Black faith is under attack.
Some people may respond with words affirming the death of Black, old-time religion. With all the good that comes with sitting in the pews of a Black church, it may be good to strip the institution of power that minimizes the role of women in leadership while spewing homophobic verbosity. Some people will say it’s a death that needs to happen.
The visceral grappling within the Black church is as old as the denominational strappings that label theological distinctions. Who preaches, leads, gets married and qualifies for membership extends beyond the tenants used to accredit how we view Black faith. The Black Church is not a theologically monolithic institution. Still, the concept and hope of Black faith is under attack.
Black faith transcends how we think about the Black Church.
The Vision of Multiculturalism
It started with an honorable vision – a church capable of eclipsing the barriers of race and culture. People imagined a Church reflective of celestial life with a multiracial choir. A wave of churches emerged with theology aimed at minimizing the gravity of race. These congregations took the energy of the Black worship experience, infused the teachings of white evangelical Christianity, empowered it with white senior leadership while offering shelter from a world overburdened with race and racism.
“The push for multicultural churches is based on the myth of an egalitarian post-racial society. Contrary to popular belief, our country is far from being the ideal place of equality and equity. Racial disparities in education, wealth, and the criminal justice system are present realities,” Lamont Frances, pastor of Delta Bay Church of Christ in Antioch, CA, writes in The Mask of Multicultural Churches. “The Church is called to be countercultural but during the better part of the 20th century, many mainline white denominations chose Jim Crow over Jesus.”
The Repudiation of Black and Womanist Theology
White theological assumptions were normalized in the attack of Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright, Jr, when Barack Obama campaigned to become America’s first Black President in 2008. When Wright’s sermons were used to charge Obama of being unpatriotic due to his membership at Chicago’s Trinity United Church of Christ, Obama distanced himself from his pastor. In doing so, Obama sided with white America’s fear; thereby, paving the way for the dismissal of the theology used to motivate and inspire Black Christians.
Wright was vilified as an outlier among Black theological thinkers. He was tagged a mad man with outlandish views that demanded national censure. The rush of public debunking hindered more than Wright’s reputation - It invalidated scholars and pastors who rely on Black Liberation and Womanist theology to bolster their work.
Michelle and Barack Obama both added insult by abrogating attacks to Wright’s teachings in their books.
“Perhaps this had caused us to overlook the more absurd parts of Reverend Wright’s spitfire preaching, even if we hadn’t been present for any of the sermons in question,” Michelle Obama writes in Becoming. “Seeing an extreme version of his vitriol broadcast in the news, though, we were appalled, the whole affair was a reminder of how our country’s distortion about race could be two-sided – that the suspicion and stereotyping ran both ways.”
Barack Obama says he sidestepped a problem after removing Wright from giving the invocation at the kickoff of his presidential campaign in Springfield, Illinois in 2007. The decision followed a Rolling Stones article with inflammatory Wright quotes involving race.
“I knew all too well the occasional spasms of anger within the Black community – my community – that Reverend Wright was channeling,” President Obama writes in Promised Land. “I did know how differently Black and white folks still viewed issues of race in America, regardless of how much else they had in common. For me to believe I could bridge those worlds had been pure hubris, that same hubris that had led me to assume that I could dip in and out of a complex institution like Trinity, headed by a complex man like Reverend Wright and select, as if off a menu, only those things I liked.”
Are there consequences to selecting to console white fear at the expense of Black pride and solidarity?
The Southern Baptist Convention Attack of Critical Race Theory.
What does it mean when the presidents of Southern Baptist seminaries issue a declaration denouncing critical race theory? The six white male presidents argue critical race theory is “incompatible” with Baptist affirmations of faith.
Their decision lines up with President Donald Trump’s September executive order banning critical race theory from government supported race and sex-based training. In doing so, the theology of Southern Baptist concedes the vision of a president with a confusing history regarding race.
The position taken by the seminary presidents has been met with resistance from religious leaders.
“They are more afraid of critical race theory than the ugly racism that has our democracy about to be crucified with lies,” Rev. Dr. J. Alfred Smith, Sr., pastor emeritus of Allen Temple Baptist Church in Oakland, CA and denominational leader, recently shared his views with the Baptist News. “They are complicit with evil. They don’t speak out against conspiracy theories, but they will make a big hullabaloo about critical race theory.”
Rev. Dr. Raphael Warnock bid for the U.S. Senate
Raphael Warnock is the Senior Pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. Ebenezer is Dr. King’s church, viewed by many as a Black mecca. Visiting there is like walking on holy ground. It is a place where Black theology takes shape in public life.
Warnock is running to unseat Kelly Loeffler, incumbent and co-owner of the WNBA Atlanta Dream. The team she owns made national news when they all wore t-shirts in support of Warnock. Loeffler is a Trump supporter who came under fire for taking a picture with a known member of the KKK. The Daily Beast recently reported Loeffler’s mansion mysteriously dropped $6 million in value overnight, despite more the $100,000 spent in lavish renovations.
To combat attacks regarding her substantial privilege, Loeffler has damned Warnock as a radical socialist who hates police and condemns the military. Using a page from the Trump playbook, Loeffler called on a coalition of 25 Black Georgia pastors to call out Warnock’s support of abortion.
The letter states the group felt “compelled to confront” Warnock after he made public comments supporting abortion which they said demonstrates “grave errors of judgment and a lapse in pastoral responsibility.”
“I will always fight for reproductive justice,” Warnock tweeted in November. “I’m a pro-choice pastor, and I believe that a hospital room is way too small for a woman, her doctor and the United States government.
The Black pastor asked Warnock to reconsider his position based on their interpretation of scriptures.
“As a Christian pastor, as a Black leader, you have a duty to denounce the evil of abortion, which kills a disproportionate number of Black children,” the letter states. “Your open advocacy of abortion is a scandal to the faith and to the Black community.”
Conclusion: This is not white folk religion
Black religion is an indispensable witness in altering assumptions of white normativity. This shows up best in the nurturing of Black cultural expressions reflected in Black spiritual movement. Black music, dance and spiritual ritual are vital connections with the ancestors of the African diaspora. Black faith also exists in nurturing Black identity within both historical and contemporary context of ongoing efforts aimed at undoing and undermining the virtue of Black witness.
Black faith is the counterbalance of white supremacy. It functions in breaking the bonds of hostile subjugation by creating a unique witness of faith brewed from the belly of the Black experience. The Black Church is more than a political movement. It’s where Black life and faith join in structuring confidence, courage and pride beyond the nuances of white evangelical thinking. This is the faith and life of Black people under attack by the unyielding desire for Black people to bow to the image of supposed white supremacy.
Black faith is what Black people do. This is not white folk religion.
Mind your own business.
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