California Pastor's New Book Tackles Why Some Black Americans Reject Christianity

JP Foster, pastor of a predominantly Black church in Inglewood, California, has published a new book addressing one of the most persistent barriers to evangelism in Black communities: the belief that Christianity is the white man's religion.

The book, "The Gospel and My Black Skin: Confronting the Past, Reclaiming the Future," is Foster's personal, historical, and theological response to the objections he has heard in hundreds of street-level conversations. Foster writes for a wide audience, from skeptics and those who have left the church to committed Christians looking for tools to address these questions.

The book covers how scripture was manipulated to justify slavery through the slave Bible, how white supremacy used religious arguments, and how Southern evangelicals resisted the Civil Rights Movement. Foster is direct in his criticism of the fusion between Christianity and American nationalism, writing that many American Christians need to abandon a version of faith that sounds less like the teachings of Jesus and more like a civil religion draped in red, white, and blue.

Foster also challenges Western scholars to stop sidelining the African origins of early Christian theologians like Tertullian, Athanasius, and Augustine. He argues that these figures were shaped by African soil and African communities, but their heritage was erased as European scholars centered Rome in the story of the early church.

The book comes alive in Foster's personal stories, including a tense police stop and a moment when a predominantly white church failed to show up for a reconciliation event in Inglewood after Black members had traveled to Orange County.

"The Gospel and My Black Skin" was published by Zondervan and includes a foreword by Lisa Victoria Fields.