ABOUT THIS BOOK

From Hate to Hallows intervenes in the public discourse surrounding the burning of Black churches in the United States—conversations largely dominated by white, conservative political imaginaries—to provide a critical account of the anti-Black racism and economic exploitation animating these acts of violence. Todne Thomas centers an ethnographic examination of a Knoxville, Tennessee, church that was burned in 2015 as the primary case study of this intervention. By exploring the congregants’ experiences and perspectives on the event, Thomas privileges Black meaning-making as a primary source of social and political analysis. She draws on their explanations for the arson to explore the social, historical, and religious contexts of white supremacy, vandalism, gentrification and urban redevelopment, and the End Times as each relate to church burning. From Hate to Hallows challenges the dominant picture of Black church arson as episodic and aberrant events and instead foregrounds them as central moments in the construction of a twenty-first-century United States steeped in racial and economic domination.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Todne Thomas is Associate Professor of Divinity and Religious Studies at Yale University. She is the author of Kincraft: The Making of Black Evangelical Sociality, also published by Duke University Press.

REVIEWS

“Todne Thomas’s masterful work helps us understand the history and the social implications of the desecration of black sacred spaces and what that says about race and religion in America. She argues that how black people interpret the story should be central to how the story is understood, and her exceptional analysis and insights add a rare depth to our thinking about the psychic and social consequences of anti-black religious violence.”
-- Marla Frederick, Dean at Harvard Divinity School

“This book takes you deep. Read it. Come to understand the power of that which some try to burn down. Learn through its pages, what devotees of faith know, that from the power, mercy, and grace of God we have something in us that bullets can’t shoot out, fire can’t burn out, bombs can’t blow out.”
-- Bishop William J. Barber II, Professor in the Practice of Public Theology and Public Policy, Yale Divinity School

“Todne Thomas has written an extraordinary book that shifts our gaze from acts of destruction to the resilient work of interpretation. Centering the voices of everyday people, From Hate to Hallows reveals Black churches as places where communities narrate catastrophe, cultivate hope, and expose enduring truths about race, religion, and America’s fragile experiment.”
-- Jonathan Lee Walton, President, Princeton Theological Seminary

TABLE OF CONTENTS

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