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BOOKS
The existence of NAAMC fuels a perpetual renaissance, generating an unmatched spiritual, intellectual, and social value. We integrate research with teaching, the arts with the biblical, and the
up-and-comer with the elite.
Please enjoy the list of books below. We pray that the author's words foster a thirst for even more creativity, conversation, and strategy in the cross-cultural missions.
Legacy: Celebrating the Heritage of
African American Missionaries Past & Present
The National African American Missions Council (NAAMC) Mission Award Program (MAP) offers the Monthly NAAMC Council Awards – in support of Black and African American missionaries. In this free download read about trailblazers and their contemporaries in this 2023 edition of Legacy!
Africa Study Bible
For too long, the heart and soul of Africa that influenced early Christ-followers, from the Ethiopian eunuch to Augustine the theologian, seemed lost in the past. Because we believe God’s Word is the primary way that we come to know him, our first major project was (and remains) the Africa Study Bible.
In 2011, leaders from across Africa met and felt called by God to create the Africa Study Bible, to use cultural understandings to apply Scripture to everyday life in Africa. Finally, Africans have a biblical resource that speaks in a unique way to their hearts, revealing the truth and beauty of “God’s Word through African Eyes.”
In 2011, leaders from across Africa met and felt called by God to create the Africa Study Bible, to use cultural understandings to apply Scripture to everyday life in Africa. Finally, Africans have a biblical resource that speaks in a unique way to their hearts, revealing the truth and beauty of “God’s Word through African Eyes.”
Black History 365
Black History 365 is an educational entity whose purpose is to create cutting-edge resources that invite students, educators, and other readers to become critical thinkers, compassionate listeners, fact-based, respectful communicators and action-oriented solutionists.
Profiles of African-American Missionaries
“Profiles of African-American Missionaries features the lives and ministries of the great African-Americans who have gone to the world with the message of Christ. It is a collection of stories sharing the ministries of several African-American missionary pioneers from the 1700s to the present, dealing with all the social and ministry issues that they had to face here and abroad.
Readers will be inspired by the dedication and commitment of these great African-Americans, as they lived out God’s great commission to go into all the world and make disciples of all people. It will inspire and challenge all readers to greater personal involvement in God’s worldwide mission.”
Readers will be inspired by the dedication and commitment of these great African-Americans, as they lived out God’s great commission to go into all the world and make disciples of all people. It will inspire and challenge all readers to greater personal involvement in God’s worldwide mission.”
The Black Church: This Is Our Story, This Is Our Song
For the young Henry Louis Gates, Jr., growing up in a small, residentially segregated West Virginia town, the church was a center of gravity—an intimate place where voices rose up in song and neighbors gathered to celebrate life's blessings and offer comfort amid its trials and tribulations. In this tender and expansive reckoning with the meaning of the Black Church in America, Gates takes us on a journey spanning more than five centuries, from the intersection of Christianity and the transatlantic slave trade to today’s political landscape. At road’s end, and after Gates’s distinctive meditation on the churches of his childhood, we emerge with a new understanding of the importance of African American religion to the larger national narrative—as a center of resistance to slavery and white supremacy, as a magnet for political mobilization, as an incubator of musical and oratorical talent that would transform the culture, and as a crucible for working through the Black community’s most critical personal and social issues.
In a country that has historically afforded its citizens from the African diaspora tragically few safe spaces, the Black Church has always been more than a sanctuary. This fact was never lost on white supremacists: from the earliest days of slavery, when enslaved people were allowed to worship at all, their meetinghouses were subject to surveillance and destruction. Long after slavery’s formal eradication, church burnings and bombings by anti-Black racists continued, a hallmark of the violent effort to suppress the African American struggle for equality. The past often isn’t even past—Dylann Roof committed his slaughter in the Mother Emanuel AME Church 193 years after it was first burned down by white citizens of Charleston, South Carolina, following a thwarted slave rebellion.
But as Gates brilliantly shows, the Black church has never been only one thing. Its story lies at the heart of the Black political struggle, and it has produced many of the Black community’s most notable leaders. At the same time, some churches and denominations have eschewed political engagement and exemplified practices of exclusion and intolerance that have caused polarization and pain. Those tensions remain today, as a rising generation demands freedom and dignity for all within and beyond their communities, regardless of race, sex, or gender. Still, as a source of faith and refuge, spiritual sustenance and struggle against society’s darkest forces, the Black Church has been central, as this enthralling history makes vividly clear.
In a country that has historically afforded its citizens from the African diaspora tragically few safe spaces, the Black Church has always been more than a sanctuary. This fact was never lost on white supremacists: from the earliest days of slavery, when enslaved people were allowed to worship at all, their meetinghouses were subject to surveillance and destruction. Long after slavery’s formal eradication, church burnings and bombings by anti-Black racists continued, a hallmark of the violent effort to suppress the African American struggle for equality. The past often isn’t even past—Dylann Roof committed his slaughter in the Mother Emanuel AME Church 193 years after it was first burned down by white citizens of Charleston, South Carolina, following a thwarted slave rebellion.
But as Gates brilliantly shows, the Black church has never been only one thing. Its story lies at the heart of the Black political struggle, and it has produced many of the Black community’s most notable leaders. At the same time, some churches and denominations have eschewed political engagement and exemplified practices of exclusion and intolerance that have caused polarization and pain. Those tensions remain today, as a rising generation demands freedom and dignity for all within and beyond their communities, regardless of race, sex, or gender. Still, as a source of faith and refuge, spiritual sustenance and struggle against society’s darkest forces, the Black Church has been central, as this enthralling history makes vividly clear.
A Broken Seat at the Table: Conversations about Race, Resilience, and Building Bridges
In A Broken Seat at the Table: Conversations about Race, Resilience, and Building Bridges, Eddy Paul Thomas reflects on more than 30 years of hard conversations, challenging situations, and personal experiences with institutional racism. The combination of failed and successful attempts at racial reconciliation and restorative justice serve as inspirations for building bridges and less debate on the way forward by examining the truth regarding our nation's original sin.
After working on the frontlines, at the intersections of mercy ministry, racial reconciliation, human rights, and education for just over two decades, Thomas' A Broken Seat at the Table provides the reader hope for a path forward as well as insightful ways to disrupt and dismantle systemic issues that plague people of color in the United States.
After working on the frontlines, at the intersections of mercy ministry, racial reconciliation, human rights, and education for just over two decades, Thomas' A Broken Seat at the Table provides the reader hope for a path forward as well as insightful ways to disrupt and dismantle systemic issues that plague people of color in the United States.
Reading While Black: African American Biblical Interpretation as an Exercise in Hope
Reading While Black is a personal and scholarly testament to the power and hope of Black biblical interpretation. At a time in which some within the African American community are questioning the place of the Christian faith in the struggle for justice, New Testament scholar McCaulley argues that reading Scripture from the perspective of Black church tradition is invaluable for connecting with a rich faith history and addressing the urgent issues of our times. He advocates for a model of interpretation that involves an ongoing conversation between the collective Black experience and the Bible, in which the particular questions coming out of Black communities are given pride of place and the Bible is given space to respond by affirming, challenging, and, at times, reshaping Black concerns. McCaulley demonstrates this model with studies on how Scripture speaks to topics often overlooked by white interpreters, such as ethnicity, political protest, policing, and slavery.
Ultimately McCaulley calls the church to a dynamic theological engagement with Scripture, in which Christians of diverse backgrounds dialogue with their own social location as well as the cultures of others. Reading While Black moves the conversation forward.
Ultimately McCaulley calls the church to a dynamic theological engagement with Scripture, in which Christians of diverse backgrounds dialogue with their own social location as well as the cultures of others. Reading While Black moves the conversation forward.
The Negro Bible / The Slave Bible
This is an Introduction, History, and Photocopy of the Slave Bible. - There was an uneasy tension as the slave owners sought to maintain control and keep the slaves working calmly and the abolitionists began to question the moral cost of slavery. The abolitionist movement was growing and for the first time, the souls of the slaves were being considered. As they prepared to compile a special Bible for slaves in the West Indies, the missionaries agreed to uplift the Africans without teaching them anything that could incite rebellion. Throughout history, the Bible has encouraged us to fight against our enslavement to sin, Hell, death, and the grave. But it has also encouraged us to fight against our fellow man who might choose to take our freedom and use us for his own purpose. Just as Egypt enslaved the Jews and used them for labor to build their empire, so were the slaves of Africa used to build the empire of the British West Indies and the United States. Just as Moses stood against the Egyptians and led the children of Israel out of slavery and bondage, so are we encouraged to stand up against the cruel bonds of slavery and fight for our freedom and the freedom of fellow man. The clarion call for human freedom is found in many forms and in various stories throughout the Bible, but all of these ideals were stripped from and carved out of the Slave Bible. The Slave Bible, also called The Negro Bible, is one of the most powerful examples ever witnessed of manipulation using a controlled narrative. The Christian faith, a religion one-third of the world relied on to bring comfort, spiritual rest, peace, and salvation was the narrative being controlled, making the Slave Bible the ultimate propaganda tool and the greatest lie ever told.
A Cross-Shaped Gospel: Reconciling Heaven and Earth, By Bryan Loritts
WARNING! This book could make your life messy!
Today's church is continually being confronted with the question, "What is the gospel?" Many churches answer this through strong exposition of biblical truth. Others answer with a focus on community engagement. But doesn't Christ call us to do both?
The covenant of salvation demands a radical re-patterning of relationships. Bryan Lorrits, a pastor in the heart of one of America's historically racially divided urban centers, seizes the opportunity to engage God, the church, and culture in ways that may challenge your beliefs, practices, and relationships.
A Cross-Shaped Gospel clearly articulates the vertical dimension of the Christian faith, as well as looking at the horizontal implications of salvation for growth, service, and community. It provokes readers to think about the implications of living out their faith. What does the gospel mean for issues of:
Political engagement?
Class distinctions?
Race Relations?
It is only by reaching upward that we can reach outward in power and with the proper motives, so let A Cross- Shaped Gospel help you in crafting and communicating a biblical philosophy of engaging God and others well!
Today's church is continually being confronted with the question, "What is the gospel?" Many churches answer this through strong exposition of biblical truth. Others answer with a focus on community engagement. But doesn't Christ call us to do both?
The covenant of salvation demands a radical re-patterning of relationships. Bryan Lorrits, a pastor in the heart of one of America's historically racially divided urban centers, seizes the opportunity to engage God, the church, and culture in ways that may challenge your beliefs, practices, and relationships.
A Cross-Shaped Gospel clearly articulates the vertical dimension of the Christian faith, as well as looking at the horizontal implications of salvation for growth, service, and community. It provokes readers to think about the implications of living out their faith. What does the gospel mean for issues of:
Political engagement?
Class distinctions?
Race Relations?
It is only by reaching upward that we can reach outward in power and with the proper motives, so let A Cross- Shaped Gospel help you in crafting and communicating a biblical philosophy of engaging God and others well!
Urban Apologetics: Restoring Black Dignity with the Gospel.jpg
African-Americans have long confronted the challenge of dignity destruction caused by white supremacy. While many have found meaning and restoration of dignity in the black church, others have found it in ethnocentric socioreligious groups and philosophies. These ideologies have grown and developed deep traction in the black community and beyond. Previously found primarily in urban communities and conscious Hip-hop songs, now that we are in the Internet age, they have a broader reach than ever. Revisionist history, conspiracy theories, and misinformation about Jesus and Christianity are the order of the day. Many young African-Americans are disinterested in Christianity and others are leaving the church in search of what these false religious ideas appear to offer, a spirituality more indigenous to their history and ethnicity.
Edited by Dr. Eric Mason and featuring a top-notch lineup of contributors, Urban Apologetics is the first book focused entirely on cults, religious groups, and ethnocentric ideologies prevalent in the black community. It brings the church up to speed on the legitimate issues that blacks have with Western Christianity as well as the questions alternative religious groups pose about historic Christianity, and it applies the gospel to black identity to show that Jesus is the only one who can restore our identity.
Edited by Dr. Eric Mason and featuring a top-notch lineup of contributors, Urban Apologetics is the first book focused entirely on cults, religious groups, and ethnocentric ideologies prevalent in the black community. It brings the church up to speed on the legitimate issues that blacks have with Western Christianity as well as the questions alternative religious groups pose about historic Christianity, and it applies the gospel to black identity to show that Jesus is the only one who can restore our identity.
How Africa Shaped the Christian Mind - Rediscovering the African Seedbed of Western Christ
Africa has played a decisive role in the formation of Christian culture from its infancy. Some of the most decisive intellectual achievements of Christianity were explored and understood in Africa before they were in Europe. If this is so, why is Christianity so often perceived in Africa as a Western colonial import? How can Christians in Northern and sub-Saharan Africa, indeed how can Christians throughout the world, rediscover and learn from this ancient heritage? Theologian Thomas C. Oden offers a portrait that challenges prevailing notions of the intellectual development of Christianity from its early roots to its modern expressions. The pattern, he suggests, is not from north to south from Europe to Africa, but the other way around. He then makes an impassioned plea to uncover the hard data and study in depth the vital role that early African Christians played in developing the modern university, maturing Christian exegesis of Scripture, shaping early Christian dogma, modeling conciliar patterns of ecumenical decision-making, stimulating early monasticism, developing Neoplatonism, and refining rhetorical and dialectical skills. He calls for a wide-ranging research project to fill out the picture he sketches. It will require, he says, a generation of disciplined investigation, combining intensive language study with a risk-taking commitment to uncover the truth in potentially unreceptive environments. Oden envisions a dedicated consortium of scholars linked by computer technology and a common commitment that will seek to shape not only the scholar's understanding but the ordinary African Christian's self-perception.
African-American Experience in World Mission: A Call Beyond Community, By Vaughn Walston and Robert Stevens
Venture into the world of overseas missions from an African-American perspective. This collection of articles takes you deep into the history of missions in the African-American community. You will learn of the struggles to stay connected to the world of missions in spite of great obstacles. You will read of unique cultural experiences while traveling abroad. You will feel the heart for fulfilling the Great Commission - both in the African-American community and beyond.
A History of Christianity in Africa: From Antiquity to the Present
This unprecedented work is the first one-volume study of the history of Christianity in Africa. Written by Elizabeth Isichei, a leading scholar in this field, A History of Christianity in Africa examines the origins and development of Christianity in Africa from the early story of Egyptian Christianity to the spectacular growth, vitality, and diversity of the churches in Africa today. Isichei opens with the brilliance of Christianity in Africa in antiquity and shows how Christian Egypt and North Africa produced some of the most influential intellects of the time. She then discusses the churches founded in the wake of early contacts with Europe, from the late fifteenth century on, and the unbroken Christian witness of Coptic Egypt and of Ethiopia. Isichei also examines the different types of Christianity in modern Africa and shows how social factors have influenced its development and expression. With the explosive growth of Christianity now taking place in Africa and the increasingly recognized significance of African Christianity, this much-needed book fills the void in scholarly works on that continent's Christian past, also foreshadowing Christian Africa's influential future.
A New Man: Missionary Journeys of an African American, by Hoise Birks
This autobiography is for God’s glory. Over the past twenty to thirty years, my wife Cynthia has encouraged me to record the life experiences that the Lord has allowed me to have for His glory. As she and I scroll back over my life, after I accepted Christ as my personal Savior in Fairbanks, Alaska, there is much to give God praise for. At the same time, our hearts’ desire is that this autobiographical glimpse of part of my life might be used to encourage and challenge other people—young people, older people—to give of themselves and their time and efforts to make Jesus Christ known to individuals that know Him not as their personal Savior.
In the course of being married for thirty-six years, Cynthia and I have talked many times about the experiences the Lord allowed me to have. Her enthusiasm and encouragement about these experiences, along with that of many friends has helped me to share my written testimony with others. Whenever I’ve had the opportunity to give a testimony or speak in a church, many have said, “Oh, my goodness. This should be in a book!”
I must admit that at first I did not sense the urgency, but I’m 78 years of age now, and the more I think about it, I am convinced that it would be wise to record what God has allowed me to do and accomplish by His grace. At 78 years of age, it’s really not over yet. My heart’s desire is to continue to serve Him until He takes my last breath.
My ministry, since I accepted the Lord, has been strongly oriented toward foreign missions, and of course, that takes in the whole world. But before I get into talking about foreign missions, I want to give a background of my life—where I was born and reared, where I went to school, and where, after joining the Air Force, I accepted Jesus Christ as my personal Savior.
Hoise Birks, 2012
In the course of being married for thirty-six years, Cynthia and I have talked many times about the experiences the Lord allowed me to have. Her enthusiasm and encouragement about these experiences, along with that of many friends has helped me to share my written testimony with others. Whenever I’ve had the opportunity to give a testimony or speak in a church, many have said, “Oh, my goodness. This should be in a book!”
I must admit that at first I did not sense the urgency, but I’m 78 years of age now, and the more I think about it, I am convinced that it would be wise to record what God has allowed me to do and accomplish by His grace. At 78 years of age, it’s really not over yet. My heart’s desire is to continue to serve Him until He takes my last breath.
My ministry, since I accepted the Lord, has been strongly oriented toward foreign missions, and of course, that takes in the whole world. But before I get into talking about foreign missions, I want to give a background of my life—where I was born and reared, where I went to school, and where, after joining the Air Force, I accepted Jesus Christ as my personal Savior.
Hoise Birks, 2012
The Decline of African American Theology: From Biblical Faith to Cultural Captivity, By Thabiti M. Anyabwile
Who were Jupiter Hammon, Lemuel Haynes and Daniel Alexander Payne? And what do they have in common with Martin Luther King Jr., Howard Thurman and James Cone? All of these were African American Christian theologians, yet their theologies are, in many ways, worlds apart. In this book, Thabiti Anyabwile offers a challenging and provocative assessment of the history of African American Christian theology, from its earliest beginnings to the present. He argues trenchantly that the modern fruit of African American theology has fallen far from the tree of its early predecessors. In doing so, Anyabwile closely examines the theological commitments of prominent African American theologians throughout American history. Chapter by chapter, he traces what he sees as the theological decline of African American theology from one generation to the next, concluding with an unflinching examination of several contemporary figures. Replete with primary texts and illustrations, this book is a gold mine for any reader interested in the history of African American Christianity. With a foreword by Mark Noll.
The Disease of Racism: Rediscovering the Cure!, By Terry Stull
The Fellowship of the Suffering: How Hardship Shapes Us for Ministry and Mission, By Paul Borthwick and Dave Ripper
"That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings." Philippians 3:10 (ASV)
If we follow Jesus, we will experience pain. It comes with the territory. We might face hardship because of our Christian commitment, or we may have challenges just from living in a fallen world. Either way, Christians follow in the footsteps of our suffering Savior and participate in his suffering.
But that's not the whole story. Missionary Paul Borthwick and pastor Dave Ripper show how transformation through our personal pain enables us to minister faithfully to a hurting world. They candidly share about their own struggles and how they have seen God's kingdom advance through hardship and suffering. Though we naturally avoid suffering, Christians throughout church history have become powerful witnesses to Christ as a result of their brokenness.
Life is painful, but pain need not have dominion over us. Instead, it can propel us in missional solidarity with our suffering world. Come find comfort and renewed purpose in the fellowship of the suffering.
If we follow Jesus, we will experience pain. It comes with the territory. We might face hardship because of our Christian commitment, or we may have challenges just from living in a fallen world. Either way, Christians follow in the footsteps of our suffering Savior and participate in his suffering.
But that's not the whole story. Missionary Paul Borthwick and pastor Dave Ripper show how transformation through our personal pain enables us to minister faithfully to a hurting world. They candidly share about their own struggles and how they have seen God's kingdom advance through hardship and suffering. Though we naturally avoid suffering, Christians throughout church history have become powerful witnesses to Christ as a result of their brokenness.
Life is painful, but pain need not have dominion over us. Instead, it can propel us in missional solidarity with our suffering world. Come find comfort and renewed purpose in the fellowship of the suffering.
Going Global – Beyond the Boundaries: The Role of the Black Church in the Great Commission of Jesus Christ, By Carl F. Ellis
This book traces the history of the spiritual foundation laid by the pre-20th century African-American forefathers within global missions. It also explores how African-Americans must build upon that foundation today and diligently work to fulfill the mandate of Lord Jesus Christ.
Letters Across the Divide: Two Friends
A black minister and a white businessman candidly discuss the obstacles, stereotypes, and sins that inhibit interracial reconciliation. Provocative and honest.