner in which he interprets the Christian and non-Christian traditions, which have informed the cultural formations of African peoples. He presents a fresh, searching, and provocative position, one worth pondering.”

--Charles H. Long, Professor, History of Religions and Director, Research Center for Black Studies, Emeritus, University of California, Santa Barbara

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Boykin Sanders is Professor of New Testament and Greek at the School of Theology at Virginia Union University, Richmond, Virginia.

CATEGORY

Religion, Cultural Studies/AFRICAN AMERICAN