EMQ » July – Aug 2025 » Volume 61 Issue 3
Networking the Black Church: Digital Black Christians and Hip-Hop
By Erika D. Gault
New York University Press, 2022
312 pages
US$104.00
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Reviewed by: Edward Williams, PhD candidate, Columbia International University, Columbia, South Carolina, and associate pastor and Christian education coordinator in Plano, Texas.
Networking the Black Church: Digital Black Christians and Hip-Hop is an influential work that explores the intersections of Black faith, hip-hop, and Black digital media. Erika D. Gault, Director of the Center of African American Religious Life at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, explores a variety of digital and physical means that influence digital Black Christianity beyond Black churches. (7). The author uses these means to construct a “religious identity and meaning through video-sharing and social media” (7).” (7) These analyses “underscore the particularity of digital Black Christians practices that are often overlooked in more general assessments of all African American worshipers.” (39).
This book makes an innovative contribution by constructing an intercultural missiology parsing a “decentered approach to the institutional Black Church in digital Black Christian lives.” (6). While honoring its rich tradition, Gault suggests that the Black Church considers the global influence of digital Black Christianity. Within digital media spaces, Black Christians share their faith and network with other individuals worldwide. Using hip-hop, digital Christians marry the Black experience and Black popular culture together. This missiological union extends into music and faith communities. It contextualizes the interests and diverse realities of Christian youth. Known as a third space, Digital Black Christianity makes room for urban youth to foster intimacy through religious identity, relationships, visibility, and valuation. As a result, it welcomes koinonia fellowship and creates meaningful opportunities for global evangelism in intercultural spaces.
Gault’s groundwork demonstrates her strength in knitting together historical, cultural, and digital references and platforms entrenched in Black faith and popular Black culture. She argues that hip-hop is the entry point for scholars to holistically understand young Black culture. (16). This understanding strategically counters the Black Church’s disdain for stereotypes and misrepresentation found in mainstream hip-hop. Referencing digital platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube, digital Black Christianity can be used as a missiological tool of evangelism within and beyond the institution of the Black Church. Nonetheless, while this text engages millennial and Gen Z audiences, its cross-cultural practices may be limited to a young Black demographic.
Ultimately, Networking the Black Church is vitally important for those inquiring about the intersections of Christianity, hip-hop, and Black digital media in urban missiology. It greatly benefits missiologists, church leaders, and social ethicists who are deeply committed to missiology in and throughout urban and digital communities. This book is an incredible resource for missiologists who serve in predominantly Black ministries or considering intercultural ministry for urban youth.
For Further Reading
Urban Apologetics: Restoring Black Dignity with the Gospel by Eric Mason (Zondervan, 2021)
Finding God in All the Black Spaces: Sacred Imaginings in Black Popular Culture by Beretta E. Smith-Shomade (Rutgers University Press, 2024)
EMQ, Volume 61, Issue 3. Copyright © 2025 by Missio Nexus. All rights reserved. Not to be reproduced or copied in any form without written permission from Missio Nexus. Email: EMQ@MissioNexus.org.
