Failed Christianity

Virtually all of the white men in Caryl Phillips' Crossing the River are professed Christians, and yet all except the contemporaries in the final journal, "Somewhere in England," are involved in the commerce of slavery. The inconsistencies between these two realities create the dynamic that drives both Edward Williams and Captain Hamilton's father to madness. Phillips' indictment of the faith, however, is not of the doctrine itself, but rather of the way certain white characters in his novel practice it.

Although Phillips condemns the practice of slavery by those white men who profess to be Christian, his work is not full of vitriol and hatred, as are the works of some modern black writers lamenting the tragedy of the black diaspora. He does not rant and rave but seems to have divined a deep insight into the workings of the white psychic that allowed men such as...