Imagining Eden

By stimulating a conversation between works of Richard Wright, James Baldwin, Alice Walker, and Toni Morrison, theologies of original sin or the fall, and notions of paradise, Jamall Calloway demonstrates in Imagining Eden the power of black literature to evoke a sophisticated liberative theology that honors Black people’s responses to loss through hard won spiritual insight, grit, and ironic laughter as well as regret, blunder, and frustration. -- M. Shawn Copeland, author of <i>Enfleshing Freedom: Body, Race, and Being</i> Each chapter of Jamall Calloway's thoughtful exploration proves that our understandings of African American faith and religion are incomplete without a discussion of the theological issues being debated on the pages of African American literature. -- Qiana Whitted, author of <i>""A God of Justice?"": The Problem of Evil in Twentieth-Century Black Literature</i> Jamall Calloway‘s book is a profound and powerful wrestling with the complexity of evil in the works of great Black literary artists and grand Christian theologians. In our grim moment of Trump, his brilliant probing of the Fall, original sin, and possible redemption yield some much-needed light and hope! -- Cornel West, Union Theological Seminary This suggestive book reveals the subtle yet profound theological influence that shapes some classic works by Baldwin, Morrison, Walker, and Wright. With the insight of a systematic theologian and the depth of a literary critic, Jamall Calloway's rich and complex tracking of the theological threads woven into our finest secular writing is, at the same time, a compelling dialogue between tradition and innovation, Biblical themes and Black literary tropes, paradise and African American history. Imagining Eden invites us to reshape our understanding of African American literature and refine how we think about ""doing"" theology. -- Andre C. Willis, Brown University In this groundbreaking book, Jamall Calloway forever changes our understanding of Black culture and Euromodern theology. By reading classic Black writers James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, and Alice Walker as theologians who fundamentally reconfigure the “Garden of Eden,” and ""Fall from Grace"" narratives in their work, Calloway uncovers a vibrant and insightful tradition of political theology that is critically attuned to tragedy, struggle and liberation. Calloway’s writing is poetic, his analysis is sharp and sophisticated, his close-readings balance technical mastery of the material, and his attentiveness to broader questions in the scholarly literature is masterful. This is first-rate scholarship. -- Alex Zamalin, author of <i>Black Utopia: The History of an Idea from Black Nationalism to Afrofuturism</i>