Reverend James Henry Harris speaks with journalist John Hawkins about his book Black Suffering (2020), Topics include the nature of suffering in general and the Black experience of it in particular; the trials of Job; the nature of God; Bill Russell and Boston.; and preparing a sermon in the postmodern era.
Reverend Dr. James Henry Harris is Distinguished Professor of Homiletics and Pastoral Theology and a research scholar in religion and humanities at the Samuel DeWitt Proctor School of Theology, Virginia Union University. He also serves as chair of the theology faculty and pastor of Second Baptist Church, Richmond, Virginia. He is a former president of the Academy of Homiletics and recipient of the Henry Luce Fellowship in Theology. He is the author of numerous books, including Beyond the Tyranny of the Text and Black Suffering: Silent Pain, Hidden Hope (Fortress Press, 2020). His latest book is N: My Encounter with Racism and the Forbidden Word in an American Classic, a memoir that describes and critically wonders about a graduate English class he took on Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn, and provides crucial insight into the CRT conundrum.
Harris and I conversed by Zoom about his books -- especially Black Suffering and N. -- on August 2, 2022. Here is a slightly edited version of that conversation.
