New Book Challenges Myths That Keep Black Americans Away From Christianity

Pastor JP Foster leads a predominantly Black church in Inglewood, California. His new book, "The Gospel and My Black Skin: Confronting the Past, Reclaiming the Future," takes on a question many Black Christians have wrestled with: how do you reconcile faith in a religion that was used to justify slavery?

Foster does not sidestep the history. He writes about the "slave Bible," a version of scripture edited to remove passages about freedom, and the ways Southern evangelicals resisted the Civil Rights Movement. He also examines how white supremacist ideology borrowed Christian language to defend racial hierarchy.

But Foster's argument does not stop at critique. He traces Christianity's deep roots in Africa, pointing out that major early theologians, including Tertullian, Athanasius, and Augustine, were African. European scholars later erased or minimized those origins, he writes, creating a false impression that Christianity is a white Western religion.

The book also takes aim at Christian nationalism, describing 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 draws on personal experience. He writes about a brother who joined the Nation of Islam after losing faith in Christianity, and a moment when a predominantly white church failed to show up for a unity worship event in a Black neighborhood.

Christianity Today reviewed the book in May 2026, calling it a serious attempt to help Black readers find the "real Jesus" beneath centuries of distortion. The review noted the book is stronger on diagnosis than prescription, offering less detail on practical steps toward racial justice in the church.