The World in Flames, Jerald Walker
The World in Flames, Jerald Walker
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The World in Flames
A Black Boyhood in a White Supremacist Doomsday Cult

Author: Jerald Walker

Narrator: C.S. Treadway

Unabridged: 5 hr 39 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Beacon Press

Published: 11/09/2017

Synopsis

In 1970, Jerry Walker is six years old. His consciousness revolves around being a member of Herbert W. Armstrong's Worldwide Church of God, whose beliefs he finds not only confusing but terrifying. For Jerry's parents, the promise of relief from the world's hardships provides comfort and hope for a divine future where they might regain the sight they each lost as children. The next life would arrive in 1975, three years after the start of the Great Tribulation where all nonbelievers would perish in rivers of flames. When the prophecy of the 1972 Great Tribulation does not materialize, Jerry is considerably less disappointed than relieved. When the 1975 end-time prophecy also fails, he finally begins to question his faith and imagine the possibility of choosing a destiny of his own.

About Jerald Walker

Jerald Walker is the author of How to Make a Slave and Other Essays, a Finalist for the National Book Award and Winner of the Massachusetts Book Award; The World in Flames: A Black Boyhood in a White Supremacist Doomsday Cult; and Street Shadows: A Memoir of Race, Rebellion, and Redemption, recipient of the PEN/New England Award for Nonfiction. His work has appeared in prestigious publications such as the Harvard Review, Creative Nonfiction, the Iowa Review, the New York Times, Washington Post, and Mother Jones, as well as six editions of The Best American Essays series and the Pushcart Prizes. A recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the James A. Michener Foundation, Walker is a Professor of Creative Writing and African American Literature at Emerson College. He lives outside Boston, Massachusetts.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Stephanie on January 12, 2018

I had been a member of the Worldwide Church of God cult for almost 35 years, and so I approached reading Mr. Walker’s book (which I won in a Goodreads Giveaway) with some trepidation. Though I purposefully went through cult deprogramming 18 years ago, the deleterious effects of my involvement in the......more

Goodreads review by Laura on August 29, 2016

The World in Flames is a close examination of the author’s childhood growing up in a doomsday cult. Walker does an outstanding job of telling the tale through his childhood eyes. I had a little trepidation going into this. Some authors tell their childhood memoirs with too much maturity; you feel lik......more

Goodreads review by Jamie on May 01, 2016

I read the title, did a double take and immediately knew I needed to read this book. And I read the first 70% in one sitting because how can you possibly stop turning the page on a black boy's childhood whose family is in a doomsday cult that is segregated. That's right, not only did he not think he......more

Goodreads review by Rachel on May 24, 2019

I'm admittedly a little obsessed with cults...and I was very intrigued to read this account from the perspective of a Black person in the Worldwide Church of God, a group that held many White Supremacist views. Given that this topic is included in the subtitle of the book, I was very eager to learn......more

Goodreads review by Kkraemer on November 01, 2016

This is the autobiography of a man whose family was devoted to Armstrong's Worldwide Church of God, a church that preached the endtimes' onset in 1975. He would have been a young teenager; he had known of his own impending demise for his entire life. He tells the story of his childhood -- his brother......more

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