Eddie Glaude argues that the venerable institution of the black church as central to black life and as a repository for the social and moral conscience of the nation has all but disappeared. However, the death of the black church as it has been previously known occasions an opportunity to breathe new life into what it means to be black and Christian in 21st-century America. Black churches and preachers must find their prophetic voices in this momentous present. And in doing so, black churches will rise again on the national stage and assert themselves on behalf of those who suffer most.

Born on the coast of Mississippi, in a small town called Moss Point, Eddie Glaude brings to his scholarship and public service a sense of passion and vocation shaped by the tradition of the African American struggle. As a graduate of Morehouse College, he was inspired by the courage and devotion of Martin Luther King, Jr. Glaude is the author of Exodus: Religion, Race, and Nation in Early Nineteenth-Century Black America, winner of the William Sanders Scarborough Book Prize, In a Shade of Blue: Pragmatism and the Politics of Black America, and African American Religion: A Very Short Introduction.  He has appeared on The Tavis Smiley Show, Hannity and Colmes, CNN, and C-SPAN. Cornel West has called him “the towering public intellectual of his generation.” Currently, Glaude holds the William S. Tod Professor of Religion and African American Studies at Princeton University, where he is Chair of the Center for African American Studies.