If God cannot do this, then it is time we god rid of Him.”īaldwin also turns a critical eye on the Nation of Islam, which he considers to be nearly a mirror image of the white Christian subordination of African-Americans. If the concept of God has any validity or any use, it can only be to make us larger, freer, and more loving.
He posits that, in order to lead a sound moral life, one must “first divorce himself from all the prohibitions, crimes and hypocrisies of the Christian church. Given this fraught history, Baldwin is skeptical of Christianity’s ability to unite blacks and whites, identifying it as a poor model for equality. He points out that “Christianity has operated with an unmitigated arrogance and cruelty-necessarily, since a religion ordinarily imposes on those who have discovered the true faith the spiritual duty of liberating the infidels.” This is a reference to early Christian missionaries, whose job was to spread the religion in foreign lands, an endeavor that Baldwin points out conveniently became a “justification for the planting of the flag.” In other words, as whites took it upon themselves to supposedly theologically liberate black countries, Christianity became an excuse for domination, control, and conquest. In “Down At The Cross,” Baldwin discusses the rise of the white Christian to power. Addressing both the racist history of the Christian church and what he views as the equally unproductive aspirations of the Nation of Islam, Baldwin dissects the way religion has for centuries been wielded as an instrument of inequality and oppression. Another group he critically examines is the Nation of Islam, a religious and cultural organization that used Islamic beliefs to argue that the time for white rule was soon coming to an end and that, according to Allah, black people would imminently rise to power. His critique of the church is rooted in his disapproval of the black-and-white, us-versus-them mentality that it so often (though not always) advances, a disapproval that he does not singularly reserve for Christianity.
Although much of Baldwin’s thinking is influenced by the Christian virtues he grew up with, The Fire Next Time largely focuses on the religion’s divisive qualities. On the other hand, though, with its long history of conquest and enslavement, Christian ideology was also used by white people to reinforce racist agendas. Many Christian groups-such as the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, to name just one-were foundational to the Civil Rights Movement, basing their calls for equality within the framework of Christianity’s celebration of love and kindness.
The early sixties were a time of heated debate regarding racial segregation, and much of that debate was inflected by religion. The Fire Next Time was published in 1963, 100 years after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation.
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