372 - Black and Presbyterian: The Heritage and the Hope

Black and Presbyterian:
The Heritage and the Hope
By Gayraud S. Wilmore
Philadelphia, Westminister, 1983. 132 pp. $4.95.

The author's major task in this book is to grapple with two crucial issues for black people in the Presbyterian Church. First, he raises the question of what it means to be black in a predominantly whit church. Secondly, he is concerned about the manner in which middle-class black Presbyterians relate to other blacks and socially oppressed minorities.

It is a tribute to Wilmore's skills as a theologian, historian, churchman, and writer that he is able to take on so much in relatively few pages. He gives a remarkably succinct and accurate account of the key issues in black theology. He addresses the essentials of the black religious experience. and he offers definitions and explanations for what that experience means. He reviews the major concerns facing all black Americans as they, attempt to make their peace with American society. Here he draws on the work of W.E.B. Dubois as he describes the "twoness" which all blacks experience, being both black and American. How black people deal with the tension involved in their "twoness" in large measure determines their prospects for success, not only as church people, but as contributing citizens.

Wilmore originally intended this work to be an introduction to the Presbyterian Church as a study for black Presbyterians. He has, however, accomplished a great deal more. He reminds all Christians across denominational lines of the central elements of the black religious experience, and he challenges all of us to move beyond racial distinctions in our commitment to find unity in Christ Jesus.

William P. DeVeaux
Fund for Theological Education
Princeton, New Jersey