‘Soul Care’ Earns Book Award

Soul Care in African American Practice by Barbara L. Peacock (InterVarsity Press, 2020) has won the annual book award from the Martin Institute for Christianity and Culture and the Dallas Willard Research Center (MIDWC) at Westmont College.

“Barbara Peacock’s book is a rich and loving reflection on the spiritual practices that ‘have been woven into the fabric of the African American culture.’” says Mark Nelson, Westmont’s Monroe professor of philosophy and director of the DWRC.

The author focuses on three practices — prayer, spiritual direction, and soul care — manifested in the lives and thought of 10 African American men and women: Frederick Douglass, Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, Darrell Griffin, Renita Weems, Harold Carter, Jessica Ingram, Coretta Scott King, James Washington, and Howard Thurman.  

“Peacock shows how these African American Christians forged their profound and distinctive approaches to these practices — often in bondage and oppression — to nourish a faith that can sustain the soul,” Nelson says.