Episode 4 | I Am Not Your Theologian | Go Tell It On The Mountain by James Baldwin

The Joy of Serious Literature

When we talk about James Baldwin, we always talk about him in terms of America's racial politics. But Baldwin was more than just America's greatest racial pundit--he was one of America's finest novelists. In this episode, we examine his first novel: Go Tell It on the Mountain, the story of a young black boy trying to survive under the crushing weight of his father's draconian vision of Christianity. Both brilliant and beautiful, the novel tries to get at the heart of a question perhaps even more difficult than race--the nature of religion. If you have any questions, comments, concerns, or denunciations you'd like to offer in response to this, or any, episode of the Joy of Serious Literature, please send them to me at [e-mail]. If you right a really interesting or brutal critique, I promise to read and respond to you in a future podcast. Godspeed and thanks for listening.