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Black Religion and Black Radicalism
Since its first publication 25 years ago Black Religion and Black Radicalism has established itself as the classic treatment of African American religious history. Wilmore shows to what extent the history of African Americans can be told in terms of religion, and to what extent this religious history has been inseparably bound to the struggle for freedom and justice. From the story of the slave rebellions and emancipation, to the rise of Black nationalism and the freedom struggles of recent times, up through the development of Black, womanist, and Afrocentric theologies, Wilmore offers an essential interpretation of African American religious history
328 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1972
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
March 23, 2023
Wilmore is writing with a purpose. In his day, Christianity had increasingly become less radical. As Dr. King would say, it had become more of a thermometer and less like a thermostat.
As such, Wilmore sets out to demonstrate just how radical and alive Christianity had been for Black Americans from the time of slavery to his present day.
It is a remarkable story, neither pessimistic nor optimistic. There were swells of political action and moves for justice, and there were moments when these swells were beat down. But through it all, religion in general and Christianity in particular served as the thing the Black people could hold onto amidst impossibilities and defeat.
It is an inspiring and piercing read for Christians of all races.
As such, Wilmore sets out to demonstrate just how radical and alive Christianity had been for Black Americans from the time of slavery to his present day.
It is a remarkable story, neither pessimistic nor optimistic. There were swells of political action and moves for justice, and there were moments when these swells were beat down. But through it all, religion in general and Christianity in particular served as the thing the Black people could hold onto amidst impossibilities and defeat.
It is an inspiring and piercing read for Christians of all races.
July 4, 2024
A CHALLENGING EXAMINATION OF RELIGION AND ITS INFLUENCES
Gayraud S. Wilmore (born 1921) is an ordained Presbyterian minister who has taught at the Boston University School of Theology, Colgate Rochester Divinity School, New York Theological Seminary (where he served as dean of divinity), the Interdenominational Theological Center in Atlanta, Georgia, and the United Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio. [NOTE: page numbers below refer to the 288-page paperback edition of the 2nd revised edition.]
He wrote in the Introduction to the first edition, “Although religion has always been one of the most important aspects of the life of black persons in the United States, it has been woefully neglected as an area of serious study by black and white scholars alike. This was partly because black professional theologians, church historians, and sociologists of religion have been few and far between… It is also true that white scholars…have rarely expressed great interest in black religion in the United States… The few whites who have attempted to study and write about black religion in America… have never lived deeply enough nor been accepted long enough in the black rural slum or the urban ghetto to have come into a sufficient knowledge of black religion and the black church ‘from the inside.’ Today African scholars are also questioning whether their own religions have been understood by white investigators. This book intends to be a modest contribution to these studies. In a sense, it is an introduction to the bibliography of black religion in the United States.”
In the first chapter, he explains, “It is the purpose of this book to continue this search for meaning and direction by an analysis of the development of black religion in America from the period of slavery to the emergence of the new theological currents that black church members brought to the civil rights movement of the 1960s, currents that are being further developed today in what is called the black theology movement. The analysis is basically historical. Its major presupposition is that… there was from the beginning a fusion between a highly developed and pervasive feeling about the essentially spiritual nature of historical experience, flowing from the African traditional background, and a radical secularity related both to religious sensibility and to the experience of slavery and oppression. This fusion accounts for the most significant characteristics of black religion.” (Pg. 3)
He points out, “What we may call ‘white Christianity’ in Europe and North America has made a deep and lasting impression upon blacks everywhere, including Africa. But blacks have used Christianity not so much as it was delivered to them by racist white churches, but as its truth was authenticated to them in the experience of suffering and struggle, to reinforce an enculturated religious orientation and to produce and indigenous faith that emphasized dignity, freedom, and human welfare.” (Pg. 4)
He observes, “It was from within an African religious framework that the slaves made adjustments to Christianity after hearing the gospel. The influences of the African religious past extended into their new life… [and] were reshaped by the circumstances of enslavement… But instead of decaying there, the African elements were enhanced and strengthened in the subterranean vaults from which they arose… to subvert the attempt to make the slave an emasculated, depersonalized version of the white person. Christianity alone, unadulterated, otherworldly, and disengaged from its most authentic implications… could not have provided the slaves with all the resources they needed for the kind of resistance they expressed. It had to be enriched with the volatile ingredients of the African religious past and… with the human yearning for freedom that found a channel for expression in the early black churches of the South.” (Pg. 27)
He suggests, “Slave preachers, reinforced by their African background, understood well the awe-inspiring power of the Spirit… Like Moses with the serpent in the wilderness, the preacher held great power in his hands when he stood before his people… The exorcism of the demonic spirits, which lie beneath the surface of the soul, as the New Testament bears witness, is never completely predictable in its results. The full power of primitive religion can bring forth uncontrollable forces of good and evil, intertwined and inseparable. In African religion… the line that makes it possible for us to differentiate between such forces is barely discernible.” (Pg. 49-50)
He notes, “During the eighteenth century … It never occurred to white Christians that the equality that was denied to their [black] brothers and sisters in civil society should at least be made available to them within the church. As a matter of fact, the relationship pattern between whites and blacks in the household of God made difficult for Americans to perceive that there was anything wrong with inequality in the household of Caesar. In the South it seemed rather a matter of prudence on the part of the planters not to permit the slaves to come together for religious services unless some white persons were present. That… is the reason why most slaves and their masters sought the blessings of God under the same roof for more than a hundred and fifty years before the Emancipation Proclamation.” (Pg. 74) He adds, “The black minister, however, was not naïve…. He knew he was being watched by the whites, but also how to make the best use of the opportunity to teach what blacks needed to know about themselves and their situation.” (Pg. 75)
He explains, “the black church was the cutting edge of the freedom movement during most of the nineteenth century. It presented itself as a living witness against the ambivalence and conservativism of most white Christians up to the Civil War… It is true that the majority of black preachers were not Nat Turners and were more imitative of the moralizing and peacemaking of the white clergy than was necessary under the circumstances… Yet it is important to remember that… they were, nevertheless, unquestionably ‘race men.’ The … graciousness of their language should not mislead us to assume that they were ‘gentlemen of the cloth’ in the grand English manner, incapable of the acrimonious debate and passionate dissent of revolutionaries.” (Pg. 95)
He points out, “[In the 19th century] White biblical scholars … insisted that … whatever can be found in African societies that is commendable must be traced to the invasion of the ‘white Hamites’ who ascended from the Nile valley from Europe… to begin the process of civilization in black Africa. Black intellectuals and abolitionists persisted in the other point of view… Other spokespersons pointed to the fact that the Egyptians called their country ‘Kemet,’ ‘the black land,’ and that this did not refer to the color of the soil, but the color of the people. Similarly, they recalled Solomon’s beautiful Egyptian wife, immortalized in the Song of Solomon 1:5-6, and the clear meaning of Jeremiah 13:23: ‘Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots?’” (Pg. 120-121)
Of the 1920s and ‘30s, he comments, “many black preachers retreated to what they knew best: preaching hell fire and damnation and raising money… But the forces released by the Great Migration, the Depression, and two world wars, were more than most of them and their congregations could sustain. They quietly adjusted themselves to what appeared to be an inevitable border guard responsibility. The deradicalization of the black church… was almost complete by the middle of this [20th] century…” (Pg. 164-165)
He observes, “There is no evidence that there was widespread defection from the churches into the Nation of Islam, as the Muslims predicted, but since the rise of Islam in the black community churchgoers have often measured what their preachers say about the black condition in America by what they recognize as the painful truth from the late Malcolm X and other Muslim ministers … Only the split between Malcolm X and the Honorable Elijah Muhammad in 1964 and the assassination of Malcolm X … prevented the movement from making serious inroads into the ranks of organized Christianity.” (Pg. 174)
He notes that Malcolm X “knew the history of black peoples too well and had seen too much of the influence of religion as a motive force in the black community to discard it… Keeping Islam available as an alternative to Christianity provided him with one of his most potent ideological weapons for weaning persons away from the dominant values and preparing them for solidarity with other nonwhite cultures around the world.” (Pg. 186)
He recounts how on May 4, 1969, James Forman “walked down the aisle of Riverside Church in New York City and hurled a series of demands at its minister and congregation… [This] galvanized the attention of the nation and brought a storm of outrage from white clergy and laity. The bold disruption of the services at Riverside church, one of the most prestigious congregations in the country, alienated many liberal whites … Not a few black church leaders … also deplored Forman’s action as ‘extreme and sacrilegious.’ … The fact remains, nevertheless, that the tactics of Forman … achieved what hears of gentle prodding by church executives had not been able to achieve---to… sound a clear note of urgency that would have officials scurrying into emergency meetings…” (Pg. 206)
He acknowledges, “We should not be surprised to find… a dark and contrary side of black religion as it developed under the most trying circumstances… The dark and contrary side of black religion must be understood as an alternative form of spirituality. It is a fundamental aspect of what we may call the survival tradition… It is not surprising, therefore, that C. Eric Lincoln observed [in The Black Muslims in America] the same spirit, in contrast to orthodox Islam, in the bitterness and hatred of the early Black Muslim movement.” (Pg. 224)
He summarizes, “In step with King, black theologians attempt to do Christian theology from a Christian social action and ecumenical perspective. In step with Malcolm, they refuse to be domesticated or dominated by the norms of white Christianity… black theology … desires to be Pan-African rather than Euro-American… It aspires more to be a theology of the people than an academic, professional theology… Black theologians generally believe that there is an alternative form of faith, drawing power from the experience of black suffering and struggle, which can open up a new way of being both black and Christian. They are convinced not only that no one is free until all are free, but also that it is only when a people struggle for their survival and liberation that they begin to understand what it means to be human.” (Pg. 234)
This book is “must reading” for anyone seriously studying black theology, and its development.
Gayraud S. Wilmore (born 1921) is an ordained Presbyterian minister who has taught at the Boston University School of Theology, Colgate Rochester Divinity School, New York Theological Seminary (where he served as dean of divinity), the Interdenominational Theological Center in Atlanta, Georgia, and the United Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio. [NOTE: page numbers below refer to the 288-page paperback edition of the 2nd revised edition.]
He wrote in the Introduction to the first edition, “Although religion has always been one of the most important aspects of the life of black persons in the United States, it has been woefully neglected as an area of serious study by black and white scholars alike. This was partly because black professional theologians, church historians, and sociologists of religion have been few and far between… It is also true that white scholars…have rarely expressed great interest in black religion in the United States… The few whites who have attempted to study and write about black religion in America… have never lived deeply enough nor been accepted long enough in the black rural slum or the urban ghetto to have come into a sufficient knowledge of black religion and the black church ‘from the inside.’ Today African scholars are also questioning whether their own religions have been understood by white investigators. This book intends to be a modest contribution to these studies. In a sense, it is an introduction to the bibliography of black religion in the United States.”
In the first chapter, he explains, “It is the purpose of this book to continue this search for meaning and direction by an analysis of the development of black religion in America from the period of slavery to the emergence of the new theological currents that black church members brought to the civil rights movement of the 1960s, currents that are being further developed today in what is called the black theology movement. The analysis is basically historical. Its major presupposition is that… there was from the beginning a fusion between a highly developed and pervasive feeling about the essentially spiritual nature of historical experience, flowing from the African traditional background, and a radical secularity related both to religious sensibility and to the experience of slavery and oppression. This fusion accounts for the most significant characteristics of black religion.” (Pg. 3)
He points out, “What we may call ‘white Christianity’ in Europe and North America has made a deep and lasting impression upon blacks everywhere, including Africa. But blacks have used Christianity not so much as it was delivered to them by racist white churches, but as its truth was authenticated to them in the experience of suffering and struggle, to reinforce an enculturated religious orientation and to produce and indigenous faith that emphasized dignity, freedom, and human welfare.” (Pg. 4)
He observes, “It was from within an African religious framework that the slaves made adjustments to Christianity after hearing the gospel. The influences of the African religious past extended into their new life… [and] were reshaped by the circumstances of enslavement… But instead of decaying there, the African elements were enhanced and strengthened in the subterranean vaults from which they arose… to subvert the attempt to make the slave an emasculated, depersonalized version of the white person. Christianity alone, unadulterated, otherworldly, and disengaged from its most authentic implications… could not have provided the slaves with all the resources they needed for the kind of resistance they expressed. It had to be enriched with the volatile ingredients of the African religious past and… with the human yearning for freedom that found a channel for expression in the early black churches of the South.” (Pg. 27)
He suggests, “Slave preachers, reinforced by their African background, understood well the awe-inspiring power of the Spirit… Like Moses with the serpent in the wilderness, the preacher held great power in his hands when he stood before his people… The exorcism of the demonic spirits, which lie beneath the surface of the soul, as the New Testament bears witness, is never completely predictable in its results. The full power of primitive religion can bring forth uncontrollable forces of good and evil, intertwined and inseparable. In African religion… the line that makes it possible for us to differentiate between such forces is barely discernible.” (Pg. 49-50)
He notes, “During the eighteenth century … It never occurred to white Christians that the equality that was denied to their [black] brothers and sisters in civil society should at least be made available to them within the church. As a matter of fact, the relationship pattern between whites and blacks in the household of God made difficult for Americans to perceive that there was anything wrong with inequality in the household of Caesar. In the South it seemed rather a matter of prudence on the part of the planters not to permit the slaves to come together for religious services unless some white persons were present. That… is the reason why most slaves and their masters sought the blessings of God under the same roof for more than a hundred and fifty years before the Emancipation Proclamation.” (Pg. 74) He adds, “The black minister, however, was not naïve…. He knew he was being watched by the whites, but also how to make the best use of the opportunity to teach what blacks needed to know about themselves and their situation.” (Pg. 75)
He explains, “the black church was the cutting edge of the freedom movement during most of the nineteenth century. It presented itself as a living witness against the ambivalence and conservativism of most white Christians up to the Civil War… It is true that the majority of black preachers were not Nat Turners and were more imitative of the moralizing and peacemaking of the white clergy than was necessary under the circumstances… Yet it is important to remember that… they were, nevertheless, unquestionably ‘race men.’ The … graciousness of their language should not mislead us to assume that they were ‘gentlemen of the cloth’ in the grand English manner, incapable of the acrimonious debate and passionate dissent of revolutionaries.” (Pg. 95)
He points out, “[In the 19th century] White biblical scholars … insisted that … whatever can be found in African societies that is commendable must be traced to the invasion of the ‘white Hamites’ who ascended from the Nile valley from Europe… to begin the process of civilization in black Africa. Black intellectuals and abolitionists persisted in the other point of view… Other spokespersons pointed to the fact that the Egyptians called their country ‘Kemet,’ ‘the black land,’ and that this did not refer to the color of the soil, but the color of the people. Similarly, they recalled Solomon’s beautiful Egyptian wife, immortalized in the Song of Solomon 1:5-6, and the clear meaning of Jeremiah 13:23: ‘Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots?’” (Pg. 120-121)
Of the 1920s and ‘30s, he comments, “many black preachers retreated to what they knew best: preaching hell fire and damnation and raising money… But the forces released by the Great Migration, the Depression, and two world wars, were more than most of them and their congregations could sustain. They quietly adjusted themselves to what appeared to be an inevitable border guard responsibility. The deradicalization of the black church… was almost complete by the middle of this [20th] century…” (Pg. 164-165)
He observes, “There is no evidence that there was widespread defection from the churches into the Nation of Islam, as the Muslims predicted, but since the rise of Islam in the black community churchgoers have often measured what their preachers say about the black condition in America by what they recognize as the painful truth from the late Malcolm X and other Muslim ministers … Only the split between Malcolm X and the Honorable Elijah Muhammad in 1964 and the assassination of Malcolm X … prevented the movement from making serious inroads into the ranks of organized Christianity.” (Pg. 174)
He notes that Malcolm X “knew the history of black peoples too well and had seen too much of the influence of religion as a motive force in the black community to discard it… Keeping Islam available as an alternative to Christianity provided him with one of his most potent ideological weapons for weaning persons away from the dominant values and preparing them for solidarity with other nonwhite cultures around the world.” (Pg. 186)
He recounts how on May 4, 1969, James Forman “walked down the aisle of Riverside Church in New York City and hurled a series of demands at its minister and congregation… [This] galvanized the attention of the nation and brought a storm of outrage from white clergy and laity. The bold disruption of the services at Riverside church, one of the most prestigious congregations in the country, alienated many liberal whites … Not a few black church leaders … also deplored Forman’s action as ‘extreme and sacrilegious.’ … The fact remains, nevertheless, that the tactics of Forman … achieved what hears of gentle prodding by church executives had not been able to achieve---to… sound a clear note of urgency that would have officials scurrying into emergency meetings…” (Pg. 206)
He acknowledges, “We should not be surprised to find… a dark and contrary side of black religion as it developed under the most trying circumstances… The dark and contrary side of black religion must be understood as an alternative form of spirituality. It is a fundamental aspect of what we may call the survival tradition… It is not surprising, therefore, that C. Eric Lincoln observed [in The Black Muslims in America] the same spirit, in contrast to orthodox Islam, in the bitterness and hatred of the early Black Muslim movement.” (Pg. 224)
He summarizes, “In step with King, black theologians attempt to do Christian theology from a Christian social action and ecumenical perspective. In step with Malcolm, they refuse to be domesticated or dominated by the norms of white Christianity… black theology … desires to be Pan-African rather than Euro-American… It aspires more to be a theology of the people than an academic, professional theology… Black theologians generally believe that there is an alternative form of faith, drawing power from the experience of black suffering and struggle, which can open up a new way of being both black and Christian. They are convinced not only that no one is free until all are free, but also that it is only when a people struggle for their survival and liberation that they begin to understand what it means to be human.” (Pg. 234)
This book is “must reading” for anyone seriously studying black theology, and its development.
February 5, 2019
A very good historical analysis regarding early religions, the use of the church in activism and how it changed with trends and people over time. I really enjoyed it!
Read
December 13, 2025"read" is a very strong term for my experience of this book. grad school am I right
January 22, 2011
Consistently interesting and urgently narrated, Wilmore's book does not lack for ambition. It seeks a unified theory of Black religious history, predominantly in the United States, with Black Power as its defining note. For communities already committed to that ethical and political project, this book would probably be irreplaceable. Skeptics, however, are likely to walk away unconvinced.
Wilmore is a compelling historian, theologically astute, with an ear for the telling quote. Any book so studded with excerpts from Du Bois and the King James Bible is setting a high standard of eloquence. With regard to his own rhetoric, Wilmore need not be ashamed of the company he has chosen. The text itself is readable and clear. I received it as a sort of counter-narration to the account Marla Frederick gives of the same material in her seminars. With that background, Wilmore's distinctive moves become more visible; and they are worth considering, although far from self-evident.
The book's structure is somewhat misleading. Its opening chapter, on the African roots of Black Christianity, is also its weakest, tendentious and under-sourced, intervening in anthropologists' debates about the relevance of African religion to Black Christianity with an unearned theological certainty. Its final narrative chapters, by contrast-- on the Civil Rights movement, Black Power, and that movement's theological afterlife-- are thoroughly documented and convincingly argued. A movement scholar must, perhaps, pay tribute accordingly, and so in this case begin with the pharaohs and the Ethiopian eunuch. To simultaneously speak from within a movement and tell its history for a critical audience is a high ambition, one I would generally hope to see succeed.
To make an argument like this one stick, Wilmore cannot rely on history alone. His project, though fundamentally interpretive, needs multiple empirical groundings. In fact, African-American Religious Studies has a history of producing polymaths who work across history, theology, sociology, and anthropology with skill and aplomb, producing work of equal sophistication and salience. In that regard, the field serves as a model to the study of religion as a whole. If Wilmore does not equal those successes here (and I judge he does not) he still provides a unique and useful text. Scholars who also want to be activists will find this book a helpful model.
Wilmore is a compelling historian, theologically astute, with an ear for the telling quote. Any book so studded with excerpts from Du Bois and the King James Bible is setting a high standard of eloquence. With regard to his own rhetoric, Wilmore need not be ashamed of the company he has chosen. The text itself is readable and clear. I received it as a sort of counter-narration to the account Marla Frederick gives of the same material in her seminars. With that background, Wilmore's distinctive moves become more visible; and they are worth considering, although far from self-evident.
The book's structure is somewhat misleading. Its opening chapter, on the African roots of Black Christianity, is also its weakest, tendentious and under-sourced, intervening in anthropologists' debates about the relevance of African religion to Black Christianity with an unearned theological certainty. Its final narrative chapters, by contrast-- on the Civil Rights movement, Black Power, and that movement's theological afterlife-- are thoroughly documented and convincingly argued. A movement scholar must, perhaps, pay tribute accordingly, and so in this case begin with the pharaohs and the Ethiopian eunuch. To simultaneously speak from within a movement and tell its history for a critical audience is a high ambition, one I would generally hope to see succeed.
To make an argument like this one stick, Wilmore cannot rely on history alone. His project, though fundamentally interpretive, needs multiple empirical groundings. In fact, African-American Religious Studies has a history of producing polymaths who work across history, theology, sociology, and anthropology with skill and aplomb, producing work of equal sophistication and salience. In that regard, the field serves as a model to the study of religion as a whole. If Wilmore does not equal those successes here (and I judge he does not) he still provides a unique and useful text. Scholars who also want to be activists will find this book a helpful model.
May 4, 2013
The book was a little intense for me. I'm not a follower of any traditional form of religion as I believe a personal relationship is more important. Especially more important than religion, traditions, or any thing limited or dictated/designed by another person. These things are why we don't just love one another and accept our differences. Why believe anything that doesn't put love first. Regardless, of what one may consider sin or right, wrong, good or bad. This book is really a personal opinion of a person and his feelings on Islam. He tried to dress it up by stating some facts from history. Along with some fiction and maybe even a little make believe. As they say you can make some of the people believe you...some of the time. I personally hope before believing all of this book and thinking its all correct. Each person will do a lot more research.
December 28, 2010
What I learned: If they hadn't killed Malcolm X and MLK, this country would be a different place right now. And, Malcolm's Hajj experience was beautiful. True Islam could transform this country.
March 3, 2016
Highly subjective and not adjusted to current times.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews