DEC 12, 2024 | ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT | By Sydney McGarr
For Colorado College professor Christopher Hunt, the recent publication of his book, “Jimmy’s Faith,” has been a long time coming.
The book, which was officially released this month, explores the literature of famous African-American writer James Baldwin.
It was celebrated at a book launch, sponsored by Tutt Library, on Tuesday, December 3rd. The event was attended by several faculty members, students (many who have previously taken classes with Hunt) and community members.
Hunt has been an assistant Professor of Religion at Colorado College since the 2018-19 academic year. Previous to working at CC, he received a Ph.D. from Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary.
His connection to Baldwin is personal. He first began to deeply engage with Baldwin’s work in graduate school after a friend’s suggestion. Immediately, he found comfort in the ways that Baldwin challenges norms.
“Here was a person who centered their Black queerness in a very particular way while at the same time seeming to have an obsession with engaging the language of Black Christianity, but doing so in a way that was profoundly queer and transgressive,” Hunt said regarding Baldwin in an interview.
This intrigue led Hunt on a multi-year journey into the author’s relationship with religious symbols and language. After finding himself dissatisfied with the ways that previous scholars interpreted Baldwin’s relationship with Christianity, Hunt took a new approach.
“Jimmy’s Faith” engages José Esteban Muñoz’s theory of disidentification to make sense of the ways that Baldwin approaches Black Christianity and queerness in his writing.
“I think Baldwin uses disidentification in engaging Christians as well because he doesn’t reject them wholesale, nor does he identify with them, but he seems more interested in toying with their edges,” Hunt said.
Hunt teaches a popular class called “Baldwin and Religion” in the religion department at CC. Conversations with students in this class, he says, informed much of his thinking throughout the book.
“In the midst of writing the book, I’m also teaching the class. I’m bringing so many of the ideas that I’m engaging with in the text itself to CC students and I’ve been blown away by the depth of analysis that [they] can offer to a subject,” Hunt shared. “Being able to think with CC students only made my work better.”
His students are not the only members of the next generation that had an effect on his work. Hunt began his talk at his book launch event by acknowledging his young son, Miles.
“I love you, kiddo,” he said at the podium as Miles stood up and waved to the crowd of people sitting behind him.
When asked about how raising a son in today’s day and age affected his work, Hunt drew a direct line back to one of Baldwin’s most notable ideas: Black children as a symbol of hope.
In a 1987 interview with Mavis Nicholson, Baldwin famously declared, “I’ve been enraged by the world, but never despair. I cannot afford despair. […] You can’t tell the children that there is no hope.”
Speaking of his son, Hunt described feeling that he must personally maintain hope in the world even when it is difficult, for his son’s sake.
“Otherwise bringing him into the world is the most selfish act I’ve ever done,” Hunt said.
As for the future of the book, as it begins to circulate the literary world, Hunt hopes that it will advance the scholarship and academic conversation surrounding Baldwin and his famous works of literature.
On a broader scale, Hunt hopes that members of the queer community read the book and discover ways to find spirituality in the mundane.
“The ways in which we connect with each other and the ways in which we show up for each other. This is the work that religion is supposed to do,” declared Hunt.
“Jimmy’s Faith” was published by Fordham University Press. It can be purchased online through a variety of major booksellers, including Barnes and Noble, Amazon and Target.