A review by aman757
Black Battle, White Knight: The Authorized Biography of Malcolm Boyd by Michael Battle

adventurous challenging hopeful informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

4.5

I enjoyed reading this book, which was unique in both the content of its subject as well as the format. The primary subject of this book is Malcolm Boyd, a gay celebrity priest who impacted the U.S. and the world in many ways, including activism in the African American civil rights movement, as well as writing and publicly speaking about his sexuality and the ways this aspect of his personality affected his relationship with the church. The title of the book also has several layers of meaning. For one, it relates to how the chapters in the book are organized around the biblical passage in Revelation about the four horsemen of the apocalypse, who ride horses of different colors: white, red, black, and green. The way Boyd's life corresponds to the characteristics associated with each horsemen is a primary part of what organizes the contents of the book's chapters. Furthermore, the title relates to a contrast between Boyd's race of white and the race of the biographer, Michael Battle, being black. The significance of this relationship between biographer and subject was explored throughout the book, with one way being the inclusion of email correspondences between the two that illuminates how Boyd influenced Battle's writing of the book and Battle helped shape Boyd's views toward race and religion. I had never heard of Boyd before reading this book, and find it difficult to comprehend how revolutionary and iconoclastic he was to the church and culture in his time. This book has helped me better comprehend some of my own hesitance toward religion, particularly with regards to the treatment of race and sexuality. Additionally, I believe the chapter organization leaves me with a helpful framework for directing some of that personal hesitance to actually influencing a positive change in religious settings I've either avoided or rejected. The chapter about the black horse was particularly illuminating to me about how my personal interpretation of the religion I grew up in reflects a sort of spiritual famine in need of less restrictive borders around religious expression, though I don't think the points made in that particular chapter can be fully comprehended without the context of the book's other chapters and what these reflect about the character of not only Boyd, but Battle also and how nobody can know the fullness of their being without relation to each other.