Unholy Ghosts in the Age of Spirit: Identity, Intersectionality, and the Theological Horizons of Black Progress

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UnholyGhostsintheAgeofSpirit:Identity,Intersectionality,andtheTheologicalHorizonsofBlackProgress

Adissertationpresented

by

GeraldLamarWilliams,Jr.

to

TheGraduateSchoolofArtsandSciences

inpartialfulfillmentoftherequirements

forthedegreeof

DoctorofPhilosophy

inthesubjectofTheStudyofReligion

HarvardUniversity

Cambridge,Massachusetts

May2017

ii

©2017GeraldLamarWilliams,Jr.

Allrightsreserved.

iii

DissertationAdvisor:ProfessorDavidC.Lamberth GeraldLamarWilliams,Jr.

UnholyGhostsintheAgeofSpirit:

Identity,Intersectionality,andtheTheologicalHorizonsofBlackProgress

Abstract The dissertation offers, at the intersection of race, gender, sexuality, and class, a

constructivetheologicalaccountofspiritinblackChristianity.Althoughspiritisapervasive

tropeinAfrican-Americanreligion,pneumatologyismissingastheologicalmethodinblack

religiousdiscourse in this “AgeofSpirit.” In fact, spirit-talkhasbeenused topathologize

somefortheadvancementofothers,especiallyintherespectabilitypoliticsofblackracial

uplift and the cis-heteronormativity of black charismatic Christianity. I am interested,

therefore,inthediscursiveproductionofdeviancyandthe“demonic,”whichisantithetical

tospirit-talk.

Through consideration of the “rational spirit” of W.E.B. Du Bois, the “sanctified

spirit” of ZoraNealeHurston, and the “mystical spirit” ofHoward Thurman, I develop a

pneumatologythatestablishestheempowermentofthemarginalizedasthesinequanon,

the essential condition and consequence, of spirit-talk. In the dissertation, I trace the

legaciesofthesepublicintellectualsonAfrican-AmericanChristianity,particularlyonblack

andwomanist theologies: the thesis rethinks the concepts of hope, courage, and vitality,

usingDuBois,Hurston,andThurman,respectively,asinterlocutors.

In the end, I construct a theology of Spirit in black radical religion that resists,

disturbs, and disrupts dispositifs of deviancy. By interpreting Jesus, the Spirit of God, as

chiefdeviantandliberatingpower,Idemonstratethataprogressive,queerpneumatology

ispossible.

iv

TableofContents

Preface.....................................................................................................................................................................v

Acknowledgements.............................................................................................................................................x

Chapter1. GhostStories.................................................................................................................................11.1. Introduction:OnPathologyandPneumatology...............................................................................................61.2. SpiritoftheCross........................................................................................................................................................151.3. OnIrony,Invisibility,andtheSpiritofBlackFolk........................................................................................32

Chapter2. LiberatingSpirit:W.E.B.DuBois,TheFrenzy,andBlackRespectability..............422.1. SiblingRivalry:BlackTheologyandtheAfrican-AmericanRadicalTradition...............................462.2. TheSpiritualStrivingofDuBoisandhisCritiqueofReligion.................................................................522.3. OntheCareofthe(Social)Soul............................................................................................................................712.4. AncestralSpiritsintheSoulofDuBois.............................................................................................................812.5. PropheticPragmaticUnderpinningsofSpiritualStriving........................................................................922.6. TowardsaBlackLiberationPneumatology....................................................................................................982.7. Onthe“UnhopefulHope”oftheSorrowSongs...........................................................................................105

Chapter3. SanctifyingSpirit:ZoraNealeHurston,ReligiousDeviancy,andthePoliticsofBlackDisrespectability.................................................................................................................................1153.1. TearsofJoyandSongsofUnsorrowfulVerse..............................................................................................1193.2. BehindtheVeil..........................................................................................................................................................1223.3. ConstructingChoices:TheEverydayEthicalTaskofWomanism.......................................................1283.4. OceansofPossibility:EverydayFluidityandtheArrayofChoices.....................................................1373.5. “Water-WashedandSpiritBorn”Folk............................................................................................................1543.6. “Un/Shouted”Courage..........................................................................................................................................162

Chapter4. QueeringSpirit:TheologicalTransgressionasaWayBackHome.......................1664.1. WomanistsLovetheSpirit?.................................................................................................................................1704.2. HometoGayHarlem:QueerIdentitiesSeekingSafety............................................................................1754.3. CouragetoFindHomeinOne’sSelf.................................................................................................................2014.4. QueerTransgressionsandIndecentTheologicalProposals..................................................................216

Chapter5. EnrichingSpirit:HowardThurmanandaTheologyoftheDisinherited............2295.1. The“UncreatedElement”:HowardThurman’s(Mystical)CallofSpirit.........................................2305.2. TheDeviantJesusoftheDisinherited..............................................................................................................2405.3. StillMoreRiverstoCross:SingingtheNegroSpirituals.........................................................................2475.4. CreativeEncounters:PneumatologicalAffinitytoThurman’sSpirit................................................2605.5. SpiritandthePowerWithin:OvercomingtheFearofDeath...............................................................2685.6. ConcludingTheologicalPostscripts.................................................................................................................275

Bibliography.....................................................................................................................................................278

v

Preface

AsanundergraduateIsatinthepewsofUnionUnitedMethodistChurch,andasa

doctoral student I stood in its pulpit. At first, I worshipped as a member of the

denomination’s first predominately African-American, LGBTQ-affirming, “reconciling

congregation.”1Later,Ipastoredthepeoplewhonurturedmyfaithasacollegestudent.To

say that Iwassurprisedwhenmybishopcalledwouldbeanunderstatement.Never ina

thousandyearscouldIhavedreamedthis.

I experienced many joys and many challenges in ministry at Union—some

anticipated,otherscompletelyunexpected. Iknewthatmyfirst funeralwouldbedifficult

andmyfirstbaptismpurebliss.ButIneverimaginedtheheartachethatIwouldexperience

asaparishpastor,whilethedenominationstruggledoverhumansexuality.

What do you really say to awoman in her twilight yearswhodoes not fully love

herselfbecauseofhersexuality?Howdoyouhelpwipeawaythetearsofayoungmanwho

cries himself to sleep everynight becausehe is in lovewith anotherman?Whendoes a

marriedsame-gendercouplestartenjoyingtheirholymatrimony,freefromthejudgment

offamilyandchurch?Theseareamongthequestionsthatkeptmeupatnight.

Still,somanytimesIsawreliefintheeyesofmenandwomen,oldandyoung,who

have finally found a black church that truly embraces them and their sexuality—fully,

unconditionally. Iwitnessed sheer surprisewhenawoman introducesherwife toUnion

1A“reconcilingcongregation”isalocalUnitedMethodistchurchthathasdecidedofficiallytoembrace

LGBTQIpersonswithradicalloveandacceptance.“ReconcilingMinistriesNetworkbelievesthathuman

sexualityisagoodgiftfromGod.RMNiscommittedtosupportingtheintegrationofhealthy,loving

expressionsofsexualityandspiritualityforeveryone.Wecelebratethesexualityandspiritualityofsameand

oppositegenderlovingpersonsandpledgetoprovideresourcesthatleadtoadeeperunderstandingofGod’s

preciousgift.”http://www.rmnetwork.org/newrmn/who-we-are/mission/(accessedMarch30,2017).

vi

andourmembersdonotbataneye.IhaveseentearsflowasLGBTQfolkfindthespiritual

homeforwhichtheysearchedforyears.ButIalsofelttheutterdisappointment—andthe

confusion—ofagaycouplethataskedtobemarriedinUnion'ssanctuary.

IalwaysimaginedthatbeingapastorwouldmeanextendingGod’sblessingtothose

whoyearnforauthenticrelationship.“TheLORDblessyouandkeepyou”(Numbers6:24).

ButtheUnitedMethodistChurchtoldmetodootherwise.2Itisahardthingnottoblessthe

same people I pray with, study the Bible with, break bread with, and fellowship with.

Actually,itbrokemyheart.Becausesexualityisnotsomethingtobedebated.This"issue"

has faces and stories, disappointments and agonies, hopes and prayers. As a pastor,

ministryismoreaboutpeoplethanpolicies.

AlthoughthepeopleofUnionarenotallofonemind,thereissomethingthatallof

ushavecometoknow:ourDNAismadeupofthedoublehelixofbiblicalfaithandsocial

justice. Since the congregation’s beginnings in 1796, we have been abolitionists,

desegregationists, women’s rights advocates, civil rights activists, anti-apartheid

protestors,andeconomicequalityseekers.AlltheseissuesaretiedupinChrist’sinvitation

forustobereconciledandtobeset free.Soaswestruggleto findourwayforwardasa

congregation,wehavecovenantedtostayatthetableasweseekatableforall.Wegather

asbrokenvesselsaroundabrokenloafasonepeople.Becausetoomanypeoplehavebeen

2The2016UnitedMethodistBookofDisciplinestates:“ThepracticeofhomosexualityisincompatiblewithChristianteaching.Thereforeself-avowedpracticinghomosexualsarenottobecertifiedascandidates,

ordainedasministers,orappointedtoserveinTheUnitedMethodistChurch”(¶304.3).UnitedMethodist

Church(2016-12-21).TheBookofDisciplineofTheUnitedMethodistChurch2016(KindleLocations4763-4765).UnitedMethodistPublishingHouse.KindleEdition.Also:“Ceremoniesthatcelebratehomosexual

unionsshallnotbeconductedbyourministersandshallnotbeconductedinourchurches”(¶341.6).United

MethodistChurch(2016-12-21).TheBookofDisciplineofTheUnitedMethodistChurch2016(KindleLocations5714-5716).UnitedMethodistPublishingHouse.KindleEdition.

vii

hurt,wedecidednolongertofightovertheissue.Webelievethereisstilla“moreexcellent

way”(1Corinthians12:31).

Traveling the road as Union’s pastor (and as a Ph.D. student) has been both

challengingandcomplicated,andoccasionallyawalkingcontradiction.Thepainfullyironic

thingisthatIwasappointedbythegeneralsuperintendenttoa“reconcilingchurch”and

thenorderedbythedenominationnottopastorallmypeoplefairly.Asablackmaninthe

UnitedStates,Iknowthatthe“separatebutequal”thingsimplydoesnotwork.3

Thebiggestcontradictionforme,though,wasthedenialofmyownself.Foryears,I

tried to keep separate the various constituents of my identity—pastor here, queerman

over there. I struggled to keep these selves segregated, and managed to do so (or so I

thought) for three-and-a-half years. Until a few days before Pentecost Sunday 2016, the

sermon title “Waiting to Exhale” dropped intomy spirit. As I outlined amessage about

Spirit-as-breath-of-God, I realized that Iwas the onenot breathing. Iwas suffocating for

lack of honesty, pretending to be other than I am. And I could take it no longer. After

powerfulmusic and danceministries, I stood beforemy people to speakmy truthwith

voicetrembling.InadramaticprolegomenonIconfessed:

ForaslongasIcanrememberIhaveknowninmyheartofheartsthatIamdifferent.Evenasachild,I’veknown.Butitwasnotsafetobreathe…IwasforcedtohidemybeingandIhavebeensuffocatinginside…dyinginsidebecauseIhavefailedtotakeinfreshair,todayIchooseamoreexcellentway.I’vebeenwaitingtoexhale,buttodayIbreatheagain.[takeadeepbreath]Today,todayIspeakmytruth…todayIcomeout…todayIam“calledout”4…Andtoday,IamproudtosaythatIamgay.

3ThedecisionoftheNationalAssociationfortheAdvancementofColoredPeopletopursuealegalendto

segregation,whichledtoBrownv.BoardofEducationofTopekathatoverturnedPlessyv.Fergusonasunconstitutional,wastakenattheannualmeetingheldatUnionMethodistEpiscopalChurch(nowUnion

UnitedMethodistChurch),June20-25,1950.http://americanhistory.si.edu/brown/history/3-

organized/turning-point.html(accessedJuly6,2016).

4“CalledOut”isamovementofLGBTQIClergyintheUnitedMethodistChurchtodeclarepublicallytheir

sexualorientation,inoppositiontodenomination’santi-gaypostureandthepotentialpunitiverepercussions,

whichincludede-frocking.http://www.rmnetwork.org/newrmn/calledout/(accessedMarch30,2017).

viii

Andwithoutskippingabeat(almostasifshehadmymanuscript),MissOliviablurtedout

inblackchurch“callandresponse”fashion:“Wealreadyknew!”

With laughter and tears, my congregation came and embracedme in light ofmy

“not-breaking-news.” Iweptbitterly. (Idon'thavea flatteringcrying face, I am told.)We

sang, as my flock assured their shepherd that everything would be just fine. Then, I

presidedovertheLord’sSupper—myfirstcommunion—weepingthroughitsentirety.

Twoyearsprior,onPentecostSunday2014(andthedayaftermyordination),Ihad

decidednottobea“JimCrow”pastor.ContradictingtheofficialUnitedMethodistChurch

law, I committed to pastor all my people equally and to officiate same-sex weddings. I

resolvedmyselftoliveoutmyordinationvow“toseekpeace,justice,andfreedomforall

people.”5Alongtimecongregantsharedwithme:“Pastor,Iknowthatextendingmarriage

equalityistherightthingtodo.Iwasraisedacertainway,anditistakingmelongertoget

whereIneedtobe.Butifsomeoneis‘goodenough’toservehereandtithehere,thenthat

personshouldbemarriedheretoo.”Ittookmeawhilelonger,however,tolearnhownotto

discriminateagainstmyself.

OneofUnion’sfavoritesongsisthe1980Commodoreshit“JesusIsLove.”Without

fail,everytimeitissung,thecongregationisupswayingwithupliftedhands.Beforelong,

worshippershave joined in therefrain: “yeah,yeah, Jesus lovesyou…IfyoucallHim,He

will answer.” In many ways, this song reflects Union's radical character. And it is the

5ServicesfortheOrderingofMinistryinTheUnitedMethodistChurch,2013-2016asRevisedbyActionofthe2012GeneralConference,copyright©1998,2000,2002,2006,2008,2012,TheUnitedMethodistPublishing

House.

ix

foundationofhowIliveasapastorandscholar.Jesus,theliberatingSpiritofGod,islove.

The people of Union showedme a unique grace. And they empoweredme towrite this

smallcontributiontotheongoingpursuitofequalityandjustice.

Myprayeristhattherebemore“Unions”outthere.Likethesong’sopeninglyrics:

“Father[Mother],helpyourchildren.”Allofus.Ihopethe(black)churchtrulylearnstolive

in liberation, or it will face obsolescence. The brilliant work of art, and 2017 Academy

Awardwinningfilm,“Moonlight”is“writingonthewall”(Daniel5:1-30).Althoughbaptism

andrevelation figureprominently in this triadiccomingofagestoryofablackgaymale,

there isnomentionof theblack church. Ifwedonot get it right, this erasurewillmove

fromsilverscreentoreallife.

x

Acknowledgements

Gratitude.Thissimplewordsignifiestheprofoundsentimentinmyheart.Still,there

arenotadequatewordstoexpressfullytheheartofthematter.Therearesomanypeople

whoencouraged,inspired,prodded,andsupportedmeduringthedoctoralprogram:Tomy

advisor,DavidC.Lamberth,thankyouforchallengingmetoalwaysproducemybestwork.

ToMarla Frederick,AmyHollywood, andMayraRiveraRivera, thankyou for journeying

withme throughoutmy program and serving onmy comprehensive exams, prospectus,

anddissertationcommittees.

The congregations of Union UnitedMethodist Church (Boston,Massacusetts) and

GlendaleUnitedMethodistChurch(Everett,Massachusetts)walkedwithmeasIdeveloped

inpastoralministry,whilestillencouragingandsupportingme tobecomeascholar.The

peopleofMetropolitanCommunityUnitedMethodistChurch(Harlem,NewYork)nurtured

me as a seminarian, and those of Metropolitan United Methodist Church (Buffalo, New

York)firstfosteredmeintheChristianfaith.

Imustalsoacknowledgebyname:best friend, fellowdoctoralstudentandpastor,

Rev. Brandon Thomas Crowley; dearest companion, Robert Kelsey; faithful therapist Dr.

SandraCrump;bestiesJusticeReid,AnthonyLong,JustinAlexander,CrystalCollier,Angela

Nelson,KeiaCole,Dorothy Jones,AlbertChing, JamieLawrence,MaraBlock,Kera Street,

NikiaRobert,VictoriaGray,Rev.LauraEverett;SharifButlerandMarchaunMorrison(with

mecomprisingthethree“messkateers”);mymentorthelateBishopMartinDavidMcLee;

thebestsisters intheworld,ShanaandSamira;nephewMicahandtwinniecesZoeyand

Zaryah(yourFaceTimechatsencouragedmedearly);AlethaandGeraldWilliamsSr.(mom

and dad, thanks for love and life!). Imust also express appreciation for all the folkwho

xi

questionedmysexualityandaffirmedme,beforeIwasabletoclaimitformyself.Andyes,

duringlong,lonelydissertationdays—toodevoidofhumancontact—Iamgratefulformy

yorkie-chichauhua canine companions, Bentley andHurston. (Sorry for being the snippy

one.)

Finally, thankyou to theForum forTheologicalEducation for invaluable collegial,

mentoring, and financial support. Also, appreciation to the organizers of the “Sharing in

Faith” umc.org forum for allowing me to contribute my “Jesus is Love” article, which

appears as part of the Preface. I must also express gratitude to Melissa Wiginton of

“EducationBeyondtheWalls”atAustinPresbyterianTheologicalSeminaryforinvitingme

topresentinthe“EmergingMethodistVoices”conferenceandcontributing“Spiritandthe

PowerWithin: Overcoming the Fear of Death” toCommunitas,which appears in chapter

fiveofthedissertation.

WordscannotexpressfullythedepthofgratitudeIhaveforthosewhohavehelped

me along the way. Without them, I could not have completed this work; the mistakes,

however,aremine.

xii

I'maghostI'maflowerI'mthespiritessence

Ofadream

-ladyleeandrews

SanJuan,PuertoRico

Theysawthreemencomeoutfromthesepulchre,andtwoofthemsustainingtheother,andacrossfollowingthem…Andtheyheardavoiceoutoftheheavens,crying“Hastthoupreached

tothemthatsleep?”,andfromthecrosstherewasheardtheanswer,“Yea.”–GospelofPeter10.39-42

1

Chapter1. GhostStoriesTheologiansaremilitants,Christianintellectualsorganicallyinvolvedwiththehistoricalmovementofthepoor,

theirtheology,theirthinking,speaking,writing,andactionallincorporatedintothemessianicstruggleof‘theoneswhohavesurvivedthegreatperiodoftrial.’(Rev.7:14)

–LeonardoBoff

HolySpirit,thelifethatgiveslife:youarethecauseofallmovement;youarethebreathofallcreatures;

youarethesalvethatpurifiesoursouls;youaretheointmentthathealsourwounds;

youarethefirethatwarmsourhearts;youarethelightthatguidesourfeet.Letalltheworldpraiseyou.Amen.

–HildegardofBingen,APrayertotheHolySpirit

Metaphorsandstoriessuggesthowweshouldseeanddescribetheworld—thatis,howweshould‘look-on’

ourselves,others,andtheworld—inwaysthatrulesandprinciplestakeninthemselvesdonot.–StanleyHauerwas

OnlytheBLACKWOMANcansay“whenandwhereIenter,inthequiet,undisputeddignityofmywomanhood,withoutviolenceandwithoutsuingorspecialpatronage,thenandtherethewhole…raceenterswithme.”

–AnnaJuliaCooper,1892

ButwehadhopedthathewastheonetoredeemIsrael.

–Luke24:21

Pleaseallowmetotellyou,dearReader,astory.Idonotmeananidletaleoffantasy

and fiction, but rather an account in the Du Boisian sense. This rendering will be no

fabricationusedtocompelorforceone’shand.Imakenoclaimofcompletion,nograspof

some grand, eternal truth.1Instead this portrayal is a real act of imagination. Here I am

moreinterestedincareful,correlativeanalysisthanIaminestablishingcausalimperatives.

Still, thedissertationstrivestorespondtothecommand:“Alwaysbereadytomakeyour

defense to anyonewhodemands fromyou an accounting for thehope that is in you” (1

1MayraRiveraRiverafashionsintracosmicdivinerelationalityas“touch,notagrasp,”whichovercomesthe

separationofOthernessandconcernsitselfwithsocialjustice.SeeTheTouchofTranscendence:APostcolonialTheologyofGod(Louisville:WestminsterJohnKnoxPress,2007).

2

Peter3:15).2Whilefarfrombeingthelastword,Ihopeforittobeapersuasivefreshstart.I

intend for it to be a suggestion that, in the ethical sense, howwe speak affects howwe

oughttolive.3

We live in the Age of Spirit, of Brea(d)th. Ours is a period of great possibility,

turbulence, and uncertainty. Although “we have never been modern,” we are decidedly

postmodern, post-Christian, postracial, post-secular, et cetera ad infinitum.4To be sure,

everyepochhasitsmoments.Andwhilethenarcissisticanxietyaboutourownpresentis

notunlikepasttimes,certainlysomethingnewisafoot.LuceIrigaray,HarveyCox,Phyllis

Tickle, and others, rehearsing Joachim de Fiore, signal the zeitgeist. 5 Whatever is

happening—good,bad,andugly—thereisagreatseachange.Asweconstructanewfuture,

wehavebeendeeplyshapedbydeconstruction,negativedialectics,andculturalcriticism.

At thevery least, therelentlessprocessofnaming,withall its “post this”and“post that”

labels, is a signpost.Andspirit finds itself asaparticularlyuseful concept in framing the

dismantlingofstrongthought.

ThisisastoryofthelifeofSpirit.6Inthepagesthatlieahead,Iwillenfleshinwords

somecontoursofthatgrandsignifierofvitality,freedom,andpower.Tobesure,spirithas

2Unlessotherwisenoted,allbiblicalreferenceswillcomefromtheNewOxfordAnnotatedBiblewiththeApocrypha,ed.BruceM.MetzgerandRolandE.Murphy(NewYork:OxfordUniversityPress,1991,1994).3StanleyHauerwas,“Vision,Stories,Character,”(1973,2001)inTheHauerwasReader,ed.JohnBerkmanandMichaelCartwright(Durham:DukeUniversityPress,2001),165-170.

4BruceLatour,WeHaveNeverBeenModern,trans.CatherinePorter(Cambridge:HarvardUniversityPress,1993).

5LuceIrigaray,“TheAgeofBreath,”inKeyWritings(London:Continuum,2004),165-185;HarveyCox,TheFutureofFaith(NewYork:HarperOne,2009);PhyllisTickle,TheAgeoftheSpirit:HowtheGhostofanAncientControversyisShapingtheChurch(GrandRapids:BakerBooks,2014).6IhaveinmindherethepragmaticpoeticsofGeorgeSantayana’sfive-volumeTheLifeofReason(1905-1906),althoughIdonotimitateitsphilosophicalbreadth.

3

meantmanythingsformanypeopleacrosstimeandspace,andvariouslyconnotesruach,

anima, pneuma, and Geist. Marginalized people, in particular, have turned to the [Holy]

Spirit for com-fort and empowerment in the struggle for liberation.7Still, it has been

commentedthatspiritisbutathinlyveiled“vagueblur.”8Iseektoofferarobustnarrative

that discloses in plain speak the specter of spirit. In this thesis, I participate in the

movement of pneumatology from the shadows of Christian theology into clearer view.9

Perhapsbydissolvingsomeof itsmystique,whileyetrespecting itsmystery, theremight

bedeeperengagementwith/inspirit-talkandconsequentiallyagreaterrelianceonSpirit’s

powerinpursuitofamoreethicalworld.10

Whenspeakingofthe(changing)landscapeofAfrican-AmericanChristianity,spirit-

talk particularly aids the discourse.11From the time black churches emerged the spirit-

concepthaswellfunctionedtodescribethem.“Spirit”isaconceptthatappearsrepeatedly

7LeonardoBoff,Come,HolySpirit:InnerFire,GiverofLifeandComforterofthePoor(Maryknoll:OrbisBooks,2015).

8LaurenceStookey,ThisDay:AWesleyanWayofPrayer(Nashville:AbingdonPress,2004),35.9See,forexample,ShellyRambo,SpiritandTrauma:ATheologyofRemaining(Louisville:Westminster/JohnKnoxPress,2010)andResurrectingWounds:LivingintheAfterlifeofTrauma(Waco:BaylorUniversityPress,forthcoming);StanleyHauerwasandWilliamWillimon,TheHolySpirit(Nashville:AbingdonPress,2015);ConstructivePneumatologicalHermeneuticsinPentecostalChristianity,ed.KennethJ.ArcherandWilliamOliverio(NewYork:PalgraveMacmillan,2016).

10Oneofthepivotalfunctionsofthestudyofreligionisitsdemythologizingfunction.See,forexample,

RudolffBultmann’sNewTestamentandMythology(1941)andMirceaEliade’sTheMythofEternalReturn(1954).Seealso,GordonKaufmann’sIntheFaceofMystery:AConstructiveTheology(Cambridge:HarvardUniversityPress,1995).

11Inthedissertation,Iuse“spirit”discursively,“Spirit”theologically,and“HolySpirit”doctrinally.PeterC.

Hodgsonwrites,“Languageisacorporate,worldlyevent,aneventofcommunication,thecharacteristicallyhumanformofactivity....Thelanguageoffaithisirreduciblysymbolic,imaginative,metaphorical,embedded

intexts,stories,traditions;yetitisalwayspressingtowardthoughts,concepts,doctrines....Theologyisa

languagegame,andtherulesofthegamearetheproperuseoftermsandconcept.”InWindsoftheSpirit:AConstructiveTheology(Louisville:WestminsterJohnKnoxPress,1994),4-5.SeealsoPaulTillich’sdistinctionthat“spirit”referstothe“personal-communalunityoflife-power”(21-22)and“Spirit”asreligious(22).

SystematicTheology,VolumeIII(Chicago:TheUniversityofChicagoPress,1963).

4

in historical, philosophical, religious, literary, sociological, and anthropological texts

regarding African-American culture. 12 In these discourses, spirit serves both as a

descriptive trope for black identity and as a normative ideal for social progress. While

spiritisneithertheexclusivedomainofblackfolknortheonlysignifierforblackidentity

and social progress, African-American Christianity has been strikingly known for its

passionate,spiritedworship.13

To narrate this chronicle, I conversewith accounts of black religion aswitnessed

throughtheeyesofW.E.B.DuBois,ZoraNealeHurston,andHowardThurman.Theyhave

seen spirit and been haunted by ghosts. That is, their work resists the hegemonic

devastation of black bodies. In the dissertation, I trace the legacies of these public

intellectuals on African-American Christianity, particularly on black and womanist

theologies.With them,wewill examine spirit as a trope in black religion; the historical

unfolding of spirit-talk at the intersections of race, gender, class, and sexuality; and the

12Take,forexample,primarytextslikeW.E.B.DuBois’sarchetypalTheSoulsofBlackFolk(1903);ZoraNealeHurston’sTheSanctifiedChurch(1981);HowardThurman’sDisciplinesoftheSpirit(1963);ToniMorrison’suseofhauntinginBeloved(1987);WilliamAndrews’sSistersoftheSpirit(1986),whichgivesanaccountofthree19thcenturycharismaticblackfemalepreachers/exhorters;andKarenMcCarthyBrown’sMamaLola:AVodouPriestessinBrooklyn(2001).ConsideralsosecondarytextssuchasAntheaD.Butler,WomenintheChurchofGodinChrist:MakingaSanctifiedWorld(ChapelHill:UniversityofNorthCarolinaPress,2007);BarbaraSavage,YourSpiritsWalkBesideUs:ThePoliticsofBlackReligion(Cambridge:HarvardUniversityPress,2008);DerekHicks,ReclaimingSpiritintheBlackFaithTradition(NewYork:PalgraveMacmillan,2012);JosefSorett,SpiritintheDark:AReligiousHistoryofRacialAesthetics(NewYork:OxfordUniversityPress,2016).

13SeediscussionofAfricandiasporicreligionsin“Spirit”chapterofConstructiveTheology:AContemporaryApproachtoClassicalThemes,ed.SereneJonesandPaulLakeland(Minneapolis:FortressPress,2005),258-264.SeealsoC.EricLincolnandLawrenceH.Mamiya,TheBlackChurchintheAfricanAmericanExperience(Durham:DukeUniversityPress,1990);Afro-Pentecostalism:BlackPentecostalandCharismaticChristianityinHistoryandCulture,ed.AmosYongandEstreldaY.Alexander(NewYork:NewYorkUniversityPress,2011).

5

mannerinwhichtheformationofblackidentitiescoincideswiththediscursiveproduction

of“demonic”representations.14

Oneobservesatragicirony:thesignificationofprogressvis-à-visspiritforAfrican

Americans writ-large has done violence to black women, poor, and queer black people.

Discursively,theseclassandsexualminoritiesbecome“unholyghosts,”deviantsofspiritif

you will, whose lives are erased and expended, trampled under foot in the march

forward.15

Theselives,whichdonotseemtomatterasmuchinthemetanarrativeofblackness,

donotdieeasily,however—verymuchhauntingthediscourseandtroublingthemeaning

andthrustofspirit.Iwilltracethispresence. Intheend,Iseektoconstructatheologyof

14Letusthinkaboutidentity,notasameansofdepictingessentialsameness,butratherasamodeof

representingamultifaceted,dynamicyetunifiedselfinlightofsocialaffiliation.SeeRepresentation:CulturalRepresentationsandSignifyingPractices,ed.StuartHall(London:Sage,1997);MaryC.Waters,BlackIdentities:WestIndianImmigrantDreamsandAmericanRealities(Cambridge:HarvardUniversityPress,1999);KwameAnthonyAppiah,TheEthicsofIdentity(Princeton:PrincetonUniversityPress,2005).15Thephrase“unholyghost”doublesdeviancy.Theuseof“ghost”hereiscontextuallyintentional:itinvokescharismaticblackchurchvernacular,whichtendstoprefer“HolyGhost”over“HolySpirit.”See,forexample,

PercyBady’s“TheHolyGhost,”performedbyMiltonBrunsonandtheThompsonCommunitySingers,Word

EntertainmentLLC,2003;PeterMarina,GettingtheHolyGhost:UrbanEthnographyinaBrooklynPentecostalTongue-SpeakingChurch(LanhamLexingtonBooks,2013).SomeWestern/Europeantheologiesmovedaway,however,fromthetermHolyGhost—erasedit—becauseofitso-calledspooky,spectral(andsuperstitious)

character.Bycontrast,African-andLatinAmericanChristianitieshaveretainedandreappropriatedthis

spectrality.SeeMayraRiveraRivera,“GhostlyEncounters:Spirits,Memory,andtheHolyGhost,”PlanetaryLoves:Spivak,Postcoloniality,andTheology,ed.StephenD.MooreandMayraRivera(NewYork:FordhamUniversityPress,2011),118-135.RiverainvokesMichaelWallace’s“lament”ofthetranslationofruach,pneuma,spiritus,andGeistas“ghost”andnot“spirit.”Wallacewrites,“Farfrombeingghostlyandbodiless,then,theSpiritrevealsherselfinthebiblicalliteraturesasaphysical,earthlypresence—alife-formbothlike

andunlikeallotherlife-forms—wholaborstocreateandsustainhumankindandotherkindinsolidaritywith

oneanother.”MichaelWallace,FindingGodintheSingingRiver:Christianity,Spirit,Nature(Minneapolis:FortressPress,2005),9.SeealsoDavidMiller,HellsandHolyGhosts:ATheopoeticsofChristianBelief(Nashville:AbingdonPress,1989),especiallychapternine,“TheDeathofGhosts,”andchapterten,“Ghastly,

Guest,Host:TheGhostsinLanguage.”MillerpresentsafascinatingdiscussionoftheetymologyoftheEnglish

“ghost”anditsrelationshiptotheOldEnglish(Anglo-Saxon)gáestandOldHighGermangast.InthedissertationIwillreoccupythedoubledeviantpositionthroughexploration(andconstruction)ofembodied

spirit-talk.

6

spirit in black radical religion that resists, disturbs, and disrupts these dispositifs16of

deviancy,whichhavebeenusedtopathologizesomefortheadvancementofothers.17This

dissertation,then,isaninterventioninconstructiveChristiantheology,anditis,Beloved,a

storytopasson.18

1.1. Introduction:OnPathologyandPneumatology

Letusbeclear,spiritiscon-testedspace.NoteveryspiritGodinspires.19By

definition—that is, by description—spirit denotes ambiguity: it means many things in

manyplaces.Itsignifiesagency:Spirit-windblowswhereitchooses.Spirit-talkdiscursively

attempts to give shape to the space where spirit blows, and historically has caused an

16“WhatI'mtryingtopickoutwiththistermis,firstly,athoroughlyheterogeneousensembleofdiscourses,

institutions,architecturalforms,regulatorydecisions,laws,administrativemeasures,scientificstatements,

philosophical,moralandphilanthropicpropositions-inshort,thesaidasmuchastheunsaid.Sucharethe

elementsoftheapparatus.Theapparatusitselfisthesystemofrelationsthatcanbeestablishedbetween

theseelements.”MichelFoucault,“TheConfessionoftheFlesh,”inPower/Knowledge,ed.ColinGordon(NewYork:VintageBooks,1980),194.Foucaultlaterwrites,“thepurposeofthepresentstudyisinfacttoshow

howdeployments[dispositifs]ofpoweraredirectlyconnectedtothebody.”Foucault,TheHistoryofSexuality:AnIntroduction,trans.RobertHurley,1978(NewYork:VintageBooks,1990),151.SeealsoMattiPeltonen,“FromDiscourseto‘Dispositif’:MichelFoucault'sTwoHistories,”HistoricalReflections/RéflexionsHistoriques30:2(Summer2004),205-219.

17ThispneumatologicaldevelopmentdependsuponaFoucauldiangenealogicalapproach:“Inasense,

genealogyreturnstothethreemodalitiesofhistorythatNietzscherecognizedin1874.Itreturnstothemin

spiteoftheobjectionsthatNietzscheraisedinthenameoftheaffirmativeandcreativepowersoflife.But

theyaremetamorphosed:thevenerationofmonumentsbecomesparody;therespectforancientcontinuities

becomessystematicdissociation;thecritiqueoftheinjusticesofthepastbyatruthheldbymeninthe

presentbecomesthedestructionofthemanwhomaintainsknowledge[connaissance]bytheinjusticepropertothewilltoknowledge.”MichelFoucault,“Nietzsche,Genealogy,History,”inTheEssentialFoucault:SelectionsfromEssentialWorksofFoucault,1954-1984,ed.PaulRabinowandNikolasRose(NewYork:NewPress,1994),367-368.

18Cf.epiloguetoToniMorrison’sPulitzerPrize-winningBeloved(NewYork:Plume,1987),274-275.19ChristopherMorseinNotEverySpirit:ADogmaticsofChristianDisbelief(Harrisburg:TrinityInternationalPress,1994)identifies“TenCs”or“rubricsofaccountabilitywithinwhichdogmaticassessmentsunderthe

constraintofGod’sSpiritandthemysteriesofGod’scomingaremade…:continuitywithapostolictradition,

congruencewithscripture,consistencywithworship,catholicity,consonancewithexperience,conformity

withconscience,consequence,cruciality,coherence,comprehensiveness”(46).

7

enduring (filial) fight. We wrestle not against flesh and blood but against powers and

principalities in spiritual places. Struggle in the spirit(ual) realm, however, is worth it.

Wherethespiritis,thereisliberty.20

Since spirit is contested space, in the dissertation I interrogate two trouble areas

pertaining toAfrican-Americanreligious thought: thepaucityofpneumatologicalmethod

andthemobilizationofspirit-talkinordertoconstrainandexclude.Inparticular,Iasktwo

fundamentalquestions:WhyAfrican-Americantheologytendstoavoidpneumatology?And

why do (some) black empowerment ethics exclude queer liberation, yet advocate racial,

gender,andclassequality?

To the first, despite the recurrence of the spirit-concept, there has been little

discursiveelaborationinAfrican-Americantheology.Infact,thetermhasbeendeployedso

commonlythatitsextensivephilosophicalandtheologicalheritage—andfuture—hasbeen

obscured.Yes,thereisbroadappealtospiritualthings,butpneumatologydoesnotappear

prominently asmethod inAfrican-American theological thought, especially in any formal

way.21

Onthesurfacethisclaimwillseemstrange.Butthemerementionoforattribution

tospiritdoesnotrisetothelevelofpneumatology;talkingaboutspiritdoesnotconstitute

spirit-talk.Ithasalsobeenobserved:“Onecanhaveasuperabundanceofreferencestothe

20Theitalicizedsentencesarescriptural:1John4:1;John3:8;Ephesians6:12;2Corinthians3:17.

21SeeWilliamTurner’s“Pneumatology:ContributionsfromAfricanAmericanChristianThoughttothe

PentecostalTask”inAfro-Pentecostalism:BlackPentecostalandCharismaticChristianityinHistoryandCulture,ed.AmosYongandEstreldaY.Alexander(NewYork:NewYorkUniversityPress,2011),169-189.Bycontrast,pneumatologydoesappearasmethod,forexample,intheLatinAmericanliberationtheologiesofLeonardoBoffandJosephComblin;thefeministtheologyofElizabethJohnson;theecotheologiesofSally

McFagueandMarkWallace;theReformedtheologiesofJürgenMoltmannandMichaelWelker;theEastern

OrthodoxtheologyofJohnD.Zizioulas;andtheCatholictheologyofYvesCongar.

8

Spiritandstillhaveaseriouspneumatologicaldeficit.”22LeonardoBoffplainlystates,“That

word[“spirit”]hasbecomealmostmeaninglessintoday’sworld,bothinliteratureandin

popularculture.”23Ifthedissertationissuccessful,IwillhaveaffirmedtheNegrospiritual,

“Everybodytalking‘boutheavenain’tgoingthere.”Throughanonlineartellingofthelifeof

spirit inblackculturaldiscourse,usingDuBois,Hurston,andThurmanandtheir legacies

on black and womanist theologies as ‘representatives,’ I offer a constructive

pneumatologicalnextstep.ThroughthemIexploreresponsestothebasicquestions,what

isthisspirit,spiritual,andSpirit?

Ifblacktheologyandtheblackchurchtraditionaredistinguished,however,thenthe

difference between deliberative and embedded theology partially explains the tension.24

Spirit-talk’smarginalizationinformalblackreligiousthoughtmayhavelegitimatereasons,

for example: (a) Black theology has emphasized Christology, excavating the legacy of

racisminwhitesupremacythroughthe“crossas lynchingtree.”25(b)Womanist theology

has affirmed the black female body, sidestepping body/soul separations of platonized

22Veli-MattiKärkkäinen,Pneumatology:TheHolySpiritinEcumenical,International,andContextualPerspective(GrandRapids:BakerAcademicPress,2002),17.23LeonardoBoff,Come,HolySpirit:InnerFire,GiverofLifeandComforterofthePoor(Maryknoll:OrbisBooks,2015),33.

24SeeJ.DeotisRoberts,“TheHolySpiritandLiberation”inBlackTheologyinDialogue(Philadelphia:TheWestminsterPress,1987),53-64;CecilW.Cone,TheIdentityCrisisinBlackTheology,1975(Nashville:AMECSundaySchoolUnion,2003).Foradiscussionofthedistinctionbetweenembeddedanddeliberativetheology,

seeHowardStoneandJamesDuke,HowtoThinkTheologically(2013).Cf.GarthBaker-Fletcher,“BlackTheologyandtheHolySpirit,”TheCambridgeCompaniontoBlackTheology(2012),111-125.25JamesCone’sTheCrossandtheLynchingTree(Maryknoll:OrbisBooks,2011)makesplainintheologicallanguagetheexperienceofbrutalizedblackpeopleunderthegazeofChristianity’smostemblematicsymbol.

Howeveremblematic,Coneandothersdemonstratethatthemeaningofthecrosshasnotbeenfully

excavatedinlightofwhitesupremacy.

9

Christianity, while advocating spirituality as lived, practiced faith.26(c) Black quietism,

spiritualization, and otherworldliness in black Christianity, especially in relation and

responsetoAmericanslavery,hauntthestatusoftheHolySpiritinempowerment-oriented

theologies.27(d)ThelegacyofChristomonismandtheTrinitariansubsumptionoftheHoly

SpiritinWesternChristianitydiminishthepersonhoodofSpirit.28

Tothesecondoverarchingconcern,althoughthisspirited,blackChristianityhasa

longcommitmentto liberationand justice, there isalsoa trajectorywherespirit-talkhas

been disempowering. In the respectability politics 29 of black racial uplift and

heterocisnormativity of black charismatic Christianity, pathologies of identity emerge at

thenexusofspirit.

A common model for post-Emancipation African-American progress called for

26EmileM.Townes,InaBlazeofGlory:WomanistSpiritualityasSocialWitness(Nashville:AbingdonPress,1995).KellyBrownDouglas,What’sFaithGottoDoWithIt?BlackBodies/ChristianSouls(Maryknoll:OrbisBooks,2005).

27Roberts,BlackTheologyinDialogue53-64.SeealsoBenjaminMays’sTheNegro’sGod:AsReflectedinHisLiterature,1938(Eugene:Wipf&Stock,2010).28Kärkkäinen17.SeealsoEugeneF.Rogers,AftertheSpirit:AConstructivePneumatologyfromSourcesOutsidetheModernWest(GrandRapids:Wm.B.EerdmansPublishingCo.,2005).29Letusdenote“respectability”asamechanismofre-presentationwherebyonestrivestoconformto

projectedidealforpersonal,communal,andsocialbenefit.Aswithanyconceptofimport,thisdescription

inherentlyhasacomplicatedhistory;onemustriska“workingdefinition”inordertocontainthediscourse.

BelowIwillengagerespectabilityinrelationshiptoCornelWest’sassessmentofDuBois’sEnlightenment

rationality,Victorianelitism,andAmericanoptimism,aswellasEvelynBrooksHigginbotham’sanalysisof

dialogicalmediationbetweenaccommodationandprotestintheBlackBaptistWomen’sMovement.Atthis

point,itisimportanttostress,however,thatrespectability(howeverflawedorcomplicated)wasviewedasa

meansofempowerment.SeeCornelWest,“BlackStrivingsinaTwilightCivilization”inTheFutureoftheRace(NewYork:VintageBooks,1996),55-79.EvelynBrooksHigginbotham,“ThePoliticsofRespectability”in

RighteousDiscontent:TheWomen’sMovementintheBlackBaptistChurch,1880-1920(Cambridge:HarvardUniversityPress,1993),185-229.Blackrespectabilitypoliticsisalsointerwoveninabroaderconservation

aboutblackintellectualismandtheblackradicaltradition:seePatriciaHillCollins,“BlackPublicIntellectuals:

FromDuBoistothePresent,”Contexts4:4(Fall2005),22-27;HaroldCruse,TheCrisisoftheNegroIntellectual:AHistoricalAnalysisoftheFailureofBlackLeadership(NewYork:NewYorkReviewBooks,1967);CedricJ.Robinson,BlackMarxism:TheMakingoftheBlackRadicalTradition(ChapelHill:TheUniversityofNorthCarolinaPress,1983);andC.L.R.James,TheC.L.R.JamesReader(Cambridge:Blackwell,1992).

10

rejection of “the frenzy”—exuberant, ecstatic worship expressions. Later, when these

features of the sanctified church are retrieved, along with a narrative that empowers

women and poor folk, I will demonstrate that another pathology is produced—antigay

heteronormativity. Theorizing racial uplift and theologizing sanctified faith has serious

consequences: some iterations of black progress are predicated on the production of

deviancy,denigration,andmarginalization.Thustheadvancementof‘all’seemstorequire

the repression of some. This discourse, I argue, contra-dicts the underlying insights of

Christianpneumatology,spirit-talk.

One of themost prolific voices concerning African-American culture and identity,

toweringAmericanintellectualW.E.B.DuBois,famouslyspeaksofthe“soulsofblackfolk.”

Heintroduceshisessay“OftheMeaningofProgress”byquotingFriedrichSchiller:“Deine

Geistersendeaus!”30LaterinTheSoulsofBlackFolk,however,DuBoispathologizesblack

religionandthecharismaticworksoftheHolySpirit,saying,“Asortofsuppressedterror

hung in the air [of the southern revival] and seemed to seize us,--a pythianmadness, a

demoniacpossession,thatlentterriblerealitytosongandword.”31Ontheonehand,Geist

inspiresblack socialprogress, andon theotherhand,charismarestrains it.Religion that

prioritizes the lifeof themindwas theonlyacceptable form forDuBois.Theexpressive

andembodiedChristianityofsouthernrevivalsbelongedtoaprimitive,impoverishedpast

30“Sendforththycheribum/SendoutYourangels/Sendtheyspirits.”W.E.B.DuBois,TheSoulsofBlackFolk,1903inTheOxfordW.E.B.DuBois,ed.HenryLouisGates(NewYork:OxfordUniversityPress,2007),30.31Ibid.,90.

11

that had to be rejected. Du Bois claimed that charismatic religion qua otherworldly

Christianityimpedesthesocialprogressofblackfolk.32

ContraDuBois,groundbreakingnovelistandfolkloristZoraNealeHurstonpraises

southernblackreligion,whichinherresearchincludesChristianity,voodoo, folkreligion,

andothersyncreticreligion.Forher,theexpressivenessofcharismaticreligionisnottobe

shunned, but rather highlighted. In many ways, Hurston tells an-other story of African-

American life thatdiverges fromprevailing “NewNegro”portrayalsofher time.Hurston

goes about this work anthropologically, and concludes: “The Saints, or the Sanctified

Church isa revitalizingelement inNegromusicandreligion.”33Exuberant faithanimates

thebody.

Contemporary Christian ethicist Cheryl Sanders notably has turned toHurston in

her argument to reclaim the value of black charismatic worship in African-American

religious history. In so doing Sanders counteracts the tendency to correlate charismatic

religionwithimpoverishedAfricanAmericans.Asanethicalintervention,Sanderscontests

thecaricaturethatthe“sanctifiedchurch”isbackwardandthejudgmentthatblacksocial

progressdependsupontheabandonmentofcharismaticChristianity.34FollowingHurston,

32ThissentimentalsobelongstoDanielPayne,bishopoftheAfricanMethodistEpiscopalChurch.SeeDaniel

AlexanderPayne,RecollectionsofSeventyYears,1888(NewYork:ArnoPress,1968),aswellasexcerptfromhisautobiographyinAlbertRaboteau’sSlaveReligion:The“InvisibleInstitution”intheAntebellumSouth(NewYork:OxfordUniversityPress,1978),68-70.RaboteausituatesPaynewithinadiscussionofacculturationand

assimilation,inwhichsomeAfrican-AmericanleadersattempttodistancethemselvesfromAfricanheritage.J.

DeotisRobertssharesconcernsregardingspiritualizedandecstaticblackreligionin“TheHolySpiritand

Liberation.”SeealsoGayraudWilmore,BlackReligionandBlackRadicalism,1973(Maryknoll:OrbisBooks,1998);aswellasLawrenceLevine,BlackCultureandBlackConsciousness:Afro-AmericanFolkThoughtfromSlaverytoFreedom(NewYork:OxfordUniversityPress,1977).33ZoraNealeHurston,TheSanctifiedChurch:TheFolkloreWritingofZoraNealeHurston(Berkeley:TurtleIslandFoundation),105.

34Sandersdefines:“TheSanctifiedchurchisanAfricanAmericanChristianreformmovementthatseekstobringitsstandardsofworship,personalmorality,andsocialconcernintoconformitywithabiblicalhermeneutic

12

Sanders argues that present-day sanctified churches havemuch to teachmainline black

Christianity:“TheegalitariandoctrineoftheHolySpirit”leadsSanderstoforegroundclass

differenceandchampionthoseonthemargins.35

Sanders’sadvocacy,however,doesnotextendtoall thoseonthemarginsofblack

churches. While Sanders attends to race, class, and gender diversity, her depiction of

charismaticspiritremainsrigidlyheteronormative.Infact,sheattributesherilliberalview

to the sanctified church itself, justifying its heterosexist exclusion on strict biblical and

confessional grounds.36Sanders’s position remains one of the most prominent formal

articulationsofthe“embeddedtheology”ofthesanctifiedchurchandmanyblackchurches

ingeneral.Thedescriptiveprojectfunctionsasadefenseof“sanctified”religionand,atthe

same time, a normative assault on queer identities, which quite literally have deadly

consequences.Thecollusionofcharismaandconservatismhasactuallyfundedadiscourse

ofthedemonic.Thus,asanethicalargument,itmethodologicallyopposesitself.37

Whileobservationofthiscontradictionisnotnovel,constructiveresponseislacking.

ofholinessandspiritualempowerment”[emphasisinoriginal]andiscomprisedofHoliness,Pentecostal,andApostolicchurches(5).”CherylJ.Sanders,SaintsinExile:TheHoliness-PentecostalExperienceinAfricanAmericanReligionandCulture(NewYork:OxfordUniversityPress,1996).35Ibid.,17.

36Sandersetal,“RoundtableDiscussion:ChristianEthicsandTheologyinWomanistPerspective,”TheWomanistReader,ed.LayliPhillips(NewYork:Routledge,2006),126-149.Sanders,“SexualOrientationandHumanRightsDiscourseintheAfrican-AmericanChurches,”SexualOrientationandHumanRightsinAmericanReligiousDiscourse,ed.SaulM.OlyanandMarthaC.Nussbaum(NewYork:OxfordUniversityPress,1998),178-184.Sanders,“WhyIBelieveHomosexualPracticeIsaSin.”TheAfricanAmericanLectionary.http://www.theafricanamericanlectionary.org/pdf/dialogue/Homosexuality_CherylSanders.pdf(accessed

March20,2016).

37WilliamD.HartchargesthatultimatelySanders’spositionis“incomprehensible”(204).“SexualOrientation

andtheLanguageofHigherLaw,”SexualOrientationandHumanRightsinAmericanReligiousDiscourse.Hart’sintentionallyusespolemicalrhetoricinordertooffsetSanders’sargument,whichheclaimsisa

confessionalargumentpoorlyveiledinallegedlyvalue-neutrallanguage.Hegoesontoindict:“theblack

churchisaprofoundlyambivalentandcontradictorysite”(Ibid206).

13

Iseegreatpotentialatthischallengingnexusthatextendsliberatingtheo-ethicalwork;the

dissertation intervenes in this contested space, celebrating both charisma and queer

identity.38Insteadofavoidingandabandoningspirit-talk,becauseofitstrappings,Iwantto

leverage its power and potential, and incorporateHoward Thurman in this turn.With a

backlashofbiblical literalismand theological conservatismto thebackdropof secularity,

which defines this spirited age, pneumatology has great promise. Because spirit invokes

libertyandspirit-talkliberation,Istrivetoactualizethispotential.

Thedissertationoffers,then,attheintersectionofrace,gender,sexuality,andclass,

aconstructivetheologicalaccountofspiritinblackChristianity.Throughconsiderationof

the“rationalspirit”ofW.E.B.DuBois,the“sanctifiedspirit”ofZoraNealeHurston,andthe

“mystical spirit” of Howard Thurman, I develop a pneumatology that establishes the

empowerment of the marginalized as the sine qua non, the essential condition and

consequence,ofspirit-talk.

SketchingSpirit:ContouringtheDissertation

Spirit is power unto life after death. I mean this in a queer,39not otherworldly,

sense: Spirit itself is that which resists—even death itself. Spirit is transgressive and

38SeeKellyBrownDouglas’sSexualityandtheBlackChurch:AWomanistPerspective(Maryknoll:OrbisBooks,1999);Taboo:HomosexualityinBlackCommunities,ed.DelroyConstantine-Simms(LosAngeles:AlysonBooks,2001);andHoraceGriffin’sTheirOwnReceiveThemNot:AfricanAmericanLesbiansandGaysinBlackChurches(Eugene:WipfStock,2006).39Theologically,“queer”suggestsactingdifferentlyandeschatologicallyinviewofan-otherpossibleworld.

MarcellaAlthaus-Reidwrites,“Queeringtheology,thetheologicaltaskandGodisallpartofacomingoutof

theclosetforChristianitywhichisnolongersimplyoneoptionamongothers,norisitsidetrackoutsidewhat

hasbeenregardedasthehighroadofclassicaltheology.QueeringtheologyisthepathofGod’sownliberation,

apartfromours,andassuchitconstitutesacritiquetowhatHeterosexualTheologyhasdonewithGodby

closetingthedivine.Intheology,asinlove,thisquestisaspiritualone,whichrequirescontinuingtothe

Othersideoftheology,andtheOthersideofGod….OurtaskandourjoyistofindorsimplyrecognizeGod

sittingamongstus,atanytime,inanygaybarorinthehomeofacampfriendwhodecoratesherlivingroom

14

subversive. Spirit animates and ghosts come from the dead. It is the Spirit of the

ResurrectedOnewhoasks:“Where,Odeath,isyourvictory?”(1Corinthians15:55).Inthe

presentchapter,Ibeginthis“storyofspirit”groundedintheAfrican-Americanworshiplife

ofBoston’shistoricUnionUnitedMethodistChurch.Inchaptertwo,IconsiderDuBoisin

lightofhisappropriationbyblacktheologiansJamesCone,GayraudWilmore,andDwight

Hopkins. In chapter three, I lookatHurston through thewomanist eyesofKatieCannon

and Emile Townes. I will make correlative insights vis-a-vis Paul Tillich and Ronald

Thiemann.

In chapter four, I offer a queer reading—theologizing differently and

eschatologically in view of an-other possible world—premised on Hurston and further

funded by her Harlem “Niggerati,” as well as Marcella Althaus-Reid and Roger Haight,

which suggests the death of God gives Spirit. In the face of strong conservatism, I offer

“weak”pneumatology.40Inchapterfive,IconversewithThurman,inviewofLeonardoBoff,

proposinganembodiedhermeneuticofspiritthathasmaterialbasisandconsequence.

ItisimpossibletotellthestoryoftheblacknessinAmericawithouttheconceptof

deviancy. 41 The construction of the black body is a narrative of difference and

(ab)normality. The religious history of blackness is no different. The disciplining of the

asachapelanddoesn’tleaveherrosaryathomewhengoingtoasalsabar.”TheQueerGod(NewYork:Routledge,2003),4.40Here,IriffoffGianniVattimo’sformulationof“weakthought.”SeeVattimo,TheEndofModernity:NihilismandHermeneuticsinPostmodernCulture,1985,trans.JohnR.Synder(Baltimore:TheJohnsHopkinsUniversityPress,1991);Vattimo,OfReality:ThePurposesofPhilosophy(NewYork:ColumbiaUniversityPress,2016).

41KhalilGibranMuhammad,TheCondemnationofBlackness:Race,Crime,andtheMakingofModernUrbanAmerica(Cambridge:HarvardUniversityPress,2010)andLeeBaker,FromSavagetoNegro:AnthropologyandtheConstructionofRaceandAnthropologyandtheRacialPoliticsofCulture(Berkeley:UniversityofCaliforniaPress,1998).

15

blackreligiousbodypoliticduringAmericanslaveryfollowedthesamesupremacist logic

asthediscipliningoftheblackbodywritlarge.BecausetheAfricanwasdeviant,sowashis

religion.TheAfrican’sreligionwaspurgedfromopenpractice,onlysurvivinginthehush

arbors.Slavereligionemergedasaproductofthe“newworld”—smugglinginwhatAfrican

retentionsitcouldincorporateunderthepanopticgazeofmaster.42

HereIamofferingupacounter-narrative,notsomuchofthehistorybutoftheopen

future.Iadvocateamovefromspiritualdeviancetotransgressivespiritualityasapathway

forward.Thedissertationpointstowardthisnewspiritualhomebyexaminingspiritualsas

a means of tracing “spirit.” I read Du Bois, Hurston, and Thurman dialectically and

dialogically,alwaysnon-linearly.Still,theircollectiveinterestinpotential-not-yet-realized

constitutes a common core, and thus shapes the thesis. Du Bois’s “unhopeful hope,”

Hurston’s “unshouted courage,” and Thurman’s “uncreated element” jointly speak to the

overcomingof identityconstructionsthat limit flourishing. Intheend, thethesisrethinks

the concepts of hope, courage, and vitality, using Du Bois, Hurston, and Thurman,

respectively,asinterlocutors.ByinterpretingJesus,theSpiritofGod,aschiefdeviantand

liberatingpower,Iwilldemonstratethataprogressivepneumatologyispossible.

1.2. SpiritoftheCross

OnSundaysatUnionUnitedMethodistChurchinBoston’sSouthEnd,theserviceof

divineworshipisagrandcelebration.Atwelve-voicepraiseteaminitiatesthefête,stoking

thecongregation’scollectivefire.Forfifteenminutesorso,accompaniedbyaseven-piece

42AlbertRaboteau,SlaveReligion:The“InvisibleInstitution”intheAntebellumSouth(NewYork:OxfordUniversityPress,1978).

16

jazzband,thegatheredpeoplemakemusictogether.Prayersmixedwithpreachingshape

theworship,butsongconstitutestheunmistakablebackboneofthepeople’spraise.From

theCommodores’“JesusisLove”toCrosby’s“BlessedAssurance”toWilson’s“HoldtoGod’s

UnchangingHand,”gospelsongsandspiritualsstitchtogetherabeautifulharmony.

Sundayisa“praisebreak.”Nomatterwhathappenedduringtheweek—andoften

becauseofwhattranspired indayspast—peopleofeveryhueandshade;young,old,and

in-between;cisgender,transgender,nonconforming;straight,gay,andqueer;economically

stableandstruggling,cometogetherinoneplaceunitedforpraise.It issacredspacethat

disruptsanddisturbstheeveryday.43OnSunday,counterculturalcommunityisshaped.It

isanintentionalsafeharborwhere,ifonlyforninetyminutes,thecaresandconcernsofa

cruelworldareheldatbay,andasliceofheavenisrealizedhereonearth.Itisimagined,

created,andconstructedspace,teemingandembossedwithmeaning.Itisplace.44Andthis

is,followingAnnaJuliaCooper,“whenandwhereIenter.”

Every Sunday is shaped by Easter, and the high holy day of the Christian year

becomesthehighholydayoftheweek.Sundaysverymuchdefinewhathappens“between

43SeeMicheldeCerteau’sThePracticeofEverydayLife,trans.StevenRendall(Berkeley:UniversityofCaliforniaPress,1984)andHenriLefebvre’sTheCritiqueofEverydayLife,vol.1-3,1947-1981(NewYork:Verso,2008).

44JacquelineNassyBrowninDroppingAnchor,SettingSail:GeographiesofRaceinBlackLiverpool(Princeton:PrincetonUniversityPress,2005)describes:“Placeisanaxisofpowerinitsownright.Asabasisforthe

constructionofdifference,hierarchy,andidentity,andasthebasisofideologiesthatrationalizeeconomic

inequalitiesandstructurepeople’smaterialwell-beingandlifechances,placeisavehicleofpower…[and]

mustbeunderstoodfirstandforemostasanabstraction,notasetofphysicalpropertiesjusttherefortheeye

tosee.Likeraceandgender,placeoperatespowerfully,thoughnotexclusively,throughtheinvocationand

naturalizationofmatter….Theveryurgetomakemeaningoutofthematerialityofplaces—whattheylook

like,feellike,andwheretheyare,forexample,andwhooccupiesthem,whatsocialrelationsdefinethem,and

whatprocessesunfoldwiththem—isproducedthroughanaxisofpowerandsubjectivitythatwemightcallplace”(8-9).

17

Sundays.”45The spirit of resurrection permeates the atmosphere as life springs forth

amidstdeathanddying.Assurancethat“troubledon’tlastalways”and“greateriscoming”

creates a buzz in the air. Even during the solemnity of Lent with its intentional self-

flagellation,Sundaystandsagainsttheseason—asifinprotest—andjoycircumscribesthe

long walk to Calvary’s cross. Sabbaths are exempt from the 40-day sojourn toward the

paschal triduum, and function liturgically as “mini-Easters.” Praise, dance, and rejoicing

punctuate the fasting, meditation, and self-denial that await during the week. Sunday

worshipisspiritedandalive,joyousandbig,festiveandtriumphant.

That is, until the Sunday in 2016 after Philando Castile and Alton Sterling were

gunneddownduring the sameweek, andhorrific videosof their public executionswent

viral on socialmedia. Therewas no grand celebration inworship that day. In the place

wheretheWorddwells,wewerespeechless.Alreadywehadsungsomanytimes,“thereis

a balm in Gilead”: when just a month earlier, Union joined countless churches in re-

membering those mostly brown people who were executed at the Pulse gay club in

Orlando; when terror struck down innocents in Paris; after Ferguson when a nation

erupted inangeraswewatchedMichaelBrown’sdeadbody lay in thestreets forhours;

duringAdvent,followingNewtown,onthethirdSundayintendedfor“joy.”

The congregation came that July 10th Sunday with hurt in their eyes, too many

weeksofwearinesswornontheirbodies.Grownmencriedandcriedoutwhy,askinghow

thiskeepshappeningagainandagain.Withsomanystridesforwardoverrecentdecadesin

civilrightsforAfricanAmericans, itdidnotmakesensethatitfelt likethe1950s.Sothat

Sunday couldnotbe the same. Itwasapparent to theworshipplanners thatourall-too-

45MarlaFrederick,BetweenSundays:BlackWomenandEverydayStrugglesofFaith(Berkeley:UniversityofCaliforniaPress,2003).

18

usualwayofgrieving inworshipwouldnot suffice this time.Notafterwewitnessed the

heinousretaliatoryviolencethattookthelivesoffivepoliceofficersinDallas.Wecouldnot

utter a prayer, hold amoment of silence, raise a hymnof comfort, and thenmove on to

businessasusual.

The service itself had to be disrupted, and the songs of praise redirected to the

triptychofprayer,protest,andpeace.AstheUnioncongregationjoinedwithMaxRoachto

insist upon “Freedom Now!”, the music that burst forth from that place embodied the

mourning, anger, and resolve of a people in pain.46When crucifixion on the cross of

injustice keeps being relived and reenacted again and again, ourworship had to offer a

discursivealternativethatdoesnotpointtothecrossbutratherbeyondit.

Withblackbodieslynchedinthestreet,pastandpresent,blackchurcheshistorically

havebeenplacesofbothrefugeandresistance.Inaworldofdebilitatinganddemoralizing

oppression,aworldthatcallsintoquestionone’sworthateveryturn,religiousspaceshave

offeredsalvesofhealing.Yet,whenthelynchingtreehasbecomethecross,asJamesCone

so tragically puts it, and toomanywhite churches still act as if black lives don’tmatter,

what is the realmeaning of freedomnow?Andwhen this restorative ointment does not

extendtoallthoselivingunderthegazeofPharaoh,whatistheexclusionaryvalueofthe

metalogicofliberation?

Although the genius of black church theology has been something like Beyoncé’s

“lemonade” in reappropriating the destructive for construction 47—“what the devil

intended for evil, God used for good” (Genesis 50:20)—the landscape had shifted

46MaxRoachwithAbbeyLincoln,WeInsist!MaxRoach’sFreedomNowSuite,CandidRecords,1960.47BeyoncéKnowles,Lemonadealbumandmusicalfilm(NewYork:Parkwood,Columbia,April23,2016).

19

drastically.Thehistoric “transvaluationofvalues” thathas transformed thecross intoan

emblem of possibility is insufficient unless there is a substantial reordering of things.48

Thatis,thecrossmustbecomeemblematic,notofblackresiliencyinthefaceofsuffering,

butofaradicaltransformationitself.Theremustberealchange.

ThoughAfricanAmericanshave“comequitefarbyfaith,”49believinginthepromise

ofprogressandofabettertomorrow,thetelevisedmurderofscoresofblackpeoplecalls

intostarkreliefthevalueof‘blackliberation’andsociopoliticaladvancement.50Soonthat

Sunday, theUnioncongregation struggled to find theological language thatheld together

thehopeof redemptionwith therealitiesof thepresent.The Joshuagenerationsearches

foranewwayofstrugglingwiththepromisewhentheso-calledPromisedLandisnowhere

tobefound.Inotherwords,thepresent-daypaincallsintoquestionthedoublespeakofthe

blackchurch: the(un)intelligibilityofredemptionthroughacross that isstillbrutalizing,

stillcrucifying.

Because the reality is that black people are still being lynched with impunity.

Althoughsomehaveascendedtogreatheights,andothershavebeengrantedaccesstothe

best of America’s dreams, many still remain woefully shut out of the realized vision.

Further still, the benefits of the passion of countless forebearers fail to fully protect the

48SeeJamesCone,TheCrossandtheLynchingTree(Maryknoll:OrbisBooks,2011);ReinholdNiebuhr’sBeyondTragedy:EssaysontheChristianInterpretationofHistory,1937(Salem,NH:AyerCompany,1984);FriedrichNietzsche’s,OntheGenealogyofMorals,ed.WalterKaufmann(NewYork:Vintage,1967);andTheWilltoPower,ed.WalterKaufmann(NewYork:Vintage,1967),aswellasMichelFoucault’s“Nietzsche,Genealogy,History.”

49AlbertA.Goodson,“We’veComeThisFarByFaith”(1963),SongsofZion(Nashville:AbingdonPress,1981),192.

50MarcellaAthaus-ReidwritesinIndecentTheology:TheologicalPerversionsinSex,GenderandPolitics(NewYork:Routledge,2000):“Twenty-fiveyearsofLiberationTheologyinLatinAmericahasnotchangedaniotaofthesexualconstructionsofourmachistasociety”(78).AsimilarcommentcanbemadeintheracialcontextoftheUnitedStates.

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privileged(thinkHenryLouisGates).Attheendoftheday,nomatterhowwelloffoneis,

youarestilljustaniggainasuit.51

ResurrectingtheCrossandtheGhostinEastertide

Andsowebeginagain.Thistimewebeginatthebeginning,ontheothersideofthe

cross. Because Easter is wherewe always begin: worship that is the intersection of the

spiritof lifeandghostofdeath.This isnot theplacewhereonedesires tostart,but it is

where onemust. The crucifixion has already taken its place in the history of religion.52

Messianictriumphhasfailedtoberealizedwithintimeandhasgivenwaytoeschatological

hope,reframingandrefractingthegospelnarrationofapeople’sstoryoffaith.53Whatwas

prophesiedwasnotdeliveredassuch.InthewakeofJesus’publicexecution,hisfollowers

struggled tomakesense,orat leastmakemeaning,ofwhatwashoped for in the lightof

what actually came to be. The only thing that is certain is that things are no longer the

same. Because although someone or something lives, the Messiah has died. And Jesus’

disciplesstoodatthefootofthecrossandwatchedhisexecution.

51KanyeWeststates,“EvenifyouinaBenz,youstillaniggainacoupe.”“AllFallsDown,”SonyMusicStudios,

releasedFebruary24,2004,compactdisc.Cf.EvelynBrooksHigginbotham’sdiscussionofearly20thcentury

U.S.CongressmanArthurMitchell,whodespitehisofficestillsufferedtheeffectsofJimCrowsegregationin

“AfricanAmericanWomen’sHistoryandtheMetalanguageofRace,”Signs:JournalofWomeninCultureandSociety17:21(1992):251-274.Shewrites:“Despitethecomplicatingfactorofhisrepresentingthefederalgovernmentitself,Mitchell,likehissociallyconstructedrace,wasunambiguouslyassignedtothesecond-

classcar,ergolower-classspace”(261).

52JonathanZ.Smith,ToTakePlace:TowardTheoryinRitual(Chicago:UniversityofChicagoPress,1987).Hewrites,“Ritualis,firstandforemost,amodeofpayingattention.Itisaprocessformarkinginterest…place

directsattention…Fromsuchapointofview,thereisnothingthatisinherentlysacredorprofane.Theseare

notsubstantivecategories,butrathersituationalones.Sacralityis,aboveall,acategoryofemplacement”

(103-104).

53ReinholdNiebuhr,FaithandHistory:AComparisonofChristianandModernViewsofHistory(NewYork:CharlesScribner’sSons,1949);RezaArslan,Zealot:TheLifeandTimesofJesusofNazareth(NewYork:RandomHouse,2013).

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Today,wecanwatch real-lifemanslaughteronFacebookLive, replayedon repeat

onthenightlynews.“HowtoGetAwaywithMurder”isnotThursdaymust-seeTV.Andno

longer is the life of the account of the public execution borne solely by the collective

memory, recordeddecades later in gospelnarrative. It isnot left to the griots to the tell

story of what happened. The recording itself constitutes the archive. Perhaps the

revolutionwill notbe televised,but its antecedents surely are.54The “crucifiedGod” and

“Jesus,thecrucifiedpeople,”collide,toborrowSong’slyric.55

Butstillthereisnorealsongofredemptionbeingsung—“Howlongwilltheykillour

prophetswhilewestandaroundandlook?”(BobMarley)—becausethemessianichopeof

liberationsufferedbythemovementsforcivilrightsandblackpowerhasbeenshattered.

And,infact,wehavenotenteredthePromisedLand.Rather,wefindourselvesrightback

inthewilderness.Ourrespectabilityhasnotsavedus.

We,thepeople,awaitedjudgmentforalongtime.Thesecrettribunalknowntous

asthegrandjury,scouredtheso-calledarchivesandconsideredthe‘evidence’forweeks.

Forensic analyses and eyewitness reports were supposed to tell us what happened to

MichaelBrownonAugust 9, 2014. So onNovember 24, 2014, that day of reckoning,we

listened for a word from the county prosecutor’s press conference. Throughout the day

black people anxiously, nervously even, checked media alerts on smartphones for the

moment of the announcement. People of many statuses across the globe turned on

televisionsandwatchedonmobiledevices.Finally,afterseveralminutesof tellingusthe

54GilScott-Heron,“TheRevolutionWillNotBeTelevised”(1970)onSmallTalkat125thandLenoxalbum(FlyingDutchman,1971).

55JürgenMoltmann,TheCrucifiedGod:TheCrossofChristastheFoundationandCriticismofChristianTheology,1974(Minneapolis:FortressPress,1993).C.S.Song,Jesus,theCrucifiedPeople(Minneapolis:FortressPress,1990).

22

storyoftheevidencethatthegrandjuryallegedlyconsidered,wearetoldthatthereisno

evidencetoindictDarrenWilsonfortheBrown’sshootingdeathinFerguson,Missouri.56

Inaway,therewaslittlesurprisethattherewasnoindictment.Wehavebeendown

this road before: remember Rodney King? And now we are down the same road again

differently:Thegovernor issueda stateof emergencyandmobilized theNationalGuard.

Preparationsweremadetocontainriotersandoutsideagitatorswhogathertoprotestthe

charadeof justice.Nevertheless,weclungtoasmallglimmerofhopethatthepastwould

notbeourpresent,andourpresentwillnotbeourfuture.Likethosealongthewalkingon

theroadtoEmmaus,wehadhopedthathe[BarackObama]wouldredeemus(Luke24:21).

This bewilderment and grief has to be something unto what was experienced in

Jerusalempost-Golgotha.Whenonewitnesseshopedashedtothegroundinplainsight,the

feelingofpracticalpowerlessnessandparalyzedpainriseupfromthegrave.Wearenumb,

the walking dead; possibility inseparable from paradise lost. Still walking, yes, and still

uncertainaboutwhatthefutureholds.Thereispromiseofcomingpower:“youwillbemy

witnesses,”saysthecrucifiedonethatisalive(Acts1:8).

AndthisisEastertide.Uncertaintyisawashinthewakeofthethree-dayevent.The

foundationshaveshiftedandtheworldisnolongerthesame.Ifnewlifeisspringingforth

from the tomb, it isnot recognizedas such.The JohannineandLuke-Acts record tellsus

that the disciples did not identify the resurrected Christ at first. (It was not until Jesus

performedordinaryacts,suchascallingMary’snameinJohn20:16andsharingamealin

56“NoIndictmentinMichaelBrownShooting:St.LouisCountyProsecutingAttorneyRobertMcCulloch

announcesthatagrandjurydecidedagainstindictingDarrenWilson”,

http://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2014/11/25/sot-ferguson-grand-jury-mcculloch-entire-michael-brown.cnn

(accessedOctober1,2016).

23

Luke24:26-49,thathisfollowersperceivedhisidentity.)Soperhapsnewlifeitselfcomes

inaformthatpeopledidnotexpect?

InEasterthereisaghost.Andithauntsustoroamandstalktheearth.Itmeetsus

along the road and in locked rooms that are full of fear. The specter is the ‘haint’ of the

Spirit,whichisthepretexttoanycon-textofthewordmadeflesh.Itisbegotten,notmade,

andstillcomesintoviewmoreclearlywhentheOnesuffereddeathandwasburied.Andin

theGhosttherealwaysmorethanmeetstheeye.BecausewhiletheGhostcomesfromthe

dead, Spirit animates and brings life. Spirit and Ghost are One, and yet not one and the

same.

Itisnotaltogethercertainwhatmeetsushere/thereintheplaceoffear.Whilethey

allwitnessedthecrucifixion,thediscipleswerenotcertainthatresurrectionhappenedat

all.Jesus’deathoccursinapublicdisplay,andhashistoricalveracity.Weknowthatthere

wasamannamedJesuswholivedanddied.ButtheresurrectionofJesus,accordingtothe

archive,isawholeothermatter.Eventhefaithaccountinscriptureacknowledgesthat,at

leastatfirst,theresurrectionwasaprivateeventandnotapublicspectacle.Ifitoccurred,

ithappensearly in themorningwithnowitnesses.Thetestimonyof the firstonesat the

tombisunderscrutinyintherecord:itisnotangelsthatwereseenatthegrave,butrather

“visionsofangels”(Luke24:23).

Later,therisenOnecastsdispersionsabouthisidentity:“Foraghostdoesnothave

fleshandbonesasyouseethatIhave”(Luke24:39).Butthenagainfleshandbonesdonot

justvanishandappearatwilleither.NeitherdoestherisenOnedenythatheisaghost,and

it isalreadyknownthathe isSpiritandonewiththeFather,whoisworshippedinspirit

andintruth(John4:24).

24

InJerusalemwhereJesuscertainlywascrucified,itisuncertainwhetherheisrisen

anditisalsouncertainwhatmannerofChristisrisenindeed.Whilethereisnodoubtthat

Jerusalem was a place of hope and paradise lost, the place where the followers are

instructed to stay, presumably because it would have been logical to leave, it remains

unclear what this place was supposed to become. Spectrality is where ambiguity

encounterstouncertainty.

TheEasterInstabilityofIdentity

The identity of Jesus, if itwere ever fixed, becomes evenmore unstablewith the

crucifixion. The gospel writer Luke does not attempt an airtight depiction. Instead of

suggestingonehighlyrefinedandunalterablepicture,theimagethatwereceiveinLuke’s

gospelisshifty.Itisastorywithoutanending,tobecontinuedintheActsoftheApostles.

We approach identity, then, not as a set of fixed categories, but as a web of

interlockingcharacteristicsthatserveanunderlyingpurposeevenifthereisnounderlying

essence.Whendeployedinblackculturaldiscourses,spiritisnotsamenessbutasignifier

andasourcethatunitesinvariability.ThisisDuBois’s“giftofblackfolk,”whoseloveaffair

withspirithasplacedspiritasan irreplaceable trope inblackculturaldiscourse.57Spirit-

talk is an integral language in the discursive production of blackness and the disparate

identitieswithwhichitintersects.

TheagonyofEastertideiswherethisstoryofspiritstarts.Thenewbeginningthat

emerges fromthecross iscommencement,notculmination.ForblackChristianity,which

standsatthecenterofblackreligionintheUnitedStates,theliberatingJesusascrucified

57W.E.B.DuBois,TheGiftofBlackFolk,1924inTheOxfordW.E.B.DuBois,ed.HenryLouisGates,Jr.(NewYork:OxfordUniversityPress,2007).

25

Christ is its axial theme. In its lived religious expressions, embedded and deliberative

theologies, simply there is no avoiding Jesus on the cross and the community that

interprets itself through the specter of crucifixion. Whatever one says about the

quintessence of struggle for the African-American religious experience, the trappings of

ontological blackness, 58 and the emergence of post-racialism, the history of black

Christianity has been shaped inextricably by the narration of the life of Christ coming

throughthedeathofJesus.

The cross figures prominently in African-American Christianity; broadly

emblemmaticoftheChristologicaltradition.59Whilepneumatologyprimarilyconcernsthe

thesis, any constructive theology that takes African-American Christian experiences

seriously must engage with the cross. Christology, and not pneumatology, has been the

nativetongueofGod-talkintheblackchurch.Blackliberationtheologyandblackfeminist

theology have privileged the cross of Jesus in its ruminations on the divine. Although it

takes issuewithatonement, liberation, andredemption,womanist theologyhas centered

the community of change agents that Jesus inspired. These diverging responses to black

sufferinghavegivenrisetotwodifferenttheologicaltrajectories,eachbearingmuchfruit

intheirownrights.

Ontheonehand,JamesConeconcludesinhisinsightfulTheCrossandtheLynching

Tree(2011):

ThelynchingtreeisametaphorforwhiteAmerica’scrucifixionofblackpeople.Itis

thewindowthatbestrevealsthereligiousmeaningofthecrossinourland.Inthis

58VictorAnderson,BeyondOntologicalBlackness:AnEssayonAfricanAmericanReligiousandCulturalCriticism(NewYork:Continuum,1995).59JoAnneMarieTerrell,PowerintheBlood:TheCrossintheAfricanAmericanExperience(Eugene:Wipf&StockPublishers,1998)andJamesH.Cone,TheCrossandtheLynchingTree(Maryknoll:OrbisBooks,2011).

26

sense,blackpeopleareChristfigures,notbecausetheywantedtosufferbutbecause

theyhadno choice. Just as Jesushadno choice inhis journey toCalvary, soblack

peoplehadnochoiceaboutbeinglynched.TheevilforcesoftheRomanstateandof

white supremacy in Americawilled it. Yet, God took the evil of the cross and the

lynchingtreeandtransformedthembothintothetriumphantbeautyofthedivine.If

America has the courage to confront the great sin and ongoing legacy of white

supremacywithrepentanceandreparationthereishope“beyondtragedy.”60

PointingtothisNiebuhrianhope,Conelockshisgazeuponthetragedy.Whilemotivatedby

andforliberation,Conespendsthethrustandbreadthofhistheologicalwritingsindicting

theneedforliberation.Hetakesustothecross(andthelynchingtree)andstruggleswith

crucifixionbutstopsshortofresurrection.ForCone,onemightsay,liberation-workisde-

construction—orthedestructionoftheoppressiveregimesbycallingoutitshypocrisyand

internalinconsistencies.61Dismantlingtheapparatusesliterallyusedtoundoblackbodies

hasbeenthemajorproject.

Asakeyfigureintheblackradicaltradition,62inCone’sworkstheweightofforensic

analysisisgiventowhitesupremacyandracism—andtopainandsuffering—itcausesfor

manyblackpeople.Theologicallyspeakingthefocusisthecross,andinMarxistlanguage,

the issue is class. Still, the shortcomingsofblack theologyandblackMarxism is that the

majority of the energy is spent diagnosing the problem and interrogating the crisis:

negative dialectics. It seems as if tragedy is all that there is. It’s almost as if the critical

60Cone166.

61Cf.JacquesDerrida,“LettertoaJapaneseFriend(Prof.Izutsu)”inDerridaandDifférance,ed.DavidWoodandRobertBernasconci(Warwick:ParousiaPress,1985),1-5.Derrida‘translates’“deconstruction”in

contradistinctiontoMartinHeidegger’s(Destruktion/Abbau),saying,“Deconstructiontakesplace,itisaneventthatdoesnotawaitthedeliberation,consciousness,ororganizationofasubject,orevenofmodernity.

Itdeconstructsitself.Itcanbedeconstructed[Çasedeconstruit.].”

62SeeGayraudWilmore’sBlackReligionandBlackRadicalism(Maryknoll:OrbisBooks,1972).Cf.CedricRobinson’sBlackMarxism:TheMakingoftheBlackRadicalTradition(ChapelHill:TheUniversityofNorthCarolinaPress,1983)andCornelWest’sProphesyDeliverance!AnAfro-AmericanRevolutionaryChristianity(Louisville:WestminsterJohnKnoxPress,1982).

27

description seemingly crowds out room for the constructive answer to Martin King’s

important question, “where dowe go from here?” The cross, inmanyways, is both the

starting and ending points, leaving very little room for discussion of the significance of

resurrectioninblackChristianity.

Ontheotherhand,thoughrelatedly,inthewomanisttheologyofDeloresWilliams,

thepainofblackexistenceisforegrounded.Whilenotinterestedinthebiblicalcrucifixion

of Jesus or resurrection of Christ,Williams is verymuch concernedwith the response to

oppression.HerSistersintheWildernessvis-à-visthebiblicalstoryofHagarisaveryuseful

meditationon sustenanceandsurvival in the faceofotherwisedebilitatingoppression.63

She rejects substitutionary atonement and redemptive suffering as viable options for

AfricanAmericansunderthefootdebilitatingdominationandempire.Liberation, then, is

nottheendgoalbutratheramitigatedenduranceinthemidstofaless-than-justexistence.

AtthesametimethatWilliamsconfrontstheoppressiverealitiesofblackexistence,

however,elsewheresheenvisionsafreedomnot-yet-realizedthatisstillpossiblewhenshe

beckons a womanist pneumatology. She imagines, “Womanist theology could eventually

speakofGod inawell-developed theologyof the spirit…Womanist theologyhasgrounds

forshapingatheologyofspiritinformedbyblackwomen’spoliticalaction.”64

Perhaps, however, these approaches to black oppression—black and womanist

theologies—arenotmutuallyexclusive.Andperhapsconsiderationofthempavestheway

beyond tragedy, without sidestepping the very real concerns of centuries of suffering

63DeloresWilliams,SistersintheWilderness:TheChallengeofWomanistGod-Talk(Maryknoll:OrbisBooks,1993).

64Williams,“WomanistTheology:BlackWomen’sVoices”(1986)inTheWomanistReader,ed.LayliPhillips(NewYork:Routledge,2006),117-125.

28

enduredbyAfricanAmericans.Andat thesametime, there isnoprivilegingof thecross,

the grand signifier of oppression, as the only character in the grand narrative. Cone’s

emphasis on the cross and Williams’s vision for a womanist pneumatology, considered

together,suggeststhepathforwardItraceherein.

Forblackandwomanisttheologies,ifsufferingisthecon-text,thenwhatisthetext?

That is to say, is there a story that is written and to be told about African-American

experiencethat isnotcircumscribedandcontainedbythedevastationofblackbodies?It

seems that intellectuals like Du Bois, Hurston, and Thurman allude to a blackness that

transcendstheoppressivematerialityofanessentializedAfrican-Americanexperience.The

theological depiction of this ‘black faith’ primarily concerns us here. Is there a Word

beyond the word that de-centers suffering in light of and in hope of something more

essential,moreprimordial?Might the crossmeanmore than crucifixion—and alsomore

than theantecedentof resurrection?Might Jesusbemore than the crucifiedoneand the

one who “got up from the grave with all power in His hands?” Is it possible to see its

messiness—notalltragedyandnotalltriumph?

Maybebystartingontheothersideofthecrossmediatesandmindsthegap.Thisis

where we find spirit and the ghost generated by the cross. Spirit, however spectral is

hiddeninplainsight,andstandsonbothsidesofthecross—beforeandafterit,precedingit

andproducedbyit.Saiddifferently,Idonotwanttowriteaboutthecross,whichwas,by

all means, a brutal mechanism of public execution in the Roman Empire. But given its

centrality in the lived faith of black churches andAfrican-American religious thought, to

avoid the cross is to render one’s intervention practically null and void. Instead, Iwrite

abouttheha’ntsofthecross.

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Re-readingAgainfortheFirstTime

Idevelopaconstructivepneumatologyvis-à-visthecrossbyre-reading,throughthe

lensesofthebiblicalLuke-Actsandthenon-canonicalGospelofPeter,thepaschaltriduum

andtheEasterseasonprecedingPentecost. Inorder toconstructa freshpneumatological

intervention,wemust begin before Pentecost,which has become all but the property of

Pentecostals. Because we havemoved so quickly to the outpouring, not dwelling in the

ambiguityofEaster,IarguethatwehavemissedhowSpiritwasalreadyatwork.Instead,

here we should “tarry just a little while” and see that the death of Jesus on the cross

producesintheresurrectionaghost,whichrepeatstheincarnationaldeathofGod—anin-

spiration.

Moreover, a pneumatic theology of the cross is necessarily “intersectional.”

Intersectionality signals the social interests and political objectives underlying this

theological work. By choosing intersectionality as an intentional discursive and political

modality, I place myself. Intersectionality contends that social phenomena, particularly

socialoppressionsandtheirsolutions,arerelatedandinterconnected.PatriciaHillCollins

andSirmaBilgeofferanexpansivedescription:

Intersectionality is a way of understanding and analyzing the complexity in the

world,inpeople,andinhumanexperiences.Theeventsandconditionsofsocialand

political life and the self can seldombeunderstoodas shapedbyone factor.They

are generally shaped by many factors in diverse and mutually influencing ways.

Whenitcomestosocialinequality,people’slivesandtheorganizationofpowerina

given society are better understood as being shapednot by a single axis of social

division, be it race or gender or class, but bymany axes that work together and

influenceeachother.Intersectionalityasananalytictoolgivespeoplebetteraccess

tothecomplexityoftheworldandofthemselves.65

65PatriciaHillCollinsandSirmaBilge,Intersectionality(Malden:PolityPress,2006),2,193.

30

CollinsandBilgedescribeintersectionalityas“criticalinquiryandcriticalpraxis,”whichis

strikinglyresonantoftherelationshipoforthopraxisandorthodoxyinliberationtheology.

Thoughtandactionare inextricably linked inapolitics thatuniquelyconcerns itselfwith

theenduringplightofthemarginalizedandoppressed.66

Thiscriticalwork is theconstructive theological task,andconstructive theology is

always intersectional. Constructive theology converses with the deep complexity of

Christian tradition as it imagines a future with hope that transforms our present

(complicated) reality. It strives toward both relevancy and intelligibility that makes a

differenceintheworldinwhichwe“liveandmoveandhaveourbeing”(Acts17:28)—not

beinga“noisygongoraclangingsymbol”(1Corinthians13:1).IappreciatetheWorkgroup

on Constructive Theology’s formulation that theology is “Awake to the Moment.” The

participantsdescribe:

Theologythatgets itsownhandsdirtywiththerealpainandthereal joyof life in

thisveryworld,inthisverytimecomesclosertoexpressingsomethingmeaningfulabouttheGodwhobecamefullandfleshlypresent inthatrealtimeandrealplacetwothousandyearsago,aplacesomuchlikeourown,aplaceandatimeasmuchin

needofnewpathwaystohealingasoursisnow.67

Suchistheaimofthisdissertation:tostepintoanage-oldconversationthatspeakstothe

veryrealrealitiesoftoday.

66Intheirchapter“GettingtheHistoryStraight?”,CollinsandBilgelocatetheintersectionality’soriginsin

resistancemovementsofthe1960sand1970s,andnotinthe1990swhenthetermbecamepopularizedintheacademy.TheynotethatwhileKimberléCrenshaw’s(legal)workispioneering,tostartthenarrativein

1991withthepublicationof“MappingtheMargins:Intersectionality,IdentityPolitics,andViolenceAgainst

WomenofColor,”constitutesan“erasure”ofthecollectivecontributionsofblacklesbianfeministsoftheCohambeeRiverCollective,aswellasNativeAmerican,Chicana,andAsianAmericanwomen.Collinsand

Bilgewrite,“Intersectionalityseeminglydidn’texistuntilitwasdiscoveredbyacademicsandnamedand

legitimatedwithintheacademy”(Ibid.,85).

67AwaketotheMoment:AnIntroductiontoTheology,ed.LaurelC.SchneiderandStephenG.Ray(Louisville:WestminsterJohnKnoxPress,2016),3.

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Spiritpointstosomethingpowerful,potent,andoftenineffable.Descriptively,spirit-

talk encompasses a myriad of things and leans upon a myriad of sources, and not a

particularsystem.Itstrivestobeasystematic(i.e.,constructive)theologyinsofarasitis

coherent.68Precisely because spirit-talk can participate in a number of contemporary

conversations, from secularity to embodiment, Iwant tomobilize it for a pointed set of

purposes,namelyempowerment,inlightofthesebroadercontours.Overall,Iwillinterpret

spiritmoreasasignifierthanasasource.Ibringtogetheritsvariousarticulations—spirit,

Spirit,andHolySpirit—inordertoweavetogetherheuristic(symbolic),philosophical,and

doctrinaliterationsinacoherentconversation.

Through the thesis, in some way I seek to “take back the word”69by offering a

biblically grounded affirming theology that does not seek to define spirit as if it can be

contained. Rather, I desire to dance with “spirit” in such a way that enfleshes the

movements at play when intellectuals deploy the term.70I remain conversant with the

tradition that has shaped me, while still seeking to broaden it. By reading scripture

differently I hope to create a fissure in black Christian orthodoxy, while remaining

intelligibletoblackchurchgoersandfaithfultotheologicalcritique.

68ChristopherMorse,NotEverySpirit:ADogmaticsofChristianDisbelief(Harrisburg:TrinityInternationalPress,1994).

69TakeBacktheWord:AQueerReadingoftheBible,ed.RobertE.GossandMonaWest(Cleveland:ThePilgrimPress,2000).

70EmileM.Townes,WomanistEthicsandtheCulturalProductionofEvil(NewYork:PalgraveMacMillan,2006),KarenBaker-Fletcher,DancingWithGod:TheTrinityfromaWomanistPerspective(St.Louis:ChalicePress,2006).

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1.3. OnIrony,Invisibility,andtheSpiritofBlackFolk

Spirit-talkprovidesaninsightfullanguagefordiscussingblackreligion,particularly

African-AmericanChristianity.BecauseSpiritisthatwhichonecannotsee,itfunctionswell

as a trope for apprehending a tradition cast to themargins of religiousdiscourse.There

remainsaprevailingconsensusamongscholarsofblackreligionthattheAfrican-American

churchhasbeena“nationwithinanation,”whichemergesfromtheunionofthat“invisible

institution” and the institutional church.Hiddenness is an intrinsic, inherent property of

blackChristianity.

TrailblazingsociologistEdwardFranklinFrazierwrites,“TheNegroChurchwithits

ownformsofreligiousworshipwasaworldwhichthewhitemandidnotinvadebutonly

regardedwith an attitude of condescending amusement.”71Ironically, this hiddenness is

actuallymasked in presence. Indeed this condescension emerges from ignorance of that

which thewhitemanwillfullychosenot tosee. Inmanyways, this religion isverymuch

seen, even commented upon—often shunned and distanced—but exceedingly unknown

andmisunderstoodforwhatitactuallyis,thusdemandingitsthickerdescription.

Theblackchurchitselfhasbeen,andcontinuestobe,acountercultureofresistance

thatbeenbothasafeharborfromwhitesupremacyandasiteoflimitedagency.Andthese

scholars are still writing the history of what has been birthed of this marriage. Take

Raboteau’s SlaveReligion:The Invisible Institution in theAntebellumSouth (1978),which

comes on the scenemore than a century after the demise of the peculiar institution of

slavery, as paradigmatic example.Milton Sernett inAfricanAmericanReligiousHistory:A

DocumentaryWitness(1999)writes:71E.FranklinFrazier,TheNegroChurchinAmerica,1964(NewYork:SchockenBooks,1974),51.

33

Weawait,forexample,somethingontheorderofAlbertJ.Raboteau’sSlaveReligionfor other periods and issues. It is something of a scholarly embarrassment that

detailed studies exist on minor traditions known as the Black Jews and Black

Muslims,butnocontemporaryhistorianhaspublishedacomprehensivehistoryof

theNationalBaptistConvention,Inc.withitsmillionsofmembers.72

IndeedSernettrevealsthatoneofthekeyrolesoftheblackchurchisthatofconfronting

thishiddenness.Emancipationdoesnotbring—like somany things that itdoesnot fully

realize for African Americans—the unveiling and public revealing of the black church.

Frazier’snewnation, then, carries inconspicuousnesswith it. Somethingmightbevisible

althoughnotperceptible.

The black church as black nation is neither the church nor the nation and only

exercisesrestrictedfreedom.Towit,theblackchurchiscontained.Itcontinuestooperate

emancipated under the panoptic gaze of whiteness, its partial movements mediated

throughanewformofinvisibilitythatinfactithasnotescaped.Andthislimitedmovement

toward liberation reinscribes the norm. Michel Foucault is helpful here: “Disciplinary

power…isexercisedthroughitsinvisibility;atthesametimeitimposesonthosewhomit

subjectsaprincipleofcompulsoryvisibility.”73

Invisibilitybecomesdoubled:notonlypresentinantebellumslavereligion,butalso

foundinthisnewnationthatcarrieswithit the“memoryof itspast.”74Theinvisibilityof

theblackchurch,whichisconstantlybeingundonebyscholarsofblackreligionwhoseek

towrite intoblackness into thearchive,doesnotactuallyresolve:blackreligionremains

72MiltonSernett,“Introduction,”inAfricanAmericanReligiousHistory:ADocumentaryWitness,ed.MiltonC.Sernett(Durham:DukeUniversityPress,1999),2.

73MichelFoucault,DisciplineandPunish:TheBirthofthePrison,1975,trans.AlanSheridan(NewYork:VintageBooks,1977),187.

74MayraRiveraRivera,“GhostlyEncounters:Spirits,Memory,andtheHolyGhost”,PlanetaryLoves:Spivak,Postcoloniality,andTheology,ed.StephenD.MooreandMayraRivera(NewYork:FordhamUniversityPress,2011),118-135.

34

not fully seen and certainly not fully understood. Much of the body of black religion

remains hidden, not yet fully excavated, and then trapped in a temporal distortion that

doesnotalterperceptionsattherateofacquisitionofnewknowledge.75

Scholarsofblackreligion,then,engageinacollectiveprocessofmakingthestill-all-

too-invisibleinstitutionperceptible.HistorianBarbaraDianneSavageconcludesherstudy

of“thepoliticsofblackreligion”bystating:“thatthesimplisticdichotomiesthatdrivemost

discussionsabout race, religion,andpolitics stillhave tractionbecauseAfricanAmerican

religion remains a subject of mystery, misunderstanding, and manipulation.”76 While

demonstrating that thisweb of unknowing has been constructed over time by a host of

commentators (African American and not) and out of many motivations (affirmative,

ambivalent,andaccusatorytowardblackreligion),Savagearguesthat,despitetheriseof

post-denominationalism and secularism, religion remains a valuable form of cultural

currency for African Americans. As her title suggests, contours of faith forged by

generationsofdecadespastcontinue to influence thecontemporarypoliticaleconomyof

race.

Although these dichotomies persist, as Savage reveals in her analysis of Rev.

JeremiahWright and Barack Obama during the 2008 presidential campaign, scholars of

75Thisclaimrunsdeep.InadditiontoSernett’sobservationsaboutthecentralityofRaboteau’sSlaveReligion,seeCharlesH.Long’sfoundationalSignifications:Signs,Symbols,andImagesintheInterpretationofReligion(Aurora:TheDaviesGroup,Publishers,1986),particularly“PartIII:ShadowandSymbolsofAmerican

Religion”thatengagesAfro-American/Blackreligioninviewofthedevelopmentofreligiousstudies.The

scholarlycorpushasexpandedbroadlyinrecentyears.Thesehistoricalmetanarratives,forexample,explore

theunder-examinedconnectionofreligionandrace:CurtisJ.Evans’sTheBurdenofBlackReligion(NewYork:OxfordUniversityPress,2008);J.KameronCarter’sRace:ATheologicalAccount(NewYork:OxfordUniversityPress,2008);WillieJamesJennings,TheChristianImagination:TheologyandtheOriginsofRace(NewHaven:YaleUniversityPress,2010);EstreldaAlexander,BlackFire:OneHundredYearsofAfricanAmericanPentecostalism(DownersGrove:InterVarsityPress,2011).76BarbaraJ.Savage,YourSpiritsWalkBesideUs:ThePoliticsofBlackReligion(Cambridge:HarvardUniversityPress,2008),283.

35

black religion have been collectively committed to rendering “visible” African American

religioninallofitscomplexity.LincolnandMamiyaadvanceadialecticdevoidof“Hegelian

synthesis or ultimate resolution”77that would overturn earlier interpretive models that

emphasize one pole or the other. For example, although E. Franklin Frazier’sTheNegro

ChurchinAmerica(1964)breaksgroundwithitssociologicalmethod,LincolnandMamiya

argue that Frazier’s assimilation model that presents African-American Christianity as

largely “anti-intellectual and authoritarian” is partial—in both senses of the word. A

particularmotivedrivesanincompleteconclusion.

Throughtheirdialecticalmodel,oneobservesbothresistanceandaccommodation;

otherworldlyandthis-worldly;andcommunalandprivatisticaspectsintheblackchurch.

Notlongafterthe“Negrochurch”isrecognizedthereisan(legitimate)undoingandcalling

into question of some of the very assumptions that define it, as the identity politics of

blackness come into view. Questions of class, gender, and sexuality flood the scene

alongsideraceinthedevelopmentofthedescriptionoftheso-calledblackchurch.Thereis

great diversity in the voices that constitute the black church and black religion in the

UnitedStates.Indeedthereareahostof intersectingandintersectionalconcernsthatare

subsumedinthisbroaddescriptivecategory.78

77C.EricLincolnandLawrenceH.Mamiya,TheBlackChurchintheAfricanAmericanExperience(Durham:DukeUniversityPress,1990),11.

78SeeKellyBrownDouglas,SexualityandtheBlackChurch(Maryknoll:OrbisBooks,1999);MichaelEmersonandChristianSmith,DividedByFaith:EvangelicalReligionandtheProblemofRaceinAmerica(NewYork:OxfordUniversityPress,2001);HoraceGriffin,TheirOwnReceiveThemNot:AfricanAmericanLesbiansandGaysinBlackChurches(Eugene:WipfStock,2006);M.ShawnCopeland,EnfleshingFreedom:Body,Race,andBeing(Minneapolis:FortressPress,2010;E.L.Kornegay,AQueeringofBlackTheology:JamesBaldwin’sBluesProjectandGospelProse(NewYork:PalgraveMacmillan,2013);AshonT.Crawley,BlackpentecostalBreath:TheAestheticsofPossibility(NewYork:FordhamUniversityPress,2016).

36

Lincoln’s and Mamiya’s new paradigm builds upon trailblazing works like James

Cone’sBlackTheologyandBlackPower(1969),whichbeginstodevelopablacktheologyof

liberation that emerges out of black power nationalism, and Gayraud Wilmore’s Black

Religion and Black Radicalism: An Interpretation of the Religious History of African

Americans (1973), which troubles conceptions of the passivity of African-American

religion. The process of articulation, revision and re-articulation, suggests a dynamic

unfolding of the religious history of blackness that is at least once being written and

rewrittenvirtuallyatthesametime.Thepaceatwhichthishistorycomesintothepresent

is both staggering and slow: the richness of the African American religious terrain has

receivedso littleattention,especially fromnon-blackscholars,andwhen it finallycomes

intoconsiderationthewatersflowwithgreatrapidity.

Sernett draws together a representative cross-section of primary sources that

undermine the uniformity of black religious expressions and the conformity of their

disparate aims. He introduces the collection by saying, “the study of African American

religioushistoryneedsnospecialwarrant.Thestoryisself-authenticating,bearingitsown

witnesstothetravailandtriumphof thehumanspirit.”79It is inandfor itself, toborrow

Hegel’s formulation. In amanner of speaking (and, in contrast to Lincoln andMamiya’s

formulation),intellingthisstory,scholarsofblackreligionareexecutingaphenomenology

ofspiritofblackreligion.

Tellingthe(Sexual)StoryofSpirit

Theintrinsic(andperhapsobvious)ironyisthattheonce(andstill)invisible“black

79Sernett,AfricanAmericanReligiousHistory,1.

37

sacredcosmos”thatisnowonlyjustbeingmadeevidentisoftcharacterizedas“spirited.”80

The metaphor is charged with meaning. At once this descriptor speaks to a hyper-

perceptibility,manifestinembodiedexpressions,thatcarrieswithitspectrality.Theaffects

andeffectsofspiritarewitnessedandstillyetnotunderstood.Thereisanechoofasound

notyetheard.Anditrepeats.

In Mays’s and Nicholson’s The Negro’s Church, the souls and spirit of black folk

permeatesitsinstitution:“Theauthorsbelievethatthereisinthegeniusorthe‘soul’ofthe

Negrochurchsomethingthatgivesitlifeandvitality,thatmakesitstandoutsignificantly

above its building, creeds, rituals and doctrines, something that makes it a unique

institution.” 81 They outline a series of characteristics that make the black church

exceptional: ownership, egalitarianism, social concern, educational and entrepreneurial

empowerment,racialtranscendence,andindependence.Intheirdiscussionofthe“freedom

torelax,”MaysandNicholsondonotattach thesoul toabiologicaldeterminism.That is,

theyargue:“IfintheirchurchservicesNegroesshowmoreemotionthanmembersofsome

otherracialgroups, itcanhardlybeprovedthattheyarebynaturemoreexpressive.The

explanationliesintheenvironmentalconditionsunderwhichtheylive.”82

Lincoln andMamiya ground their now classic analysis ofTheBlackChurch in the

AfricanAmericanExperience(1990)withadescriptionthatIquoteinitsentirety:

80See, for example,TheBlackChurch in theAfricanAmericanExperience;GodStruckMeDead:VoicesofEx-Slaves, 1969, ed. Clifton J. Johnson (Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2010); Estrelda Y. Alexander, Black Fire: OneHundreds Years of African American Pentecostalism (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2011); and Luke A.Powery,SpiritSpeech:LamentandCelebrationinPreaching(Nashville:AbingdonPress,2009).81BenjaminE.MaysandJosephW.Nicolson,TheNegro’sChurch,1933(Eugene:Wipf&Stock,2015),278.82Ibid.,282.

38

For this examination of the black sacred cosmos, a deciphering of the frenzy [of

W.E.B.DuBois]isparticularlyimportant.Likemostobserversandvisitorstoblack

worship services, Du Bois was referring to the intense enthusiasm and the open

displayofemotionsandfeelingexhibitedbytheworshippers.Someworshipers‘got

theSpirit’andwerepropelledtoaparoxysmofshouting.Whileothers‘fellout’and

rolledonthefloorinashaking,trance-likestate,possessedbytheHolyGhost.Some

people stood in the pews and waved their hands over their heads, while others

clappedtheirhandsintimewiththemusic.Eveninthemidstofthepreaching,the

worshippers carried on a dialogue with the preacher shouting approval and

agreementwithejaculationslike“Amen!”or“Preachit!”or“Tellitlikeitis!”Atother

timestheyencouragedthepreachertoworkhardertoreachthatprecipitatingpoint

ofcatharticclimaxbycallingout, “Well?”…”Well?”Thehighlightof theservicewas

to worship and glorify God by achieving the experience of mass catharsis; a

purifyingexplosionof emotions that eclipses theharshnessof reality for a season

andleavesboththepreacherandthecongregationdrainedinamomentofspiritual

ecstasy. Failure to achieve this experience often resulted in polite compliments of

“good talk” or “good lecture,” and not the ultimate, “You preached today!” beingofferedthepreacher.TheBlackChurchwasthefirsttheaterintheblackcommunity.

LiketheGreektheateritsfunctionalgoalwascatharsis,butbeyondtheGreeks,the

BlackChurchwasinsearchoftranscendence,notamereemptyingoftheemotions,

butanenduringfellowshipwithGodinwhichtheformalworshipserviceprovided

theoccasionforparticularperiodsofintimacy.83

Lincoln’sandMamiya’sdescriptionofthe‘theatrical’formofblackchurchworshipbegsthe

question:Whatisperformed“insearchoftranscendence”beyondmerecatharsis?

To be sure, the erotic overtones of the Spirit-induced frenzy—defined by

ejaculation, climax, and hardening—cannot be lost on the audience.84In this process of

catharticreleasethatplacestheworshipperincommunionwithGod,theinterplaybetween

theeroticandemotivesuggests the inseparabilityofsex,sexuality,andspirituality.85The

genderedspacesof thepulpitand thepew(andoften, thesesexist spaces)place instark

reliefwho is free enough to dance, shout, and be possessed. Du Bois’s observations of

83LincolnandMamiya,TheBlackChurchintheAfricanAmericanExperience,5-6.84SeeArthurHuffFauset’sBlackGodsoftheMetropolis:NegroReligiousCultsoftheUrbanNorth,1944(Philadelphia:UniversityofPennsylvaniaPress,2001).

85SeeMarcellaAlthaus-Reid,IndecentTheology:TheologicalPerversionsinSex,GenderandPolitics(NewYork:Routledge,2000);TheQueerGod(NewYork:Routledge,2003).

39

pedestrianandproletariatfeaturesofthesouthernrevivalbecomeanormativedepiction

ofAfrican-Americanworship,accordingtoLincolnandMamiya.

The showing up of black religion on the world stage has been the task of black

religiousscholarship,fromJamesCone’sblackliberationtheologyandhisfieryindictment

of Eurocentric theology’s erasure of the African-American experience to Charles Long’s

interrogation of significations of the other in Religionswissenschaft.86The writing and

enactmentofanewdramaticoverture,with itsnewcast,script,andscore,offersamuch

differentinsightintothelivesofblackpeoplewhentheybecomesubjects,andnotobjects,

‘capable’ofself-(re)presentation.

When the storytellerhas lived the story from the insideout, three-dimensionality

results; the flattened andobscuredobject begins tobreathe. PaullaEbron, inPerforming

Africa(2002),narrates:

The literature on representation reminds us that we have learned to imagine

regions through repetitive tropes…to speak of performance as a trope of

representationrequiresofback-and-forthengagementbetweendiscursiveanalysis

and attention to performance itself. Performance is a mode through which

representation is enacted and negotiated…Performance brings representation to

life.87

In using the status and vulnerability of Africa in global geopolitics and international

developmentasapointofdeparture,Ebronmakesthecasethat“TheAfrica”isperformed

inmanyways,bythoseAfricansandnon-Africansalike,foraltruisticandentrepreneurial

purposes.Inthiscomplexrelationship,thereisnohomogeneityandnosimpledichotomies

betweenvictimsandvictors/oppressors,AfricaandWest,objectsandsubjects.

86CharlesH.Long,Significations:Signs,Symbols,andImagesintheInterpretationofReligion(Aurora:TheDaviesGroupPublishers,1986).

87PaullaA.Ebron,PerformingAfrica(Princeton:PrincetonUniversityPress,2002),10-11.

40

Rather,intheperformance,roles,scenes,andstageschange.Performance,vis-à-vis

thepersonaof the jali, isa formofre-presentation inwhichtheacteduponbecomesthe

actor, thuscomplicatinganyperceivedsimplistic,dichotomizedpowerdynamic.Sheuses

jaliya (the art of story-telling, history-making) performedby jalias the centralmeans of

unraveling complex vertical and horizontal, temporal and spatial relationships. Jali are

professionalswhohaveapersonalandsocialagendatoshapethehistoryofTheGambia,

andthustheybecomecuratorsoftraditionandcommodifiersofcultures.Atthesametime,

onemight argue that they are exploited and participate in an increasingly international

musicindustry;theyexploittheirpowerwithinandwithouttheGambiancontext.

Themostprominent representationof spiritwithrespect toAfricanAmericans is,

no doubt, Du Bois’s The Souls of Black Folk, which represents a turning point in black

letters.88Itbecomesanarchetypethatheretoforedefinesthe imageofAfricanAmericans

fromwithinandwithout.Soulsisanapologia;theologicallyspeaking,“adefenseofthehope

within you” (1 Peter 4:13). It is a tactic to render visible the humanity that has been

“hiddeninplainsight,”thepromiseofwhichwillcastingreaterreliefbelow.

DuBois exposes towhite audiences the inherentworth and value, the imagodei,

thatwhiteoppressionhasobscured.ThroughthissymboliclanguageDuBoisgivesvoices

to the collective utterance of a people: I have a soul and I will be seen. The interplay

betweenreligionandracemakesrepeatedreferencetothetropeofspirit.Inalaterwork,

Du Bois goes further: “How the fine sweet spirit of black folk, despite superstition and

passionhasbreathedthesoulofhumilityand forgiveness into the formalismandcantof

88HenryLouisGates,“SeriesIntroduction:TheBlackLettersontheSign:W.E.B.DuBoisandtheCanon,”TheOxfordW.E.B.DuBois,ed.HenryLouisGates(NewYork:OxfordUniversityPress,2007),xi-xxiv.

41

Americanreligion.”89Toclaimsoulisthecounterthechargeofsoullessnessandisspiritual

warfareagainstpowersandprincipalitiesinhighplaces(Ephesians6:12).Itis likeAudre

Lorde’swritingofpoetry:itisnotaluxury,itisforsurvival.90

In thesameyearofSouls’publication,DuBois joinswithMaryChurchTerrelland

KellyMillerintheconcludingtheEighthAtlantaConference:

We are passing through that critical period of religious evolution when the low

moral and intellectual standard of the past and the curious custom of emotional

fervorarenolongerattractingtheyoungandoughtinjusticetorepeltheintelligent

andthegood.Atthesametimereligionofmerereasonandmoralitywillnotalone

supply the dynamic spiritual inspiration and sacrifice….No matter what destiny

awaitstherace,Religionisnecessaryeitherasasolventorasasalve.91

Accordingtotheirfindings,neitherstaticreligionnoremotionalreligionwillcontributeto

theupliftoftherace.DuBoispointsacutelytotheroleofblackreligioninblackliberation.

In fact, because of this association, Du Bois has been viewed as an ally of black radical

religion and a forerunner of black liberation theology.92It is to this relationship thatwe

nowturn.

89W.E.B.DuBois,TheGiftofBlackFolk,1924inTheOxfordW.E.B.DuBois,ed.HenryLouisGates,Jr.(NewYork:OxfordUniversityPress,2007),117.

90AudreLorde,“PoetryisaNotaLuxury,”SisterOutsider:EssaysandSpeeches(Berkeley:CrossingPress,1984),36-39.

91DuBois,TheNegroChurch:ReportofaSocialStudyMadeundertheDirectionofAtlantaUniversity,1903(WalnutCreek:AltaMiraPress,2003),207.

92EdwardJ.Blum,W.E.B.DuBois:AmericanProphet(Philadelphia:UniversityofPennsylvaniaPress,2007);JonathanS.Kahn,DivineDiscontent:TheReligiousImaginationofW.E.B.DuBois(NewYork:OxfordUniversityPress,2009);TerrenceL.Johnson,TragicSoul-Life:W.E.B.DuBoisandtheMoralCrisisFacingAmericanDemocracy(NewYork:OxfordUniversityPress,2012).

42

Chapter2. LiberatingSpirit:W.E.B.DuBois,TheFrenzy,andBlackRespectability

Howthefinesweetspiritofblackfolk,despitesuperstitionandpassionhasbreathedthesoulofhumilityand

forgivenessintotheformalismandcantofAmericanreligion.–W.E.B.DuBois,“TheGiftofSpirit”,TheGiftofBlackFolk(1924)

Q:Whydoyoushout?A:IshoutbecauseIjustfeelthespiritcomeonme.

Q:Howdoesitfeel?A:Whenthespiritcomesonyouitfeelsjustlikeabucketofwaterhasbeenpouredonme.

Q:Whatisthespirit?A:ThespiritisthegraceofGod.Whenthepreacherstartstotellingthethingsyouknowistrueandhave

experienced,itmakesyoufeelsogoodyoufeellikeshouting.–interviewwithblackworshipper1

In 1829 DavidWalker made his famous Appeal, in Four Articles; Togetherwith a

PreambletotheColouredCitizensoftheWorld,butinParticular,andVeryExpressly,toThose

of theUnitedStatesofAmerica. Perhaps the greatest abolitionistmanifesto everwritten,

Walker’sAppeal declaredwith heightened urgency the heinous nature of chattel slavery

and the undeniable obligation of black people throughout the diaspora to topple it. This

trailblazingabolitionisttreatiserefutedgradualismandclaimedblackagencytoguidethe

demiseofthat(notso)“peculiarinstitution.”

Walkerwasamemberof theMayStreetMethodistEpiscopalChurch,hometothe

Methodists of black Boston, stop on the Underground Railroad, and predecessor of the

present-dayUnionUnitedMethodistChurch.Active intheanti-slaveryanddesegregation

movements, in 1949, famed educator Mary McLeod Bethune keynoted the formal

dedicationofthecongregation’sministryatitsnewSouthEndlocation,havingmovedfrom

theWestEndthroughRoxburyduringthemigrationofblackBoston.

1BarbaraDianneSavage,YourSpiritsWalkBesideUs:ThePoliticsofBlackReligion(Cambridge:HarvardUniversityPress,2008),79-80.

43

The following year, in 1950, Thurgood Marshall presided over the national

conventionofW.E.B.DuBois’sNationalAssociationfortheAdvancementofColoredPeople

atUnion—itsfinalmeetingatachurch—whichvotedtopursue“thecompletedestruction

ofall enforcedsegregation…inAmericanpubliceducation fromtop tobottom—from law

school to kindergarten,” a decision that culminated in Brown v. Board of Education of

Topeka,Kansas.2Sincethen,thecongregationhasplayedimportantrolesinresistingSouth

African apartheid, promoting economic development, and welcoming queer folk into

sacred religious space, becoming the first black Methodist church to do so officially in

2000.3

Boston’shistoricUnionnodoubt inherits its liberation legacy from itsMayStreet

forerunner: its contemporary work deeply grounded in a 200 year-old bold witness of

freedom and autonomy. In 1796, black members of the predominately white Bromfield

StreetMethodistEpiscopalChurchofBeaconHillbegangatheringfreelyandindependently

for worship, prayer, and scripture study because “whites were uncomfortable with the

African style ofworship,with its vigorous singing, swaying, andhand clapping, shouting

andprayingaloudintheSpirit.”4Astheirmovementandindependencegrew,thischurch-

within-a-churchpetitionedthebishopforitsownpastor,callingtheRev.SamuelSnowden,

a formerCarolinaslave, fromPortland,Maine.And in1818, theMayStreet (laterRevere

Street)Churchwasformed.

2“ATurningPointin1950,”SmithsonianNationalMuseumofAmericanHistory,

http://americanhistory.si.edu/brown/history/3-organized/turning-point.html(accessedJune1,2016).

3“ReconcilingStatementofUnionUnitedMethodistChurch,”http://unionboston.org/about/reconciling-

statement(accessedJune1,2016).

4UnionUnitedMethodistChurch,“OurHistory,”http://unionboston.org/about/history(accessedJune1,

2016).

44

This groundbreaking church, which spiritually nurtured Walker, the trailblazing

pamphleteer,existstodaylargelybecauseitwastooexuberant—tooAfrican—foritswhite

midwife. Its spirit was not a gift, but a curse, to compatriots. As a result, the liturgical

expressivenesscatalyzedtheemergenceofanindependentcongregationcommittedtothe

liberation and the emancipation struggle. Social progress for AfricanAmericanswas not

antitheticaltofreedomintheSpirit,butrathercontingentuponsuchliberty.

Inthischapter,Iexplorethetenuousrelationshipbetweencharismataandtheblack

liberationstruggle.Givingspecialattentiontohowthedemonstrativebecomesdemonicin

thewritingsofW.E.B.DuBoisandotherprominentblackmenofletters,Itracetheroleof

rational spirit in the emergence of black theologies of liberation. ForDuBois, the gift of

spiritthatanimatesthegiftofblackfolkisnotkhárisma,the“freelygivengiftofgrace,”that

blew through theAzusa StreetRevival (1906-1912) andbirthedmodernPentecostalism.

AlthoughtherehasbeenarecentrevivalofinterestinthereligiousimaginationofDuBois,

his articulation of soul and spirit are not to be mistaken for the ecstatic expression of

southernrevivalsthatheabhorred.

Whileexamininghow20thcenturyblacktheologyengagesDuBoisasasourceforits

liberationproject,IwillinterrogatesomedangersandbequeathsinclaimingDuBoisasa

ground for a constructive theological imagination. At the same time that the Du Boisian

geniusopensnewvistas,italsoforeclosesotherpossibilities:hispathologizingofecstatic

black religion, particularly the charismatic “frenzy,” fits, and shouts, narrows the field of

viewforblacktheologicalthought.WhenblacktheologyappropriatesDuBois’scolorline

45

logic,italsobringsapoliticsofrespectabilitythatis“alwaysalready”5devoidofanecstasy

that resists thenormative gazeof the logical orderingof things.Here Iwill demonstrate

thatDuBois’saccountofthe“thegiftofspirit”andthe“soulsofblackfolk”dependsupona

HerderianandHegelianphenomenologyofspirit,inflectedthroughAmericanpragmatism.6

Next, I correlate the absence of pneumatology in black theological thought with

black intellectuals’ attempt to regulate “frenzied” bodies. As black theology takes up Du

Boisandthe“problemofthecolorline,”itprioritizesthe“person”ofJesustotheexclusion

of the “person” of the Holy Spirit. I contend that this theological turn toward Jesus qua

incarnateGodisnothingshortofanexorcism.

Still,IbelievethereisgreatpromiseintheappropriationofDuBois,whencorrected

forhisanti-charismaticsentiment.Thus,havingpresentedanaccountofrationalspirit in

Du Bois, I adjust for his obsession with respectability and offer a pneumatological

interventionthatrespondstotheaforementionedlimitationsofblacktheology,thuspaving

thewayfordeeperengagementwith“spiritualthings”inthisAgeofSpirit.

5Foucaultwrites,“thereisnoescapingofpower,thatisitalways-alreadypresent,constitutingthatverything

whichoneattemptstocounteritwith.”Foucault,TheHistoryofSexuality:AnIntroduction,trans.RobertHurley,1978(NewYork:VintageBooks,1990),82.Seealso,ImmanuelKant,CritiqueofPureReason,trans.PaulGuyerandAllenW.Wood(NewYork:CambridgeUniversityPress,1998),414[A346/B404].

6ThisaccountdependsuponmyreadingofShamoonZamir’sDarkVoices:W.E.B.DuBoisandAmericanThought,1888-1903(Chicago:TheUniversityofChicagoPress,1995);StephanieJ.Shaw’sW.E.B.DuBoisandTheSoulsofBlackFolk(ChapelHill:TheUniversityofNorthCarolinaPress,2013);andKwameAnthony

Appiah,LinesofDescent:W.E.B.DuBoisandtheEmergenceofIdentity(Cambridge:HarvardUniversityPress,2014).

46

2.1. SiblingRivalry:BlackTheologyandtheAfrican-AmericanRadicalTradition

In1975theprivatedebatebetweenbrothersCecilWayneandJamesHalConewent

public.Thebasicquestionatstake:Wasblack theologyblack enough?Understoodas the

liberation-oriented articulation of Christian faith from the African-American standpoint,

black theologyhasbeenunderdevelopment since1966. It comesof age in JamesCone’s

writings, most notably Black Theology and Black Power (1969) and A Black Theology of

Liberation (1970). Still, according to his brother, writing in The Identity Crisis in Black

Theology(1975),blacktheologyfailedtogrounditselfinblackreligion.7CecilConeargued

thatJosephWashington,JamesCone,andJ.DeotisRobertsdisappointinglygavebirthtoa

childforwhichthereligiousexperienceofAfricanAmericanswasnotthemother.

In particular, Cecil Cone charged that the emergent black theology was overly

concernedwith,andthusself-conscious inthefaceofwhiteacademictheologyandblack

powerradicalism.These locioforiginsdonotrepresent the livedreligiousexperienceof

African-American Christians, and as a result, the early expressions of black theology,

accordingtoCecilCone,werenot‘authentic’totheessenceofblackreligion.8Hewrites:“In

ordertoavoidtheproblemofidentity,itisnecessaryfortheblacktheologianfromthevery

beginning to get clear in his ownmindwhat constitutes the essential elements of black

religion.”9

7CecilW.Cone,TheIdentityCrisisinBlackTheology,1975(Nashville:AMECSundaySchoolUnion,2003).8Cf.RealBlack:AdventuresinRacialSincerity(Chicago:UniversityofChicago,2005).JohnL.Jackson,Sr.challengestheapplicationoftheterm“authenticity”towillfulsubjects.Toavoidthedeploymentofthisterm,

withitsessentialisttrappings,Jacksoninsteaduses“sincerity”to“addsomenuancetocontemporary

considerationsofsocialsolidarityandidentitypoliticking”(13).

9Cone,IdentityCrisisinBlackTheology,36.

47

Washington’semphasisonthe“questforfreedom,justice,andequalityinthisworld”

[italicsinoriginal];Cone’sfocusonliberation;andRoberts’sconcernwithuniversalismand

theacceptanceofblacktheologyintheacademy“distort”anddistractfromthetrueaimof

blackreligion:worshipofGodderived fromtheAfricanreligiousexperience. “Thedivine

and the divine alone occupies the position of ultimacy in black religion” and “notwhite

people.”10

JamesConeacceptedthechallengeandalteredhisapproach insubsequentworks.

AlthoughSpiritualsandtheBlues:AnInterpretation(1972)andGodoftheOppressed(1975)

offerCone’s firstbook-lengthdirect response to such criticism leviedbyhisbrother and

others,11it is reallynot untilForMyPeople:BlackTheologyandtheBlackChurch (1984),

Martin and Malcolm (1991), and Risks of Faith: The Emergence of a Black Theology of

Liberation(1999)thathisintegrationofblacksourcesandnormsreachesmaturity.There,

Conenotonly taps thedeep reservoirofAfrican-American religious thought,buthealso

engagesinthereflexive,second-orderconsiderationthatconstitutes(immanent)critique.12

This is to say,Cone concernshimselfnotonlywithcriticizing the racismofwhite

theology and constructing an alternative, but also he evaluates the adequacy of these

constructive theological responses that he and other black theologians offer. There is a

developmentofthought,then,fromconsciousnesstoself-consciousnesstoself-evaluation.

10Ibid.,114.

11MarkL.Chapman,“AnnotatedBibliographyofBlackTheology,1966-1979”inBlackTheology:ADocumentaryHistory,VolumeOne:1966-1979,ed.JamesConeandGayraudWilmore(Maryknoll:OrbisBooks,1993),450.

12MichelFoucault,“WhatisCritique?”inTheEssentialFoucault:SelectionsfromtheEssentialWorksofFoucault1954-1984(NewYork:TheNewPress,1994),263-278.

48

Inorderto liveuptotheterm“blacktheology,”whichhecoined,13theproducthadtobe

bothfaithfultotheAfrican-Americanreligiousexperienceandtothedisciplineoftheology.

Coneconfesses:

Onereasonblacktheologianshavenotdevelopedanenduringradicalracecritique

stems from our uncritical identification with the dominant Christian and

integrationist traditionofAfrican-Americanhistory.We are childrenof theBlack

ChurchandtheCivilRightsmovement.Thespiritualshaveinformedourtheology

more than theblues,HowardThurmanmore thanW.E.B.DuBois,MartinLuther

King, Jr.,more thanMalcolmX, andprominentmalepreachersmore than radical

women writers. We failed to sustain the critical side of the black theological

dialecticandoptedforacceptanceintowhiteChristianAmerica.14

Coneacknowledgedthelegitimacyofhisbrother’sassessmentandthussoughttopreserve

thetension,whichisthegenius,ofAfrican-Americanreligiousthought.

Inordertoaccomplishthisrecalibrationofthedialectic,Conesuggestedthatheand

hiscontemporariesneededtoexcavateAfrican-American(religious)historywithintensity

likeneverbefore.Inthisactofretrievalitbecameclearthatthepioneeringhistoricaland

sociologicalworkofW.E.B.DuBois,CarterG.Woodson,E.FranklinFrazier,BenjaminMays

andJ.W.Nicholsondidnotsufficientlyfundthetypeoftheologicalapparatusthatwasbeing

constructed.15Somethingelsewasneeded.Anintellectualhistoryofthereligiousideasthat

supported the emergent black theology was required. Cone credits Gayraud S.Wilmore

withbeingthechiefarchitectinthisnewexperiment.16

Wilmore’s Black Religion and Black Radicalism: An Interpretation of the Religious

History of African Americans (1973) is a turning point in the study of African-American

13JamesCone,ForMyPeople:BlackTheologyandtheBlackChurch(Maryknoll:OrbisBooks,1984),19-24.14Cone,RisksofFaith:TheEmergenceofaBlackTheologyofLiberation,1968-1998(Maryknoll:OrbisBooks,1999),134.

15Cone,ForMyPeople,61.16Ibid.,59-62.

49

religion, indeed pivotal in the emergence of African-American religious history as a

discipline. Inmanyways, it is reconciliation of the Cecil Cone’s charge against the black

theologyofWashington,Roberts, and JamesCone.That is,Wilmore’s textestablishes the

phenomenologicalconnectionbetweenAfrican-derivedblackreligionandreligiousefforts

forblack liberation.AfterexaminingreligionontheAfricancontinent,Wilmorediscusses

the emergence of the black church from slave religion, and its varying degrees of

relationshiptoblacknationalism.

Asafirstof itskind,thistextbeginsandendswithepigraphsfromonewhomade

quite a many firsts in his storied life: William Edward Burghardt Du Bois.17Like any

inscription, the use of this quote to openBlackReligionandBlackRadicalism signals the

weight thatWilmoreplacesonDuBois.Generallyspeaking,prior tohearing theauthor’s

ownvoice,theepigraphisthewordbeforetheword.DuBoisistheframe,thelensthrough

whichWilmoreinterpretsblackreligionfromits“AfricanBeginnings”toapotheosis.

QuotingfromTheNegro(1915)atthetextopeningandfromTheGiftofBlackFolk

(1924)atitsconclusion,WilmoredependsuponDuBoistoframehisanalysis.Tobeclear,

the scaffolding vis-à-vis Du Bois ismore than anecdotally ancillary.Wilmore goes on to

situate the entire black religion/black theology project by deploying one of Du Bois’s

callingcards:thenotionofspiritualstriving.Wilmorewrites:

Since the early 1960s black believers—Protestants, Catholics, Muslims, Jews, and

Africantraditionalists—haveattemptedtoexpresswhattheybelievedweresomeof

thedistinctiveattributesofAfricanAmericanreligion—the ‘spiritualstrivings’(Du

Bois)—of oppressed and scattered Africans who refused to surrender their

17DuBoiswrites:“AlwaysAfricaisgivingussomethingneworsomemetempsychosisofaworld-oldthing.

Onitsblackbosomaroseoneoftheearliest,ifnottheearliestself-protectingcivilizations…Nearlyevery

humanempirethathasarisenintheworld,materialandspiritual,hasfoundsomeofitsgreatestcriseson

thiscontinentofAfrican…AsMommsensays,‘ItwasthroughAfricathatChristianitybecamethereligionof

theworld.’”CitedinWilmore1,quotingfrom“AfricanCulture”chapterinDuBois’sTheNegro(1915).

50

humanityunder enslavement andnever lost sightof the freedomand justice they

believedwereGod-given.18

TheliberationwithinblackliberationtheologygainssignificantconceptualgroundinginDu

Bois.

Prior toWilmore’s intervention, Cone’s earliest articulations of this theology are

largely devoid of theDuBoisian influence. DuBois plays no explicit role in eitherBlack

TheologyandBlackPowerorABlackTheologyofLiberation.Atbest,perhaps,thereistrace.

While Cone does reference this intellectual giant in God of the Oppressed (1975), albeit

scarcely,itisnotuntilForMyPeople(1984)thatConegivesmorethanthecursorymention

ofDuBois,aturnwhichismediatedbyWilmore.Conewritesinthechapterentitled,“Black

TheologyasLiberationTheology”:

The key to Wilmore’s new appreciation of the autonomy of the black religious

tradition—or at least one important and neglected stream of it—was W.E.B.

DuBois’s The Souls of Black Folk (1903). It was DuBois who pushed him towardAfrica, and Wilmore then pushed us to read John Mbiti (African Religions andPhilosophy; New Testament Eschatology in an African Background), Bolaji Idowu(Olódùmare: God in Yoruba Belief; Towards an Indigenous Church), Harry Sawyerr(Creative Evangelism; God: Ancestor or Creator?) and Kwesi Dickson and PaulEllingworth(editorsofBiblicalRevelationandAfricanBeliefs).19

Using Cone’s framework, the radicalism of black theology begins to find footing, not

externallyfromsecularBlackPower,butratherfromwithinitsownaffinitygroup.Thatis,

Du Bois in The Souls of Black Folk gives voice to the “spiritual strivings” of African

Americans, which is subsequently interpreted as black religious experience. Liberation-

orientedblacktheologicalthoughtthereforesourcesitselfinareligiousworldviewandnot

asecular,politicalideology.

18Wilmore,BlackReligionandBlackRadicalism,23.19Cone,ForMyPeople,62.

51

Wilmore largely treats Du Bois as a sympathizer of religion, using Du Bois’s

deploymentoftrope“spiritual”tofundhistreatmentofblackreligion.Tothisend,Wilmore

makes no mention of Du Bois’s deep critique of the failures of African-American

Christianity. And further, Wilmore assumes that spirit-talk denotes religion. Wilmore

defines:

Religious institutions such as the church, therefore are of the greatest

importance…To them accrue the primary responsibility for the conservation,

enhancement, and further development of that unique spiritual quality that has

enabledAfricanandblackpeopleofthediasporatosurviveandflourishundersome

ofthemostunfavorableconditionsofthemodernworld.20

Theword“spiritual,”therefore,becomestheprimarypointofcontactbetweenWilmore’s

blackreligionandDuBois’sblackliberation.

For amoment, let us suspend the question of whetherWilmore is correct in his

interpretation of Du Bois. (Wilmore’s read of Du Bois varies significantly from most of

Wilmore’scontemporaries likeDavidLewisandArnoldRampersadwhoviewDuBoisas

largelyirreligious,orfurther,asecularhumanist.)Whatisprimarilyimportanttoobserve

here is that thepioneers of black theology turn toDuBois—particularly his Pan-African

vision—when attempting to establish black theology’s subjectivity, its “autonomy.” They

observe something in his writing that lends itself to their project and appropriate its

intellectualsubstancetowardthatend.

Andso, justasWilmorebeginsBlackReligionandBlackRadicalism,soheendsthe

text by imprinting Du Bois on it. In his concluding chapter on “Survival, Elevation, and

Liberation in Black Religion,” those “distinctive attributes of African American religion,”

whichWilmoredocumentsoverthecourseofthemanuscript,participateinwhatDuBois

20Wilmore,BlackReligionandBlackRadicalism,253.

52

describesas “thegiftofblack folk.”21Thespiritual strivings,or thestruggleofoppressed

AfricanAmericanstomaintaintheirhumanity,giveswaytofreespirit.

2.2. TheSpiritualStrivingofDuBoisandhisCritiqueofReligion To say that W.E.B. Du Bois was a renaissance man is, quite simply, an

understatement.While he characteristically moved through disciplines, professions, and

genreswithease,DuBoisbirthednew frontiers inscholarship;hedidnotsimplyrestart

them.Whenmorethanacenturynowintervenesandhisfamed“SketchesandEssays”still

captivatetheheartsandmindsofsomany—reflectiononthemservingasariteofpassage

foryoungscholars,asHenryLouisGatesnotes—amoremagnanimoustitlemustbegiven:

TheSoulsofBlackFolk.22

Butitisnotonlythisliteraryclassicthatfundsblacktheologicalthought.Published

thesameyearasSouls,TheNegroChurch:ReportofaSocialStudyMadeundertheDirection

ofAtlantaUniversity;TogetherwiththeProceedingsoftheEighthConferencefortheStudyof

theNegro Problems,Held at AtlantaUniversity,May 26th, 1903 stands at the head of the

“black letters” concerning religion. As Du Bois does in sociology with the Philadelphia

Negro andTheSuppressionof theAfricanSlaveTrade in history,TheNegroChurch paves

new ground—or, should I say, paves the ground—for religious scholarship of the

American-Americanexperience.23

21Ibid.

22HenryLouisGatesJr.,“TheBlackLettersontheSign,”inTheOxfordW.E.B.DuBois,ed.HenryLouisGates(NewYork:OxfordUniversityPress,2007),ix-xxii.

23MarcusHunter,BlackCitymakers:HowthePhiladelphiaNegroChangedUrbanAmerica(NewYork:OxfordUniversityPress,2013).

53

Tobesure,therelationshipofDuBoisandreligion,however,isacomplicatedone.

At once, Du Bois should be read as both a primary and a secondary source in the

developmentoftheprofessionaldisciplineofblackreligion.24Hisarticulationofthevitality

anddirectionofAfrican-American identity,aswellashisresearchanddataontheNegro

Church, a term he coined, constitute the first- and second-order material that his heirs

wouldutilizetofurtherconstructthefield.Tracingthisrelationship,therefore,ismessyas

itattendstothecomplexityofhisposition.

DuBoiswas a fierce critic of black religion, specifically theNegroChurch that he

studied,which is apparentwhen following both trajectories. “Our religionwith all of its

dogma,demagoguery,andshowmanship,canbeacentertoteachcharacter,rightconduct

andsacrifice,”maintainsDuBoisinhis“TalentedTenthMemorialAddress”atWilberforce

(1948),25thesiteoftheinfamouseventthathauntedhiscareer.26Althoughtheologiansand

religious historians, at least since the 1970s, have interpreted Du Bois as a constructive

resource for developing their disparate positions, canonical interpreters of Du Bois

generallysidelinedanydescriptiveaccountofDuBois’srelationshiptoreligion.

MosthavetakenDuBois’sattackontherigidityandperformativityofblackreligion

asgrounds for itsdismissal, andasa resulthavegenerallymarginalized religion in their

treatments of his oeuvre and legacy. Relatedly, although there has beenmuch attention

giventothetrajectoriesDuBoisbirths,therehasbeenlittleattentiontothephilosophical

24CurtisEvans,TheBurdenofBlackReligion(NewYork:OxfordUniversityPress,2008).25DuBois,“TheTalentedTenthMemorialAddress”inHenryLouisGatesandCornelWest,TheFutureoftheRace(NewYork:VintageBooks,1996),175.26IrefertoDuBois’srefusaltoprayduringameeting,whichalmostcostshimhisjob,thatherecountsinTheAutobiographyofW.E.B.DuBois:ASoliloquyonViewingMyLifefromtheLastDecadeofItsFirstCenturyinTheOxfordW.E.B.DuBois,edHenryLouisGates(NewYork:OxfordUniversityPress,2007),117.

54

traditionstowhichheisindebted.GivenDuBois’ssustaineduseof“souls”and“spirit”as

axial themes,which undoubtedly have theological lineage and religious significance, this

omissionisquiteconspicuous.

DavidLeveringLewisinhisherculeanbiographyconcludesthatbythetimeDuBois

finished Fisk he had lost the faith of his childhood and rested in “serene agnosticism.”27

AdolphReedslamsManningMarable’scharacterizationofDuBoisasa“publicagnostic”28

asbeingtoogenerous,thusemphasizingaformofirreligiosity.29ArnoldRampersadpoints

tothe“instabilityofhisreligion”citingitas“nowagnostic,nowatheistic.”30Too,Shamoon

Zamir claims that Du Bois was an “unreligious New Englander.”31While some remain

disciplesof this approachand continue to announce flatlywithPhil Zuckerman that “Du

Bois ultimately rejected Christianity,”32 increasingly a congregation of dissenters has

emerged33andrevealnuancesinDuBoisand,morebroadly,howcomplicatedthequestion

27DavidLeveringLewis,W.E.B.DuBois:BiographyofaRace,1868-1919(NewYork:Holy,1993),65-67.LewisgoesontoarguethatduringhisWilberforceprofessorship“DuBois’sreligiousviewswerewhollydecoupled

fromorthodoxChristianityandfromanynotionofapersonaldeity.Atbest,herecognizedavaguepresence

manifestingitselfinlawsslowlyrevealedthroughscience—aforcebestexpressedinHegelianismssuchas

Weltgeist(worldspirit)orDasein(presence)andaboveallinprivatewithoutemotion”(166).Aswewillseebelow,thispresumptionisnowrifewithchallenge.Notonlyistheredeeperassessmenttotheactualityand

implicationsofthis“decoupling”,butalsofurtherunpackingoftherelationshipoftheologyandHegelianisms.

28ManningMarable,“TheBlackFaithofW.E.B.DuBois:SocioculturalandPoliticalDimensionsofBlack

Religion,”SouthernQuarterly23:3(1985),15-33.29AdolphReed,W.E.B.DuBoisandAmericanPoliticalThought:FabianismandtheColorLine(NewYork:OxfordUniversityPress,1997),5.

30ArnoldRampersad,TheArtandImaginationofW.E.B.DuBois(Cambridge:HarvardUniversityPress,1976),86.

31ShamoonZamir,DarkVoices:W.E.B.DuBoisandAmericanThought,1888-1903(Chicago:UniversityofChicagoPress,1995),3-4.

32PhilZuckerman,“TheIrreligiosityofW.E.B.DuBois”inTheSoulsofW.E.B.DuBois,ed.EdwardBlumandJasonYoung(Macon:MercerUniversityPress,2009),5.33PerhapstheragingdebatepointslesstoDuBoishimselfthantothe“instability”ofhisinterpreters.Thisis

tosay,IbelievescholarshiponDuBois’sreligioussensibilityhassufferedforseveralreasons:First,many

55

ofreligionalwaysalreadyis.34

AlthoughconventionalscholarshiponDuBoishasmainlyoverlookedthereligious

texture in his writings, in recent years new interest has emerged. Some scholars have

attendedtohisownpracticesandthenatureofhisown‘faith’whileothershavetraced,as

of late,DuBois’s influenceonblack religion.Edward J.Blum inW.E.B.DuBois:American

Prophet (2007) and Jonathon S. Kahn in Divine Discontent: The Religious Imagination of

W.E.B.DuBois(2009)havegiventhemostsustainedattentiontothe“religious”inDuBois.

While Blum focusesmore on Du Bois’s persona, describing him as a “herowith a black

face,”a “darkmonk,” “spiritual father”andultimatelya “prophet,”Kahn takesadifferent

approach,situatingthereligiouscontoursofDuBois’swritingswithinbroaderschoolsof

thought. This “religious imagination” is not solely of Du Bois’s own making, but rather

participate in the jeremiad traditionof blacknationalismand the religiousnaturalismof

Americanpragmatism.

Blumdemonstrates “thatmanyofDuBois’s contemporaries approachedhimas a

sacredfigure,anAmericanprophetwithinsightintocosmicrealities,”andone“whoused

interpreterseitherlacktraininginreligiousstudiesordismissreligionaltogether,orboth.Second,onlyfew

withreligiousstudiestraininghaveengagedDuBoisseriouslyandinprolongedmanner.Third,because

Religionsweissenschaftstillhasatenuousplaceintheacademy,relatedtobutdistinctivefromitsantecedentsofsystematictheologyandchurchdogmatics,manystillinterpretreligiousstudiesquaconfessionaltheologizing.WhileIcertainlydonotintendtoremedyallthis,andcertainlynotinthisspace,IdowanttojoinwiththosereligiousscholarswhochoosetostudyDuBoisandengagehisworkcriticallyasconstructive

andgenerativeinthepresentday.

34SeeWilfredCantwellSmith,TheMeaningandEndofReligion(Minneapolis:FortressPress,1962).Inchapterfiveparticularly,thefounderofHarvard’sundergraduateconcentrationinreligion,makesthecase

that“religion”asaconceptisinadequatebecauseittendstoobscurediversityandthedynamicand

historically-situatedlivesofpeopleoffaith.ThereisneveraChristianity,butalwaysChristianitiesasdevelopedandlivedbycertainpeopleundercertainconditions.Herecommendstalkingabout“religious”

peopleandtraditionsinsteadofthesingularandmisleading“religion.”Although,forthesakeofsimplicityI

continuetouse“religion”attimesImaintainSmith’sunderstandingoftheinternaldiversitywithintheterm.

56

religiousidiomstowrestlecontrolofblackselfhoodawayfromwhites.”35WhileBlumdoes

not try to determinewhat (if anything) “a deeply spiritualDuBois” believed religiously,

notingthatDuBoiswasexceedinglycoy,heisinterestedinwhathedidwithreligionand

howothersviewedhimasasage.Thatbeingsaid,Blumcontends,“TheirreligiousDuBois

presented by somany historians, especiallyDavid Lewis, is amythical construction that

serves the purposes of the secularized academy farmore than elucidates the ideas and

beliefsofDuBois.”36

Kahn adds to Blum’s contributions, asserting: “My deeper claim is that Du Bois’s

writings exhibit a spiritual life of their own—that in light of his vast and powerfully

engageduseofreligiousmodalities,aportionofDuBois’sworkexpressesadeepreligiosity

or religioussensibility.”37Vis-à-visLudwigWittgenstein’snotionof “family resemblance,”

Kahnarguesthat,inDuBois’scase,thespiritualisthereligious.Thisistosay,therelentless

useof religious languagebyDuBois,hisownreligious faithnotwithstanding,constitutes

the religious nature of hisworks. Beyondmere rhetoric, Kahn viewsDu Bois’s religious

languageasmetaphoricalalbeitnon-metaphysical.DuBois “uses the languageof religion

nottoreflectonGod’snaturebuttourgechangesinthis-worldlyrealitiessuchasjustice,

mortality, love, guilt, andhope—thoughalways shapedby the circumpressureofpolitics

andrace.”38

35EdwardBlum,W.E.B.DuBois:AmericanProphet(Philadelphia:UniversityofPennsylvaniaPress,2007),7.36Ibid.,10-11.

37JonathanS.Kahn,DivineDiscontent:TheReligiousImaginationofW.E.B.DuBois(NewYork:OxfordUniversityPress,2009),6.

38Ibid.,19.

57

In the end, Kahn situates Du Bois as the progenitor of an “African American

pragmaticreligiousnaturalism,”atraditioninclusiveofZoraNealeHurston’sMoses,Manof

theMountain,JamesBaldwin’sGoTellItontheMountainandTheFireNextTime,andRalph

Ellison’s InvisibleMan. According to Kahn these texts reveal that religion can promote a

“beautifuluncertainty,”which“attemptstoreplacecertaintyasthesourceofdeephuman

meaningwithindeterminacyandambiguity.”39Inthislight,itisnotafarleaptobringDu

Bois’sspiritualstrivingsalongsidenotionsofdivinemystery.

Curtis Evans in The Burden of Black Religion insightfully demonstrates various

contours inthedepictionofAfrican-Americanreligiousexperience inthedevelopmentof

professionaldisciplineofblack religion.Hisgoal is to complicate its image, revealing the

pressures endured by black religion—from without and within. In this critical history

EvansillustrateshowblackscholarsutilizesocialscientificapproachestoreframeAfrican-

American religion (in this case, the Negro Church) as a social institution for uplift,

distancingitfrompathologicaldepictionsoftheinnatereligiosityofAfricanAmericansthat

supportedclaimsofblackinferiority.

Notsurprisingly,inthehistorythatEvanspresents,DuBoisplaysacrucialrole:he

isbothcreatorandcritic.Evanswrites:

Du Bois slipped through the constraints of the academy, embraced the life of a

‘propagandist,’ and entered real-world debates about race, religion, and culture.

However, his impatiencewith the racism inAmerican culture led himnot only to

criticizewhite scholars and their biased interpretations of black religion but also

engageinanormativereligiousassessmentoftheverypeoplethathehadsoughtto

help. Du Bois’s implicit and sometimes explicit normative religious critique of

African American religious was steeped in many ways in the social scientist

discourseofprimitiveracesthathesetouttorefute.40

39Ibid.,134,135.

40Evans,TheBurdenofBlackReligion,144.

58

The infamous twonessanddoubleconsciousness that framesSouls iswrittenonDuBois

himself. Inaway,Evansclaims,he isunable toescapethestruggleandwrestlingthathe

observesinothers.

InordertoapprehendDuBois’sinfluenceonblackreligionandtodeployhiswork

asatheologicalresource,itisnotnecessarytocategorizehimasanadherent.Neitherisit

essential to position him antithetically to black Christianity. Terrence Johnson offers a

helpfulassessment,withwhichIagree:

Defining Du Bois as an agnostic, atheist, or believer oversimplifies his tenacious

battlewiththerealmoftranscendenceandtheearthlyconstructionsofGodandof

Jesus. ThroughoutDuBois’s audacious intellectual andpolitical life, black religion

andthequestionsofthesupernaturalfloodedhispoliticalimagination.41

In fact, it is this type of binarism that undermines our capacity to mobilize his

scholarshipincontemporarystrugglesforjustice.

This recent archaeologicalworkhas excavatedaDuBois thatwehaveheretofore

notseen,givingamorecompletepictureofhisworldview,allthesewhilegivingrisetoa

newgenealogyofblackreligion.42Inmanyways,thisdynamicparticipatesintheongoing

process that is a reinterpretation of religion itself.43Increasingly the hard-and-fast line

between the sacred and the profane is blurred, and the boundaries of religiosity and

41TerrenceJohnson,“’MySoulWantsSomethingNew’:DemocraticDreamsBehindtheVeil,”inTheSoulsofW.E.B.DuBois,ed.EdwardBlumandJasonYoung(Macon:MercerUniversityPress,2009),116.Seealso,Johnson,TragicSoul-Life:W.E.B.DuBoisandtheMoralCrisisFacingAmericanDemocracy(NewYork:OxfordUniversityPress,2012).

42MichelFoucault,“Nietzsche,Genealogy,History,”inTheEssentialFoucault:SelectionsfromEssentialWorksofFoucault,1954-1984,ed.PaulRabinowandNikolasRose(NewYork:NewPress,1994),351-370.43CurtisEvans,in“W.E.B.DuBois:InterpretingReligionandtheProblemoftheNegroChurch,”iscorrectto

pointtoRobertOrsi’sBetweenHeavenandEarth(2005).JournaloftheAmericanAcademyofReligion75:2(June2007):268–297.Orsiwrites:“Thestudyofreligions…isthedescriptionandexaminationofvaried

mediainwhichmen,women,andchildrenwhowereformedbyinherited,found,made,andimprovised

religiousidiomswithinparticularhistorical,cultural,andpoliticalcontextsengagesharedhumandilemmas

andsituations.”BetweenHeavenandEarth:TheReligiousWorldsPeopleMakeandtheScholarsWhoStudyThem(Princeton:PrincetonUniversityPress,2005),168.

59

secularity becomemore porous. “Spirit” is the locus of this loosening. In our relentless

“spiritual, not religious” age, and given the explosion of charismatic Pentecostalism, it

seemsthattheremightyetbemoretolearnfromDuBois,givenhisenduringdependency

onthe“spiritual”languagetoarticulatehisblackupliftstrategy.Atthesametime,however,

Du Bois’s indictment of shouting, or the “running sperichils,” further complicates the

landscape.44

ATerribleSpiritoftheFrenzy

Despite the ambiguity of Du Bois’s own faith, his normative assessment of black

religion comes into stark relief in his description of southern Christian revival camp

meeting in Souls. At the start of his essay “Of theMeaning of Progress,” Du Bois quotes

FriedrichSchiller,saying,“DeineGeistersendeaus!”ButlaterinSouls,inhisessay“Ofthe

Faithof theFathers,”DuBois indicts the charismaticworksof theHolySpirit, saying, “A

sortofsuppressedterrorhungintheair[ofthesouthernrevival]andseemedtoseizeus,--

apythianmadness, ademoniacpossession that lent terrible reality to songandword.”45

Withthisflourishinlanguage,DuBoisdoesnotseemcomfortablewithwhateverisgoing

onthere—itiswild,wicked,andwhelming—eventhoughitstirredup“whentheSpiritof

theLordpassedby.”

44Raboteau,SlaveReligion,73.45TheSoulsofBlackFolk,1903inTheOxfordW.E.B.DuBois,ed.HenryLouisGates(NewYork:OxfordUniversityPress,2007),90.

60

What is to be made of this assessment? While it is tempting to dismiss this

commentaryas“mererhetoric,”IagreewithKahnwhotakesseriouslyDuBois’sreligious

symbolism, if nothing else because of its endurance.46This description of the southern

revival,whichappearsinSoulsoftheearlypartofhisoeuvre,remainslargelyunalteredin

The Autobiography of W.E.B. Du Bois, written in his ninth decade and published

posthumously. In this light, I read “Of the Faith of the Fathers” and “Of Our Spiritual

Strivings”asapair(muchlikeLuke-Acts),placingthemincontextofhisoverallprojectof

elevatingtheso-calledmassesthrougheducation.

ForDuBois,aswellasanotherprominentcriticofecstaticblackChristianity,Bishop

AlexanderPayneof theAfricanMethodistEpiscopalChurch, charismaticexpressions like

“runningsperichils”distract fromthe illuminatingcapacityof religion,whichheviews in

positivistfashion,or, ifnotpositivist, inanEnlightenmentandprogressivefashion.While

the“sorrowsongs”were“thesingularspiritualheritageofthenationandthegreatestgift

of theNegropeople,”47forDuBoistheystillhadnotreachedapotheosis.Amorerational

spiritmanifested inamoresophisticatedreligiousapparatus that represented the fullest

development of this greatest gift. In contemporary vernacular, the spiritualswere a gift

card,whosefullvaluewouldremainunrealizeduntilredeemedthrougheducation.

“TheNegroChurch,”accordingtoDuBois, isthefirstandmost importantAfrican-

American entity, predating even theNegro family. Before black folk had control of their

households, due to the treacheries of slavery, they had the “invisible institution.” In

46Cf.ElizabethA.Pritchard’s“Seriously,WhatDoes‘TakingReligionSeriously’Mean?”,JournaloftheAmericanAcademyofReligion78:4(2010),1087-1111.47Souls122.

61

particular, Du Bois depicts the African Methodist Church as “the greatest Negro

organization in the world.”48As a result, the church played an indispensible role in the

advancement of black folk. But according to Du Bois, in order to facilitate this forward

march, the church had to leave behind its backward practices. Advancement was

predicatedonblack folkdistancing themselves from terrorizingpractices experienced in

thesouthernrevival.Inaword,theNegroChurchhadtoundergoself-alienation.

Thismove is ironic (and complicated) because at the same time Du Bois affirms

Africa—promulgating Pan-Africanism, himself eventually expatriating and dying in

Ghana—his demonizing of ecstatic black religion participates in the condemnation of

Africa.Intheattempttoovercomedebilitatingwhiteracism,DuBoisandotherscontribute

toaracistlogic.Tobesure,hisnotionofbackwardAfricanreligiouspracticesparticipates

inprimitivism.49

Moreover,DuBois,whoalsoattimesdependsonessentializinglogic(“Conservation

of theRaces,” for example),wants to re-form the very essenceof black religion.DuBois

writes:

Three things characterized this religionof the slave,--thePreacher, theMusic, and

the Frenzy...the Frenzy of “Shouting,”’when the Spirit of the Lordpassedby, and,

seizingthedevotee,madehimmadwithsupernatural joy,wasthelastessentialof

Negroreligionandtheonemoredevoutlybelievedinthanall therest. Itvariedin

expression from the silent rapt countenance or the lowmurmur andmoan to the

madabandonofphysicalfervor,--thestamping,shrieking,andshouting,therushing

to and froandwildwavingof arms, theweepingand laughing, thevisionand the

trance.50

48Ibid.,94.

49CharlesH.Long,Significations:Signs,Symbols,andImagesintheInterpretationofReligion,1986(Aurora:TheDaviesGroup,1999);LeeBaker,FromSavagetoNegro:AnthropologyandtheConstructionofRaceandAnthropologyandtheRacialPoliticsofCulture(Berkeley:UniversityofCaliforniaPress,1998);Raboteau’sSlaveReligion(1978);MelvilleHerskovits,TheMythoftheNegroPast,1941(Boston:BeaconPress,1990);E.FranklinFrazier,TheNegroChurchinAmerica(1963).50DuBois,Souls,91.

62

These elements persist in the southern revival, which is the point of departure for the

essay, providing the firsthand evidence that he places in continuity with slave religion.

“Those who have not thus witnessed the frenzy of a Negro revival in the untouched

backwoods of the South can but dimly realize the religious feeling of the slave; as

described, such scenes appear grotesque and funny, but as seen they are awful.”51Tobe

sure, the southern revival leaves an impression on Du Bois, and not in a goodway. His

choiceofwords—demoniac,mad/madness,terror,terrible—donotsuggestappreciation.52

Such is also the case with African Methodist Episcopal Church Bishop Daniel

Alexander Payne. His Recollections of Seventy Years (1888) provides a riveting

autobiographicalaccountofhisencounterwithecstaticChristianityat“MotherBethel” in

Philadelphia, the denomination’s founding congregation. It is one of the earliest and

clearestdescriptionsof anti-charismatic intellectualism inblackChristianity, deployed in

thestruggleforAfrican-Americanempowerment.

In many ways, Richard Allen’s Bethel represents an original location of black

agency:Emergingoutofracialsegregation,AllenledAfrican-Americanworshippersoutof

St. George’s Methodist Church when they were forced to interrupt altar prayer and

instructedtoreturntothebalcony‘wheretheybelonged’in1794.AlthoughMotherBethel

51Ibid.

52StephanieShaw,inherchapter“TheReligionandSongsofSouls,”arguesagainsttheconventionalreadingofDuBois’sdescriptionoftherevivalthatconcludeshewasunabletoidentitywith“thefolk.”Contraryto

CornelWest’sassessmentinTheFutureoftheRace,Shawinterprets“awful”intheaffirmative,butprovidesascantdictionarydefinitiontodefendthiscounter-position.Hadshetakenup,perhaps,RudolfOtto’s

assessmentofmysteriumtremenduminTheIdeaoftheHoly,theremightbeabettergroundingforsuchassertion.ButthatwouldnotjivesowellwithDuBois’snotionofreligion-as-development,sinceOtto’s

conceptofthenuminousgrowsoutofawequaterror.Further,asIwillconsiderbelow,IremainunconvincedbyherjudgmentthatthespiritualsrepresentHegel’sAbsoluteKnowing,whichdependsuponaffirmingDu

Boisaffirmingthefrenzy.WhileShaw’soverallanalysisisremarkable,itignorestheroleofpositivisminDu

BoisandHegel.StephanieShaw,W.E.B.DuBoisandTheSoulsofBlackFolk(ChapelHill:TheUniversityofNorthCarolinaPress,2013),115-158.

63

initiallystoodinfellowshipwiththeMethodistEpiscopalChurch,in1816Allenandothers

formedthefirstindependentAfrican-Americandenomination.

In May 1888, Bishop Payne, the senior episcopal leader, visits Mother Bethel in

ordertoshow:

howEnglandhadbecomegreatbyhabituallymakingherpeoplereadtheScriptures

on Sunday in the great congregations; and how the colored race, who had been

oppressed for centuries through ignorance and superstition, might become

intelligent, Christian, and powerful through the enlightening and sanctifying

influencesofthewordofGod.53

Payne provides an extended description of the “praying and singing bands”, and

explanation of why he considers it “heathenish,” “fanatical,” “evil,” and “disgraceful.” To

Payne, this “Voodoo Dance” represents a pre-Christian practice that interferes with the

progressofblackfolk.NotonlydoesPayneinterruptthe“ringshout”,butalsoheinstructs

theparishpastorandotherstoforbidsuchpracticeinthefuture.

Not everyoneagreed,however, andwere reluctant to “desist and to sitdownand

sing in a rational manner.” The praying and singing band, in their view, was the very

mechanismforadvancingtheChristianagenda.Thebandleadercontested:

“Sinnerswon’t get convertedunless there is a ring.” Payne responds: Said I: “You

might sing till you fell down dead, but you would fail to convert a single sinner,

becausenothingbytheSpiritofGodandthewordofGodcanconvertsinners.”He

replied: “TheSpiritofGodworksuponpeople indifferentways.At camp-meeting

theremustbea ringhere,a ring there,a ringoveryonder,or sinnerswillnotget

converted.”Thiswashisidea,anditwasalsothatofmanyothers.54

Likewise, Du Bois’s “study of Negro religion as development” advocates, then, for the

continued‘evolution’awayfromthisterrible“heathenism”towardanethicalreligionthat

improves the sociopolitical lot of black folk. That is, black religion must concern itself

53DanielAlexanderPayne,RecollectionsofSeventyYears,1888(NewYork:ArnoPress,1968),253.54Ibid.,254.

64

primarily inaddressing the “NegroProblem,”whichactually is the “problemof the color

line.” This is precisely why James Cone and others will later mobilize Du Bois in the

formation of black theology, although Cecil Cone maintains black Christianity is not

foremostaboutliberationbutratherworship.

Du Bois discusses Payne in The Negro Church, so it is probable that he is also

familiarwith Payne’s ownposition. AlthoughPaynewants to rid blackMethodismof its

ecstatic extremism, Du Bois offers an interesting description of the senior bishop: “The

goodness of the older class developed toward intense, almost ascetic piety, represented

pre-eminentlyinthelateDanielPayne,amanofalmostfanaticenthusiasm,ofsimpleand

purelifeandunstainedreputation,andofgreatintellectualability.”55WhileDuBoisdoes

notelaborateonthenatureof“thisalmostfanaticenthusiasm”wecanbesurethatitdoes

notinvolvethedemonstrativepraisehesoughttorootoutforrationalreligiousexpression.

For both Payne andDuBois, intellectwas paramount, andwas the primary gift of [the]

spirit.

Interestingly, spirit-talk describes religious progress for Du Bois. During slavery

heathenism,hejudges,wasdefinedbya“spiritofrevoltandrevengefilled[the]heart”of

theNegroqua“religiousanimal.”Originallyresistingslaverywiththisanimalisticrage,the

enslavedNegroisdomesticatedbyanintenselyfatalisticChristianity.Hewrites:

TheNegro,losingthejoyofthisworld,eagerlyseizedupontheofferedconceptions

of thenext; theavengingSpiritof theLordenjoiningpatience in thisworld,under

sorrowandtribulationuntil theGreatDaywhenHeshould leadHisdarkchildren

home,--thisbecamehiscomfortingdream.56

ThisdreamisrealizedinEmancipationandushersinthenextepochofblackreligion.

55DuBois,TheNegroChurch,131.56DuBois,Souls,95.

65

Althoughthereisdevelopment,fromheathenspiritofrevolttothefatalisticSpiritof

theLord,oneshouldnotethatthelatterisnot“HolySpirit”,givenitsawfulmanifestations.

While inChristiandoctrine, the“Spiritof theLord” issynonymouswiththe“HolySpirit,”

DuBoisdoesnotattachsuchrespect.Infact,despitethehistoricalmetanarrativeofblack

religion’s development, in the southern revival the Lord’s Spirit stirs up the past

heathenism.Ifanything,theSpiritoftheLordisindeedverymuchanUnholyGhost.

Noting the difficulty of describing “the present critical stage of Negro religion,”

ultimately Du Bois observes a divided ethical orientation in black Christianity: northern

anarchistic radicalism against southern hypocritical accommodationalism—neither of

which is adequate for further black progress. Using the familiar language of “doubling”

introduced in “Of Our Spiritual Strivings,” he positions the next movement of spirit to

resolve the “double life, with double thoughts, double duties, and double social classes,

mustgive rise todoublewordsanddouble ideals, and tempt themind topresenceor to

revolt,tohypocrisyorradicalism.”57

In his Autobiography Du Bois places his assessment of black revival religion in

context of his broader education-based platform for the betterment of the African-

American community. Du Bois’s chapter, “I Go South” recounts his studies at Fisk

Universityand teaching in ruralTennessee,prior tohismatriculationatHarvardCollege

where he would receive his second bachelor’s degree. It is here that he encounters the

southernrevival that leaves itsmarkonhis conscience. In this rendition,DuBoisquotes

himself from Souls again describing the revival as a “pythian madness, a demoniac

possession.”

57Ibid.,96.

66

Thistime,however,DuBoisislessinterestedinschematizingblackreligion,orthe

“faithof the fathers,” thanhe is ineducating themassesbeyond the “dark fatalism.” It is

through education that African Americans might achieve all that which they had been

denied.Hewrites:

Ihavecalledmycommunityaworld,andsoitsisolationmadeit.Therewasamong

usbutahalf-awakenedcommonconsciousness,sprungfromcommonjoyandgrief,

atburial,birthorwedding;fromacommonhardshipinpoverty,poorlandandlow

wages; and, above all, from the sight of the Veil that hung between us and

Opportunity.58

DuBoisgoonto lamenthis inability togo immediately toHarvard,becauseof the lower

standardsofhishighschool,thusrequiringmorepreparation.ThetimespentintheSouth,

however,was far fromawaste. In fact, itwas there thatDuBois “becameaware,oncea

chance to go to a group of young people ofmy own racewas opened up forme, of the

spiritualisolationinwhichIwasliving.”59Moreover,therehebeganhisprogramofracial

uplift:“BlackfolkwereboundintimetoplayalargeroleintheSouth.Theyneededtrained

leadership.Iwassenttohelpfurnishit,”hewrites.60Laterhegoesontoexpand:

ThenetresultoftheFiskinterludewastobroadenthescopeofmyprogramoflife,

notessentially tochange it; tocenter it inagroupofeducatedNegroes,who from

their knowledge and experience would lead the mass. I never for a moment

dreamedthatsuchleadershipcouldeverbeforthesakeoftheeducatedgroupitself,

butalwaysforthemass.NordidIpausetoenquireinjustwhatwaysandwithwhat

technique we would work—first, broad, exhaustive knowledge of the world; all

otherwisdom,allmethodandapplicationwouldbeaddeduntous.61

DuBois’stimeintheSouthverymuchshapedhisoutlooktowardblackprogressandblack

religion.Religion,then,mustalsoberespectable.

58DuBois,Autobiography,76.59Ibid.,67.

60Ibid.

61Ibid.,78.

67

Whilecondemningitsfailures,stillDuBoissawthehopeofblackreligion.Indeedas

DuBoisoutlines“aplannedprogram”fortheupliftofblackpeople,heincludes“TheNegro

Church.”62Thus,DuBois saw the potential for black religion to be a participant in black

advancement,justasithadbeencriticalinshapingblackidentityduringandinthewakeof

slavery. Inordertodoso,however,blackreligionhadtoloseitsenslavementto“dogma,

demagoguery,andshowmanship,”aswellasitsso-calledprimitivity.

Returning toEvans’s language, the “burden” involvesblackreligion’sdistancingof

itselffromitself.“EagertoturntheirbacksonashamefulSouthernpast,whichtheysawas

a locus of otherworldly and primitive religion,” Evans writes, “they [black leaders]

vehementlysoughttoinfluenceblackchurchleaderstopoolresourcesofthechurchesto

help an oppressed and downtrodden people.”63Du Bois stood at the forefront of this

projectinshapingreligiousrespectability.

NegotiatingBlackRespectability

CornelWestin“BlackStrivingsinaTwilightCivilization”goestotaskonDuBois’s

respectability. While acknowledging the enormous and definitive contributions of “this

great titan of black emancipation,” the “brook of fire throughwhichwemust all pass in

ordertogainaccesstotheintellectualandpoliticalweaponryneededtosustaintheradical

62EvelynBrooksHigginbothammakesclearthattheblackchurch“wastheonespacetrulyaccessibletothe

blackcommunity,anditwasthischaracteristicthatledW.E.B.DuBois,longbeforeE.FranklinFrazier,to

identitytheblackchurchasamultiplesite—atoncebeingaplaceofworship,theater,publishinghouse,

school,andlodge.”RighteousDiscontent:TheWomen’sMovementintheBlackBaptistChurch,1880-1920(Cambridge:HarvardUniversityPress,1993),7.

63Evans,TheBurdenofBlackReligion,176.

68

democratic tradition in our time,”64West ultimately judges Du Bois’s Enlightenment

rationality, Victorian elitism, and American exceptionalist optimism as a liability. West

concludes:

He certainly saw, analyzed, and empathized with black sadness, sorrow, and

suffering.Buthedidn’tfeelitinhisbonesdeeplyenough,norwasheintellectually

open enough to position himself alongside the sorrowful, suffering, yet striving

ordinaryblackfolk.65

WestpointstoDuBois’sresponsetothesouthernrevivalascase-in-point:“Inshort,ablack

ritualisticexplosionofenergy frightened thisblackrationalist.”66I concurwithWest that

Du Bois characterizes charismatic Christianity as antithetical to black rationalism, a

necessarycomponentofsocialempowerment.

It is worth noting that Stephanie Shaw thinks that West is mistaken in his

assessment,which signals a key interpretative challenge in readingDuBois. On the one

hand, West points to Du Bois as a prophetic pragmatist standing in the American

philosophical tradition.On the other hand, Shawand ShamoonZamir trace theHegelian

streaminDuBois’sSouls;WestfindsZamir’sanalysisultimately“fascinating,yetultimately

unconvincing.”67Inthischapter’ssubsequentsections,IwillexpounduponapproachingDu

Bois through these two schools of thought. But first, let us complicate the meaning of

respectabilityvis-à-visPaulGilroy’sTheBlackAtlanticandEvelynBrooksHigginbotham’s

RighteousDiscontentaswayoffurtherframingmyapproach.64CornelWest,“BlackStrivingsinaTwilightCivilization”inTheFutureoftheRace(NewYork:VintageBooks,1996),55.

65Ibid.,58.

66Ibid.,60.

67Shaw,W.E.B.DuBoisandTheSoulsofBlackFolk:ChapelHill:TheUniversityofNorthCarolinaPress,2013),127-128.ShamoonZamir,DarkVoices:W.E.B.DuBoisandAmericanThought,1888-1903(Chicago:UniversityofChicagoPress,1995).West182,note6.

69

Gilroy’stheoryofdiaspora,whichhasdeeplyshapedblackculturalstudies,takesup

doubleconsciousness,interpretingitnotaccordingtostrictbinarismbutratherintermsof

layeredcomplexity.Thetextbegins,“StrivingtobebothEuropeanandblackrequiressome

specific forms of double consciousness.” 68 Ultimately, Gilroy advocates a diasporic

approach that depends upon the coherence of multiple identities and aims within a

particularperson,position,orpolitics.

His“BlackAtlantic”isacountercultureofmodernitythatisdeeplyshapedbyandat

thesametimecriticalofEuro-Enlightenmentnorms.Aswillbetakenupinchapterthree,

Gilroy’s theory mobilizes metaphors of movement, water, and ships that we will bring

alongsidePeterHodgson’s interpretationof pneumatology.What concernsusnow is the

mannerinwhich,vis-à-viscritiqueofWest,GilroywantstoensurethatreadingsofDuBois

rejectanyantinomies.Gilroywrites:

According toWest,DuBois felt that their backwardness couldbe remediedby an

elitist and paternalist political agenda that viewed racism as an expression of

stupidityand implied thatprogress, rational socialpolicy,and theVictorianmoral

virtuesadvocatedbythetalentedtenthcoulduplifttheblackmasses.Thereismuch

meritinthisview.Tobesure,DuBoisdoes“provideAmericanpragmatismwhatit

lacks.” I do not wish to minimize these elements in Du Bois nor to overlook the

proximity of his thought to Emerson and other representative American

pragmatists.However,IwanttosuggestthatthiswayofpositioningDuBois’swork

canleadtothenoveltyandpowerofhiscritiqueofmodernitybeingoverlooked.69

DuBois’sdoubleconsciousness,accordingtoGilroy,epitomizesthecounterculturalmode:

reshapingfromwithintheverythingthathasshapedthereformer.

Higginbotham, in her groundbreaking text, interprets black Baptist women’s

respectability as an exerciseof authority andpower. Itwas an everydaymodebywhich

68PaulGilroy,TheBlackAtlantic:ModernityandDoubleConsciousness(Cambridge:HarvardUniversityPress,1993),1.

69Ibid.,136.

70

black women could exert control over their individual and communal lives. At once, an

aspiration to bourgeois Victorian ideals, a promotion of strict Christian morality, and a

panoptic policing of nonconformity, Higginbotham demonstrates that itwas ameans by

which poor, black women engaged in social uplift. “The politics of respectability,” she

writes, “constituted a counter-discourse to the politics of prejudice.”70 Higginbotham

continues:

The politics of respectability afforded black churchwomen a powerfulweapon of

resistance to raceandgender subordination. Itprovided theverygroundwork for

protest,voting,andothertraditionalrecognizedformsofpoliticalactivity.Thusthe

history of women in the black Baptist church not only challenges the historical

validity of the accommodation versus protest dichotomy that has for too long

dominatedstudiesof theblackchurchandtheblackcommunity, italsochallenges

theauthorialvoiceofsuchoverarchingfiguresasBookerT.WashingtonandW.E.B.

DuBoisintheconsciousnessofordinaryblackpeople.71

Respectability politics, inHigginbothamview, cannot be reduced to a simple “us” versus

“them”dichotomy.Thus,thelanguageof“backward”and“forward”islessaboutopposition

thanaboutcontinuity.

Higginbotham’soverarchingapproachunderscoresthispoint:sheunderstandsthe

black church not according to Lincoln’s and Mamiya’s dialectical system, but rather in

termsofamultiplicitouswhole.Shedescribes:

I characterize the church as a dialogic model rather than dialectical, recognizing

“dynamic tension” in a multiplicity of protean and concurrent meanings and

intentions more so than a series of discrete polarities. Multiple discourses—

sometimes conflicting, sometimes unifying—are articulated between men and

women,andwithineachofthesetwogroupsaswell.Theblackchurchconstitutesa

complexbodyofshiftingcultural,ideological,andpoliticalsignifications.72

70EvelynBrooksHigginbotham,RighteousDiscontent:TheWomen’sMovementintheBlackBaptistChurch,1880-1920(Cambridge:HarvardUniversityPress,1993),195.71Ibid.,227-228.

72Ibid.,16.

71

Like Gilroy, Higginbotham challenges us to unpack deeply these significant concepts in

apprehending African-American identity and empowerment. She offers a method that

holisticallyintegratesdiversityandcomplexity.

In light of West, Gilroy, and Higginbotham, we might now think of Du Bois’s

respectability neither as a simple turning away from southern backwardness nor as a

turningtowardEuro-Americanmodernideals.Instead,itisacomplicatedproblematicthat

attemptstoguaranteeabetterfutureinlightofapainfulpast-present.Whilenotwholesale

rejection of blackness or embrace ofwhiteness, it attempts, however flawed, to take the

“bestofbothworlds.”

Still the question remains: If not the charismatic spirit of the revival,what spirit,

then, isDuBois invoking?Thisspirit-talkattunesustowhat ishallowedforDuBois: the

Geist,orrationalspiritthatanimatestheTalentedTenth.Heconcludes“OftheFaithofthe

Fathers”bystating,“betweenthetwoextremetypesofethicalattitudewhichIhavethus

sought tomake clearwavers themass of themillions ofNegroes, North and South; and

theirreligiouslifeandactivitypartakeofthissocialconflictwithintheirranks.”73Itisthe

roleofthe“educatedfew”tofunctionasthemessianicsaviorsoftheunlearnedpopulace.

2.3. OntheCareofthe(Social)Soul

IntheresponsetoworldmissionaryE.StanleyJones’sChristonEveryRoad—Astudy

in Pentecost (1930), George Vaughan writes to Du Bois inquiring about “spirit.” Vaughn

expressesdismay:“Iamwonderinghowthepresentspiritualoutlookreadstoyou.Formy

73DuBois,Souls,98.

72

part,Ihavebeenanoptimist;butthelateryearsofcontactwiththeworld,especiallywith

myown(legal)profession,haverevealedsymptomsofadiscouraging indifference to the

thingsof thespirit.”74Hecontinuesonto lamentabout thedecayof themoral fabricofa

global society. But his probing of Du Bois is rather straightforward: Vaughan associates

spirit within a Christian evangelical framework linking Pentecost, world mission, and

morality.

DuBoisrespondswithinsightinaletterthatmustbecitedinitsentirety:

ImaysayfranklythatIamunabletofollowthereasoningofpeoplewhouse

theword‘spirit’and‘spiritual’inatechnicalreligioussense.Itistruethatafterany

great world calamity, when people have suffered widely, there is a tendency to

relapseintosuperstition,obscurantism,andtheformalreligionofcreedsinavague

attempt to reassure humanity, because reason and logic seem to have failed. This

insteadofbeinga‘spiritualawakening,’istomymind,anevidenceofignoranceand

discouragement.

On theotherhand, among somepeople, there comes in timeof stress and

depression, an increase of determination to plan and work for better conditions.

Thisisnotusuallycalleda‘spiritual’awakening,butitisapttobecondemnedbythe

ignorantas‘radicalism’andan‘attack’upontheestablishedorder.Itis,however,a

manifestationofthespirit inthehighestsenseandsomethingofthisIseemtosee

beginningtoday.75

This letter, to some extent, provides the key to unlocking the meaning of Du Bois’s

prolonged use of so-called religious phrases like spirit, soul, and spiritual striving in his

platformforblackprogress.Inturn,itwillsetupourconsiderationoftheidealisttraditions

ofGeistesphilosophiethatinformDuBois.

EdwardBlumintheopeningtoW.E.B.DuBois:AmericanProphetarticulatesinmany

wayswhathasbeenhiddeninplainsight:“Noscholarhasconsideredindepththesoulof

themanwhofirstgainednationalrecognitionforabookonsouls,forabookthatCornell

74DuBois,TheCorrespondenceofW.E.B.DuBois,Vol.I,Selections,1877-1934,ed.HerbertAptheker(Amherst:UniversityofMassachusettsPress,1973),477.

75Ibid.,477-8.

73

studentslikenedtothePsalms,forabookthatstillinspiresreligiousintrospection.”76This

istosay,despitewhatweconsidertohavebeenDuBois’sownreligiouspracticesorwhat

scholarshaveinterpretedtobehispositionstoformalreligion,whydidDuBoisinvokethe

term“soul”andwhydoesitcontinuetoresonateinthesoulsofgenerationssince?Mybasic

response, followingBlum,Kahn, and Johnson, is thatDuBois chooses souls tohumanize

blacksandtocounterwhitesupremacistrhetoric,aswellastoinspireidealismandsocial

(spiritual)striving.

To be clear, Souls is a highly complicated literary piece of “sketches and essays.”

Fromstarttofinishevenitsmostobscureselectionsparticipateinasocial-politicalproject

toreimageblackpeoplequapeoplewhodeserveaccesstotheAmerica’ssocialandpolitical

life.Hespeaks intoa landscapeonlydecadesremovedfromcivilwarandchattelslavery,

verymuchinthetroughsofJimCrowandindigenousterrorism.Weneednotrehearsethe

scopeoftheNegro’soppressionanddisadvantage;weneedonlytosaythatSoulsstandsas

thecornerstonetoDuBois’slifelongfightforblackequality.

Therefore, when Arnold Rampersad correctly writes of the difficulty that

subsequent generations have had with the form of particular sketches such as “Of the

Comingof John” and “Of thePassingof theFirst-Born,”wemust recapture theiroriginal

functionaspoliticaldiscourse,even if therecanbe“nograndclaimcanbemadeabout it

[thelatterpiece]asart.”77Although“Passing”iscertainlythelamentofafather,italways

servesasadeepeningofhisconceptofthelifewithintheVeilandthepervadingsenseof

76Blum,W.E.BDuBois:AmericanProphet,10.77DuBois,Souls,xxvi.

74

blackhope.Itisawayofcomplicatinganalreadycomplexanalysisofthe“problemofthe

colorline”,whichhasbecomeDuBois’sbestknownlegacy.

Intheeulogistic“Passing”DuBoismakesthesoulcontentmost“intimate”—flashing

forward to the language he uses laterwhenwriting toWilcox, asmentioned above—by

situating his very child, literally “bone of the bone and flesh of the flesh,”78behind the

Veil.79Withallthechargesofelitismandaloofness(whichinnodoubtcontributetoward

manyinterpretationsofDuBois’santi-religiousness),oneshouldnotdownplaythispoint.

His call for the Talented Tenth, and later the “Guiding Hundredth,”80 to lead black

advancement is not a matter of separation but rather the highest form of ethical

responsibility,which isverymuch linked toaproblemthathearticulates in termsofhis

veryownson.So,the“secondsight,”“doubleconsciousness,”and“twoness”thatisthegift

and curse of the Veil applies even to the child of the one who makes the profound

assessment.

“Of the Coming of John,”which echoes the Advent story of John the baptizer and

JesusofNazareth,toohassocial-politicalimport.ThetransformationofblackJohnandhis

ultimatedemiseseemstobebothaclearwarningtoblackandwhitepeople.Intheformer,

DuBois consciously names the alienation frompopular culture that accompanies higher

educationofAfricanAmericans.Thisdistance,however,isanecessarysacrificesoitseems

78Ibid.,1.

79Ibid.,100.

80DuBois,“TheTalentedTenthMemorialAddress”inTheFutureoftheRace,177.

75

thatDuBois is imploring theprophet tounderstand the consequencesof leadershipand

thepeople’sgracefulresponse.81

Perhaps more importantly, although a bit more obscure, Du Bois warns white

Americaoftherisksofnihilism.Thatis,blackJohnbecomesawareoftheVeilintheNorth

and leaves frustrated, only to return home as an alien, is not allowed to empower his

people through education, and is left ‘enlightened’ andwithout options. Thus,when he

finds his sister being raped by white John, he reacts with nihilistic disregard of the

consequences and kills Jennie’s attacker “with all the pent-up hatred of his great black

arm.”82 Perhaps then through the prophetic voice of John, Du Bois releases a literary

harbingeroftheresultofhopelessness.Notonlywillblackpeopleeventually‘react’against

the lackofoptions,butalsoblackpeoplearewarnedthatsuchrashreactioncomeswith

therisk—orguarantee—ofdeath.Instead,amorecalculated,sophisticatedsocialresponse

onthepartofwhitesandblacksisdemanded.

The richopening chapter toSouls, “OfOurSpiritual Striving” teemswith religious

language,withtalkofsalvation,faith,God,and“souls.”Describingthepeculiarplightofthe

blackartistandsavantDuBoiswrites:

The innate love of harmony and beauty that set the ruder souls of his people a-

dancinganda-singingraisedbutconfusionanddoubtinthesouloftheblackartist;

for the beauty revealed to him was the soul-beauty of a race which his larger

audiencedespised,andhecouldnotarticulatethemessageofanotherpeople.This

wasteofdoubleaims, this seeking tosatisfy twounreconciled ideals,haswrought

sadhavocwiththecourageandfaithanddeedsoftenthousandthousandpeople,--

hassentthemoftenwooingfalsegodsandinvokingfalsemeansofsalvation,andat

timeshasevenseemedabouttomakethemashamedofthemselves.83

81DuBois,Souls,110-120.82Ibid.,119.

83Ibid.,4.

76

Atthecloseoftheessayafterspeakingof“broader,deeper,highercultureofgiftedminds

andpurehearts,”“love,”and“freedom,”DuBoisconcludes:

MerelyaconcretetestoftheunderlyingprinciplesofthegreatrepublicistheNegro

problem, and the spiritual striving of the freed-men’s sons is the travail of souls

whoseburdenisalmostbeyondthemeasureoftheirstrength,butwhobearitinthe

nameofanhistoricrace,inthenameofthisthelandoftheirfathers’fathers,andin

the name of human opportunity. And now what I have briefly sketched in large

outline letmeoncomingpagestellagain inmanyways,with lovingemphasisand

deeperdetail,thatmenmaylistentothestrivinginthesoulsofblackfolk.84

ForDuBois, the languageof souls is awayof countering theNegroasproblem.DuBois

proposestotranscendthecolorlinebyarticulatingblacksasfolkswithsoulsandassoulful

people. For him, the language of “souls” unlocks the best traits of humanity while

overcomingitsdestructiveshortcomings.

Bluminhischapter“RaceasCosmicSightinTheSoulsofBlackFolk”fashionsSouls

asadirectresponse to themanner inwhichblackpeoplewereseenas less thanhuman.

Because religion, particularly Christian theology, conspired with white supremacists to

legitimizeslaveryandbroaderracistideology,DuBoisreverses—recallagainthenotionof

doubling—this trend and turn the gaze of faith in opposite direction. Blum suggests,

“Working in combination with the book’s title and the chapter titles, the forethought

instructedreadersonnewwaysofseeingandperceiving:black folkhadsouls;peopleof

colorwerespiritually connected in sacredways;andDuBoiswasnomerescholarbuta

biblicalandpropheticwriterwiththepowertorevealtheunseenandsacred.”85

In this turnDuBois leviesa two-fold indictmentagainstwhitepeopleandagainst

(white)Christianity.Heattacksat itsbase the supremacist attitude thatblackpeople lay

84Ibid.,7.

85Blum,W.E.B.DuBois:AmericanProphet,78.

77

outsideoftheorderofhumanity.DuBoiscontinuestheanalysisthatheraisesinhismuch

criticized“TheConservationofRaces”thatblackpeopledoparticipateinthe“realhistory”

of the “race idea, the race spirit, the race ideal.”86 Because “The deeper differences

[between races and nations] are spiritual, psychical, differences—undoubtedly based on

thephysical, but infinitely transcending them,” givingblackpeople soulsplaced themon

theplaneofthishigheranalysisofrace.87

Moreover,DuBoisassaultstheblatanthypocrisyofChristiantheologybytalkingof

God, souls, and salvation. Blum explains: “The Souls of Black Folk confronted white

supremacisttheologyinadramaticandanextraordinaryway…Withitsstructure,rhetoric,

focus, and metaphors Souls inverted the principal arguments of white supremacist

theologians and did so with a new set of religious arguments, ones that spiritually

dramatizedthemodernhistoryofracerelationsintheUnitedStates.”88Forthisreason,as

mentioned above, Du Bois thus stands at the summit of what will later become black

liberationtheologyandthedismantlingofwhiteracistChristianity.

It would be an overstatement to convey Du Bois’s use of “soul” as strictly a re-

interpretation of religion in view of Christianity. As will be explored below in the

discussion of American pragmatism, his use religious language has a more abstract,

universalresonance. IndeedashestatesinDarkwater(1920)“nooneknowshimselfbut

thatself’sownsoul.”89Thus,heinvokessoulinthesenseofself-knowledgeandself-testing

86DuBois,TheOxfordW.E.B.DuBoisReader,ed.EricJ.Sundquist(NewYork:OxfordUniversityPress,1996),40.87Ibid.,41.

88Blum,W.E.B.DuBois:AmericanProphet,76.89DuBois,Darkwater:VoicesfromWithintheVeilinTheOxfordW.E.B.DuBois,ed.HenryLouisGates(NewYork:OxfordUniversityPress,2007),68.

78

thatgoesbacktoclassicalGreeceandRome.ThesoulisthesiteoftheDelphiccommandto

“knowthyself,”theSocraticurgetocarefortheself,thePlatonicturningfromappearances,

andSeneca’sinstructionto“layclaimtoyourself.”

Still,Darkwater isprecisely theplacewhereDuBois’splayoffChristianity ismost

intriguingandmostperplexing.Thisistosay,hereDuBoismostdirectlyinvokesChristian

creedal, liturgical, andbiblical themes—albeit innontraditional form. DuBoisopens the

textwithafive-part“Credo”thatcallstomindconfessionalaffirmationsoffaith.90HereDu

Bois confesses his belief in God, the Negro Race, Pride of race, Service and the Devil.91

Weaving together acknowledgment of the evils of oppression, commitment toblack self-

help,andtheoppositeof“beingashamedofoneself,”92DuBoisarticulatesGodintermsof

humanityanditscondition,nottheopposite.

Subsequently,toeachofhischaptersinthetextDuBoisoffersaliturgicalresponse

that riffs off of a confessional theme: “The Second Coming,” “Jesus Christ in Texas,” “A

HymntothePeoples,”andperhapsmost interestingly“ThePrayersofGod.” WhileBlum

executes a more expansive exegesis of these verses, what ‘God says’ (or does not say)

speaksmostdirectlytothesocial-politicalemphasisatstakeinthischapter.HereDuBois

poeticallyraisesoneofthemostcentralandchallengingaspectsoffaith:theodicy.Inother

words,DuBoisquestionstheverymeaningofreligiousfaithinthefaceofterriblesocial-

historical injustice. Indeed Du Bois echoes throughout the “Prayers” that God must be

90WiththeSocialGospelmovementofthelate19thandearly20thcenturies,andthepronouncementofthe

“SocialCreed”oftheFederalCouncilofChurchesin1908,itseemsplausiblethatDuBois,whoadmiredthe

socialChristianityoffriends,isinspiredbytheseefforts.SeeHerbertAptheker,“W.E.B.DuBoisandReligion:

ABriefReassessment,”TheJournalofReligiousThought39:1(Spring/Summer1982),5-11.91DuBois,Darkwater,1.92DuBois,“OnBeingAshamedofOneself”(1933)inOxfordW.E.B.DuBoisReader,72-76.

79

impotent because in the wake of “hell” and “murder” and madness, “Thou sittest,

dumb…AndThouartdumb…WhileThouartdumb.”Hecontinuesontospeakofalynched

God,anobvioussocially-groundedallusiontothecrucifixionofJesus.Andthenafterasking

“CanGodpray?”,itisDuBoiswhoassures:“Courage,God,Icome!”93

AlthoughBlumandothersinterpretDarkwaterasDuBoiswritinghimselfasa“hero

withablackface”ora“darkmonk,”94IwanttostresslessDuBois’sownreligiouspersona

thanwhatcomestotheforein“TheSoulsofWhiteFolk.”EvenwhenDuBoisexecuteshis

reversals,hemaintainsareligiousspecter. Thatis,hedoesnotsimplycriticizeorganized

religion and abandon it, but ratherhe turns it andperforms “immanent critique,”95from

withintheveil,sotospeak.Insteadofhumanizingblackswithsoulsandemphasizingthe

‘devilish’waysofracistwhites,DuBoischoosestospeakofthewhitesoul.

Justasonecanchoosetodismissreligiouslanguagea‘mere’rhetoricorirony,sotoo

couldonechoosetoviewthisreversalasDuBoiscapitalizingonthesuccessofSouls.But

that hardly seems plausible given the lengths to which Du Bois went in the former

collection. TheversesofsorrowsongsandversesfromWesternphilosophyenfoldthese

essaysandsketcheswithprofunditythatisanythingbutsimpleform.Itseemsthatjustas

DuBoiswantswhitestoengageblacksandtheirstruggles,DuBoisiswillingtoengagethe

“new religion of whiteness”96—on the deepest level, the level of soul. Du Bois is not

suggestingthatoneoughttopracticesucha‘religion’,buthedoesseemtoarguethatone

93DuBois,Darkwater,121-123.94SeeBlum’sfirstchapter“TheHeroWithaBlackFace:AutobiographyandtheMythologyofSelf”,

particularlypages27-40andhisthirdchapter“ADarkMonkWhoWroteHistoryandSociology.”

95SeeRobertJ.Antonio’s“ImmanentCritiqueastheCoreofCriticalTheory:ItsOriginsandDevelopmentsin

Hegel,Marx,andContemporaryThought,”TheBritishJournalofSociology32:2(Sep.,1981),330-345.96DuBois,Darkwater,16.

80

must engage it. Thus, this ironical formulation is a way of actually taking whiteness

seriouslysothatitsoppressiveexpressionscanbemitigated.

InthewakeofWorldWarI,onecertainlyseescontinuitywithSoulsandmaturation

ofthethemeshefirstraisedthere.Indeedwhitenessandcolonialismareviewedinamore

cosmicgaze,andinlightofhisgrowingemphasisoneconomicsandclass.“Souls”thenhas

notonlyadeepeningsense,butalsoabroadeningone.Theredemptivethrustthattheterm

hasinSoulshoweverisreplacedbythecausticintonationhere.Questioningtherationality

of war and imperialism Du Bois answer: “This is not Europe gone mad; this is not

aberration not insanity; this is Europe; this seeming Terrible is the real soul of white

culture—backofallculture,--strippedandvisibletoday….Europehasneverproducedand

neverwill inourdaybring fortha singlehuman soulwho cannotbematchedandover-

matchedineverylineofhumanendeavorbyAsiaandAfrica.”97

Despitetheclearinterrogationofwhitenessthatringsthroughout,weareimplored

torememberthatwhiteshavesoulshowevercorruptedbygreed.Inotherwords,DuBois

could have concluded that white people do not possess souls, and thus are outside the

scopeofredemption.Thisapproachwouldflounderonseveralfronts,includingtheillogic

ofdehumanizingapeopleinanattempttohumanizeanotherandthatitwouldopposehis

life’sprojectofpersuasionandpropaganda.Althoughitwouldnotbeliterarilyconsistent

orrhythmictospeakofthe“soullessnessofwhitepeople,”itseemsspeciousthatDuBois

wouldsacrificecontentforform.Thus,weareledtoconcludethatDuBoisdoesinfacthold

ontohopethatwhitepeoplecanbe‘saved.’Theessay’scoda,“TheRiddleoftheSphinx,”its

97DuBois,Darkwater,19-20.

81

birthofablackChristandtheawakeningof theworld, indeedbeckonstothishope.98To

me,then,toengagethesoulsofwhitepeopleisnottoaffirmthereligionofwhiteness,and

subsequently does not suggest that we ought to abandon religion. Rather, this tension

suggeststhatalteringwhitenessisaboutexaminingsouls.

Finally, before turning to “spirit” of black folk, which Du Bois articulates as the

world’sredemptivehope,IinterrupttoreferenceEvelynHigginbotham’s“Introduction”to

Darkwater, which provides another means of interpreting the religious in this text and

throughouthiswork.Higginbothamdescribes:

IfDarkwaterisastridentpoliticalcritique,itisalsoagracefulworkofart…Anditispreciselythejuxtapositionofdefianceandhope,ofrageandfaiththatproducesthe

combined effect of light, darkness, and shadows. Indeed, the book’smultifaceted

analysis can be likened to chiaroscuro, the artistic technique first invested by

fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Italian painters who sought to give three-

dimensional, lifelike quality to their subjects on canvas. Like these Renaissance

painters, Du Boismoves beyond the contouring lines of the two dimensional and

introduces depth and volume through his representation of color—through his

contrastandshadingofwhiteandvariousdarkerpeoples.99

IndeedthisreligiousanalysisofDuBois,ortheanalysisofthereligiousinDuBois,formeis

ameansofdeepeningandshading,texturizingandilluminingthisgreatman’slegacy.

2.4. AncestralSpiritsintheSoulofDuBois

In 1924 Du Bois released a prolonged tract outlining in affirmative formwhyhe

spenthis lifetodatefightingfortheirequality: itborethetitleTheGiftofBlackFolk:The

NegrointheMakingofAmerica.AlthoughDuBoisinretrospectadmittedtoerrorsbecause

ofhishasteinwriting,GiftstillstandsasasignificantthoughunderstudiedpartofDuBois’s

98Ibid.,26-27.

99Ibid.,xxxiii-xxxiv.

82

massivecorpus.Hewalksthrough‘blackhistory,’orratherAmericanhistoryinlightofits

blackparticipants, calling to the fore theways inwhichAfricanAmericanshaveenabled

this verynation to be. From labor and economics tomusic and arts to the very roots of

democracy,DuBoismakes the case thatwithoutblackpeople there simplywouldbeno

UnitedStates.Thetext’sfinalchapter,“TheGiftofSpirit”focusesonblackcontributionsto

thepracticeoffaith,butmoreimportantlytotheAmericanethos.Hewrites:

It[theNegro]haskeptbeforeAmerica’struersoulsthespiritofmeeknessandself

abasement, ithas compelledAmericanreligionagainandagain to search itsheart

andcry‘Ihavesinned;’anduntilthedaycomeswhencolorcastefallsbeforereason

andeconomicopportunitytheblackAmericanwillstandasthelastandterribletest

oftheethicsofJesusChrist.100

Recalling (and inverting) the languageof self-anddoubleconsciousnessmade famous in

Souls, then, black people have been the conscious of America, constantly prodding it to

becomeitsbetterself.

Indeed it isDuBois’suseof “spirit,” inrelation tobutdistinctive from“soul,” that

signifies the social aspect of life forever in view for Du Bois. While soul alludes to the

transcendingofself,discussedabove,spiritreferstoaformoftranscendenceofselves.The

finalwordsofthechapterandthetextread:

ThisthenistheGiftofBlackFolktothenewworld.Thusinsingularandfinesense

the slave became master, the bond servant became free and the meek not only

inherittheearthbutmadethatheritageofathingofquestingforeternalyouth,of

fruitfullabor,ofjoyandmusic,ofthefreespiritandoftheministeringhand,ofwide

andpoignantsympathywithmenintheirstruggletoliveandlovewhichis,afterall,

theendofbeing.101

100DuBois,TheGiftofBlackFolkinTheOxfordW.E.B.DuBois,ed.HenryLouisGates(NewYork:OxfordUniversityPress,2007),124.

101DuBois,Gift,124.Indeed,TerrenceJohnsonin“‘MySoulWantsSomethingNew’:DemocraticDreamsBehindtheVeil”givesaprolongedlooktothemannerinwhichDuBois’sconfrontationofphysicaldeath

(fromdisadvantageandkillings)opensthedoorforAmericatoturntowardanewlife.Johnsonconcludes:

“Embracingdeath,whichIbelieveallowsmoralagentstofacetheirfinitude,reorientspersonsandallows

themtoenvisionthemselveswithinacommunityoffinitecreatureswhoarealsostrugglingtoachieve

83

AfricanAmericans,inDuBois’sview,contributeauniqueparadigmintheexistentialquest

toliveasfullyandfreelyashumans.102

StephanieShawinherchapter“Striving”providesahelpfulsummary,whichdraws

uponaPlatonic-Aristotelianunderstandingofsoulandspirit:

Scholarshavedevotedconsiderableenergy to contextualizingDuBois’useof the

term“folk”attheexpense,Ithink,ofaccountingforhisuseof“soul.”Ifthe“veil,”as

anallusionto“race”andtothegreatpotentialofthefolk,resonatedwithDuBois’

black readers, the idea of “souls” must have had equal power considering its

religiousconnotations.Afterall, in religiouscontexts, all soulsareequal.But it is

the philosophical meaning that matters here, and, importantly, it reinforces the

symbolismof the veil. A turn-of-the-century philosopherwould have understood

that “[t]o speak of soul is to speak of a capacity or a propensity to function in a

certainway…oritistospeakoftheactualexerciseofsuchacapacity.”Andif“soul”

represented spirit in potentia” to a philosopher, “spirit” represented “the

developedenergyofthesoul”—theactualizationofpotential.103

Shaw furtherdistinguishes soul and spiritbyplacing these concepts in the contextof an

ancientconversation.Theindividualsoulparticipatesinagreatermovementofcollective

spirit.Thus,thesoulsofblackfolkareconstituentofthedynamicofhumanspirit.Against

thebackdropofthereligiouscontextofhisoeuvre,profferedvis-à-visBlumandKahnanda

brief hermeneutic of Du Bois’s own spirit-talk, we are now in a position to consider

situatingsouls,spirit,andstrivingwithinaphilosophicallineage.

InhisbiographyofDuBois,DavidLewisidentifiesameaningfulconnectiontoHegel.

NotonlydidDuBoiscompletegraduatestudyatFriedrich-WilhelmIIIUniversitätatBerlin

dignity,recognition,andmeasurablesuccessandhappiness”inTheSoulsofW.E.B.DuBois:NewEssaysandReflections,ed.EdwardBlumandJasonYoung(Macon:MercerUniversityPress,2009),133.102GlendaCarpiowritesinher“Introduction”toTheGiftofBlackFolk:“Throughoutthebook,DuBoiswalksatightropebetweenapatrioticembraceofanAmericainwhichAfricanAmericanculturehasbecomean

inextricablepartandanexhortationoftherebellionandstruggleoutofwhichthatculturearose.The

extremecomplexityofthesepositionsisimpliedfromtheverybeginningintheuseoftheword‘gift’inthe

book’stitle”(xiii).

103Shaw,W.E.B.DuBoisandTheSoulsofBlackFolk,25.

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(UniversityofBerlin),whereHegeloccupiedthe firstphilosophychair,but it isgenerally

acceptedthatDuBois’sgeneraldialecticalreasoning,particularlyhisinfamousconception

of double consciousness has Hegelian form, emerging from his description of “unhappy

consciousness”inPhänomenologiedesGeistes(PhenomenologyofSpirit(Mind).

It is true that Ralph Waldo Emerson too speaks of double consciousness in his

lecture“TheTranscendentalist,”aswellasthe“veil”in“TheOver-Soul”;infact,inthenext

section Iwill take up the role of American pragmatism in shaping Du Bois’s views. The

Hegelian inspiration, however, runs deeper (or at least has been explicatedmore byDu

Boisscholars)thantheEmersonianone.Lewiswrites:

And forall James’s supposedpragmaticandempirical influencesuponhim[James

was his undergraduate advisor and one of themediators through which Du Bois

encountered theGermanphilosophical tradition],104DuBois found in theHegelian

World-Spirit,dialecticallyactualizingitselfthroughhistory,aprofoundlyappealing

concept. “Lordship and Bondage,” Hegel’s lodestar essay, explicated a complex

reciprocity of a master and slave in which the identities of both could be fully

realizedonly to theextent that theconsciousnessofonemediated throughthatof

the other…Surely this was an idea Du Bois would eventually reformulate more

poetically[inTheSoulsofBlackFolk].105

Forbetterorworse,Hegel’s analysisof themaster-slavedialectic as constituentofGeist,

howeverabstract,providesaconcretetouchpointforDuBois,whowroteTheSuppression

oftheAfricanSlave-Trade.

Shamoon Zamir inDark Voices:W.E.B. Du Bois and American Thought, 1888-1903

compares“OfOurSpiritualStrivings,”thefirstchapterofSouls,andPhenomenology,saying:

“DuBoisdoesnotadoptHegelbutadaptshim tohisownends.TounderstandDuBois’s

investigationofhistoricalconsciousnessoutofHegelitisimportanttoseehowhisreading

104See,forexample,Shaw,W.E.B.DuBoisandTheSoulsofBlackFolk,62.105Lewis,W.E.B.DuBois:BiographyofaRace,139-140.

85

differsfromHegelasitistonotetheparallels.”106Asweshallseefurther,Zamirmovesus

beyondadyadicviewofDuBois’sindebtednesstoeitherEuropeancontinentalphilosophy

or American pragmatism. Instead, Zamir guides us toward a more nuanced theory of

multiplicity that “resists dogmatism and recognizes that creative life at its best is not

reducible to ideological compartmentalization.” 107 Du Bois drew from a variety of

conceptual tools available to him in order to develop his own platform for black social

uplift.

Shaw in W.E.B. Du Bois and The Souls of Black Folk builds upon Zamir’s

adoption/adaptation distinction, and details parallels in the entirety of Souls and

Phenomenology.Hercentralassertionis“thatSoulsaddsblackpeopletoHegel’squeueina

way thatmakes it clear that the souls of these folkswere nodifferent from the souls of

others…Du Bois did more than write an important and moving history of the post-

emancipation world in which black Americans lived: his study added the nineteenth

centuryandAmerica toHegel’sphilosophy, via the soulsofblack folk.”108This argument

locates Du Bois’s brilliant appropriation of Hegel in his creativity. Whereas Hegel in

Philosophy of History writes Africa, as “Unhistorical, Undeveloped Spirit,”109out of the

dynamicworld-historicalGeist,DuBois’saccountofthespiritualworldofblackfolkwrites

thembackin.

106Zamir,DarkVoices,114.107Ibid.,17.

108Shaw,W.E.B.DuBoisandTheSoulsofBlackFolk,6.109G.W.F.Hegel,LecturesonthePhilosophyofHistory,trans.J.Sibree(London:HenryG.Bohn,1861),103.

86

Tothisend,Shawoffersthefirstmanuscriptlengthaccountoftheparallelsbetween

Hegel’sandDuBois’sphilosophiesofsoulquaspiritinpotentia.WhereasZamirstates“Du

Bois’s emphasis is not on the singular Geist but on souls,”110Shaw takes a different

approach.Theadaptation, according toShaw,examinesblack souls intoorder to rework

Hegel’sGeistquaSoul.Shawargues:

Readers[andsubsequently,scholars]regularlyfocusedontheproverbialtrees(the

veils, the color line, double consciousness), rather than the forest (the soul).

AlthoughitisimpossibletomissthepointthatDuBois’volumeisaboutthesoulsofblack folk—that is, after all, the title of the book—it is important to examine

preciselyhow,andhowprominently,soulfiguresthroughDuBois’text.111

Shaw’s analysis sheds light on a very important insight of Du Bois’s for contemporary

conversationsregardingidentity.

Premisedonconceptionsofthesoul’ssovereignty inSocrates,Plato,andAristotle,

Shaw argues that Du Bois’s discussion of the color line through spirit-talkmakes a key

claim: race does not create blackness! “The color line complicated, stunted, and had the

ability to(andsometimesdid)destroythestriving;but thecolor linedidnotgenerate it.

Striving—thehallmarkofafunctioningconsciousness—originatedinthesovereignsoulsof

blackfolk.”112Thisistosaythereiscompleteandindependentauthorityinblacknessthat

doesnotuponitsdefinitionorwarrantinrelationshiptowhiteness.Inthisvein,DuBois’s

doubleconsciousnessceasestobeexposedtochargesofpathology(pan-AfricanistJoseph

Hayfordsawdouble consciousnessas “pathetic”)because consciousnessof the souldoes

110Zamir,DarkVoices,115.111Shaw,W.E.B.DuBoisandTheSoulsofBlackFolk,38.112Ibid.,40.

87

not rupture its underlying sovereign unity. 113 Shaw concludes the chapter on the

sovereignty of soul by saying, “Spiritual striving did not develop in response to white

racism;norwasitimposeduponblackfolkfromsomeother‘outsider.’Itcamefromwithin

andreflectedtheessenceofhumanity—Soul.”114EssentialismforShaw,inviewofDuBois,

isnotracialbuthumane.115

Kwame Appiah’s “contemporary philosophical theory of identity” in Lines of

Descent:W.E.B.DuBoisandtheEmergenceofIdentity (2014) ishelpfulhere.Premisedon

hisEthicsofIdentity(2005)andhis2010W.E.B.DuBoisLecturesatHarvardUniversity,

Appiahargues,“DuBoisfoundhiswayintoanarrowingorbitaroundanotionofracethat

wasnominalist,narrative,subjective,andeven,sometimes,antirealist.”116

Inthisview,Shaw’sidentificationofthesovereigntyofblacksoulsdoesnotrequire

a singular racial essence although there is a shared racial identity. “Nominalism about

social identities is preferable to ontological realism,” aids Appiah, “What holds groups

together isoftennotasharedessencebutsimpleasharedname…socialidentitiesrequire

labels”[emphasisinoriginal].117

In tracing the linesofdescent,Appiahacknowledges themark the role thatHegel

plays in understanding Du Bois, but not prominently—that position goes to Johann

GottfriedHerder.ForAppiah,theinfluenceofHegelisplacedincontextofthedevelopment

113Ibid.,41.

114Ibid.,60.

115Ibid.,135.

116Appiah,LinesofDescent,161.117Ibid.,148.

88

ofGermanphilosophicaltraditionfromImmanuelKantthroughJohannGottleibFichte,and

in relation to the aforementioned treatment of Africa in Hegel’s Philosophy of History.

Appiah stresses that, notnecessarily to the exclusionofHegel,DuBois’s “soulsof

black folk” must be read in light of Herder’s nationalist cosmopolitan Volkgeist. Appiah

writes, “DuBois’sdebt to this intellectual legacy—thetheoryof theVolkgeist—ishardto

avoid:ithoversoverthetitleofhisbest-knownbook.HeisshowinghisreaderstheGeister

(this is the plural of Geist) of black Volk…the Herderian strain in Du Bois’s cultural

cosmopolitanism fairly courses through Souls.”118Du Bois mobilizes Herder in order to

appealtothecommunalimplicationsofself-consciousness.Thatis,DuBoisisinterestedin

“souls,”thegroupaspectofGeist.

Before turning to the metamorphosis of the German philosophical tradition into

Americanpragmatism,anditscontinuedshapingofDuBois, letusreturntothereligious

natureofGeist.ForAppiah,GeisthasreligiousoriginsbutinGermanphilosophytradition

requires not religious interpretation. Hewrites, “Hegel’sPhänomenologiedesGeistes has

been translated both asThePhenomenologyofSpiritand asThePhenomenologyofMind;

buthoweveryoutranslate ‘Geist,’ itsmeaninghaddivergedfarfromtheChristianideaof

thesoul,whichcametoreposeinthetermSeele.Asaresult,aneducatedGermanreader

needhearnothingspecificallyintalkoftheGeist.”119

While this iscertainly thecase,giventhatDuBois iswritingabout theVolk, there

mightbesomethinggainedinfurtherexaminingthereligioustextureofGeistalthoughitis

not required. In fact,Appiahalsowrites, “Theword ‘Geist’hasawiderrangeofmeaning

118Ibid.,46-47.

119Ibid.,57.

89

thananyoftheEnglishwordswemightusetotranslateit.Inparticular,itcanmeansoul,

spirit,ormind.Anothersense,whichwecanlargely ignore, issharedwithEnglish inour

word ‘ghost,’whichnowonlyhasthesenseof ‘spirit’whenit isusedtorefertotheHoly

Ghost,”120orpoltergeist.

Tobesure,ourintenthereisnotonlynottoignoretheghostlinessofGeist,butalso

to call it from the shadows—toamplify it, so to speak. Tracing the lines of descent that

shapeblackidentity,everactivethoughsometimesspectral,constitutesacentralconcern.

By drawing attention to the politics and struggles as identities are worked out at the

intersections of race, class, gender, and sexuality, it might be possible to resist the

exorcisticeffectsofrespectabilityandconformity.Bytakingintoaccounttheethereal,we

invoketheseghostsexplicitlyinthediscourse,sothattheymayhaunttheshapingofblack

identity.

ThisexaminationiscertainlypartofShaw’sproject.Shestates:

Thedifferentviewsofphilosophersandtheologiansarenevertheless important to

note…What might be more important is that serious thinkers in religion andphilosophy are verymuch concernedwith spirit. Andboth groups of scholars are

ultimatelyconcernedwithwhatabeinghastodotofulfillhis/herbeing—destiny.121

ShearguesthatDuBois’schapterinSoulsaboutEpiscopalpriestRev.AlexanderCrummell

is an enactment of the Platonic Philosopher-Ruler notion of the Talented Tenth/Guiding

Hundredth. His life as rendered by Du Bois, who venerated him as one of the few

paradigmaticrolemodels,inthestagesofHegel’sself-consciousness:stoicism,skepticism,

120Ibid.

121Shaw,W.E.B.DuBoisandTheSoulsofBlackFolk,79.

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and unhappy consciousness.122She concludes the chapter “Spirit: Alexander Crummell,

Prophets,andDestiny”:

ThroughoutTheSoulsofBlackFolk,thepurposeofworkwasnotmerelytodevelopdiscipline, and certainly not to accumulate capital or even to eat (the immediate,

determinate, and material objectives of labor), but to discover one’s self (self-

consciousness), to realize the meaning of a life (reason), to arrive at true being

(spirit). Du Bois could not have ignored the particular (unique) details of

Crummell’s life story: it was without a doubt a Christian’s journey, and,

consequently, the study easily took the literary form of allegory. ButDuBois, the

philosopher-intellectual, was, himself, a phenomenological observer who saw

Crummell’s life not only as a spiritual journey in which a Christian constantly

searched for evidence of God’s presence, but also as a spiritual journey like that

whichHegelcharacterizedasconsciousness’sseekingitswholenessofbeing.Andin

thiscontext,too,Crummell’slifestoryprovidesaperfectexample.123

For Shaw, Du Bois integrates philosophical and theological concerns in Souls. Du Bois’s

account, therefore, doesnot requirephilosophicalprecision to jettisonadjacent religious

interests. For the purposes of this dissertation, in particular, it is critical to properly

account for thephilosophical lineageof soul, spirit, and strivingbefore spirit-talk canbe

mobilizedconstructively.Thecarefulattention,aswillbefurtherexplicatedbelow,helpto

protect against the deployment of Geist in marginalizing projects. While it cannot

necessarily overwhelmdeep-seatedbiases and closed systems—henceHegel—if there is

openness to be surprised by spirit from the start, then critical spirit-talk guides our

understandingofspirit’sdynamicmovement.

Although IaffirmShaw’sgeneralapproach, findingher readingofSoulsinviewof

PhenomenologyasabrilliantandlongoverdueinterventioninDuBoisianscholarship,Ido

takeissuewithherparticularassessmentof“TheFrenzy”in“OftheFaithoftheFathers.”

Shawwrites,“DuBoiswitnessedinsermonsandespeciallyinsongsaspiritinthechurch

122Ibid.,93-96.

123Ibid.,98-99.

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thathadnotbeendestroyed(norwasitsufferingfromdoubleconsciousness)…DuBoiswas

notembarrassedby‘thestamping,shrieking,andshouting,therushingtoandfroandwild

wavingofarms’thattookplaceinthosechurches.”124FollowingRobertGooding-Williams’s

distinction between the masses and the folk, who follows Herder, Shaw interprets the

formerasapejorativelabelandthelatteralaudatoryone.

Shaw, in my view, depends too much on Herder here to the exclusion of Hegel,

whichisironicgivenhertext’soverarchingaimandmethodologyinanalyzingHegel.Inher

chapter “TheReligion and Song ofSouls” Shaw asserts of the southern revival “whatDu

Boiswitnessedwasawe-fullbecausehewitnessedthepowerfulunionofthefiniteandthe

infinite—the evidence ofAbsoluteBeing—spirit knowing spirit. This scene also suggests

Hegel’s ‘Revealed Religion’—in which ‘[a]ll mean and women are incarnations of God’

(spirit knowing itself as spirit).”125More to the point, however, later Shaw states, “The

Sorrow Songs represent the culmination of soul’s/consciousness’s education from the

notion(appearance)ofknowledgetotrueknowledge,truth,orscience/philosophy.”126

Inlightofourearlierdiscussion,IillustratedhowDuBoisdespisedecstaticreligion,

althoughhesawtheindisputablevalueoftheNegroChurch.TheFrenzyin“OftheFaithof

theFathers”representedanearlierformofreligion’sdevelopment.Evenifthefrenzyisthe

propertyof thefolk,andnotthemasses, itstillneededevolution.GivenDuBois’soverall

platform of social uplift via the Talented Tenth/GuidingHundredth, informed by Shaw’s

124Ibid.,53.

125Ibid.,128.

126Ibid.,148.

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ownobservations about thePlatonicPhilosopher-King—ofwhich religion is party—then

religiontoomustadvanceinDuBois’sscheme.

Whereas Du Bois unequivocally praises the Sorrow Songs, which provide the

framingforSouls,hisviewoftheFrenzyisnotasclear.Thespiritualscanbethecreative

exampleofHegel’sAbsoluteinhistory,whichHegelwashimselfunabletoprovide,without

the frenzy functioning as Hegel’s Revealed Religion. Given Hegel’s and Du Bois’s

positivism,127thesouthernrevivaldoesnotholdupasanexampleofsoul’semergenceas

spirit inhistory.Tothecontrary,DuBoisseesthesouthernrevivalasaprimitiveformof

religion,asoldas“DelphiandEndor”;continuedreligiouspracticeintheviewstuntingthe

achievement of a politically-oriented rational religion. I believe Shaw ends up

unnecessarily falling victim toMaslow’s law (i.e.,whenyou are a hammer, all you see is

nails). Because the spirituals are not synonymouswithAfrican-American religion forDu

Bois,onemustdistinguishthereligionandsongsofSouls inordertogetamoreaccurate

pictureofDuBois’sviews.

2.5. PropheticPragmaticUnderpinningsofSpiritualStriving

Inhisthird‘autobiography’,DuBoisreveals:

Withthebestwillthefactualoutlineofalifemissestheessenceofitsspirit.Thusin

my life the chief fact has been race—not so much scientific race, as that deep

convictionofmyriadsofmenthatcongenitaldifferencesamongthemainmassesof

human beings absolutely condition the individual destiny of every member of a

group. Intothespiritualprovincialismofthisbelief Ihavebeenbornandthis fact

127SeeShamoonZamir’sDarkVoices:W.E.B.DuBoisandAmericanThought,1888-1903(Chicago:ChicagoUniversityPress,1995).

93

hasguided,embittered,illuminatedandenshroudedmylife.Yet,howshallIexplain

andclarifyitsmeaningforasoul?Descriptionfails—Ihavetriedthat.128

Withhischaracteristicopennessandobscurity,DuBoislamentsthedifficultyofgivingan

accountofoneself,toborrowJudithButler’sdescription.129Heexpressesthattheinterface

ofbiographyandrace,asDuskofDawn’ssubtitle,“AnEssayTowardanAutobiographyofa

Race Concept,” relates the personal and social. For Du Bois, there simply is no way to

encapsulate fully that “striving” that defines his life and the life of black people. The

languageofsoulandspirit,shortofbeinganappealtotheoccultandotherworldliness,isa

meansoftranscendence.Inthefaceofsuchpersonalandsocialturmoil,oneisshockedto

findtheutterresiliencyandpervadinghopefulnessthatthrives.

Always concernedwith the social location of black folk, using his own story as a

conduittowardthislargeraim,DuBoisemployedabroadcross-sectionofresourcestothis

objective.HemodifiedHegel’sGeist-formulationsofprogress towardverypractical ends.

Onemightsay, then, thatpragmatismwasasignificantmeans thatDuBoismarshaled.A

host of towering intellectuals with varying degrees of appropriation and affirmation of

Hegel’s philosophy, including John Dewey, Josiah Royce, William James, and George

Santayana,influencedDuBois’sHegel.

According to Zamir, the deployment of Hegel is ultimately a political move to

empower black folk vis-à-vis the Talented Tenth through deeper understanding of self-

consciousness. “In ‘Strivings’ Du Bois dramatizes black consciousness as it actively

128DuBois,DuskofDawn:AnEssayTowardanAutobiographyofaRaceConceptinTheOxfordW.E.B.DuBois,ed.HenryLouisGates(NewYork:OxfordUniversityPress,2007),71.

129JudithButler,GivinganAccountofOneself(NewYork:FordhamUniversityPress,2005).

94

struggleswithinpoliticalconfinementtowardatransformationoftheselfanditsworld.”130

AfterdetailingDuBois’sstudywithGeorgeSantayana,whomodelsTheLifeofReasonon

Phenomenology,ZamirpointsoutthatforSantayana(incontrasttoJames)“consciousness

wascharacterizedbythecreativityofmetaphorandthesyntheticimagination.”131

Further,Zamirstates,“LikeDewey,Roycestressesthatdialecticalnegativity is the

process by which a higher harmonization and unity are achieved…[and] foregrounds

relationalityandorganiccollectivityinhisreadingofHegel.Sotheselfisseenasa‘knotof

relationshipstoothermomentsandtootherpeople.’”132Laterhegoesontoexplain:

IncontrasttoJamesorEmerson,DuBoisisabletolocatethesubjectinrelationtothe world, particularly the political and social realms, more concretely and with

greater specificity than either James or Emerson, precisely through a literary

psychology of a radically decentered subject and through his refusal ofnondialecticaltranscendence”[emphasisinoriginal].133

InthesamemannerthatDuBoisextendsandinflectsHegeltowardhisconstructiveproject

in a creative fashion, so also does he amend James and Emerson in his vision for the

Americandemocracy.

Terrence Johnson, in his essay “‘My Soul Wants Something New’: Democratic

DreamsBehindtheVeil,”writesofDuBois’stragicsoul-life,whichhedefinesas“themoral

and political resource that ledDuBois to find his genius and the geniuses of black folk.

Tragicsoul-life is representativeof therichmoralandpolitical traditionswithin theevil.

Theexpressionofsorrow,despair,andhopeintragicsoul-lifeisrootedinamoralideology

130Zamir,DarkVoices,167.131Ibid.,158.

132Ibid.,122,withembeddedquotationfromRoyce’sTheSpiritofModernPhilosophy(1892).133Ibid.,163.

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of struggle, sacrifice, and hope.”134Despite the difficulty of such description, one final

attemptremainstogiveanaccountofDuBois’sreligioussensibility.

Cornel West in Prophesy Deliverance! An Afro-American Revolutionary Christianity

(1982)lodgesAfricanAmericancriticalthoughtsquarelywithinapropheticblackreligious

tradition. Forhim,towrestlewithblacknessinAmerica—theshapingofidentityandthe

overcoming of white supremacy—inevitably means struggling with Christianity. West

identifiesthetwo“sources”thatcontributemosttoaphilosophyofblackempowermentas

thepropheticChristianandpragmatisttraditions.

In order for this critical thought to reinterpret and reshape history, provide a

genealogyofandrespondtowhitesupremacy,engageblackChristianthoughtandMarxian

socialanalysis,andhelpdefinetheprospectsforliberation,135blackthinkersmustdotwo

things.First,theymust“confrontcandidlythetragiccharacterofhumanhistory(andthe

hopeforultimatetranshistoricaltriumph)withoutpermittingtheimmensityofwhatisand

mustbelosttocall intoquestionthesignificanceofwhatmaybegained.”136Second,they

“canavoidbothabsolutistdogmatismandparalysisinaction.Pragmatismalsodethroned

epistemology as the highest priority of modern thought in favor of ethics: not the

professional discipline of ethics but the search for desirable and realizable historical

possibilitiesinthepresent.”137

134DuBois,Souls,115.135CornelWest,ProphesyDeliverance!AnAfro-AmericanRevolutionaryChristianity(Louisville:WestminsterJohnKnoxPress,1982),22-23.

136Ibid.,19.

137Ibid.,21.

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AlthoughWestdoesnotgiveDuBoissustainedattentioninthistext,andalthoughis

Du Bois himself is not interested in the formal type of Afro-American revolutionary

Christianity that West proposes, it is clear where the analysis of Du Bois’s religious

sensibility finds resonance in West’s essay. Insofar as West defines that “revolutionary

Christian perspective and praxis pave thismiddle pathway [between bourgeois idealism

andring-wingMarxism],”138thenwecanlocateDuBoissquarelywithinthiseffort.

In The American Evasion of Philosophy: A Genealogy of Pragmatism though, West

describes Du Bois as “The Jamesian Organic Intellectual” who appropriated the best of

Ralph Emerson in application to the race question. “Du Bois’ classic text [Souls] can be

viewed,”arguesWest,“asbeingintheEmersoniangrain,yetitconveysinsightsignoredby

mostofwhiteAmerica.DuBoisattemptstoturntheEmersoniantheodicyinsideoutbynot

simply affirming the capacity of human powers to overcome problems, but, more

important,raisingthequestion‘Howdoesitfeeltobeaproblem?’inAmerica—aproblem

Americaneitheradmitsithasnorisinterestedinsolving.”139Truetohisprofoundabilityto

reverseandrethink thestatusquo,West’s readingofDuBois turnsEmerson’sAmerican

transcendentalisminsideout.

Jonathan Kahn in Divine Discontent: The Religious Imagination of W.E.B. Du Bois

(2009) helpfully describes Du Bois’s engagement with religion as being shaped by

Americanpragmatism. Thus,KahndepictsDuBoisasapragmaticreligiousnaturalist.140

Kahnstates,“DuBois’sfaithisablackfaiththatemergesoutoftheskeinofblackAmerican

138Ibid.,145.

139CornelWest,TheAmericanEvasionofPhilosophy:AGenealogyofPragmatism(Madison:UniversityofWisconsinPress,1989),142.

140OneshouldnotethatKahncombinestheterms“religious”and“naturalist.”Preciselytomypoint,DuBois

obscuresthecategoriesofreligiousinterpretation,thusdemandingare-interpretationofreligion.

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Christianity.At the same time,DuBoisestablishes theblacknessofhis religiousvoiceas

muchinitscriticismsandrevisionsoftraditionalAfricanAmericanformulations.”141Thus

asKahnearliernotes,the“dialecticaltensionhereisthick.”142Later,Kahncontinues:

Given the complexities of Du Bois’s religious voice—particularly his hostility to

metaphysicsandhisfocusonhumanfinitude—itiswellworthourwhiletoconsider

theways inwhichwemightunderstandDuBois as apragmatist andapragmatic

religious naturalist, for it is when we begin to see Du Bois’s engagements with

religion along pragmatist lines that we can fully appreciate theway in which his

religiousvoicerepresentsamomentofradicalcreationinblackreligiousfaith.Asa

pragmatic bricoleur, he transformed the African American religious tradition: in

pragmatic religious naturalistic ways to produce a distinctive black faith: African

Americanpragmaticreligiousnaturalism.143

DemonstratingDuBois’s connectionanddebt toWilliam James, JohnDewey,andGeorge

Santayana, Kahn makes the case that Du Bois’s ‘faith’ was one focused on human

experienceandsocialengagement.

KahncarefullytracesthedifferencesbetweenJames,Dewey,andSantayana,arguing

thatJames’sfocusismoreindividualistic,whileDeweyandSantayanadefinetheirreligious

pragmatismmorecollectively.Further,KahnmakesthecasethatDuBoisperhapsisclosest

toSantayanabecause“incontrasttoDewey’sbeliefs,Santayana’sfaithnurturesacomplex

tension between religious practice as social activism andwhat onemight describes as a

contemplative activism.”144Thus, in Du Bois we find a strong connection between the

pragmaticandtheprophetic.

141Kahn,DivineDiscontent,24.142Ibid.

143Ibid.,25.

144Ibid.,39.

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DuBoisthenfitswellwithinWest’sconceptionof“propheticpragmatism”145insofar

as this American invention moves squarely away from the “epistemology-centered

philosophy”146that tended to dominate continental European thought. As now clearly

established,DuBoiswasnotonefordogmaticgivens,andratherpreferredtheshapingof

critical thought based on experience. His notion of the race concept epitomizes how

discoursereflectspersonalandsocialencounterwithreality;inturntheengagementwith

thisthoughtisemployedaspraxistotransformthisreality.

2.6. TowardsaBlackLiberationPneumatology

IfDuBoisisa“pragmaticprophet,”thensecond-generationblacktheologianDwight

Hopkins seeks to further extend his political philosophy in a constructive theology.

BuildingupontheforerunningworkofhismentorCone,aswellasWilmore,Roberts,and

Washington,throughDuBois,Hopkinsattemptstoexpandtheculturalunderpinningsand

implicationsonwhich thisnewdisciplineofblack theology is founded.Hopkins’sproject

not only deepens the connection of black theology to slave religion, but also Hopkins

probes the transatlantic, Pan-Africanpossibilities of black theology, particularly in South

Africa.

InShoesThatFitOurFeet:SourcesforaConstructiveBlackTheology(1993),Hopkins

examinesrepresentationsofblack“folk”religioninstorynarrativeandliterature,aswell

as in the formal leadership of Du Bois, Martin King, and Malcolm X. Hopkins’s chapter

“W.E.B.DuBois:TheologicalReflectionsonDemocratizedPoliticalPower”presentsDuBois

145West,TheAmericanEvasionofPhilosophy,7.146Ibid.,5.

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as a black leader of faith who presents a “political theology.” Utilizing a sampling of

excerpts of writings from Crisis, Prayers for a Dark People, and other correspondence,

Hopkins connectsDuBois’s political agendawith the egalitarian, democratized vision of

Christianity. He asks, “What theological insights can we draw out from Du Bois’s

understandingofpoliticsanddemocracyinorderto[further]developablacktheologyof

liberation?”147

Whilethequestionseemsappropriatetothetaskofconstructivetheology,itmisses

themark on grounding black theology in the religious experience of African Americans.

AlthoughHopkinsclaims,“ThetheologyofDuBois’sthoughtsymbolizesafaithinfreedom

present within the overall black political heritage,”148it is unclear how that constitutes

religiousexperienceor theology.Who is theaudienceofDuBois’s ‘theological’ thoughts?

Whoishiscongregation?Whoislisteningtohissermons,readinghisprayers?Whatpeople

of faith are utilizingDuBois’s ruminations, however poignant, as their catechesis?What

black theologians are utilizing his critique of the Negro Church to propel their

construction?

The archival work completed by Hopkins is invaluable in unearthing Du Bois’s

opinionson the religious themesofGod, Jesus, andhumanpurpose, tobe sure.But they

remain Du Bois’s opinions, because unlike his systematic, sociological treatment in The

NegroChurchthey lack thescholarship tosubstantiate theclaims. InDuBois, there isno

attributionoftheologicallineage,nocomparativeevaluationoftheologicalthemes,andno

147DwightHopkins,ShoesThatFitOurFeet:SourcesforaConstructiveBlackTheology(Maryknoll:OrbisBooks,1993),133.

148Ibid.,132.

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intellectualhistoryofthereligiousconceptshetakesup,andnoconsiderationofhistorical

theology.DuBois’s ‘politicaltheology,’however, iscertainlynotwhatJ.DeotisRobertsor

CarlSchmitthadinmind.149

Most puzzling is that Hopkins fails to considerThe Souls of Black Folk—a rather

conspicuous absence. If, according to Wilmore and Cone, it is this work that became a

primarytextforearlyblackchurchmenandtheologiansinthe1960sand1970s,thenone

naturally expects analytical consideration of Souls when discussing sources for a

constructive black theology. But Hopkins’s analysis of Du Bois entirely overlooks Souls

when judging the theological significance of Du Bois’s corpus. Because of this ambiguity

andtheseomissions,Hopkins’streatmentofDuBoisdoesnotwellconstituteasourcefor

doingblack theology.Because, in the end,Hopkins succumbs to the samepitfall as first-

generation black theologians (Cone, Roberts, andWashington), according to Cecil Cone’s

charge:hedoesnotsourcefromwithintheAfrican-Americanreligioustradition.

Asaresult,onemustconsidertheimplicationsofHopkins’sapproach,giventhatit

obscurestheactualsourcewithafalseone.AconstructivetheologythatutilizesDuBoisas

asourcedoesnotneed tobepredicateduponDuBois’sowntheology.Theoverreachby

arbitrarily attributing a theology to Du Bois—almost in an a priorimanner—especially

given his deep suspicion toward religion and the divided mind of the scholarship,

underminestheconstructivetheologicalproject.Itseemsratherdogmatic,fallingintothe

trappingsof“ontologicalblackness.”150Thisistosay,thereisnoneedtoascribeimmanent

149Cf.J.DeotisRoberts’sABlackPoliticalTheology(Philadelphia:WestminsterPress,1974)andCarlSchmitt’sPoliticalTheology:FourChaptersontheConceptofSovereignty,1922,trans.GeorgeSchwab(Chicago:UniversityofChicagoPress,1985).

150VictorAnderson,BeyondOntologicalBlackness:AnEssayonAfricanAmericanReligiousandCulturalCriticism(NewYork:Continuum,1995).

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structurewithinthesubjectofstudyinordertoderivetheologicalmeaningfromit.

Instead, Du Bois’s discussion of dogmatism and demagoguery offers the most

valuableresource to the liberationprojectofblacktheology.In thedevelopmentofblack

theology, its originators are crafting a language that possesses the moral vigor and

existentialurgencytoleadtosignificantsocialtransformation.AlthoughHopkinsmissesa

significant opportunity to ground his analysis in Souls, still we see that black liberation

theologians find such resources in Du Bois. From start to finish, Du Bois must be

consideredasafreethinkingman.Hisplatformforracialupliftandsocialchangedepended

heavilyonthenotionofthepublicintellectual,arolethatheepitomized.Tobealeaderis

tobeapersonof letters,whichdemands“release fromself-imposedtutelage,” toborrow

Kant’sdescriptionoflifeinanageofenlightenment.151Tothiswenowturn.

Inhisessay“TheTrainingofNegroesforSocialPower”(1903)DuBoisarticulates

whathemeansbyeducation.Forhim,trainingultimatelyhaslittletodowithalectionor

catechism: itconcernsneither listsofcommontextsnorstrictpedagogiesfor instruction.

Sure, thesemay be starting points for the search for knowledge, but only insofar as the

journeybegins“frombelow.”Theaimofeducationisnotregurgitationorthepropagation

of systems of mechanization “from above,” dropped from the sky. To the contrary,

educationdrawsout “fromwithin” the standardsof autonomyandagency in thehuman

subject.Andbecauseofthisliberty,thenanindividualcanseekthecivillibertiesofothers.

Socialuplift,forDuBois,istetheredtopersonalfreedom.Orsaidanotherway,with

the history of bondage in full view, subjugation of thought can by nomeans replace the

subjugation of slavery. Mental captivity cannot be substituted for physical bondage.

151ImmanuelKant,“Ananswertothequestion:Whatisenlightenment,”(1784)inPracticalPhilosophy,trans.anded.MaryJ.Gregor(NewYork:CambridgeUniversityPress,1996),11-22.

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Emancipationisnotonlyachangeinlegalstatus,butwalkshandinhandwiththecapacity

tomakedecisionsforoneself.Thesocial-politicaldesignationisintimatelyinterwovenwith

what plays out on the individual level. Thus, Du Bois vehemently rejected “Men [who]

openlydeclaretheirdesigntotrainthesemillions[Negroes]asasubjectcaste,asmentobe

thoughtfor,butnottothink;tobeled,butnottoleadthemselves.”152

But toanalyzeeducationonlynegatively inhibitsviewing its full scope.While it is

truethateducationisnotindoctrinationorsolely“emancipationfrommentalslavery”(Bob

Marley),onemustalsonotethateducationforDuBoisinvokeshumanpotentiality.Indeed

werecallShaw’sexplicationofsoulasspiritinpotentia.Toeffectuateblackdevelopment,

DuBoisbelievedthateducationmustbeallowedtoexpandthelimitsofhumanreason.He

writes:

TheNegroProblem, ithasoftenbeensaid, is largelyaproblemof ignorance—not

simplyofilliteracy,butadeeperignoranceoftheworldanditsways,ofthethought

andexperienceofmen;anignoranceofselfandpossibilitiesofhumansouls. This

canbegottenridofonlybytraining;andprimarilysuchtrainingmusttaketheform

ofthatsortofsocialleadershipwhichwecalleducation.153

Thus, at its core, educationqua enlightenment frees the individual to be andbecome an

agent,mostnotablyanagentofsocialchange.

Theintegrationofleadership,education,andpotentialitycomestoforeinthenotion

ofthe“TalentedTenth.”IntheopeningparagraphoftheessayDuBoiswrites:“TheNegro

race,likeallraces,isgoingtobesavedbyitsexceptionalmen…Nowthetrainingofmenisa

difficultandintricatetask.Itstechniqueisamatterforeducationalexperts,butitsobjectis

152DuBois,“TheTrainingofNegroesforSocialPower”(1903),TheOxfordW.E.B.DuBoisReader,ed.EricJ.Sundquist(NewYork:OxfordUniversityPress,1996),355.

153Ibid.

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for the vision of seers.” 154 The educated elite of black people is burdened with a

responsibility for the masses, particularly for the “Submerged Tenth.” According to this

formulation,thepyramid’spinnaclestandsnotatthetop,butratheratthebase.Through

theworkofanarrowfew,thefutureisopenedupwidely.Thosewithvision,“forethought,”

and“secondsight”callintothepresentananticipatedhope.

ForDuBois,leadershipthatinhibitsfreethoughtandself-making—ifitcanevenbe

called that—is anathema.His literary attacks onBookerWashington andMarcusGarvey

modelhiseschewalofdemagoguery.In“OnBookerT.WashingtonandOthers”fromSouls,

DuBoisnotesthatWashington’seffortswerechallengedbyinteralia“thedisappointment

ofdisplaceddemagoguesandthespiteofnarrowminds.”155Needlesstosay,bytheendof

theessayDuBoisindictsWashingtononsimilargrounds:heattacksWashington’smyopia.

The falsehood of Washington’s leadership lodges itself in shifting all responsibility for

advancementtotheNegro,whileexoneratingwhitepeople.

WhenDuBois reflects againonWashington inDuskofDawn, afterhe assureshis

readers that “[a]s I read that statement [his essay on Washington in Souls] now, a

generation later, I am satisfied with it. I see no word that I would change,”156Du Bois

attackedWashington because his leadership kept the Negro intellectual under a veil of

silence. Thesocial leadershipof theTalentedTenthcouldnotbeexercised to the fullest

becauseWashingtonwieldedsomuchpowerinpoliticalmattersandeffectivelysquelched

dissent. There must be freedom within community. Du Bois writes: “I was greatly

154DuBois,“TheTalentedTenth”(1903)inTheFutureoftheRace,133.155DuBois,Souls,23.156DuBois,DuskofDawn,41.

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disturbed at this time, not because I was in absolute opposition to the things that Mr.

Washingtonwas advocating, but because Iwas strongly in favor ofmore open agitation

againstwrongs and above all I resented the practical buying up of theNegro press and

chokingoffofevenmildandreasonableopposition toMr.Washington inboth theNegro

pressandthewhite.”157

Wilmore’s Black Radicalism and Black Religion gives Du Bois’s invocation of

spirit/ualreceivesan“overplusofmeaning.”158AlthoughitisevidentthatbothWilmore’s

and Hopkins’s assumptions about Du Bois may be overstated, we must observe the

underlying genius of this towering intellectual. First, the breadth of Du Bois’s position

catalyzesavarietyofinterpretations.Whilenotallareequallyplausible,stillhisworksare

highly generative. And second, the creativity of black theologians cannot be overlooked.

There is significant theological imagination underway in black theology, which moves

beyond description into a constructive theo-ethics with real life manifestations. The

critiquesofblacktheologybyAfrican-Americanreligioushistoriansnotwithstanding,black

theologyopensnewacademicterrainpreviouslyforeclosedtopeopleofcolor.

Indeedthe interpretativeworkthat first-andsecond-generationblacktheologians

completevis-à-visDuBoisinitiatesaconversationthatnowcanbefurtheradvanced.Given

whatwepresentlyknowaboutDuBois,inviewofthecriticalworkofBlum,Kahn,Johnson,

Shaw,andAppiah,spirit-talkhassignificantimportalthoughnotinatraditionalorthodox

sense.ThisperspectivefundstheconstructivetheologicalworkonDuBoisianhope,which

constitutesthischapter’sfinalsection,towhichwenowturn.

157Ibid39.

158RudolfOtto,TheIdeaoftheHoly,1923,trans.JohnHarvey(NewYork:OxfordUniversityPress,1958),5-7.

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2.7. Onthe“UnhopefulHope”oftheSorrowSongs

DuBoisinterpretedblackspiritualityastheheartofAmericanreligion.Interestingly

though, forDuBois, the“sorrowsongs”breathedspirit intothestatic formalismofwhite

Christianity. For Du Bois, these verses are sophisticated speech regarding the black

struggle against slavery and death. To be sure, it wasnot joyful revivalmusic—with its

ecstatic fitsofpassion—that enlivenedAmerican religion.Rather,melancholicmourning,

birthed in the crucibleof chattel slavery andexpressedas elegies, resuscitated religion’s

corpse.Thespirit coursing through the religionofblack folk is that “doggedstrength” to

endureandsurvivethedevastationofslavery.ForDuBois,thesorrowsongsparadoxically

providedhope.

Theprominenceofdeath inDuBois finds itsperson inhisessay inSouls,“On the

PassingoftheFirst-Born.”Comparatively, it isabrief,butbrave, intimateaccount(which

Lewis laments borders on “bathos”159) of the lived consequences of slavery’s legacy:

segregation and gross inequity. Du Bois and hiswife, Nina, lose their son, Burghardt, to

nasopharyngeal diphtheria, which goes untreated adequately due to the lack of black

physiciansinAtlanta,wherehewasteachingin1899.DuBoiswrites:

WithintheVeilwasheborn,saidI;andtherewithinshallhelive,—andNegroanda

Negro’s son. Holding in that little head—ah, bitterly!—the unbowed pride of a

hunted race, clinging with that tiny dimpled hand—ah, wearily!—to a hope not

hopelessbutunhopeful,andseeingwiththosebrightwonderingeyesthatpeerinto

mysoulalandwhosefreedomistousamockeryandwhoselibertyalie.160

PremisedonDuBois’sinsights,themessagethatbothhauntsandin-spiresustoday:Inthe

faceof continueddevastationofblackbodies, never losehope; imagineanotherpossible

159Lewis,W.E.B.DuBois:BiographyofaRace,227.160DuBois,Souls,100.

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world in the midst of life’s ambiguity; and keep creating this world through relentless

work.

ClingingtoHope

Expressing sorrow represented more than capitulation to slavery’s destructive

legacy,more thanweak resignation to theway thingswere. Far frommerelybemoaning

circumstancesbeyond their control inpalliative fashion, sorrowsongswere renderedby

vocalists—thosewhoclaimedtheirvoicetoofferwillfulcritiqueoftheoppressiveinjustice

theyendured.Singingthesorrowsongsconstitutedanactofagency,tacticalthoughitwas.

For Du Bois, the sobering solemnity of the spirituals is the point of departure for his

philosophy of progress. Yes, the spirituals cry out from the death-dealing devastation of

slavery.When,thereissomuchhopetobelost,DuBoiscriesout:clingtohope,evenwhen

itseemsthatallislost.

This intimate meditation draws parallel between the “Shadow of Death” and the

“VeilofColor,”bothofwhichclaim innocentvictims.DuBoisdoesnot succumb tobleak

resignation,however,despitetheheart-wrenchingpersonallossperpetuallyenvelopedin

seaofcommunalheartbreak.Thelyricalepitaph—theunnamedspiritualassorrowsong—

utters, “I hopemymotherwill be there in that beautifulworld onhigh.”161Although the

spiritualspeaksofmeetingsister,brother,andSaviour,DuBoishadhissoninmind.The

essay ends, “Sleep, then, child,—sleep till I sleep and waken to a baby voice and the

161Ibid.,99.

107

ceaselesspatteroflittlefeet—abovetheVeil.”162Theagonyofpersonalloss,predicatedon

socialconditions,isdampenedbyavisionofveil-lessness.

Thiseschatologicalhopedoesnotsignal simpleotherworldly flight,evenwhenhe

writes:“Allthatdayandallthatnighttheresatanawfulgladnessinmyheart,—nay,blame

menotifIseetheworldthusdarklythroughtheVeil,—andmysoulwhispersevertome,

saying, ‘Not dead, not dead, but escaped; not bond, but free.’”163Instead we situate the

declaration within Du Bois’s ‘irreligious’ view of the afterlife, perhaps even within the

Kübler-Rossmodelofgrief,whereacceptanceisnotmereresignation,butpredicatedupon

the process of denial, anger, bargaining, and depression. Lewis notes that the loss of

Burghardt weighs heavily, wreaking a psychological toil on both Du Bois and Nina; it

permanentlyalteredtheirmarriage,likethedeathofchildwoulddotoanycouple.164

In fact, as Lewis also points out, Burghardt’s deathmotivates him towork all the

moretoovercomingtheconditionsthatcauseshisson’sdeath.Theologicallyspeaking,this

isthebestofeschatology:avisionofatimetocomespursconcreteactioninthepresent

age.InNotEverySpiritChristopherMorsehelpfullysummarizes:

The case has beenmade for the refusal of Christian faith to believe that the true

hopeforthelifetocomedoesnotleadtoactiveengagementintheworkoflovehere

andnow.ThatworkmaytakeasmanyformsastherearevariousgiftsoftheHoly

Spirit,andcertainlyincludesacontemplativelifeofprayerandasceticismthatisnot

merely self-absorbedbut concernedwith theworkof love forothers.Further, the

disavowal is implicit in Christian confession of the life to come of any spirit or

spirituality which claims that the true hope of such life rests upon a capacity to

transcendthebody.Thisisreiteratedintherecognitionthatanyresurrectionfrom

the dead as either the disembodiment of human life, or its isolation from the

162Ibid.,102.

163Ibid.

164Lewis,W.E.B.DuBois:BiographyofaRace,227-228.

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community of a world, is not credited as trustworthy or given credence in the

testimonyofChristianfaith.165

Hope is about real world work. Looking beyond death, in view of the corpse, does not

promote a turn away from, but rather turn toward life. Death transforms life. It is an

autopsythatallowsthecollectivebodytobeseen.Inchaptersfourandfive,Iwillreturnto

thethematicofembodimentasameansofsocialprogress.

At this point, however, I want to note that there is an air of paternalism in the

account—motherbecomesmanicwhilethefathergirdshisloinstocarryon—thatharkens

to Du Bois’s view of emotion(al religion). Lewis writes, “The fact that he presided over

thesedeliberations[“TheNegroinBusiness”AtlantaConference]sixdaysafterburyinghis

soninGreatBarrington’sMahaiweCemetery,whileawreckedNinaremainedbehindinthe

Berkshires,testifiestotheironself-controlandintellectualpurposetypicalofDuBois.”166

Whilehislabormighthavebeenhiscopingmechanismtotheirsharedguiltthatmorewas

not done to save Burghardt, the gendered nature of the account cannot be lost upon a

contemporary audience, continuing to shape the intersectional, pneumatological

construction.

AnotherWorldisPossible

Du Bois’s interpretation of the African-American lyrical response to slavery is as

nuanced as his research on the development of the slave trade itself. Embeddedwithin

both these arguments is the irony that things are not always as they appear to be. And

165ChristopherMorse,NotEverySpirit:ADogmaticsofChristianDisbelief(Harrisburg:TrinityInternationalPress,1994),344.

166Lewis,W.E.B.DuBois:BiographyofaRace,228.

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further, thingsdonotneedtoremainas theyare. “Rather thanwritingastraightforward

history of the suppression of the slave trade, Du Bois underscores a paradox: the slave

trade flourished under the guise of its suppression,”167writes Saidiya Hartman in her

introductiontothe2007Oxfordreprintofthetext.Itisinthisveinthatwemustexamine

DuBois’scomplexunderstandingofthespirituals(andsoonHurston’salternativeview).

Despite themagnanimity of the abolitionist efforts against slavery,which tend to

control thehistoricalnarrativeof theantebellumperiod,DuBoisunearthsamuchmore

complicated and truthful reality. Moral suasion alone did not topple the mounds of

proslaverymaterialistconsiderations.While,inretrospect,wewanttothinkofourselvesas

anationbetterthanwewere,DuBoisdemonstratesthatwhileabolitionistrhetoricgrew,

so did the trade and the institution of slavery itself. Du Bois concludes his dissertation:

“Eventhen,afteralongandearnestcrusade,thenationalsenseofrightdidnotrisetothe

entire abolition of slavery. It was only a peculiar and almost fortuitous commingling of

moral, political, and economic motives that eventually crushed African slavery and its

handmaid,theslave-tradeinAmerica.”168

DuBois’sdoctoraldissertation(whichispublishedin1896asthefirstvolumeinthe

Harvard Historical Studies series) offers significant insight into the infamy of Souls. It

providesfurthertexturetotherolethatdialecticsplaysinhisoeuvre.“ButSouls, likeThe

SuppressionoftheAfricanSlaveTrade,underminesexceptionalistandprogressiveversions

of American history.”169Although written with much different audiences in mind, and

167SaidiyaHartman,“TheDeadLetteroftheLaw,”IntroductiontoTheSuppressionoftheAfricanSlave-TradeinTheOxfordW.E.B.DuBois,ed.HenryLouisGates,Jr.(NewYork:OxfordUniversityPress,2007),xxvii.168DuBois,Suppression,135.169Zamir,DarkVoices,115.

110

utilizing disparate methodologies, we observe a unity of intent and a commingling of

perspectives among theseworks. In otherwords, although the genresdiverge,DuBois’s

chiefconcernforblackadvancementremainsasparamountinSoulsasitdidinSuppression.

Andasaresult,thisoverarchingintentshedslightonparallelsbetweenthetexts.

Atthesametime,however,ShamoonZamirdemonstratesthattheinterweavingof

modalitiesmakesDuBois’srenderingevenlessstraightforwardandmoreparadoxicalthan

itotherwisewouldbe.NotonlydoesDuBois show that thehistory ismorecomplicated

thatitmayseematfirst,buthisanalysisitselfaddsanotherlayerofcomplexity.Zamirsets

forth:

BothTheSuppressionoftheAfricanSlaveTradeandThePhiladelphiaNegroadhereclosely to the empirical realism of [Gustav von] Schmoller’s idea of the social

sciencesandofthemethodologicalemphasisDuBoishadencounteredtroughHart

andothersatHarvardaswellasbyfollowingcontemporarysociologicaldebatesin

America….Onthewhole, then,bothTheSuppressionoftheAfricanSlaveTradeandThePhiladelphiaNegro are containedwithin the positivist house practices of DuBois’s training.But theproblemwas that thismethod serving the causeof social

ameliorationandprogresscouldbedependentuponanappealtopseudo-objective

reason at a time when America was virulently racist. Du Bois turns to a more

positivistapproachasameansofanalyzingandimprovingAfrican-Americanlifeat

atimewhenthismethodisbeingusedinAmericansocialsciencelargelyinsupport

of a legitimation of progressive and exceptionalist accounts of American social

process,aswellasindefenseofracistapologetics.170

If Souls, like Suppression, undermines progressive, exceptionalist readings of American

history, then its sorrow songs also possess an intricatemultivalence. The sorrow songs,

too, flourished under slavery’s gaze. The nature of this flourishing then reveals a

complicatedrelationshipamongthemajorplayersinthedrama.Still,themournfullament

ofthesorrowsongcapturedthecatastrophiclegacyofslavery,groundinghoperesolutely

in tragedy. Those fromwithin the Veil used their gift of “second sight” to rehabilitate a

nationbynamingtheexistentialpaininlyricalverse.

170Ibid.,81,82.

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Herein lies the brilliance of the sorrow songs: they are cultural countermeasures

thatspringupfrom“sociallydeadpeople.”171Eveninthefaceofacuteloss,thereisstilla

senseofpossibilitythatcannotfullybeextinguished.Withthesecondsight,itanewvision

isseen:anotherworld ispossible.Assuch, thesorrowsongs invokeaspiritsignifyinglife

afterdeath.Again, it isnotanotherworldlyafterlife,butanearthly,communal lifethat is

resurrectedfromsocialdeath.Thisresurrectiondoesnotjusthappen:itishardfought.In

fact,itislifeforgedoutofdeepambiguity,apointthatTillich’spneumatologyunderscores

and will be considered in chapter five, alongside the discussion of Thurman’s mystical

spirit.

DuBois’sbrilliantessaysituatesthe“hopenothopelessbutunhopeful”withinover

adozenphrasesofpotential thatdeploy theprefix “un.”Thispossibility,however, isnot

unidirectional:the“unbowedprideofahuntedrace”contraststhe“unmotheredwretched

of the race”; Burghardt’s “unspoken wisdom of life” resists his “ideals unattainable”;

Burghardt’stranscendentandinnocent“unworldlylook”superintendsDuBois’s“unvoiced

terrorofmylife.”172ThehopetowhichBurghardt’s“tinydimpledhand”clingsisnotready-

to-hand;itrequireschoice.The“preferentialoption”ofLatinAmericanliberationtheology

andthe“Godwhotakessides”ofblackliberationtheologycomestomind.173

171OrlandoPatterson,inhislandmarkcomparativestudySlaveryandtheSocialDeath:AComparativeStudy(Cambridge:HarvardUniversityPress,1982),elaboratestheparadoxicallifeofdeath.Hesetsoutto

demonstrate,“Thejointriseofslaveryandcultivationoffreedomwasnoaccident.Itwas…asociohistorical

necessity”(ix).Despitethecommonmoniker,Pattersonassertsthatthereisverylittlepeculiarabouttheso-

called“peculiarinstitution.”Themutualunfoldingofconceptionsoflibertyandoppressionthroughoutboth

timeandspaceareinextricablylinkedtooneanother.Thatis,ashumanbeingswehaveconceptualized

radicalfreedomonlythroughthedenialofhumanityvis-à-visenslavement,whichhasbeena“substitutefor

death,usuallyviolentdeath”thusdefiningthe“slave,howeverrecruited,asasociallydeadperson”(5).

172DuBois,Souls,100-102.173GustavoGutiérrez,ATheologyofLiberation:History,Politics,andSalvation,1973,trans.SisterCaridadIndaandJohnEagleston(Maryknoll:OrbisBooks,1988),xx-xxviii.

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Inthisessaywefindapoignantvisionthatstandsagainstthenotoriousassessment

ofthecolor-lineproblemthatcommencesSouls.DuBoisrecalls:

Heknewnocolor-line,poordear,—andtheVeil, though it shadowedhim,hadnot

yetdarkenedhalfhissun.Helovedthewhitematron,helovedhisblacknurse;and

inhislittleworldwalkedsolsalone,uncoloredandunclothed.I—yea,allmen—are

largerandpurerbytheinfinitebreathofthatonelittlelife.174

DuBoisimaginesa“trans-racial”world,whichisnotpost-racial,in-spiredbythebreathof

the next generation. Even in death, Burghardt’s breath resuscitates Du Bois: “I long for

work.Ipantforalifefullofstriving.”175

DuBoisdirectly connects, through theworkof social uplift, spiritqua breath and

striving,the“spiritualstriving”aboutwhichhewritesinanotherSoulsessay.Similartohis

essay “Of theMeaning of Progress,” this essay could aptly be named “Of theMeaning of

Hope.”DuBoisfindshopeinworkingtoovercomethenearinescapableracism,whicheven

greetsNinaandDuBoiswithcallson“Niggers!”duringthefuneralmarchonan“unknown

street”onthat“ghostlyunrealday,—thewraith[phantomspirit]ofLife.”176

Breath, spirit, white supremacy, and striving collide in this scene as an

“autobiography of a race concept.”177The particular tragedy of Burghardt’s death from

nasopharyngeal diphtheria—an acute, infectious disease that compromises the upper

respiratory tract—ironically serves asmetaphor for the asphyxiation of the social death

fromslaveryandsegregation.178

174DuBois,Souls,101.175Ibid.

176Ibid.

177ThisphrasesubtitlesDuBois’sthirdpersonalnarrative,DuskofDawn.Soulsisthefirst,Darkwaterthesecond,andthefourthisthemostplainlytitled,posthumousTheAutobiographyofW.E.B.DuBois.

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TheNewCreation:WeMustBeBornAgain

ThissuffocationreversesthecreativebreathofGod(ruach)thathoversabovethe

watersinbiblicalwitnessofGenesis.Still,indialecticalfashionDuBoisholdsoutbirthqua

creationasaformofpossibility.Ontheonehand,deathandontheotherlife,whichserves

asaninvitation—achallenge:wemustkeepcreatinginthefaceofdeath.TheApostlePaul’s

resurrectionquestion,“Where,ODeathisyourvictory?Where,ODeath,isyoursting?”(1

Corinthians 15:55) is answered byDuBois in no uncertain terms: thoughdeathmay be

swallowedup in victory as the scripture testifies, the bite of death ismost certainly felt.

EvenwhenDuBoisattemptstomakemeaning—“Betterfarthisnamelessvoidthatstops

mylifethanaseaofsorrowforyou”179—hispainiswoefullyfelt:DuBoiscannotbearto

utterhisson’snamethroughouttheentireessay.

Yet, theessayopens, “‘Untoyoua child isborn,’ sang thebit of yellowpaper that

flutteredintomyroomonebrownOctobermorning.Thenthefearoffatherhoodmingled

wildlywiththejobofcreation.”180DuBoisgoesontoutilizeotherreligiousmetaphorsof

“glory” and “transfiguration,” casting the birth of his son as a quasi-messianic rebirth.

IndeedtheTransfigurationofJesusonamountain,recordedinMatthew17:1–8,Mark9:2–

8,Luke9:28–36,isadivineactofglory.181DuBoiswrites:

I toomusedabovehis littlewhitebed;sawthestrengthofmyownarmstretched

178Lewisexplainsfurther:“Broodingabouthiscareer,thebutcheringofSamHose,andtheimpotenceof

socialsciencetoimprovesociety,DuBoiswassuddenlystruckbroadsidebyagreatpersonaltragedy.The

deathofBurghardtwasanagonyofsuchdevastationthathewouldsoontrytorecastitineschatological

terms”(226-7).

179Ibid.,102.

180Ibid.,99.

181SeeMayraRivera,“Glory:thefirstpassionoftheology?”inPolydoxy:TheologyofMultiplicityandRelation,ed.CatherineKellerandLaurelC.Schneider(NewYork:Routledge,2011),167-185.

114

onwardthroughtheages throughthenewerstrengthofhis;sawthedreamofmy

blackfatherstaggerasteponwardinthewildphantasmoftheworld;heardinhis

babyvoicethevoiceoftheProphetthatwastorisewithintheVeil.182

Inthechildren,DuBois findshopeforabetter futurefortherace.Offspringarenotonly

immortalitybutalsotranscendence—progenyisprophecy.

Birthquacreationistheongoingprocessofcommunalresurrection.DuBoisutilizes

biological birth as a conduit of embodied, spiritual progress. Being “born again” and the

new creation, therefore, is not spiritualized but rather tethered resolutely in the

devastating,butnotdebilitating,realityofAfrican-Americanlife,pleadingAssataShakur’s

#BlackLivesMatter.ButlikeBurghardt,weclingtoa“hopenothopelessbutunhopeful”in

pursuitoflifebeyonddeath,premisedonthepainofdeathexperiencedbutyetstillgiving

waytospirit,thelifeafterdeath.

182DuBois,Souls,100.

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Chapter3. SanctifyingSpirit:ZoraNealeHurston,ReligiousDeviancy,andthePoliticsofBlackDisrespectability

“Ifyouaresilentaboutyourpain,they’llkillyouandsayyouenjoyedit.”

–ZoraNealeHurston

AndIwillbecomeevenmoreundignifiedthanthis.–2Samuel6:22

TheculturalheritageoftheAfrican-Americanis“sometimessorrowful,sometimesjubilant,butalwayshopeful.”–AlvinAiley

The conventional narrative of African-American leadership in the post-

Reconstruction era pivots the political assertiveness of Du Bois’s Niagara Movement

against theeconomicaccommodationalismofBookerT.Washington’sTuskegeeMachine.

Althoughinreality,Washingtonlargelycontrolledtheapparatusofblackupliftduringhis

day, over time Du Bois’s idea(l)s have dominated discourses concerning blackness. His

political philosophy and lived theories of propaganda prevail as the defining voice of

African-American culture, outshining Washington’s practical politics. However one

interpretsthem,DuBois’swritingsareundisputableclassicsinblackstudiesandAmerican

historywritlarge.

Inmanyways,hisarchetypalconceptsofdoubleconsciousness,thetalentedtenth,

andtwonesscontinuetoshapepresent-daytheorizingofblackidentityandsocialprogress,

andinsodoing,carryforwardarobustlegacyofrespectability.ForDuBois,andmanyof

hiscontemporarieslikeAlainLocke,CharlesS.Johnson,andHubertHarrison,blackuplift

was predicated upon becoming ‘brand new’: Progresswas gained by achieving distance

frombackward,proletariancultureandinturnadoptingamoreadvancedbourgeois“New

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Negro” sensibility. This progress depended, in large and small part, upon adherence to

Europeannormsgoverningeverythingfrompublicbehaviortointerpersonalmannerisms.1

This distancing, however, was never absolute. The nature of the relationship

between the new and old Negro inevitably varied in degrees. The spirituals, which

represented formanythereligiousessenceofblackChristianity,wereoftendoctoredup,

“concertized,” and arranged for white audiences, ripping out rhythms and polishing

vernacular.2Althoughthespiritualswerea“gift”accordingtoDuBoisandLocke,3theyhad

to be ‘enhanced.’ Nevertheless, they still possessed some of their defining “southern”

features,whichwereoftenexperiencedasexoticundera(white)normativegaze.TheNew

Negrosensibilitywritlargeinescapablybroughtwithiteventheslightestbitofitsmuse.

Tobesure,theNewNegromovementwasmorediscursivethanitwasdescriptive.

Locke’sTheNewNegrowas a normative project attempting to shape the future of black

America.Althoughthemovementwasrepresentativeof theHarlemRenaissance,andthe

renaissanceofAfrican-Americanprogress, theblackcommunitywas far frommonolithic.

Forexample,therewerethoseof“theyoungergeneration,”towhomLocke’santhologyis

dedicated,whoresistedthisapproachtosomedegree:EricWalrond,JeanToomer,Countee

Cullen, Richard Bruce Nugent, along with Zora Hurston, Wallace Thurman, Langston

Hughes.InsomesensethesedissidentshadonefootintheNewNegromovement,whileat

thesametimecriticizingitforitsshortcomings.

1HenryLouisGates,Jr.andCornelWest,TheFutureoftheRace(NewYork:VintageBooks,1996);HazelV.Carby,RaceMen(Cambridge:HarvardUniversityPress,1998).2LawrenceLevine,BlackCultureandBlackConsciousness:Afro-AmericanFolkThoughtfromSlaverytoFreedom(NewYork:OxfordUniversityPress,1977),17-55,150-170.3AlainLocke,“TheNegroSpirituals”inTheNewNegro:VoicesoftheHarlemRenaissance,ed.AlainLocke1922(NewYork:Simon&Schuster,1992),199-213.

117

In this chapter I pose a set of basic questions:What if the point of departure for

theorizing blackness is not DuBoisian respectability? What fissures are created in the

orthodox rendering of African-American identity if the critique of black respectability is

centeredasthepointofdepartureforimaginingblackness?Whathappensifwebeginnot

with Du Bois (an ardent propagandist), but rather with Zora Neale Hurston, self-

proclaimed “Queen of the Niggerati” (whose complicated politics at times rendered her

apoliticalorpoliticallyconservative)?Whatwoulditlookliketoadvanceblackprogressby

privileging deviancy, not conformity—substituting the rational spirit of Du Bois’s

respectablereligionforthecharismaticspiritofHurston’ssanctifiedchurch?

“AGeniusoftheSouth,”Hurstonwritesacounter-discoursetotheDuBoisianlogic

of resistance.4She offers an alternative vision that diverges from Du Bois’s positivist

approachtoblackprogress that,whileunderminingwhitesupremacy,still inmanyways

mimicswhiteness by foregrounding respectability.Hurston, on the other hand, imagines

raceoutsideoftheprevailingconventionsofherday.Fromanearlyagesheplayswiththe

racialized gender expectations that she inherited. Hurston resists the performance that

merelyreinscribesandredeployswhatalreadyisatplay.5

4AliceWalkerwritesin“ZoraNealeHurston:ACautionaryTaleandaPartisanView”:“ForwhatZora’sbook

[MulesandMen]didwasthis:itgavethembackallthestoriestheyhadforgottenorofwhichtheyhadgrownashamed…andshowedhowmarvelous,andindeed,priceless,theyare…Thiswasmyfirstindicationofthe

qualityIfeelismostcharacteristicofZora’swork:racialhealth;asenseofblackpeopleascomplete,complex,

undiminishedhumanbeings,asensethatislackinginsomuchblackwritingandliterature.(Inmyopinion,onlyDuBoisshowedanequallyconsistentdelightinthebeautyandspiritofblackpeople,whichis

interestingwhenoneconsidersthattheangleofhisvisionwascompletelyoppositeofZora’s.)”InSearchofOurMother’sGardens:WomanistProse(Orlando:Harcourt,1983),84-85.5SeeEvelynBrooksHigginbotham’s“African-AmericanWomen’sHistoryandtheMetalanguageofRace,”

Signs:JournalofWomeninCultureandSociety1992(17:2),251-274andLaurelC.Schneider’s“WhatRaceisYourSex?”inQueerReligion,Volume2:LGBTMovementsandQueeringReligion,ed.DonaldL.BoisvertandJayEmersonJohnson(SantaBarbara:Praeger,2012),125-141.

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Instead, Hurston literally rewrites the narrative, all the while defining anew the

meaning of the so-called classic. 6 Particularly, I am interested in the constructive

implicationsofhercourage towriteblack folk intosacredstories, as sherewrites sacred

texts themselves. In Moses, Man of the Mountain, for example, Hurston manipulates a

familiar biblical narrative in order to usher in a new form of exodus. Fascinatingly, she

accomplishesthisfeatbyturningtoquotidian,andoftenscorned,folkaccountstospeakof

spiritualthings.“Inanerawhenmanyeducatedandculturedblackspridedthemselveson

removingalltracesoftheirruralblackorigins,whenahigh-class‘Negro’virtuewasnotto

‘actone’scolor,’Zoranotonlycelebratedthedistinctivenessofblackculture,butsawthose

traditional black folkways as marked improvements over the ‘imaginative wasteland of

whitesociety.’”7

Spirit inDuBoispoints towardadiscontentedhopemademanifest inarelentless

leadershipthatstrives for full integrationofblackpeople,andthusutilizesrespectability

politicsasameanstowardthisend.InHurston’swritings,spiritsuggestsanon-conforming

courage that, while resiliently pressing toward a better tomorrow, still rejoices in the

present moment. The focus of this chapter, then, is the spirit of non-conformity: the

religious politics of disrespectability and the courage to affirm everyday black life. Iwill

examineHurston’s interpretationsofthespirituals, inlightofDuBois’s, inordertomake

thiscase.

6IappreciateDavidClairmont’s“PersonsasReligiousClassics:ComparativeEthicsandtheTheologyof

BridgeConcepts”andhisargumentthatbridgeconceptsdonotoftenadequatelyattendtothevarianceand

struggleofreligioustraditions,people,andtheirideas.Themovement,notjustacrosscultures,butalsocross

disciplinesandschemaalertsustotherealitythatsomethingwillbe“lostintranslation.”Inourcase,the

bridgeconceptof“courage.”JournaloftheAmericanAcademyofReligion78:3(2010),687-720.7MaryHelenWashington,“ZoraNealeHurston:AWomanHalfinShadow”inILoveMyselfWhenIAmLaughing…AndThenAgainWhenIAmLookingMeanandImpressive,ed.AliceWalker(NewYork:TheFeministPress,1979),15(quotingHemenway’sZoraNealeHurston:ALiteraryBiography,162).

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3.1. TearsofJoyandSongsofUnsorrowfulVerse

IfDuBoisinterpretedthesorrowsongsasinvokingaspiritsignifyinglifeafterdeath,

thenHurston views the spiritualsas life in spiteofdeath. African-American spirituals are

reducible neither to lament normelody. In Hurston’s view, the spirituals should not be

understoodsimplyasverseproducedofslavery, representing the traumaandanguishof

the (not so) peculiar institution. To render the spiritual synonymous with song short-

circuits its brea(d)th. And, further, exchanging sorrow for spirit—however tethered to

resistive agency—constricts and diminishes its orientation to vitality. At stake in the

spirituals,then,isnotmeresurvival.Theyshouldnotbeviewedassolelyasresponsestoa

particularmomentintime.Rather,spiritualsareanongoingactofcreation.

Inheressay“SpiritualsandNeo-Spirituals”inTheSanctifiedChurch,Hurstonblasts:

Therealspiritualsarenotreallyjustsongs.Theyareunceasingvariationsarounda

theme. Contrary to popular belief their creation is not confined to the slavery

period. Like the folk-tales, the spirituals are being made and forgotten every

day….The idea that thewhole body of spirituals are “sorrow songs” is ridiculous.

They cover a wide range of subjects from a peeve at gossipers to Death and

Judgment.Thenearest thing toadescriptiononecan reach is that theyareNegro

religioussongs,sungbyagroup,andagroupbentonexpressionoffeelingsandnot

soundeffects.8

Spirituals defy easy definition, according to Hurston. And she argues that the prevailing

mannerinwhichtheyhavebeendepicted(byDuBois)constrainstheirfullscope.Hurston

contendsthatspiritualsaremorethan(1)theyappear;(2)sorrowful;and(3)apastime.If

8ZoraNealeHurston,TheSanctifiedChurch:TheFolkloreWritingofZoraNealeHurston(Berkeley:TurtleIslandFoundation,1981),79-80.

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categorization ispossible,thenspiritualsbelongtoclassesthatresistairtightdescription:

folkloreandreligion.9

Hurston’sdrawingtogetheroffolktalesandspiritualsdisclosesapathway,attentive

tobothcontentandmethod, throughwhichwemightdeepenourconsiderationofspirit.

First,inherdiscussionofthespirituals,Hurstonattendsnottotheologicalorphilosophical

abstractions,butrathertotheeverydaystuffofhumanexistence.Spiritisnotephemeral:it

islikeadove,fire,wind.

Following this approach, I turnmygaze towardoneof life’smost basic elements,

withoutwhichthereisnolife:water.10By“wadinginthewater,”asthespiritualgoes,we

will learn somethingabout the ruachthathovers above the faceof thedeepbecausewe

havefocusedattentiononthiscommonelement.UsingMoses,ManoftheMountainandher

consideration of the mythic icon of black liberation who parts the Red Sea, I consider

Hurston’sliteraryanthropologyofthequotidianreligiousexpressionsofblackfolk.Ronald

Thiemann’smeditationonthe“humblesublime”willhelpframethediscussion.Following

womanistsKatieCannonandEmilieTownes,andtheirattentiontoeverydayexperiences,

theorientationofsuchinquiryisdecidedlyethical.

Cannon’sattentiontodisclosureof“unshoutedcourage” inHurston’sworks,vis-à-

visPaulTillich’s“couragetobe,”leadsustothesecondpneumatologicalpathway:Hurston

9Regardingreligion,theemergenceoftheacademicdiscipline“TheStudyofReligion”revealsthefoiblesof

circumscribingthefield,whichconstitutessomewhatofadisciplinaryidentitycrisis.Seeforexample,W.C.

Smith,TheMeaningandEndofReligion,1962(Minneapolis:FortressPress,1991);TalalAsad,GenealogiesofReligion:DisciplineandReasonsofPowerinChristianityandIslam(Baltimore:JohnsHopkinsUniversityPress,1993);JonathanZ.Smith,RelatingReligion:EssaysintheStudyofReligion(Chicago:UniversityofChicagoPress,2004);AnnTaves,ReligiousExperienceReconsidered:ABuilding-BlockApproachtotheStudyofReligionandOtherSpecialThings(Princeton:PrincetonUniversityPress,2009).10SeeVictorHarding,ThereIsaRiver:TheBlackStruggleforFreedominAmerica(Orlando:Harcourt,1981).ManningMarable,Blackwater:HistoricalStudiesinRace,ClassConsciousness,andRevolution,1981(Niwot:UniversityofColoradoPress,1993).

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offersusatacticalapproach—correlation—thatdrawstogethertwothingsandinsodoing

discloses characteristics of each other. The method of correlation, central to Tillich’s

systematic theology, will help advance the dissertation’s constructive view of spirit-as-

unspoken resilience. Here, we will continue the pneumatological exploration of human

creativity,ofsoulas“spiritinpotentia,”beguninchaptertwo.

Inotherwords,wegatherdataaboutthespiritualswhenweexaminefolklore,and

indiscussionoffolktaleswelearnsomethingaboutspirituals.Andthroughtheanalysisof

spirituals, we might approach spirit, however asymptotically. Because of Hurston’s

assertionof falseattribution—“therealspiritualsarereallynot justsongs”—this indirect

inquiry allows us to approach “truth from a slant,” to borrowParker Palmer’s phrase.11

Thisvianegativa illuminates—or, inHurston’s language, “drenches in light”—the subject

mattermorethanadirectstylecould.12

Sincewearesousedtotalkingaboutthesematters,wemaybecomeblindtowhatis

standingrightbeforeus—“hiddeninplainsight.”ItispreciselyforthisreasonthatIchoose

to approach spirit theologically from a slant. By conversingwith literary, historical, and

philosophicalsourcesthatarenotovertly‘religious’(i.e.,confessional,catechismal)texts,it

becomesmorepossible to seewhat otherwisewould remainburied. In the absenceof a

Christian theologyofspirit,deeplygrounded inAfrican-Americanreligiousexperiences, I

interveneinthevoidnotbyapproachingithead-on.Instead,wemovegingerly,cautiously.

Oneoughttobeattentiveinmindingthegap,respectingthatitisnotsimplyemptyspace.

11ParkerJ.Palmer,AHiddenWholeness:TheJourneyTowardAnUndividedLife;WelcomingtheSoulandWeavingCommunityinaWoundedWorld(SanFrancisco:Jossey-Bass,2004).12ZoraNealeHurston,“DrenchedinLight”inZoraNealeHurston:NovelsandStories,ed.CherylA.Wall(NewYork:LiteraryClassics,1995),940-948.

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Rather it has been hallowed/hollowed out with serious methodological concerns for

“testing” and not binding the spirits.13Consideration of these texts, which I refer to

collectively as black cultural discourse, perhaps will promote better attunement to the

pneumatological‘place’thattenderlycallsourattention.

3.2. BehindtheVeil

Palmer,inAHiddenWholeness:TheJourneyTowardanUndividedLife(2004),which

bears a secondary subtitle “welcoming the soul and weaving community in a wounded

world,”explorespathwaystointegratingtheinnerandouterlife.It isachronicleonself-

reconciliation. In Palmer’s view, wholeness achieves visibility when the appropriate

conditions are created to permit the “shy” soul to show up sincerely. The proper

environment is cultivated not through straightforward probing, poking, and prodding.

Instead, the depth of our being is called from its recesses through amore covert, veiled

activity.14Hewrites:

When the space between us is made safe for the soul by truthful speaking and

receptive listening,we are able to speak truth in a particularly powerful form—a

formthatgoesdeeperthanouropinions,ideas,andbeliefs….Storytellinghasalways

beenattheheartofbeinghumanbecauseitservessomeofourbasicneeds:passing

along traditions, confessing failings, healing wounds, engendering hope,

strengtheningoursenseofcommunity.15

Theuseof“thirdthings”likestoriesandpoemsdrawoutintimacythatgetsattheheartof

thematter.

131John4:1.SeealsoChristopherMorse,NotEverySpirit:ADogmaticsofChristianDisbelief(Harrisburg:TrinityInternationalPress,1994).

14Palmer,AHiddenWholeness,89-112.15Ibid.,122.

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Hurston told stories—vivid ones. Long before Hurston became a trained

anthropologisttracingsouthernblackfolklore,shewasastoryteller.Hercapacitytohold

an audience through her tales was legendary. Harlem Renaissance compatriots like

LangstonHughesandArnaBontempsrememberthespecialgiftshepossessedinhosting

parties and entertaining her guests through her stories of Eatonville and “directing

everyoneinthesingingofrousingspirituals.”16Notonlywassheaconveyerofstories,but

also shewas a creator of them.Most famously,Hurston’sTheirEyesWereWatchingGod

becomesaliterarymasterpieceaboutblackidentityandpersonalself-discovery.

InHurston’sworkweobservethechallengeembeddedinbeingbothanartistand

arthistorian.LiterarycriticschideHurstonwhenshetendstoward‘objective’researchand

favors documentation at the expense of creativity.17Her product lacks in-spiration.18But

whenHurstonissubjective,usingherownstorytocreateone,thenhertextscomealive.In

fact, it is precisely this turn to the self, and the embrace of personal experience, that

becomes the foundation of womanism and womanist theology, which we will discuss

below.

Hurston dedicated her life to bringing her southern black inheritance—

characterized by its stories, songs, and tales—to life. “Hurston was not ashamed of her

origins,andshemadenoefforttohidethem…sherefusedtorepudiatethefolkoriginsthat

weresucharichpartofhertotalidentity.Sheabhorredpretense,andshehadnodesireto

16RobertE.Hemenway,ZoraNealeHurston:ALiteraryBiography(Urbana:UniversityofIllinoisPress,1977),44.

17See,forexample,DeborahG.Plant,ZoraNealeHurston:ABiographyoftheSpirit(Lanham:Rowman&LittlefieldPublishers,Inc.,2007),27-54.

18LuceIrigaray,“TheAgeofBreath,”inKeyWritings(London:Continuum,2004),165-185.

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adoptabourgeoisrespectability.”19Ironically,DuBois’splatformforuplift,theredemption

ofsoulsofblackfolk,reliedonthe“talentedfew.”Hurstonsawbeautyinthesoulsofblack

folklore,andcelebratedthecommon,everydaydevoidofelitisttrappings.20

Inher“HowItFeelstoBeColoredMe”,whichispublishedinMay1928ofTheWorld

Tomorrow (edited by Reinhold Niebuhr), Hurston offers a thinly veiled criticism of Du

Bois’s Souls. Although she does not invoke Du Bois by name, it is clear to the informed

“GentleReader” thatDuBois isbeing indicted.Afterofferingabriefaccountofwhenshe

becameawareofherblackness,stating,“IremembertheverydaythatIbecamecolored,”

Hurstonfollows:

ButIamnottragicallycolored.Thereisnogreatsorrowdammedupinmysoul,nor

lurkingbehindmyeyes.Idonotmindatall.Idonotbelongtothesobbingschoolof

Negrohoodwho hold that nature somehow has given them a lowdown dirty deal

andwhose feelingsareallhurtabout it.Even in thehelter-skelterskirmishthat is

my life, I have seen theworld is to the strong regardless of a little pigmentation

moreorless.No,Idonotweepattheworld—Iamtoobusysharpeningmyoyster

knife.21

Hurston’sfeelingofblacknessisneitheroneoflamentnormournfulresignation.Itiscloser

toapathy,anindifferencethatdismissestheharanguingpreoccupyingmanyofherlearned

contemporaries. This indifference, to be clear, is not rooted in the privilege that can

overlooka struggle that isnot one’s own.Asonewhoencounteredhardship throughout

herlife,Hurstonverymuchunderstandshersaschallenginglycombative.Inthatvein,she

19Hemenway,ZoraNealeHurston:ALiteraryBiography,27.20SeeKathleenNorris’sTheQuotidianMysteries:Laundry,Liturgy,and“Women’sWork”(NewYork:PaulistPress,1998)andMarlaFrederick,BetweenSundays:BlackWomenandEverydayStrugglesofFaith(Berkeley:UniversityofCaliforniaPress,2003).

21ZoraNealeHurston,“HowItFeelsToBeColoredMe”inZoraNealeHurston:Folklore,Memoirs,andOtherWritings,ed.CherylA.Wall(NewYork:LiteraryClassics,1995),827.

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makesachoice:griefdistractsfromtheworkofresistance,soHurstondedicateslittletime

toweeping.

ThisapproachstandsinstarkrelieftoDuBois’spositioninSouls.ForHurston,there

isnotdouble,butrathersingular,consciousness.22Spiritualsnot“sorrowsongs”signifying

blackness, and African Americans are not haunted by the specter of slavery, but rather

sustainedbythe“GreatSoul.”Hersisnotanapology,oranexplanatorybriefthatdefends

blacknessagainsttheassaultsofwhiteness.InsteadHurstonseemstochallengeinsatirical

fashiontheverypremiseofraciallogicsaltogether,inkerygmaticfashion.23

Whileacknowledgingherownracialidentity—theessay’sopeninglinebeing,“Iam

coloredbutIoffernothinginthewayofextenuatingcircumstancesexceptthefactthatI

amtheonlyNegrointheUnitedStateswhosegrandfatheronthemother’ssidewasnotan

Indianchief”—Hurstondoesnotpositraceasthegrandorganizingprinciple fromwhich

allthingsemanate.24Shewasnotborncoloredbutratherbecamecolored.25Raceisnota

matter of being, but rather becoming. In today’s rubric, one might say that her racial

identityismoreofasocialconstructionthatsheencounteredinexperiencethanitwasan

ontologicalgiven.

Hurston attributes her upbringing in Eatonville, one of the nation’s first

incorporated“Negrotowns,”asthesourceofheruniqueperspective.Thisplacemattered.

22Ibid.,829.

23PaulTillich,“TheProblemofTheologicalMethod:II,”TheJournalofReligion27:1(January1947),16-26.24EvelynBrooksHigginbotham,“AfricanAmericanWomen’sHistoryandtheMetalanguageofRace,”Signs:JournalofWomeninCultureandSociety17:21(1992),251-274.25Cf.SimonedeBeauvoir,TheSecondSex,1949,trans.ConstanceBordeandSheilaMalovany-Chevallier(NewYork:VintageBooks,2011).Shewrites,“Oneisnotborn,butratherbecomes,awoman”(283).

126

In socially locating herself as a child of Eatonville, Hurston establishes blackness as the

norm, and not a derivative or deviation fromwhiteness. As a result, therewas no such

thingasbeingcolored.Rather,inHurston’sexperience,whitenesswastheresponsetothe

blacknessshealwaysknew,andheldtobetrue.

For Hurston there is no double consciousness, no self-awareness that splits the

unifiedsubjectanddampensthesoul.Hurstondoesnotclaimthedominantnarrativeas

normative—neither that of whiteness nor the prevailing New Negro response to white

supremacy—allowingittobewrittenuponherbody.InsteadHurstoninvokesaspiritthat

doesnotredeemthesoulbecauseitisalreadyfree.Ratheritmagnifiesthesoulputtingit

ondisplayfortheworldtoseeandmarvel.

Tobesure,inmuchofthecommentaryonDuBoisandHurston,soulandspiritoften

are used adjacently and interchangeably. For example, in describing Hurston’s move to

Harlem,Hemenwaywrites, “ShewasnowaNewNegro, apartof the culturalmovement

illustratingthegeniusofblacksouls;herverypresenceexposedsecond-classcitizenshipas

absurdandirrationalpractice.”Andintheverynextsentence,Hemenwaycontinues,“Zora

Hurstonwas an extraordinarilywittywoman, and she acquired an instant reputation in

NewYorkforherhighspiritsandside-splittingtalesofEatonvillelife.”26

Myaimisnottosortoutorclassifyneatlytheprecisemannerinwhichtheseterms

aredeployedbyDuBois,Hurston,andtheircommentators.Iamnotseekingtheso-called

original meaning of the terms for them. Such an attempt does not seem fruitful, not to

mentionpossible,foratleasttworeasons:First,adiscerniblepatterndoesnotemergein

eithertheoriginalworksortheircommentarythatcommendsitselftostrictcategorization.

26Hemenway,ZoraNealeHurston:ALiteraryBiography,22.

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Du Bois and Hurston both seem completely disinterested in providing definitions as a

precursor to deployment. Invoking the power of soul and spirit is not predicated on

articulation—orevenunderstanding.Whichtakesustothesecondreason:bothsouland

spirit point to that which cannot be grasped—at once something subtle and sublime.

Hemenway iscorrect: “TheHarlemRenaissancewasmoreaspirit thanamovement,and

becauseaspiritisephemeral,generalizationsabouttheHarlemRenaissanceareeithertoo

hardortooeasy.”27

My task is constructive: careful exegetical work excavates the terrain around the

textsuchthatmeaningcanbedrawnout,notforthesakeofdis-coveringoriginalintent(or

better, deceivingly re-constructing it), but instead for the sake of creating something

fruitful. For me, soul signifies interiority and intimacy, while spirit exteriority and

community.Stilltherecanbenofalsedichotomybetweensoulandspirit(andbody),asif

theyarenotalwaysintimatelyrelatedtooneanother.“MaytheGodofpeacesanctifyyou

entirely;andmayyourspiritandsoulandbodybekeptsoundandblamelessatthecoming

ofourLordJesusChrist”(1Thessalonians5:23-24).

IreadHurstonandDuBoisina“hermeneuticalcircle”thatcontributestoworking

definitions (like Thurman’s “working paper”) that will then allow us to deploy these

definitions in reading their works forward. In other words, without ascribing my

definitions to them, I conversewith themonmy terms for the sakeof arriving at anew

vista.

27Ibid.,35.

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3.3. ConstructingChoices:TheEverydayEthicalTaskofWomanism

The constructive task is precisely what defines Katie Cannon’s sustained

conversation with Zora Neale Hurston in Black Womanist Ethics. Cannon offers up

somethingnew, inanattempttoputtorestoldwaysofdoingthings,whichhaveleftthe

contributionsofblackwomen largelyoutsidenormativediscoursesofChristian theology

andethics. In this text,CannonexploresHurston’s lifeandworks, chartingan innovative

ethical pathway that centers the experience of African-American women toward the

creationofamoreethicalworld.Towardthisend,Cannonwrites:

Mygoal isnot toarriveatmyownprescriptiveornormativeethic.Rather,what I

ampursuingisaninvestigation(a)thatwillhelpBlackwomen,andotherswhocare,

tounderstandand toappreciate the richnessof theirownmoral struggle through

thelifeofthecommonpeopleandtheoraltradition;(b)tofurtherunderstandings

ofsomeof thedifferencesbetweenethicsof lifeunderoppressionandestablished

moralapproacheswhichtakeforgrantedfreedomandawiderangeofchoicesIam

being suggestive of one possible ethical approach, not exhaustive. I make no

apologiesforthefactthatthisstudyisapartisanone.28

According to Cannon’s formulation, the constructive ethicalproject is not individualistic,

catering to one’s own fancies and desires. It always rooted in community, and from the

strengthofthecommunity,onemightfindfortitudetofacewhateverchallengescomeone’s

way. “ZoraNealeHurstonandher fictional counterpartsare resources fora constructive

ethic for Black women, wherein they serve as strong resilient images, embodying the

choices of possible options for actionopenwithin theBlack folk culture,” offersCannon.

Shegoesontosay,“Asmoralagentsstrugglingtoavoidthedevastatingeffectsofstructural

oppression, these Black women create various coping mechanisms that free them from

imposednormsandexpectations.”29

28KatieCannon,BlackWomanistEthics(Atlanta:ScholarsPress,1988),5-6.29Ibid.,13-14.

129

Thisarrayofchoices towhichCannonpointscannotbeunderstated.Shesuggests

that strength is rooted not in uniformity but rather in variability. Within “Black folk

culture” there are multiple sites of resistance and many pathways forward beyond the

experienced oppression. Resilience emerges from the creative possibility that there are

alwaysoptions,nomatterhowbleakthepresentsituation.

Notonly this,butHurston isakeyresource in theentirewomanistproject,which

cuts across literature, theology, history, and ethics. Trailblazed by AliceWalker, who is

responsible forHurston’s “rediscovery”, at the startof InSearchofOurMothers’Gardens:

WomanistProse,Walkerprovidesthecanonicaldefinitionofawomanist:

1.ablackfeministor feministofcolor…2.Also:Awomanwholovesotherwomen,sexually and/or nonsexually…3. Lovesmusic. Loves dance. Loves themoon.LovestheSpirit.Lovesloveandfoodandroundness.Lovesstruggle.LovestheFolk.Lovesherself.Regardless.4.Womanististofeministaspurpleistolavender.30

What makes womanism distinctive from black feminism it that is especially sources an

empowering worldview from the experiences of black women. In womanism, of the

possibleoptions,thereisa“preferentialoption”forthestories,struggles,andsustenanceof

blackwomen.

EmilieTownes,inWomanistEthicsandtheCulturalProductionofEvil(2006)vis-à-

vis Toni Morrison andWalker, develops the notion of the “womanist dancing mind” to

“make sense of the worlds surrounding us—sometimes enveloping us, sometimes

smotheringus,sometimesholdingus,sometimesbirthingus.Itismorethanmydesireto

reconfiguretheworldandtheninviteotherstocomeandinspectthetextures,thecolors,

30Walkerxi-xii.Seealso“ZoraNealeHurston:ACautionaryTaleandaPartisanView”(Walker83-92)and

“LookingforZora”(Walker93-116).InSearchofOurMother’sGardens:WomanistProse(Orlando:Harcourt,1983),84-85.

130

the patterns, the shapes, the sizes of this new order, this new set of promises.”31In this

process of interrogating the inherited world, Townes presents images of strength that

challengethe“fantastichegemonic imagination”that fashionsblackwomenasobjectofa

whitenormativegaze.

In the end, Townes concludes that the onlyway tobegin undoing the hegemonic

imagination that has constructedAunt Jemina, Sapphire, the TragicMulatta, theWelfare

Queen,andTopsy—isbyturningtotheeverydaynessofourrealities.“Thishope,”shesays,

“is unequivocal and unambiguous. It does not detach the human spirit from the present

throughmaddelusionsandflightsoffancy.Thishopeisonethatpullsthepromiseofthe

future into the present and places the present into the dawn of a future that is on the

rimbones of glory.”32Since the othering stories constructed by others does not describe

one’sowntruth,onemusttellherownstory.

WhileTownesdoesnotoffer a sustained considerationofHurstonas explicitly in

Womanist Ethics and the Cultural Production of Evil, her concluding (and amended)

invocation of Hurston’s “rimbones of nothing” speaks of invisible things.33This phrase,

whichisfoundinJonah’sGourdVine,TheirEyesWereWatchingGodand“Conversionsand

Visions” essay inTheSanctifiedChurch, becomes a recurring trope inTownes’swritings,

having been inspired toward this phrase by Katie Cannon. In fact, it is the organizing

metaphor forTownes’s2008PresidentialAddress to theAmericanAcademyofReligion:

“WalkingontheRimBonesofNothingness:ScholarshipandActivism.”(Itisinterestingto

31EmileM.Townes,WomanistEthicsandtheCulturalProductionofEvil(NewYork:PalgraveMacMillan,2006),2.

32Ibid.,163.

33“InvisibleThingsSpoken:UninterrogatedColorness”isthetitleofchapterfourofTownes’sWomanistEthicsandtheCulturalProductionofEvil.

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notethat,ofthethreeplacesthisphraseappears,twoareinworksoffiction;thelivedlife

reference comes from Hurston’s study of the sanctified church.) It is from this social

location,therimbonesofnothing,thatwefindilluminatedacouragethatisthepassionof

life.

Inanearlierwork,EmilieTownesestablisheswomanismasareligiousworldview

that always works to reshape the world toward justice, especially for African-American

women. She writes In a Blaze of Glory:Womanist Spirituality as SocialWitness (1995):

“Womanistspiritualityisnotgroundedinthenotionthatspiritualityisaforce,apractice

separate fromwhowearemomentbymoment. It is thedeepkneadingofhumanityand

divinity into one breath, one hope, one vision.”34For Townes, religion is “lived” and

practicedeverydayandconfrontstheinhumane,oppressiverealitiesthatseektodiminish

human flourishing.Thisperpetual intersectionof faithandpraxis is spirituality,which is

alwayssocialwitness.

She continues, “Womanist spirituality is not only a way of living, it is a style of

witnessthatseekstocrosstheyawningchasmofhatredsandprejudicesandoppressions

intoadeeperandricherloveofGodasweexperienceJesusinourlives.”Townesconcludes

withanapocalypticvision—emblazonedandglorious—wherepeopleoffaithutilizetheir

storiesaspoetrytoconfrontracism,sexism,colorism,andclassism.35AccordingtoTownes,

itisthiseschatologicalhopethatcreatesspiritualhealthandspiritualhome.

34EmileM.Townes,InaBlazeofGlory:WomanistSpiritualityasSocialWitness(Nashville:AbingdonPress,1995),11.

35Cf.MayraRivera,“Glory:thefirstpassionoftheology?”inPolydoxy:TheologyofMultiplicityandRelation,ed.CatherineKellerandLaurelC.Schneider(NewYork:Routledge,2011),167-185.

132

This spirituality finds its origin, at least heuristically, in an impassionedworship

characterizedbyevangelicalconversion,shouting,singingofspirituals.Inherfirstchapter

entitled “The Spirit That Moves Us: African Cosmology in African American Synthesis,”

Townes sketches the emergence of African-American Christianity qua slave religion.

Interestinglythough,althoughsheassertsthatspirituality isnotaseparateforce,Townes

speaksof“theSpirit.”Ifindthispuzzling:ItisunclearwhatTownessignifiesinthisspirit-

talk. In tracing this nascence, Townes references Kongo cosmology and evangelical

Christianity,whichdo rely on notions of spirit-as-force.While Townes is clear in saying

whatspiritisnot,itwouldbehelpfultoknowwhatTownesdesiresspirittobe.

Similarly, the subtitle of Katie’s Canon, “Womanism and the Soul of the Black

Community”begsforfurtherexplication.Tobeclear,IamnotsuggestingthatTownesand

Cannon have sloppily deployed terms without precisely articulating their meaning.36

Instead,Iamyearningforgreaterdiscussionofsoul,spirit,andspiritualityandhowthey

canbeemployedanddeployedintheethicalstruggle.Justaswomanistslooktotheirown

stories—personal and inherited—as re/sources, we might turn to the soul and spirits

running through us as sources themselves. It is evident that these concepts possess

significantcentrality,perhapsevenan“overplusofmeaning”andwithagroaninglikethe

spiritin“sighstoodeepforwords”(Romans8:26).

Thatbeingsaid,inthisdiscourseoftheeveryday,theautobiographicalseemstobea

particularlyrelevantmodeoftheologizing.Inmanywaysitismyattempt“togiveaccount

36InherPresidentialAddresstothe2008AmericanAcademyofReligionTownesmakesclear:“Theresearch

wedoisnotafree-floatingsolitaryintellectualquest.Itisprofoundlytetheredtopeople’slives—thefullness

andincompletenessofthem…WhatIamarguingagainstisthekindofdisinterestedresearchtactthatdoesn’t

figureinthatourworkisgoingtohaveaprofoundimpactonsomeone’slifeinsomewayandsomehow.We

shoulddoourworkwithpassionandprecisionandrealizethatweshouldnotaspiretobethedipsticksfor

intellectualhubris”(9-10).EmilieM.Townes,“WalkingontheRimBonesofNothingness:Scholarshipand

Activism,”JournaloftheAmericanAcademyofReligion77:1(March2009),1-15.

133

ofmyself.” And realizing that, with Cannon and Townes, the autobiographical is ethical,

with JudithButler, Iacknowledgeupfront: “Thestoriesdonotcapturethebodytowhich

theyrefer. Even thehistoryof thisbody isnot fullynarratable…myaccountofmyself is

partial,hauntedbythatforwhichIcandevisenodefinitivestory.Icannotexplainexactly

why I have emerged in this way, andmy efforts at narrative reconstruction are always

undergoingrevision.ThereisthatinmeandofmeforwhichIcangivenoaccount.”37

DeloresWilliams in Sisters in theWilderness:TheChallengeofWomanistGod-Talk

(1993)providesaparallelthatishelpful:

Blackwomenare,then,moreapttoseeJesus/Christasspiritsustainingsurvivaland

liberation efforts of the black community…Jesus is whoever Jesus has to be to

functioninasupportwayinthestruggle.WhetherwetalkaboutJesusinrelationto

atonement theory or Christology, we womanists must be guided more by black

Christianwomen’svoices, faithandexperience thanbyanything thatwasdecided

centuriesagoatChalcedon.38

UtilizingthebiblicalnarrativeofHagar[notably,awomanofcolor]astheorganizingtrope,

Williamswrestleswith the two stark realities: (1) sources of the black experience often

representedtheblackmaleexperienceand(2)fullliberation,especiallyforblackwomen,

was rarely realizedbecauseblackwomenwereoftenoppressed through surrogacy.As a

result,withsomeoptionsforeclosed,thewomanistchoiceissurvivalandsustenance.

Justaswomanism is less concernedwithChristology than the “everyday Jesus”of

livedreligion, italsodoesnotseemconcernedwithpneumatologyassuch.Still,Williams

37JudithButler,GivinganAccountofOneself(NewYork:FordhamUniversityPress,2005),38,40.38DeloresWilliams,SistersintheWilderness:TheChallengeofWomanistGod-Talk(Maryknoll:OrbisBooks,1993),203.SeealsoJacquelynGrant,WhiteWomen’sChrist,BlackWomen’sJesus:FeministChristologyandWomanistResponse(Atlanta:ScholarsPress,1989);EboniMarshallTurman,TowardaWomanistEthicofIncarnation:BlackBodies,theBlackChurch,andtheCouncilofChalcedon(NewYork:PalgraveMacmillan,2013).

134

draws a connection between black women, African-American worship, and a coming

theologyofspirit.Shewrites:

Walker’smentionoftheblackwomanist’sloveofthespiritisatruereflectionofthe

greatrespectAfro-Americanwomenhavealwaysshownforthepresenceandwork

ofthespirit.Intheblackchurch,women(andmen)oftenjudgetheeffectivenessof

theworshipservicenotonthescholarlycontentofthesermonnorontheritualnor

ontheorderlyprocess.Rather,worshiphasbeeneffective‘ifthespiritwashigh,’i.e.

if the spirit was actively and obviously present in a balanced blend of prayer, of

cadencedword(thesermon),andofthesyncopatedmusicministeringtotheplain

ofthepeople.39

With Walker’s definition in view, Williams gestures in her essay “Womanist Theology:

BlackWomen’sVoices” that “womanist theologycouldeventuallyspeakofGod inawell-

developedtheologyofthespirit…Womanisttheologyhasgroundsforshapingatheologyof

spirit informed by black women’s political action.”40In some way, Sisters is a partial

responsetothisearlierobservation.

Her concludingchapter “WomanistReflectionson ‘TheBlackChurch,’ theAfrican-

American Denominational Churches and the Universal Hagar’s Spiritual Church” draws

togetherWilliams’smeditationonHagarandsomevaluabledefinitional insightsthatadd

dexterity to themattersathand.Williamsdistinguishes “theblackchurch” fromAfrican-

Americandenominationalchurches,insofarastheformerisanabstractionandideal.

Shewrites, “Wecannotconfine theblackchurchtoonespecial locationbecause it

canmove faster thanabird in flight, faster thana rocket soaring, faster than time–but

slowlyenoughtoputspiritualsongsinourburdenedsouls–slowlyenoughtoputlovein

39DeloresWilliams,“WomanistTheology:BlackWomen’sVoices”(1986)inTheWomanistReader,ed.LayliPhillips(NewYork:Routledge,2006),123.

40Ibid.

135

ourbrokenlives–slowlyenoughtobringmomentsofliberationtoourtroubledpeople.”41

Here, there isanechoofHurstoninWilliams:theblackchurch, like itsspirituals,refuses

containment in time and space. Being the best hope of the ancestors, she continues

Raboteau’s notion that the present-day black church is “invisible”, like its slave religion

antecedent.Thenatureofthis“invisibility,”asweshallsee,ismorethanmeetstheeye.

WilliamsroilsAfrican-Americandenominationalchurches,whichrepresentforher

theembodimentofoppression-from-within.Notonlydothesechurchestoooftenfacilitate

sexual and emotional exploitation of women, homophobia, and various forms of

immorality, but also “the tendency of the proclamation and teachings of the

denominational churches to be so spiritualized and ‘heaven-directed’ that women

parishionersarenotencouragedtoconcentrateontheirlivesinthisworldandtofightfor

theirownsurvival,liberationandproductivequalityoflife.”42

Alongside these images of the ideal and the worst, Williams points to the black

spiritualistmovementasacomplicatedexampleofempowermentofwomenandresistance

ofdenominationalelitism.Shehighlightsthefactthatspiritualistchurchesemergeincities

as“storefrontchurches”andembraceblackruralmigrantswhocouldnotfindtheirplacein

establisheddenominationalchurches.Further,sheobservesthatalthoughthesechurches,

like theUniversalHagar’s Spiritual Church,” often deploy androcentric language,women

are generally experienced as leaders (and not just congregants). And although “esoteric

41Williams,SistersintheWilderness,205.42Ibid.,208-209.

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elementsinthesyncretisticcompositionofsomeoftheblackspiritualchurches,”43theydo

notseeminglyfallpreytothesinofspiritualization.

Inthesespiritualistchurches,spiritsarerealandinhabitthelivedworldofmenand

women.Spiritsarenotmerelyotherworldly,buthavethis-worldlyactivity.Tospiritualize,

by contrast, is to draw a stark divide between heaven and earth, and thereby resolving

earthlyneedsinanotherworldlyafterlife.44Mediumshipistheartofcommunicatingwith

thesespirits,facilitatingtheirinterplaybetweenthephenomenalandspiritworlds.Andin

thisprocess,onemightsaythat,chiasmatatakesplace:thecrossingoverofpropertiesfrom

onesitetothenext.

Williams, followingWalker’s conclusion to The Color Purple, invokes herself as a

medium:“Shethanked‘everybody[inthebook]forcoming.’Andshesignedthefinalpage,

‘A.W., author and medium.’ This last word,medium, suggests that she felt herself to be

merelytheinstrumentthroughwhichothervoiceswereenabled.Thereissomethingofthe

spiritinthislaststrokeofWalker’spen.Somethingsacred.”45

AccordingtoWilliams,theSpiritgeneratesaspiritofcourageandnon-conformity,

rooted in the diversity of black life: “I saw many things about the African-American

community and church history that I had not seen before….the uncanny resilience of

mothering/nurturing/caring/enduring and resistance capacities of Hagar and black

womenhasbirthedaspiritofhopeinthecommunity.”46Spirit-talkopensnewhorizonsof

43Ibid.,223.

44Cf.BenjaminMays’sTheNegro’sGod:AsReflectedinHisLiterature,1938(Eugene:Wipf&Stock,2010).45Williams,SistersintheWilderness,235.46Ibid.

137

possibility.Williamslookatthespiritualistchurch,anditscelebrationofspiritualgifts(e.g.,

miracles,prophecy,andglossolalia)47helpsustocastanewvision.

3.4. OceansofPossibility:EverydayFluidityandtheArrayofChoices

Notonlyaretherevarious“optionsforaction,”butalsoitisincreasinglybecoming

clearthattherearemultipleoppressions,aswellasmultipletypesofmoralagents.“Black

folkculture”embracesnotone,butmany.Tothisday,thestrugglecontinuestodemystify

themythofthemonolithicblackcommunity.Williams’sexcavatingworkandattentionto

the(obscure)UniversalHagar’sSpiritualChurchpointtothisreality.

Inthelastfewdecades,contiguouswiththeriseofculturalstudies,therehasbeena

discursive expansion of black religion to signify more than orthodox African-American

Christianity. Increasingly“black”encompassestheAfricandiasporaonboth“sides”ofthe

AtlanticandtheCaribbeanpeople“ofthesea.”48IthasbeenoftensaidthatblackAfricans

were baptized in the waters of the Middle Passage.49The transformation that occurred

createdthe“new”beingknownastheAfrican/blackAmerican,sogoesthemetaphor.The

emancipation of African Americans from slavery is symbolized by a reversal of this

471Corinthians12:1-11;Romans12:1-21.

48SeeAntonioBenítez-Rojo,TheRepeatingIsland:TheCaribbeanandthePostmodernPerspective(Durham:DukeUniversityPress,1996);MayraRiveraRivera,“GhostlyEncounters:Spirits,Memory,andtheHoly

Ghost”,PlanetaryLoves:Spivak,Postcoloniality,andTheology,ed.StephenD.MooreandMayraRivera(NewYork:FordhamUniversityPress,2011),118-135.

49TheologicaldiscussionsofwaterandbodyinthedissertationalludetotheChristiansacramentsofbaptism

andtheLord’sSupper.IwillnotdelveadiscussionofChristiansacramentsinaformalway,asitwouldtake

ustoofarafieldfromDuBoisandHurston,andevenThurman.Forageneralecumenicaldiscussionofthese

Christiansacraments,pleaseseeWorldCouncilofChurches,Baptism,EucharistandMinistry(FaithandOrderPaperNo.111)(Geneva:WorldCouncilofChurches,1982).Also,M.ShawnCopeland’sEnfleshingFreedom:Body,Race,andBeing(Minneapolis:FortressPress,2010)offersawayofthinkingaboutblackbodiesEucharistically.

138

crossing: the invocationof thebiblical Israelites’exodus fromEgypt throughtheRedSea

(orSeaofReeds, as itwere), epitomized in the spiritual “GoDown,Moses,”unravels the

knotsofAmericanslavery.Justasenslavementhappenedbycrossingthewaters,liberation

toocomesthroughwater.

Vincent Harding in There Is a River: The Black Struggle for Freedom in America

(1981) andPaulGilroy inTheBlackAtlantic:ModernityandDoubleConsciousness (1993)

centrally deploy the trope of water to illustrate Afro-diasporic identity. For Harding,

AfricanAmericansareaflowingriverthroughtimeandspace:

The river of black struggle is people, but it is also the hope, the movement, the

transformativepowerthathumanscreateandthatcreatethem,us,andmakesthem,

us,newpersons.Soweblackpeoplearetheriver;theriverisus.Theriverisinus,

created by us, flowing out of us, surrounding us, re-creating us and this entire

nation.50

Thedynamic life-givingmovement of the river,with its turbulence and volatility, offer a

criticallensthroughwhichtoviewtheAfrican-Americanfreedomstruggle.

Gilroyutilizeswater,ships,andmovement—particularlyitstumult,notserenity—to

define the diasporic “Black Atlantic,” not in terms of nationalist origins, common ethnic

heritage, and claims to purity, but rather in terms of politics. 51 What binds the

disparateness of the Black Atlantic, within the “maelstrom of modernity” into a unified

whole, is shared political objectives of overcoming oppression and subjugation and the

empowermentofblackpeople.

What interests me here, then, is a mode of rethinking black progress

pneumatologically vis-à-visHurstonandher attention to everyday,black folk.Thewater

50VincentHarding,ThereIsaRiver:TheBlackStruggleforFreedominAmerica(SanDiego:HarcourtBrace&Company,1981),xix.

51PaulGilroy,TheBlackAtlantic:ModernityandDoubleConsciousness(Cambridge:HarvardUniversityPress,1993),15-17.

139

motif will significantly fund this process, dually from the perspective of black religious

studies and constructive theology. There is a correlative coming together of identity

formation, pneumatology, and ethics. Peter C. Hodgson opens his Winds of Spirit: A

ConstructiveChristianTheology(1994):“Theologyisratherlikesailing.Itisincontactwith

powerful, fluid elements, symbolized bywind andwater, overwhich is has little control

andbywhichitisdrawnanddriventowardmysteriousgoals.”52Heleansonthismetaphor

inordertosignifythefreedomofGod’sSpirit,andtheconstructiveattempttointeractwith

themovementofGod.Spiritislikewater:itmoves.

Hurstoninhernovel,Moses,ManoftheMountain,considersthisfoundationalevent

intheconstructionofblackness.Notably,Hurstonisattheforefrontofthecelebratingthe

sourcesthatexpand“blackreligion”beyondAfrican-AmericanChristianity,andMoses,Man

of the Mountain ‘syncretizes’ hoodoo and Christian values inherited from Judaism, and

satirically so.53In so doing, Hurston “troubles biblical waters,” to borrow Cain Hope

Felder’s phrase, and again diverges from the prevailing interpretative lens constructing

blackness.54During a time when many African Americans were attempting to distance

black Christian practices from so-called “African retentions,” Hurston celebrates these

syncretismsbyliterarilydeepeningthem.Hemenwayexplains:

Hervoodoo reporting, as in theearlier accounts fromMulesandMen, consistentlytreatsvoodooasalegitimate,sophisticatedreligion.Itisasoldascreation:“Itisthe

old,oldmysticismoftheworldinAfricanterms.Voodooisareligionofcreationand

life. It is the worship of the sun, the water and other natural forces, but the

52PeterC.Hodgson’sWindsoftheSpirit:AConstructiveChristianTheology(Louisville:WestminsterJohnKnoxPress,1994),3.

53KatieCannon,Katie’sCanon:WomanismandtheSouloftheBlackCommunity(NewYork:Continuum,1995),86.

54CainHopeFelder,TroublingBiblicalWaters:Race,Class,andFamily(Maryknoll:OrbisBooks,1989).

140

symbolism is no better understood than that of other religions.” By stressing its

religiousnature,TellMyHorsedignifiesvoodooworship,removingitfromtheluridandsensationalassociationsheldbythepopularmind.55

Thisdefenseofvoodoo(andhoodoo)addsfurthercontextandcontrasttoHurston’s

appreciationofthespirituals,andtheirAfricanandsoutherninfluences.

In thePreface to the firstvolumeofTheBookofAmericanNegroSpirituals (1925)

James Weldon Johnson (author of “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” the “Negro National

Anthem”)writes:

“shoutsongs”...arenot truespiritualsnoreven trulyreligious; in fact, theyarenot

actuallysongs.Theymightbetermedquasi-religiousorsemi-barbaricmusic…This

term‘shoutsongs’hasnoreferencetotheloud,jubilantSpirituals,whichareoften

so termedbywritersonNegromusic; it has reference to the songsor, better, the

chantsusedtoaccompanythe“ringshout.”56

Johnson agrees with Du Bois and Payne, and goes on to observe, “the ‘ring shout’ was

looked upon as a very questionable form of worship. A great many colored people

distinctivelyfrowneduponit.Indeed,Idonotrecalleverseeinga‘ringshout’exceptafter

theregularservices”[emphasisinoriginal].57Hurstonoffersadifferentperspective:

TherecanbelittledoubtthatshoutingisasurvivaloftheAfrican‘possession’bythe

gods. InAfrica it is sacred to thepriesthoodoracolytes, inAmerica ithasbecome

generalized.Theimplicationisthesame,however, it isasignofspecialfavorfrom

thespiritthatitchoosestodriveouttheindividualconsciousnesstemporarilyand

use the body for its expression….Shouting is a community thing. It thrives in

concert.58

Whereotherssawdeficitanddeviancy,Hurstonsawbeautyandholiness.

55Hemenway,ZoraNealeHurston:ALiteraryBiography,249.56JamesWeldonJohnsonandJ.RosamondJohnson,TheBookofAmericanNegroSpirituals,1925,1926(Boston:DaCapoPress,1969),33.

57Ibid.Emphasisinoriginal.

58Hurston,TheSanctifiedChurch,91.

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Hurston’s refusal to write as a “race man” is deeply rooted in a politic that

transcendsracewithoutbeing“post-racial.”AlthoughIwillspeakmoreof transcendence

belowinrelationtoThurman,inHurstonweencounteracapacitytobedeeplyconcerned

with a subject and still not be ultimately concerned with it. This is to say, Hurston

examines—andappreciates—everydaypracticesofblackreligiouslifeontheirownmerit.

She refuses to interpret everything from the perspective of racial uplift, which risks

flattening or reducing the complexity of the practices themselves. Hurston is less

concernedwiththeperceiving“shoutsongs”fromtheperspectiveofthewhitenormative

gaze,thansheisinseeingandcelebratingtheirroleinshapingandsustainingcommunity.

Although Higginbotham’s period of examination predates Hurston’s period of

productivity, Higginbotham’s analysis is still relevant: “The politics of respectability

equated nonconformity with the cause of racial inequality and injustice.” Hurston, by

contrast, equated nonconformity as ameans of racial freedom. Higginbotham continues,

“TheBaptistwomen’srepeatedcondemnationofnonconformityindicatedthesignificance

theyattached to individualbehavior in thecollective imagingofblackpeople.”59Hurston

exercisedindividualfreedomasawayofre-imaginingthatcollectiveimage.

InthesameveinthatHurstondoesnotapproachtheExodusstoryconventionally,

shealsowrotecontroversiallyregardingslaveryitself.In“HowItFeelstoBeColoredMe,”

Hurstonboasts:

Someone is always at my elbow reminding me that I am the grand-daughter of

slaves.Itfailstoregisterdepressionwithme.Slaveryissixtyyearsinthepast.The

operationwas successful and the patient is doingwell, thank you…Slavery is the

priceIpaid forcivilizationandthechoicewasnotwithme. It isabullyadventure

andworthallthatIhavepaidthroughmyancestorsforit.Nooneoneartheverhad

59EvelynBrooksHigginbotham,RighteousDiscontent:TheWomen’sMovementintheBlackBaptistChurch,1880-1920(Cambridge:HarvardUniversityPress,1993),203.

142

agreaterchanceforglory.Theworldtobewonandnothingtobelost.Itisthrilling

tothink—toknowthatforanyactofmine,Ishallgettwiceasmuchpraiseortwice

asmuchblame.Itisquiteexcitingtoholdthecenterofthenationalstage,withthe

spectatorsnotknowingwhethertolaughortoweep.60

Whilemany pro-black commentators saw slavery as a vile scourge of American society,

Hurstoninterpreteditwithabitmoreambiguity.

When Hurston points to slavery’s ‘civilizing’ effect, despite all her celebration of

diasporic folkculture,shereinscribes thestereotypeofAfricansavagery. It ispossible to

hearHurstonpositing the “making awayout of noway” resilience aboutwhichDelores

Williams writes. Like Hagar, black folk must forge a “quality of life” regardless to

circumstances,andespeciallyinthefaceofatrocity.61

One also hears echoes of Charles Long’s “Primitive/Civilized: The Locus of a

Problem”:“Noonedeniesthattherewereandarepeoplesandculturesintheworldwho

possessdifferenttechnologies,customs,manners,andsoforth;thegeneraldesignationof

these forms of human reality as primitive is less than a description and more than a

definition.”62EmbeddedwithinHurston’s language, then isaconceptual supposition that,

however glibly, plays into the normative/subordinate distinction she eschews in black

folklore.

Similarly,Hurston’spoliticsofintegrationrunscountertowhatonemightassume:

sheopposedBrownv.BoardofEducation,contendingthatAfrican-Americaneducationdid

not require the stamp of legitimacy ofwhiteness.Whatever deficiencies existed in black

schoolsoughttoberemediedintheirownright.NotingthatHurstonwas“notasystematic

60Hurston,“HowItFeelstoBeColoredMe,”827.

61SeeWilliams’s“Hagar’sStory:ARoutetoWomen’sIssues,”SistersintheWilderness,15-33.62CharlesH.Long,Significations:Signs,Symbols,andImagesintheInterpretationofReligion(Aurora:TheDaviesGroup,Publishers,1986),104.

143

politicalthinker,”Hemenwaydemonstratesthat“thecelebrantofblackfolkwaysbecamea

politicalconservativeinherlateryears.”Hecontinues:

Hurston’s conservatism grew primarily from three sources: an obsessive

individualism that began with the self-confidence of Eatonville and expanded to

generate great self-pride, almost a kind of egotism; a long suspicion of the

Communist party and collectivist government, a suspicion that turned into mild

paranoiaduringtheMcCarthyera,matchingthemoodofthecountry;andthesocial

sciencephilosophythatinformedherfolklorecollecting.Thelastsourceisbyfarthe

mostcomplex.Zorahadbeguncollectingfolkloreinthetwentieswiththeconscious

intentofcelebratingtheblackfolkwhohadmadeawayoutofnoway,liketheirfolk

heroes… She liberated rural black folk from the prison of racial stereotypes and

grantedthemdignityasculturalcreators…Zorawasconcernedlesswiththetactics

ofracialupliftthanwiththeunexaminedprejudiceofAmericansocialscience.63

Some have argued that her approach was a betrayal to the very folk she desired to

celebrate.ButHurston’soeuvrerevealedasubversivenonconformitythatwassometimes

“inyourface,”butalwaysaffirmativeoftheeverydaylifeofeverydayfolk.

We must interpret this contrarian “woman in the shadows,”64taking note of the

deceptivenuanceofherassertions,allthewhileappreciatingtheoverallarcoftheproject.

In other words, given the slippery nature of folklore itself, it behooves Hurston’s

interpretersnottoreadherflatlyorunidirectionally.Insteadwemustmoveinthedynamic

flowofherwork.

RewritingSpiritualIdentities

Thisisalltosay,Moses,ManoftheMountainopensupvistasofmoredeeplyfiguring

‘everyday’ black identity, and its ethical consequences, in its variety. And it does so by

imaginativelyplayingwiththeconventionalnarrative—bending,twisting,andreshapingit.

63Hemenway,ZoraNealeHurston:ALiteraryBiography,329-330.64MaryHelenWashington,“ZoraNealeHurston:AWomanHalfinShadow”inILoveMyselfWhenIAmLaughing…AndThenAgainWhenIAmLookingMeanandImpressive,ed.AliceWalker(NewYork:TheFeministPress,1979),7-25.

144

Likethebiblicalstory,Hurston’srewrittenstorybegins,ends,andrunsthroughwater:the

escapefromdeathisbathedintheNile;Moses’becomesHebrewby“crossingover”theRed

Sea;theHebrewsareemancipatedbywadingthroughthedrywatersoftheRedSea;and

later they enter thePromised Land “yonder over Jordan.” But still, there ismuch that is

different:mostly notably,Moses is Egyptian andnot bornHebrew butbecomes Hebrew,

echoingherclaimin“HowItFeeltoBeColoredMe.”Thetransfigurationdoubles:First,itis

both a claim of blackness toMoses, who has been such a pivotal character in the black

struggle for freedom. Second, it is an assertion to the power in speaking the subaltern’s

story,whichisoneoftheaimsofwomanisttheology:BytellingAfrican-Americanwomen’s

experiences,realitiesmightbereordered.65

Thisidentificationwiththeoppressed,whichleadshimtobecomeHebrewalthough

he is born Egyptian prefigures theologies of identity, such as black theology and queer

theology.WhenConearguesthatthe“GodoftheOppressed”isblack,anyonewhofiercely

standswithand fightswith theoppressedareblack, too.66Similarly, inMarcellaAlthaus-

Reid’sTheQueerGodtheclaimthat“everytheologianisabisexual”means:

Remembering thatour task is theQueeringof theology,weshouldnowbeable to

embarkontheroadofper/versionstostart to thinkabout thetheologianandher

praxisoutsidedyadicconstructions,andtoreflectuponhervocation,roleandrisks,

intransitfromclosetedtheology.67

65GayatriChakravortySpivak,“CantheSubalternSpeak?”inColonialDiscourseandPost-ColonialTheory:AReader,ed.PatrickWilliamsandLauraChrisman(NewYork:ColumbiaUniversityPress,1994),66-111.66JamesH.Cone,ABlackTheologyofLiberation,1970(Maryknoll:OrbisBooks,2010),58-86.AlsoseeCone’sdiscussionoftheblacknessofJesusChristinGodoftheOppressed,1975(Maryknoll:OrbisBooks,1997),99-126.

67MarcellaAlthaus-Reid,TheQueerGod(NewYork:Routledge,2003),14.

145

Whereas the composers of the spirituals write themselves into the biblical narrative

through song, Hurston goes one step farther: she renarrates the biblical story itself,

detachingitfromits“original”history,penningherstory.

Hemenwaywrites:

Hurston acts as a tradition-bearer for an Afro-American worldview in Moses,simulatingtheprocessofcreationthathadledtothespirituals,reaffirmingtheact

of imagination that couldmakeMosesAfrican rather thanHebrew,a conjureman

instead of amere conduit of divine power. She identifies with the creativity that

couldmakeslavesachosenpeopleinthemidstofaculturestructuredtodenythem

asenseofspecialstatus.68

Thespirituals that she lovedandcelebrated,not simplyas sorrowsongs,butas Johnson

describes “songs of sorrow, love and faith, and hope.”69 During the antebellum era,

enslavedblacksplanningescapesang,“WadeintheWater”asacalltogather.“DeepRiver”

describes a home that resides over Jordan, and while some have appealed to the

otherworldlinessoftheseandsimilarlyricsponderingthe“PromisedLand,”itisnowclear

thatdouble-speakandcodeswitchingwasatplay.70

In order to disguise aspiration for abolition and life in the American North,

envisionedas thebiblicalCanaan,enslavedblackswould intentionally “spiritualize” their

hopesforactualfreedom.Whatappearedtobeadesiretocrossovertotheafterlifewasa

veiledpoliticalclaimtoemancipationinthislife.ToborrowLawrenceLevine’swords,this

wasthe“languageoffreedom.”

68Hemenway,ZoraNealeHurston:ALiteraryBiography,260.69JohnsonandJohnson,TheBookofAmericanNegroSpirituals,11.70SeeLawrenceLevine’s“Freedom,Culture,andReligion”inBlackCultureandBlackConsciousness:Afro-AmericanFolkThoughtfromSlaverytoFreedom(NewYork:OxfordUniversityPress,1977),136-189.

146

Hemenway draws upon Levine, author of trailblazing Black Culture and Black

Consciousness: Afro-American Folk Thought from Slavery to Freedom, to situate Hurston’s

workinthecontextof“improvisationalcommunalconsciousness,”allowingHemenwayto

conclude:“Mosescouldbesimultaneouslytheproductofamasscreativitythathadmade

himspecialtoblackpeopleandtheproductofZoraNealeHurston’simprovisedvision.”71

Whenslavescriedthattheywouldlaydownburdens,meettheirdeceasedparents,andput

onaheavenlycrowns“downbytheriverside,”heavenwasmetaphoricalbutnotabstract

andescapist.72

Especially given the deployment of theologies of proslavery, in a way, these

spirituals’ invocation of water thereby constitutes the very de-sacramentalization of the

Middle Passage, which Hurston in a way, re-sacramentalizes. That is, if Africans were

baptizedintheAtlanticonthewaytobecomingAfricanAmerican,thenthewadinginthe

watersofexodus,reversestheoriginal‘(de)consecrating’act.Inthissense,blackidentityis

flooded with deep ambiguity.With her unconventional views of the role of slavery and

integration, the crossings from freedom to slavery and from slavery to freedom are

intertwinedandnoteasilydisencumberedinHurston’swork.

Real,EverydayPeople

RonaldThiemann’sdiscussionofthesacramentalityofeverydaylife,inTheHumble

Sublime: Secularity and thePolitics of Belief (2014), is instructive here. This is to say, to

interpretthesewater-themedsongssacramentallymayrevealmorethanmeetstheeye,or

71Hemenway,ZoraNealeHurston:ALiteraryBiography,259.72Levine,BlackCultureandBlackConsciousness,35,45.

147

theearas itwere. In conversationwith “humanists”AnnaAkhmatova,LangstonHughes,

George Orwell, and Albert Camus, Thiemann beautifully demonstrates that notions of

secularitybasedonantimonies,particularlythatofCharlesTaylorinhistomeTheSecular

Age, are overstated because they obscure complexity. For Thiemann, sacramentality

refiguresthesacred/profaneandreligious/secularpolaritybypointingtothedivineinthe

everyday.

Thiemannassertsthatthedichotomiesareclosertodistinctionsthatdonothaveto

beoppositional.Hewrites:

Bydepicting theworldof ordinary experience through the eyesof Christian faith,

late medieval reforming theologians [Luther and Calvin, in particular] sought to

provideacruciformlensthroughwhichtoseeandactwithintheworld.Forthese

reformers God’s presence lies hidden ‘in, with, and under’ the ordinary and

everyday.God isnot ‘beyond’oureveryday livesbutratherhiddendeeply ‘within’

them.ThosewhobelievethatinChristGodhasbroughtlifeoutofdeath,hopeoutof

sorrow,and loveoutof crueltyarenowcalled to see theworld, theeverydayand

ordinary, with new eyes, the eyes of faith—and to live lives of hope and love

directedtotheneighborinneed.Tobesure,thisviewunderminesmanyofthesafe

distinctions thatwehavecome to relyupon—particularly thedistinctionbetween

the sacred and the secular; but it seeks to replace those dichotomous categories

withintegralnotionslikeincarnationandsacrament.Insodoingthisviewseeksto

relocatethesacrednotbeyondbutwithinoureverydayexperience.73

The notion of the “hidden sublime” (we also recall Parker’s “hidden wholeness”) thus

reconfigures the secularization debate entirely because it challenges its constitutive

architecture. If the concept of the “secular” depends upon a contrasting definition of

“sacred,”thenThiemann’sworkresolvesthetensionbysuggestingthatthetensionnever

really existed in the firstplace.Or, that the tensiononlyexisted inour imagination, such

thatwereleasetheconflictbyreimaginingtheproblem.

73RonaldF.Thiemann,TheHumbleSublime:SecularityandthePoliticsofBelief(NewYork:I.B.Tauris,2014),41.

148

The “Christian imagination,” as Willie Jennings puts it, particularly that which

emergesfromthereformtraditionunderThiemann’s investigation, isacontinuousmode

of dynamic “representation” always resisting stasis.74Thiemann defines: “Sacraments as

signs(signa)pointtoareality(res)thatliesbeyondthesignsthemselves.Thussacraments

representthedivinereality,theverypresenceofGodinChrist…Sacramentsthusrepresent

the divine reality even as they re-present that reality in the ritual act.”75In Thiemann’s

view, it becomes possible—necessary even—to see holiness within ordinary life and

practice.Thekeytosuchobservationliesinlookingatthesame‘things’differently.

Thiemann goes on to say: “The incarnational logic of Christianity resists a simple

separation of divine and human, spirit and flesh, sacred and secular by focusing on the

interpenetrationof thoseapparentopposites.”76Co-operation insteadof conflictbecomes

themannerinwhichwecometodescribethe“divine”andthe“ordinary.”

The lived experiences of black people, as expressed in the musical traditions of

AfricanAmericans,groundedJamesCone’sliberation-orientedblacktheology.Hisworkis

relevant to thisconsiderationofeverydaynessonseveral fronts. First,TheSpiritualsand

theBlues represents a secondwave of Cone’s intellectual production that situates black

74WillieJamesJennings,inTheChristianImagination:TheologyandtheOriginsofRace(NewHaven:YaleUniversityPress,2010),concludes:“IyearnforavisionofChristianintellectualidentitythatiscompelling

andattractive,embodyingnotsimplythecunningofreasonbutthepoweroflovethatconstantlygestures

towardjoining,towardthedesiretohear,toknow,andtoembrace….IwantChristianstorecognizethe

grotesquenatureofasocialperformanceofChristianitythatimaginesChristianidentityfloatingaboveland,

landscape,animals,place,andspace,leavingsuchrealitiestothemachinationsofcapitalisticcalculationsand

thecommoditychainsofprivateproperty.SuchChristianidentitycanonlyinevitablylodgeitselfinthe

materialityofracialexistence”(291,293).SeealsoPeterC.Hodgson’sWindsoftheSpirit:AConstructiveChristianTheology(Louisville:WestminsterJohnKnoxPress,1994),chapterone,foraninterestingframingoftheologyasafluiddiscourse.

75Thiemann,TheHumbleSublime,36.76Ibid.,41.

149

theology most explicitly in the everyday of black life. Published in 1972, after the

controversial and groundbreaking Black Theology and Black Power (1969) and A Black

TheologyofLiberation(1970),hisfirstsystematicaccountofblacktheology,TheSpirituals

and the Blues analyzes black history and African-American attempts to understand

existence and ultimate reality from the standpoint of their songs and music. Although

black theology has always lodged Christian theology in African-American norms and

sources, The Spirituals and the Blues becomes his first sustained theological account of

everydayexperiences.Hewrites,“Thespiritual,then,isthespiritofthepeoplestruggling

tobefree;itistheirreligion,theirsourceofstrengthinatimeoftrouble…Blackhistoryisa

spiritual!”77

Second,Cone’sconceptionofblacknessitselfisaformofre-presentation.Thatis,to

beblackisnotsimplyadescriptionofphenotype.Rather,itisaconstructivefashioningof

identitythatappealstotheparticularexperiencesofAfrican-Americansbuthasuniversal

appeal.InGodoftheOppressed(1975)Coneargues:

To say that Christ is blackmeans that God, in his infinitewisdom andmercy, not

only takes color seriously, he also takes it upon himself and discloses his will to

makeuswhole—newcreaturesborninthespiritofdivineblacknessandredeemed

throughthebloodoftheBlackChrist.Christisblack,therefore,notbecauseofsome

culturalorpsychologicalneedofblackpeople,butbecauseandonlybecauseChrist

really enters into our world where the poor, the despised, and the black are,disclosing that he is with them, entering their humiliation and transforming

oppressedslavesintoliberatedservants.78

Blacktheologythenisasacramentaldiscoursebecause,asThiemanndefines,ithassocial

purpose; depends upon verisimilitude; and is highly constructed. 79 Black liberation

77JamesCone,TheSpiritualsandtheBlues:AnInterpretation(NewYork:SeaburyPress,1972),32-33.78Ibid.,125.

79Thiemann,TheHumbleSublime,161-162.

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theologyultimatelyseekstofreeoppressedpeople,constructedas“black”fromanyandall

attemptsatdehumanization.Intheend,whileblacknessislodgedintheAfrican-American

experience, black theology’s widening of the definition of blackness yields a necessary

openness.ForCone,allpeoplehavethepotentialtobeblackinsofarastheycanrelateto

theexperiencesofmarginalization.

Returningdirectly to the tropeofwater,wenowobservemore clearlywhat is at

stake in the waters. When African Americans “wade in the water,” below the surface

residesasophisticatedclaimtopersonhood,subjecthood,andmostbasicallytohumanity.

Whenblackpeoplesingthespiritual“MySoul’sBeenAnchoredindeLord”andthemore

contemporarygospelsong“MySoul’sBeenAnchoredintheLord,”themediumofwateris

not insignificant. Through the vocal and musical imagery of the sea storm, a people’s

encounterwithslavery, JimCrowsegregation,andsocioeconomic inequality takesshape.

Yetandstill,thewatersconnectblackpeopletothedistantshoreoffreedom,andtoareal

andpresentGodthattheyunderstandasliberatorandredeemer.

“Thoughthestormskeeponraginginmylife

Andsometimesit’shardtotellthenightfromday;

Stillthathopethatlieswithinisreassured

AsIkeepmyeyesuponthedistantshore;

IknowHe’llleadmesafelytothatblessedplaceHehasprepared…

Irealizethatsomethatsometimesinthislifewe’regonnabetossed

Bythewavesandthecurrentsthatseemso

ButinthewordofGodI’vegotananchor

Anditkeepsmesteadfastandunmovabledespitethetide.”80

The embedded theology of the song points to the importance of relatedness and

association.Anygivenentity,momentintime,orideaisnotisolated,butratherisapartof

80DouglasMiller,“MySoulHasBeenAnchoredintheLord(1988)onUnspeakableJoy(compactdisc),Compendia,1995.

151

some greater whole. To place the everyday alongside theology, then, is to track the

interconnections.Itistoacknowledgethateachunitisconstituentofawebofmovement

andreflexivity.

Several interlocutors articulate this process, the movement of life, in terms of a

dialectic. Lefebvre lodges his Critique of Everyday Life in the Marxist form, seeking to

wrestle with the notion of alienation although he observes many Marxists reject

considerationof the everyday as bourgeois.81 “The critiqueof everyday life,” hedefines,

“takes the form of a living, dialectical pair: on the one hand, ‘modern times’ (with

everythingtheyentail:bourgeoisie,capitalism,techniquesandtechnicity,etc.),andonthe

other,theTramp[whichhedefinesearlieras“thereverseimage”]. Therelationbetween

them is not a simple one.”82 Thus the dialectical process is a tensive one, in which

oppositesaredisallowedfrommutualexclusivity.Rather,polesareheldtogetherbecause

in fact theirdifferencesarenotasgreatas theyappear.Lefebvresays, “But to thedefine

‘thenew’bysiftingouteverything thatdistinguishes it fromtheold isnotaseasyas the

dogmatistswiththeirlackofdialecticusedtobelieve.Oureraistrulyaneraoftransition;

everythingaboutitistransitory,everything,rightdowntomenandtheirlives.”83

AlthoughitmaybesimplertoresorttoManicheandichotomies—betweenthereal

and the illusory, the sacred and profane, the sacramental and the secular—dialectical

analysis acknowledges more texture in relationships. The everyday cannot simply be

reducedtodailyroutines.AsMicheldeCerteaumakesclear,the“practiceofeverydaylife”

81HenriLefebvre,CritiqueofEverydayLife,Volume1,1947,trans.JohnMoore(NewYork:Verso,2008),6.82Ibid.,13.

83Ibid.,50.

152

isnotsynonymouswith“dailypractices,”justashedistinguishes“strategy”from“tactic.”84

Spiritunitesthebodyandthesoul,theoneandthemany.

Asamechanismofsacramentalinterpretation,thisdialecticisarticulatedvariously,

but the basic structure, reminiscent of Hegel’s thesis, antithesis, synthesis remains. For

example, as Thiemann has illustrated in triadic formulation, we might imagine the

movementinsacramentaltermsasabsence,presence,representation;inliterarytermsas

texuality, indeterminacy, context; in theatrical terms as form, content, performance; or

generally as familiarization, defamiliarization, refamiliarization or as preconfiguration,

configuration, refiguration.85Despite the variance and ordering the three-step process

stays intact.Hegel’sLecturesofthePhilosophyofReligion(1827)makethecasethatoften

theantithesisisfirstvisiblebeforethethesiscanbearticulatedmethodologically.Forhim

human life (the antithesis of spirit) is in view before spirit can be posited, even though

epistemologically spiritmoves through its antithesis in humanity before ‘arriving’ at the

Absolute.86

84Seethe“GeneralIntroduction’(especiallyp.xx-xxii)ofMicheldeCerteau,ThePracticeofEverydayLife,trans.StevenRendall(Berkeley:UniversityofCaliforniaPress,1984).DeCerteauexplains:“Icalla‘strategy’

thecalculusofforce-relationshipswhichbecomespossiblewhenasubjectofwillandpower(aproprietor,an

enterprise,acity,ascientificinstitution)canbeisolatedfroman‘environment’.Astrategyassumesaplace

thanbecircumscribedasproper(propre)…Icalla‘tactic,’ontheotherhand,acalculuswhichcannotcountona‘proper’(aspatialorinstitutionallocalization),northusonaborderlinedistinguishingtheotherasavisible

totality”(xix).Hegoesontoexplainthat“atacticdependsontime”.Hisdiscussionoftimeconvergeswith

MichaelHanchard’snotionoftimein“Afro-Modernity:Temporality,Politics,andtheAfricanDiaspora,”PublicCulture11(1999):245-268.Thereheexploreshowblacksbecomesubjectsinthecontroloftheirtime,whichasslavestheydidnotorder.Onceblackscoulddictatetheeverydayusesoftheirtimeinstrategic

ways,notdependingontacticalopeningsintime—breaksandotheropportunitiesto“StealAway”—thenthe

becomingnotjustagentsbutalsowillfulsubjects.

85RonaldThiemann,“TheologyandtheEveryday”(lectures,HarvardDivinitySchool,February17,24,and

March3,2010).86SeeG.W.F.Hegel’sLecturesofthePhilosophyofReligion:TheLecturesof1827,ed.PeterHodgson(NewYork:OxfordUniversityPress,2006).

153

Itseemstome,then,thatthecritiqueofAfricandiasporavis-à-visthetropeofwater

isawayofreimaginingtheethicalconsequencesofidentityshaping.Theprocessofblack

identityformationisoneoflocution,illocution,andperlocutionthatoscillatein,above,and

throughthewatersoftheAtlantic,liketheprimordialbiblicalruach.Theoriesoftheblack

diaspora typically begin first with the relationship of African-descended people to

modernityandtheEnlightenmentpresentationofblacksaswhollyothertowhites.Europe

andtheUnitedStatesareseparatedfromAfricabywater.Twentiethcenturyarticulations

ofAfrican-AmericanidentitythenrejectedtheracistideologiesoftheEnlightenmentandin

theprocessrejectedtheidealofmodernity.

The black subject, though no longer a dehumanized object, was fashioned as the

antithesis of the European notion ofmodernity as blacks forged connections across the

Atlantic.Manyconversations,aswewillseeingreaterdetailbelow,centeredaroundwhat

was carried across or lost in theMiddle Passage as African retentions or not. The third

phase,inwhichwefindcontemporarytheoriesoftheAfricandiaspora,situatestheideaof

blacknessinthemovementitself. RatherthanimagininganAfricanpastorattemptingto

disassociate with Enlightenment-initiated and Europe-sited modernity, these diasporic

theoriesembracesthedialecticalmultiplicity. Insodoing, identity is forgedsquare in the

waters,hencePaulGilroy’sgroundbreakingconceptionofthe“BlackAtlantic.”

154

3.5. “Water-WashedandSpiritBorn”Folk87

Inmanywaysblacktheoriesofdiaspora,likeblacktheology,arearesponsetothe

depictionofAfricans,AfricanAmericans,Caribbeans,andotherAfrican-descendedpeople

as less than human. Early systematic portrayals of “blackness,” forged during the

Enlightenmentera,wereconstructionsofracethatdevaluedAfrican-descendedpeoplein

lightofwhitenessorEuropeanness.With theriseofsciencecame“proofs”of thegenetic

inferiorityofthosewithblackskin,thusattachingtoblacknessanontologicalcharacter.88

MichelleWrightinBecomingBlack:CreatingIdentityintheAfricanDiaspora(2004)

traceswell“TheEuropeanandAmericanInventionoftheBlackOther”whichbecomesthe

pointofdeparture for thede-andre-interpretations thatwill come later. Shebeginsher

chapter on the construction of race saying, “Over two hundred years before Jacques

Derridabecamecelebrated forhis theoryofdeconstruction,Blacks in theAmericaswere

deconstructingwhiteWesternnationalistdiscoursescelebratingthedawnofdemocracy.”89

SheusesDavidWalker’sAppealTotheColouredCitizensoftheWorldandJohnMarrant’sA

SermonPreachedonthe24thDayofJune1789asexamplesofthisdiscourse.

87RuthDuck,“Wash,OGod,OurSonsandDaughters,”UnitedMethodistHymnal(Nashville:TheUnitedMethodistPublishingHouse,1989),605.

88CornelWest’sProphesyDeliverance!AnAfro-AmericanRevolutionaryChristianity(Louisville:WestminsterJohn Knox Press, 1982) offers a “genealogy of modern racism” that traces natural science’s role in

ontologizingrace.J.KameronCarter’sRace:ATheologicalAccount(NewYork:OxfordUniversityPress,2008)in which he argues that Christian theology is the very container in which race and white racism is

constructed.SeealsoWillieJamesJennings,TheChristianImagination:TheologyandtheOriginsofRace(NewHaven: Yale University Press, 2010); Toni Morrison, Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the LiteraryImagination (New York: Vintage Books, 1992); Lee Baker, From Savage to Negro: Anthropology andtheConstruction of Race andAnthropology and theRacial Politics of Culture (Berkeley: University of CaliforniaPress,1998).

89MichelleWright,BecomingBlack:CreatingIdentityintheAfricanDiaspora(Durham:DukeUniversityPress,2004),27.

155

Their counter-discourses, Wright explains, are responses to the Enlightenment

norm that framed black people as ‘wholly other’, most prominently crafted by Hegel in

Philosophy of Historyand Philosophy of Right,by Count Arthur de Gobineau in Essai sur

l’inégalité des raceshumaines, and by Thomas Jefferson inNotes on the State ofVirginia.

FollowingtheworkofEtienneBalibarandImmanuelWallersteininRace,Nation,andClass,

Wright exploreshowblacksare constructedasOthervis-à-visnationalism in two forms,

theOther-from-withinandtheOther-from-without.Sheexplains:“TheOther-from-without

is what we find in Hegel’s text: located outside theWest yet nonetheless brought in as

oppositional and best understood as void who has the potential to be taught Western

valuesandcultures.”90

Latershecontinues, “In thePhilosophyofHistory,Africa issimply theantithesis to

theEuropeanthesis:itsignifiesimmobilityandstagnation,acontinentofnonsubjectswho

arenecessarysubjecttoEuropeanfreewillandthenecessarydrivetowardsynthesis.”91In

ordertocreatetheEuropeansubject,HegelinterpretsAfricans(continentallyseparatedby

theMediterranean)andAfrican-descendedCaribbeansandblackAmericans(continentally

separatedbytheAtlantic)asOtherexistingentirelyoutsideoftheGermannation.Assuch,

theBlackOtherisphilosophicallyjustifiedasthetargetofslaveryandgenocidebecause‘it’

is literally the antithesis of the European subject.92 Whiteness is a response to the

blacknessEuropeimagined.

90Ibid.,31-32.

91Ibid.,37.

92Ibid.,40.

156

Gobineau (who is known as the “father of modern racism”), Wright explains, is

concernedwiththedeclineofAryancivilization,whichdiffersinpartfromHegel’sidealist

construction.Shestates:

Gobineau asserts that the African races are the most inferior and, to the artistic

temperamentwithwhichheaccreditsthoseraces,headdstheirrationallustsofthe

savage for violence, blood, and sex…his Negro Other is an Other-from within

becauseitscruel,violent,andoversexednaturesposesadirectthreattotherelative

purityoftheAryansubjectandAryancivilization.93

Across the Atlantic, and decades prior, Wright explains that for Jefferson the Negro

constitutesa“problem”because“it”isaslaveandsharesgeographywiththewhitesubject.

Butinaway,forJeffersontheremedy,inlogocentricform,isdefinitional,contendsWright:

“thepresenceofNegroesinAmericadidnotmeantheywerepartofthenation,forAmerica

wasanationproducedbydemocraticideals,notgeographicalorhistoricalboundaries.”

Therefore,“Jeffersonproceedstoconstruct‘blackness’asathingratherthanashade

of color, using the metaphor of the veil as nature’s marker of inferiority, an ultimately

unknownqualitythatnonethelesscoverstheNegro’sfaceandthereforewithitthevisage

of humanity.”94The collusion of Enlightenment logic and racism perhaps is clearest in

Jefferson, asblacksaredefinedasnon-humans—“asa separate species (prone tomating

with apes when in Africa).”95In a way, then, Jefferson constructs the Black Other from

within the geographical boundaries of the state, but still entirely from without the

definitionalboundariesofthedemocraticnationandofthespecies.

AlthoughthenuanceofOtheringisimportant,particularlyillustratingthemannerin

whichdifferentviewsofblacknessasobjectificationanddehumanizationdevelopedinthe

93Ibid.,16.

94Ibid.

95Ibid.,31.

157

United States and in Europe,Wright rightly concludes: “Others-from-within and Others-

fromwithout are not radically different from one another; they are best understood as

variations on the theme of alterity rather than two discrete categories.”96ForHegel and

Gobineau,Africawassimplyadistantlandacrosstheseathatwasconstructedtoformthe

European subject (Hegel) or constructed as a threat to European Aryan identity

(Gobineau). For Jefferson, although the Negro resided geographically with the white

American,hewasneveranAmericanandthushisprimaryidentifierasanon-humanstill

residedacrosstheseaintheimaginedandinferiorconstructionofAfrica.

De-Familiarization:TraversingWaters

ThepresentationofblackpeopleasobjectsandOthers,then,isthefirstmoveofthe

dialecticintheinterpretationofblackdiasporicidentityvis-à-visthetropeofwater. The

secondmoveisthe ‘de-presentation’thatoccursinthefirstwavesofdiasporictheory,as

articulatedbyblackpeople.W.E.B.DuBois,FranzFanon,AiméCésaire,LéopoldSenghor,

and others, create a “counter-discourse,” saysWright. This counter-language then is an

attempttode-familiarizetheracistnormsoftheEnlightenment; theyseektoofferacon-

text.Racisttextsarewrittenuponblackbodiesquaantithesis,promptingblackpeopleto

writethecontexttowhitenessquathesis.

Among themost prominent systematic theories of black diasporic identity of the

first half of the 20th century are those of Du Bois, E. Franklin Frazier and Melville

Herskovits.CharlesLongexplainsinSignifications:

The issue of persistence of African elements in the black community is a hotly

debated issue. On theonehand,wehave thepositionsofE. FranklinFrazier and

96Ibid.,64.

158

W.E.B. Du Bois, emphasizing the lack of any significant persisting elements of

AfricanisminAmerica.MelvilleHerskovitsheldthissamepositionbutreversedhis

position in theMyth of theNegro Past (Boston, 1958), where he places a greateremphasisonthepresenceofAfricanelementsamongthedescendantsoftheslaves

inNorthAmerica.97

As J.LorandMatorypointsout inBlackAtlanticReligion:Tradition,Transnationalism,and

MatriarchyintheAfro-BrazilianCandomblé(2005)theHerskovits-Frazierdebateiscentral

inAfrican-Americanstudies.98Theirinterpretationsrepresenttwopolesofconnectingthe

blackAmericantoAfrica.Inthismovementofourinterpretivedialectic,thequestionisnot

what separates Europe/America from Africa, but rather an attempt to determine what

connectsit.Inotherwords,thequestionbecomeswhat—ifanything—survivedtheMiddle

Passage?What,ifanything,traversedtheAtlanticwaters?

Sidney Mintz’s and Richard Price’s The Birth of African-American Culture: An

Anthropological Perspective (1976) and Albert Raboteau’s Slave Religion: The “Invisible

Institution” in the Antebellum South (1978) present the foundational arguments that

mitigate the Herskovits-Frazier debate. In their view, black culture in the Americas

represents neither a full retention of an African past nor a full loss of it.Whilemuch is

destroyedinthetumultuousseasofthe“Maafa,”agreatdealalsosurvives.99Thekeypoint,

however,ofMintz’sandPrice’saswellasRaboteau’sworkisthatanewcultureisbornin

the encounter between the African and the Americas. The child of this contact is the

97CharlesH.Long,Significations:Signs,Symbols,andImagesintheInterpretationofReligion,1986(Aurora:TheDaviesGroup,1999),189.

98J.LorandMatory,BlackAtlanticReligion:Tradition,Transnationalism,andMatriarchyintheAfro-BrazilianCandomblé(Princeton:PrincetonUniversityPress,2005),11.99“Maafa”istheSwahilitermmeaning“greattragedy”thatisusedtodescribethetransatlanticslavetrade,

enslavementinthe“newworld,”colonializationanditsvestiges.

159

“African American,”which is not entirely African orWestern/European (or American as

such).MintzandPriceconclude:

The general theoretical position we take in this essay is that the past must be

viewedastheconditioningcircumstanceofthepresent.Wedonotbelievethatthe

present can be ‘understood’—in the sense of explaining the relationships among

different contemporary institutional forms—without reference to the past. We

suppose this tobe thecase,whetherour interestbe in theEuropeanpeopleswho

conquered the world they called ‘new,’ the Indian peoples they destroyed and

subjugatedwith it,or theAfrican—and, later,Asian—peoples theydragged into it.

NewWorld it is, for thosewho became its peoples remade it, and in the process,

theyremadethemselves.100

ItisintheremakingthattheAfricanAmericanisborn.

With emphasis on religion, Raboteau illustrates the unique black religion that is

birthedinthewesternhemisphere.Whilehetracessignificantdifferencesinthewaythat

faith ispracticed in theUnitedStatesand in theCaribbean/SouthAmerica,newreligious

formsthatareAfrican-derivedanddescendedcometoexist in theAmericas. Indeed the

text’s titlewitnesses to this creation. African-American religionduring theperiodunder

investigation is neither entirely African nor entirely non-African. Instead it is “slave

religion.”Raboteauexplains:

In themidst of slavery, religionwas for slaves a space ofmeaning, freedom, and

transcendence…As theone institutionwhich freedblackswereallowed tocontrol,

thechurchwasthecenterofsocial,economic,educational,andpoliticalactivity. It

was also a source of continuity and identity for the black community. In their

churches,blackworshipperscontinuesfordecadestopray,sing,preach,andshout

astheyortheirparentshadduringslavery.101

As scholars of black culture attempt to describe black identity in contrast to the racist

propositions of Hegel, Gobineau, Jefferson, and others, they seek to travel across the

Atlantic—to traverse the waters—and build a connection to Africa. The waters do not

100SidneyMintzandRichardPrice,TheBirthofAfrican-AmericanCulture:AnAnthropologicalPerspective,1976(Boston:BeaconPress,1992),83-84.

101AlbertRaboteau,SlaveReligion:The“InvisibleInstitution”intheAntebellumSouth(NewYork:OxfordUniversityPress,1978),318,320.

160

strictlyseparate,butrathertheyaretobebridgedinconstructivefashion.Inthewatersof

the Atlantic, indeed in the pain of the Middle Passage, African-American culture is

conceivedandthusbirthedassomethingnovelintheAmericas.

Re-Presentation:WadingintheWatersoftheBlackAtlantic

In1993,PaulGilroydramaticallyshiftedtheconversationofblackdiasporicstudies

with his publication of The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness. Gilroy’s

invocationoftheconceptofblacklifebehindtheveilcontinuedinDuBois’slegacy:justas

no American interpretation of blackness could circumvent Du Bois, no contemporary

analysisoftheAfricandiasporacanevadeGilroy.TheBlackAtlanticfunctionsasakeystone

in unlocking black identity because it re-presents African-descended people as complex

leading characters in an age-old drama. They stand not as the anti-thesis of whites and

Enlightenment-inspiredmodernity,but ratherasprotestingproductsof it.This is to say,

black people aremodern, while at the same time being “countercultures ofmodernity,”

whichisthethemeofthefirstchapter.Inthisformulationthereisdialecticaltensionand

transcendenceinwhichblacknessisdefinedbothintermsoftheWestandthe‘non-West’.

Gilroyexplains:

ThespecificityofthemodernpoliticalandculturalformationIwanttocalltheblack

Atlantic can be defined, on one level, through this desire to transcend both the

structures of the nation state and the constraints of ethnicity and national

particularity. Thesedesires are relevant to understandingpolitical organizing and

cultural criticism. They have always sat uneasily alongside the strategic choices

forcedonblackmovementsandindividualsembeddedinnationalpoliticalcultures

andnationsstatesinAmerica,theCaribbean,andEurope.102

102PaulGilroy,TheBlackAtlantic:ModernityandDoubleConsciousness(Cambridge:HarvardUniversityPress,1993),19.

161

Throughhisanalysisof slaveculture, the transnational characterofblackmusic,and the

expatriation black luminaries such as Du Bois and RichardWright, Gilroy demonstrates

howblacknessisnotsimplyaproductofeitherAfricaorAmerica,butratherisshapedby

andalsolivesinEurope.WithoutGermanidealismtherewouldbenoDuBoisasweknow

him; Richard Wright (and James Baldwin) depended upon Paris, Jean-Paul Sartre, and

Albert Camus to render his critique of race and racism in the United States. Black

nationalistmovementsofthe20thcentury,fromGarveyismtoNegritude,developthrough

articulationsofthemodernEuropeannotionofthenation-state.

Notonlythis,butasablackBriton,Gilroypresentsthevibrancyofblackculture—

especiallythroughhisanalysisoffunkandhip-hopmusic—inplaceslikeGreatBritain.For

Gilroy, blackness is constantly in motion, moving from continent to continent. This

transnationalandintercontinentalmovementisnotunidirectionalandfrozeninhistory,as

intheMiddlePassageandsubsequenttheoriesevaluatingthedegreeofAfricanretentions.

Rather, the flow of people, music, ideas, and other forms of culture is mobile and

multidirectional,andongoinginthepresent.

Hence,theconceptofthe“blackAtlantic”wheretheunifyingprincipleoftheAfrican

diasporaisthewater.Hemovesawayfromattemptstoconstructabridgeoverthewater,

in order to close a perceived gap. Thus, in Gilroy’s formulation appeals to racial and

ethnicitypurityandauthenticityareno longer the ‘center’of theblackdiaspora. Instead,

waterbecomesthe“stuff”ofdiaspora,themediumofblacksubjectivity.Hestates:

I have settledon the imageof ships inmotionacross the spacesbetweenEurope,

America,Africa,andtheCaribbeanasacentralorganizingsymbolforthisenterprise

andmy starting point. The image of ship—a living,micro-cultural,micro-political

system in motion—is especially important for historical and theoretical

reasons…Ships immediately focus attentionon themiddlepassage, on thevarious

project for redemptive return to an African homeland, on the circulation of ideas

162

andactivistsaswellasthemovementofkeyculturalandpoliticalartefacts:tracts,

books,gramophonerecords,andchoirs.103

The re-presentation of blackness as the black Atlantic returns us most squarely to the

waters.Tobeblacknotonlyistowadeinthewaters,butratheritisbebirthedandtolive

inthewaters.“I'veknownrivers,”pensHughesinapoemdedicatedtoDuBois,“Ancient,

duskyrivers/Mysoulhasgrowndeepliketherivers.”104Spiritandwateris life,spirit is

what binds life (bio-diversity) together. And still, water is ambiguous (sometimes

dangerous) and asMorse reminds us vis-à-vis the Johannine text, “not every spirit is of

God.”Navigatingthewatersofspirit,then,isanactofutmostcourage.

3.6. “Un/Shouted”Courage Hurston’sMoses,Manof theMountain is a narrative about water that reimagines

identity.Itbeginswithbirthofachildwhosesurvival(accordingtothelegendinHurston’s

rewriting) depends upon the mercy of the Nile, in light of the Egyptian slaughter of

Hebrewsboys(Exodus1:22).Whenthenamelessboychildisborn,hisfatheristerrifiedto

thepointoffilicide,becauseoftheruthlessnessoftheEgyptiansoldierswhowilldecimate

theentirefamilyiftheyattempttheboychild’ssurvival.Uponhisbirth,thefamilygoesto

greatlengthtomufflehiscrysoasnottoalertthemaraudingguards.Thenamelessboy,in

Hurston’stext,becomesthechildnotallowedtocry.

Hurstonwrites,“Amramturnedhisstrickenfaceuponhiswife.‘Jochebed,thereare

different kinds of courage. Sometimes ordinary love and courage ain’t enough for the

103Ibid.,4.

104LangstonHughes,“TheNegroSpeaksofRivers,”TheCollectedWorksofLangstonHughesVolumeI:ThePoems,1921-1940,ed.ArnoldRampersad(Columbia:UniversityofMissouriPress,2001),36.

163

occasion. But awomanwouldn’t recognize a time like thatwhen it come.” The threat of

one’s own demise, and that of the family, forecloses in Amram’smind the only possible

choice.Later“Amramsaidhuskily,‘Shallwegrantitmercifulescape,Jochebed?’”105

Buttheboychild’smotherisunmovedbyherhusband’sideaofmercyanddeclares,

asthechildissetadriftuptheNileinabasket:“OnethingIknowPharaohcan’tmakeoutof

me.Hecan’ttakemysonawayfrommeandmakemeamurdereratthesametime.That’s

one thing I don’t aim to let him do.”106 The child’s mother Jochebed possesses an

unshakabledeterminationnottobechangedbyhercircumstances—evenifitcostherlife.

Inotherwords,shewillriskherlifeinordertoremainherself.“Therearesomethingsin

lifethatareworsethandeath.”107Ordinaryloveandcourage,Hurstonsays,canbeenough.

MaryBurgher,inheressay“ImagesofSelfandRaceintheAutobiographiesofBlack

Women”exploreshowAfricanAmericanwomen forgeanddepict “tenacityof spirit”and

“creative identities” amidst otherwise debilitating circumstances. Despite the fact that,

Burgher illustrates that these autobiographies do not resign themselves to one-

dimensional bemoaning the blackwoman’s condition, but rather resolve to thrive in the

faceofeverycountermeasuretoflourishing.

ReflectingonMayaAngelou’s IKnowWhytheCagedBirdSingsandHurston’sDust

TracksontheRoad,Burgherwrites:

Blackwomenautobiographerswriteaboutexperiencesmorevaried,muchharsher,

andattimesmorebeautifulthanmostothersencounter…TheCagedBird,likeother105ZoraNealeHurston,Moses,ManoftheMountain(KindleLocations390-391).HarperCollins.KindleEdition.

106Ibid,KindleLocation420.

107HowardThurman,“TheNegroSpiritualSpeaksofLifeandDeath,”inAfricanAmericanReligiousThought,ed.CornelWestandEddieS.Glaude(Louisville:WestminsterJohnKnoxPress,2003),31.

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autobiographies by Black women, is a valuable resource because it reveals and

symbolizes the Black woman’s daring act of remaking her lost innocence into

invisible dignity, her never-practiced delicacy into quiet grace, and her forced

responsibilityintounshoutedcourage.108

Theeverydaystrugglesofblackwomen,Burghersubmits,revealaresiliencethatendures

inthe faceofunimaginablesuffering.Theyarenot,however,merevictimsofoppression.

Instead they are powerful actors that exhibit character and strength, even when they

cannot readily and prominently voice their story. Although not an autobiography, in

Hurston’sMoses,Manof theMountain the child that cannot cry ismet by the unshouted

courage of a mother’s love. It is worth mentioning that this suppressed potentiality is

reminiscentoftheunhopefulnessinDuBois’sautobiographical“OnthePassingoftheFirst

Born.”

Womanist Katie Cannon takes up this notion of Hurston’s “unshouted courage,”

whichisaformofwhatCannoncalls“theinaudiblestoutheartednessofBlackfolk”109and

writes:

InZoraNealeHurston’sessaystheinferenceof“unshoutedcourage”continuedtobe

derived from itsprominence in theBlackcommunity.AliceWalker, in introducing

Hurston’s nonfiction, asserts that the fundamental thesis that Hurston embodied

and exhibited in her essays was that one “must struggle every minute of life to

affirm black people’s right to a healthy existence.” This idea concurs with the

understanding of courage in Paul Tillich’s work. Tillich says that courage is an

ethicalactwhenhumansaffirmtheirownbeinginspiteofthoseelements intheir

existencewhichconflictwiththeiressentialself-affirmation.110

108MaryBurgher,“ImagesofSelfandRaceintheAutobiographiesofBlackWomen,”inSturdyBlackBridges:VisionsofBlackWomeninLiterature,ed.RoseannP.Bell,BettyeJ.Parker,andBeverlyGuy-Sheftall(GardenCity:AnchorBooks,1979),113.

109Cannon,Katie’sCanon,78.110Ibid.,147.QuotingAliceWalkerinILoveMyselfWhenIamLaughing…AZoraNealeHurstonReader,ed.AliceWalker(OldWestbury,NY:TheFeministPress,1979),151.

165

AlthoughCannondoesnotelaborate,IfindCannon’sinvocationofTillichimmensely

important.For Tillich, courage necessarily implies theological God-talk packed with

immensesignifications.Even ifCannondoesnot intend to tetherheranalysisofHurston

deeply inTillich’s systematic theology, her referencedoesopen the slightest of fractures

thatoffersfertilegroundfortheconstructiveproject.Moreover,itopensawindowtogive

additional attention to Hurston theologically, and in conversation with a systematic

theologian.111WhereasCannonisexplicitlyinterestedinconstructiveethics,herappealto

Tillich provides the overlapping immanent bridge to engage in constructive theology

withoutforcingtheconnection.IwillcrossthisTillichianbridgeinthenextchapter.

Inthisinstance,thedifferencebetweenethicsandtheologymightbestbedescribed

intermsofkineticandpotentialenergy.Ratherthanbeingseparateandunrelated,kinesis

andpotentialityaretetheredtooneanother,andthe“mainthing”underconsiderationis

energy.Tosomeextentthedistinctionisdrawntocallattention—toaparticularsnapshot

inanongoingprocessofflux.Thereisnecessarypermeabilitybetweenthesecategories,in

much the sameway that intersectional divisions of race, class, gender, and sexuality are

heuristic.

111PaulTillich,“TheProblemofTheologicalMethod:II,”TheJournalofReligion27:1(January1947),16-26.

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Chapter4. QueeringSpirit:TheologicalTransgressionasaWayBackHome

“Castawayfromyouallthetransgressionsthatyouhavecommittedagainstme,andgetyourselvesanewheartandanewspirit!Whywillyoudie…

ForIhavenopleasureinthedeathofanyone,saystheLordGOD.Turn,then,andlive.(Ezekiel18:31-32)

“forindeedourGodisaconsumingfire.”(Hebrews12:29)

“Come home and build your self a house.” ThesewereAunt Susie’swords tome,

summer2008,assheshowedmethefamily’slandinBessemer,Alabama.Thiscountryplot,

however,resembledlittleoftherentedsplit-familyhomesIhadknowngrowingupinthe

ghettos of Buffalo, New York. Well, except that both begged for repair. But when my

graduateworkatUnionTheologicalSeminaryaffordedmea travel fellowship toexplore

something personal that would allow me to do my future work better, I turned to my

past—notmine,perse,butthatofmyfamily.

In order to do thework of empowerment, integral to the liberation theology that

had becomemine at Union, first I attempted to literally give an account of my family’s

liberation.Ihadtocompletetheante-workifIweretoaccomplishtherealwork.Iwanted

to trace my lineage to American slavery, and if possible, through it and beyond. As a

descendentofenslavedpeopleandanactivistincontemporarymovementsagainsthuman

trafficking,itmadesensethatIbeabletospeakmyownstory“upfromslavery.”1Itwasthe

fulfillmentofthefamiliaradage:inordertoknowwhereyouaregoing,youhavetoknow

fromwhenceyoucame.Thus, Ibeganwritingmy family’shistory inorder to composea

1BookerT.Washington,UpFromSlavery(NewYork:Doubleday,1901).

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genealogy,andit landedmeonmygreat-great-aunt’sporch.FordaysI listenedtostories

aboutapastthatwasentirelyaboutmypresent.Preparationformyfuturemeantspending

timeinmyancestralhome.

ButAlabamaishardlymyhome,andthelikelihoodofmesettlingthereisslim.Ifelt

farmorecomfortable inManhattanwhereI livedforyearsthanIeverwould inthedeep

South.Nevertheless,muchmorethananimaginednostalgiaconnectsmetothis“place.”2It

is such an unsettling and tenuous connection that I will explore below. By examining

Hurston’s relationship to “place” I seek to expand the limits ofwhat constitutes “home.”

The process of reexamining the very thingswe take for granted—andqueering them3—

enablesustodomuchbetterthatwhichourheartsdesire.

Saidanotherway,andfollowingCollins’sandBilge’snotionthatintersectionalityis

“criticalinquiryandpraxis,”goodpracticedemandsre-membering.4Whileitsgoalisnotto

arriveatorthodoxy,thetaskofcriticalknowledgeformationisaboutorthopraxis.5Theway

wethinkisinfluencedbythewayweact—andviceversa.Inthisrecollection,whichisas

2Again,by“place”Idonotmeanaphysicallocation,butrathersomethingthatisatthesametimemore

abstractandmoresubstantial,aswillbediscussedbelow.SeeJacquelineNassyBrown’sDroppingAnchor,SettingSail:GeographiesofRaceinBlackLiverpool(Princeton:PrincetonUniversityPress,2005).3BythisImean,theologicallydifferentlyandeschatologicallyinviewofan-otherpossibleworld.Marcella

Althaus-Reidwrites,“Queeringtheology,thetheologicaltaskandGodisallpartofacomingoutofthecloset

forChristianitywhichisnolongersimplyoneoptionamongothers,norisitsidetrackoutsidewhathasbeen

regardedasthehighroadofclassicaltheology.QueeringtheologyisthepathofGod’sownliberation,apart

fromours,andassuchitconstitutesacritiquetowhatHeterosexualTheologyhasdonewithGodbycloseting

thedivine.Intheology,asinlove,thisquestisaspiritualone,whichrequirescontinuingtotheOthersideof

theology,andtheOthersideofGod….OurtaskandourjoyistofindorsimplyrecognizeGodsittingamongst

us,atanytime,inanygaybarorinthehomeofacampfriendwhodecoratesherlivingroomasachapeland

doesn’tleaveherrosaryathomewhengoingtoasalsabar.”TheQueerGod(NewYork:Routledge,2003),4.SeealsoAprilS.Callis,“PlayingwithButlerandFoucault:BisexualityandQueerTheory,”JournalofBisexuality9:3-4(2009),213-233.

4PatriciaHillCollinsandSirmaBilge,Intersectionality(Malden:PolityPress,2006),31-62.5Ihaveinmindthefamiliaremphasisofpraxisbeforereflectioninliberationtheology.See,forexample,

chapteroneofGustavoGutiérrez’sATheologyofLiberation:History,Politics,andSalvation,1973(Maryknoll:OrbisBooks,1988).

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muchaboutconstructionas it isaboutdis-covering, I “becomeagainwhat Ineverwas.”6

Oddly enough, figuring out that I was quite a foreigner in Bessemer strengthened my

connectiontothis‘home’—notexactlythebreakingofchainsthatIanticipated.

ZoraNealeHurston’sjourneyfromEatonvilletoHarlemandbackisapilgrimageof

self-discoverythatre-introducestheAmericansouthtotheworld.Likewise,intheprocess,

HarlembecomesspiritualhomeallowinghertorediscoverEatonville,herancestralhome.

Representingakeyturningpoint,HarlemissiteofHurston’sconversion,theplacewhere

her life pivots and she becomes an artist concernedwith putting the black south on the

worldstage.

Inthischapter,I focusour ‘gaze’uponthetransformationthatoccursinHurston’s

Harlem. My interest, in particular, is her role as the self-proclaimed “Queen of the

Niggerati”: the queen mother of Richard Bruce Nugent, Langston Hughes, and Wallace

Thurman, black gay men who along with Hurston comprised the literary group that

publishedFIRE!!andinhabitedtheNiggeratiManor.Ifnothingelse,theirhomeisaqueer

site of resistance, and finding home—or better, building a home—is a creative act of

defiance.

InlightoftheirengagementwithblackChristianity,theyhelpustoseethatfindinga

“churchhome”startswithanembodied living,which is tobeathomeinone’sself.Their

attentiontotransgressiveactsofpassionate,bodilyexpressionhaseverythingtodowith

spirit.Andspiritisfire.Theircreativitytransgressesthestatusquo,claimingthepowerto

beoneself. In this light,onemightconsiderHurston’sprojectasa“preface to liberation,”

6MichelFoucault,TheHermeneuticsoftheSubject:LecturesattheCollègedeFrance,1981-1982,trans.GrahamBurchell(NewYork:Picador,2005),95.

169

likened unto Foucault’s “preface to transgression.”7 This chapter heeds Aunt Susie’s

invitationtobuilda(discursive)home.

Icontinuemovingthroughdeconstructiontoconstruction,fromnegativedialectics

toward an affirmative dialogic. Not only is Hurston a constructive source for womanist

theology,asCannonandTowneshaveshownus,buthere I readheralsoasasource for

queer pneumatology; that is, for imagining spirited transgression. This “queering” of

Hurston,vis-à-vishercomrades,placesherownfiercenessingreaterrelief.Itextendsher

“straight-lickwithacrookedstick”8intoawayoffurtherreadingHurstonethicallyintothe

world. In so doing, I reverse the heterosexist appropriation of sanctified (deviant)

Christianity,whichpivotsoffHurston,advocatedbyCherylJ.Sanders.

Thefierceloveofthebody,signifiedbyGod’sSpiritinhabitinghumanflesh,reveals

that empowermentdependsuponweakening.That is, transgressiondestabilizes systems

(ofoppression),andushersinanotherwayof living.Inthischapter,Iwillconversewith

Paul Tillich, RogerHaight, andMarcellaAlthaus-Reid to advance a transgressive (queer)

pneumatology.ThekenoticactofloveofGod-becominghuman,whichisthefirstdeathof

God,stimulatesfreedomofthebody.Theovercomingoftheseconddeathofthecrucified

God in resurrection, reestablishes Jesus as ghost—but one whose materiality and cross

remains.Itishere,then,thatImostdeliberatelyinterpretJesusastheSpiritofGod.

7MichelFoucault,“APrefacetoTransgression”(1963)inReligionandCulture:MichelFoucault,ed.JeremyR.Carrette(NewYork:Routledge,1999),57-71.Particularly,Iamthinkingofwhenhewritesonpage64thatphilosophymusttakeupa“lessambitiousgoal.”

8ZoraNealeHurston,“HighJohndeConquer”(October1943),inZoraNealeHurston:Folklore,Memoirs,andOtherWritings(NewYork:LiteraryClassics,1995),922-931.

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4.1. WomanistsLovetheSpirit?

WomanisttrailblazersKatieCanonandEmileTownes,asexploredinchapterthree,

have turned toHurston in their ethical projects to celebrateblackwomen’s experiences.

Reading everyday struggles as sacred texts, they have found spiritual home in Hurston,

drawing deeply from her well of folklore that features African-American women

prominently. Christian social ethicist Cheryl J. Sanders, in her study of the Sanctified

church,alsoconverseswithHurstonandwomanism.

InherstudyofHoliness-Pentecostalism,Sandersdis-coverstheproductivepowerof

blackwomen,focusingonsanctifiedworshiptraditionsinwhichspiritbaptismandspirit

possessionisfrontandcenter.9Sandersillustratesthatagreatdealofattentionisgivento

the intentional invocation of the Holy Spirit, whose presence is verified by embodied

manifestationssuchasshouting, speaking in tongues,anddancing. “The tradition thrives

upon the integration of aesthetics (cultural authenticity), ethics (implementation of

Christian norms), and epistemology (ways of knowing) in its characteristic verbal and

bodily articulations of praise.”10According to Sanders, encountering God is mediated

throughdemonstrativeandecstaticexperiences.

Sanders demonstrates this movement is a type of “Christian reform” because it

womenandthepoorplayacentralroleintheemergenceandpersistenceofthesanctified

church. 11 Whereas they were marginal actors in that mainstream Christianity, the

involvement of poor and female members is inseparably constitutive of the Holiness-

9CherylJ.Sanders,SaintsinExile:TheHoliness-PentecostalExperienceinAfricanAmericanReligionandCulture(NewYork:OxfordUniversityPress,1996).10Ibid.,70.

11SeealsoAntheaButler’sWomenintheChurchofGodinChrist:MakingaSanctifiedWorld(ChapelHill:TheUniversityofNorthCarolinaPress,2007).

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Pentecostal experience. It is a form of expression that drew the best from Baptist and

Methodisttraditionstoinitiateanewtradition.JarenaLee,ZilphaElaw,andJuliaFoote—

dubbedbyWilliamAndrewsas“sistersoftheSpirit”12—arethreeMethodist forerunners

of the Sanctified Church, whose embodiment of sanctificationwould come to typify this

freshmovement.13

SandersopenshertextSaintsinExile:TheHoliness-PentecostalExperienceinAfrican

AmericanReligionandCulturebyreferencingHurston’sgroundbreakingresearch.Shethen

articulatesa

comprehensive definition of the Sanctified church that builds on the thought of

Turner, Hurston, and Gilkes but adds a needed ethical dimension: The Sanctifiedchurch is an African American Christian reform movement that seeks to bring itsstandards of worship, personal morality, and social concern into conformity with abiblical hermeneutic of holiness and spiritual empowerment [emphasis in original].This ethical emphasis is a critical element in the definition because the Sanctified

churches are congregations of “saints,” an ethical definition members apply to

themselves as an indication of their collective response to the biblical call to

holiness.14

Sanders’s description of the Sanctified church correlates biblical conformity and social

ethics. Sainthood and spiritual empowerment are achieved through alignment with

scripturalholiness.ContrarytoHurston’snonconformist tendencies,demonstrated inthe

12SistersoftheSpirit:ThreeBlackWomen’sAutobiographiesoftheNineteenthCentury,ed.WilliamAndrews(Bloomington:IndianaUniversityPress1986).Andrewswrites:Andrewswrites,“Indeed,someapologistsfor

slaverypredicatedtheirargumentsontheideathattheNegrohadnotbeenendowedbyhiscreatorwitha

soul…LikeLeeandElawbeforeher,Foote’sbrandoffeministactivismwithinChristianityevolvedoutofher

convictionthatsalvationmadepossiblethegiftofspiritual‘sanctification,’i.e.,apurifyingofone’sinner

dispositiontowillfulsin,aliberationofthesoultovoicetheindwellingvoiceofChrist”(1,4).

13These three preachingwomen from19th century ante- and post-bellumAmerica are entry points into a

transgressive,transglobal,andtranshistoricalinquiryoftherelationshipofChristianwomenandSpirit.See

MargueritePorete,TheMirrorofSimpleSouls,c.1300,trans.EllenBabinsky(NewYork:PaulistPress,1993);JulianofNorwich,RevelationsofDivineLove,1413(NewYork:PenguinClassics,1998);TeresaofAvila,TheInteriorCastle,1577,trans.KieranKavanaughandOtilioRodriguez(NewYork:PaulistPress,1979);andSt.HildegardofBingen,TheBookofDivineWorks,1174,ed.MatthewFox(SantaFe:Bear&Co.,1987).Cf. Amy Hollywood, Sensible Ecstasy: Mysticism, Sexual Difference, and the Demands of History (Chicago:UniversityofChicagoPress,2002).

14Sanders,SaintsinExile,5.

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previouschapter,SandersleveragesHurstoninteraliainordertoshapeadefinitionrooted

in conformity. In fact, while we have seen Hurston’s creative alteration of scripture,

SandersmobilizesHurstontopromoteanorthodoxbiblicalhermeneutic.

Sanders, an ordained Church of God minister and congregational pastor, has

demonstrated a commitment to conservative, biblical orthodoxy in several venues,

especially with regard to human sexuality. In a roundtable discussion with womanist

theologians, Sanders challengesAliceWalker’s foundationaldescriptionofwomanismon

thisorthodoxground,deemingitantitheticaltoChristianity.

According to Sanders, Walker’s womanism is objectionable because it celebrates

sexualfreedomoverrestraint,ignorestraditionalChristiannotionsofsacrality,andavoids

Christology.15The womanist claim to “love the Spirit” is vague and indistinctive, says

Sanders.16IagreewithSandersthatthewomanistdefinition,alongwithblacktheology,has

a very ambiguous deployment of Spirit. As discussed in chapter three, this dissertation

contributes to Delores Williams’s suggestion that “womanist theology could eventually

speakofGodinawell-developedtheologyofthespirit.”17

However, I get off Sanders’s train when she goes on to say that the womanist

conceptunderminestheblackfamily,blackchurch,andblackcommunity:“Thewomanist

nomenclature…conveysasexualethicsthatisambivalentatbestwithrespecttothevalue

of heterosexualmonogamywithin the black community.”18 In amove that Katie Canon

15CherylSandersetal,“RoundtableDiscussion:ChristianEthicsandTheologyinWomanistPerspective,”TheWomanistReader,ed.LayliPhillips(NewYork:Routledge,2006),126-149.16Ibid.,131.

17DeloresWilliams,“WomanistTheology:BlackWomen’sVoices,”TheWomanistReader,123.18Sanders,TheWomanistReader,133.

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finds infuriating,19Sanders borrows Hurston’s definition of a mule to deem “womanist

theology”anegregiousmisnomer.Sanderscharges:

The termwomanisttheology is inmyviewa forcedhybridizationof twodisparateconcepts and may come to resemble another familiar hybrid, the mule, in being

incapableofproducingoffspring.NovelistZoraNealeHurstononcedeclaredinthe

voiceofoneofhercharactersthattheblackwomanis“themuleoftheworld,”but

unlike the mule the black woman has often sought to cast upon the Lord those

burdens too hard for her to bear, and has reproduced herself, body and spirit,

throughmanygenerations.Notonlydoesthisscantattentiontothesacredrender

thewomanist perspective of dubious value as a context for theological discourse,

butitultimatelysubvertsanyefforttominethespiritualtraditionsandresourcesof

blackwomen.20

Sandersdeclareswaronwomanism,weaponizingHurstonagainstthosewhorediscovered

and popularized her works. She asserts womanism’s sterility, the ultimate insult to the

schoolofthoughtfirstdescribedinWalker’sInSearchofOurMother’sGardens.21

While Sanders advances the emotive ‘hysteria’ of charismatic worship, queer

sexuality and sexual freedom become the sacrificial lamb. Sanders repeatedly endorses

heterosexualmonogamyon reproductive grounds for the survival of theblack family. In

bothacademicandchurchsettings,Sandersadvocatestheviewthathomosexualpractice

assaults a black community already under attack by white supremacy.22For Sanders,

homosexualpracticeissinfulandconflictswithbiblicalholiness.23

19Cannon,TheWomanistReader,135.20Sanders,TheWomanistReader,131.21AliceWalker,InSearchofOurMother’sGardens:WomanistProse(Orlando:Harcourt,1983),xi.22Cf.KellyBrownDouglas,SexualityandtheBlackChurch:AWomanistPerspective(Maryknoll:OrbisBooks,1999).Douglastraces“TheImpactoftheWhiteCulturalAttack”intheformationoforthodoxblackChristian

viewstowardsexualityinBlacksexualpracticeanditspoliticshavebeenshapedbywhitesupremacy,and

thecontrolofblackbodiesdatingbacktoslavery.Asaresult,blackcommunitieshavefailedtodevelopa

“sexualdiscourseofresistance,”andinstead“virtualsilence–beyondmoralinvectivesandself-righteous

assertion”(88)hasemergedthatdependsuponinconsistentreasoningbiblicalliteralism.Ultimately,Douglas

concludesthathomophobia,nothomosexuality,isunfaithfultotheblackfaithtradition.

23Sanders,“SexualOrientationandHumanRightsDiscourseintheAfrican-AmericanChurches,”Sexual

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Interestingly,thisotheringcounteractsthesexualandgenderfluidityproximateto

Hurston and her Harlem “Niggerati,” as will be discussed below. The staggering irony

cannotbeunderstated.Sanders’s“empowermentethics”followsthemannerofsocialuplift

predicatedontheproliferationoftheother.24Justastheaffirmationofblacknessby“race

men” has subjugated gender,25theworking class consciousness of Sanders’s charismatic

Christianity subjugates sexuality. At stake in the construction of the spirited black soul,

then, isthestabilizingofdisparateidentitiesthroughtheproductionofdeviantones.The

reclamation of sanctified Christianity vis-à-vis Hurston is predicated on the exorcism of

queerness. This move, I argue, is not a “sincere” 26 response to Hurston’s story: it

appropriates and makes Hurston foreign to herself. Constructively I take Hurston back

home.

OrientationandHumanRightsinAmericanReligiousDiscourse,ed.SaulM.OlyanandMarthaC.Nussbaum(NewYork:OxfordUniversityPress,1998),178-184.Sanders,“WhyIBelieveHomosexualPracticeIsaSin.”

“WhyIBelieveHomosexualPracticeIsaSin.”TheAfricanAmericanLectionary.http://www.theafricanamericanlectionary.org/pdf/dialogue/Homosexuality_CherylSanders.pdf.Seealso

KellyBrownDouglas’sdiscussionofSandersinTheBlackChrist(Maryknoll:OrbisBooks,1994),100-101.24Sanders,EmpowermentEthicsforaLiberatedPeople:APathtoAfricanAmericanSocialTransformation(Minneapolis:FortressPress,1995).Cf.EvelynBrooksHigginbotham,“AfricanAmericanWomen’sHistory

andtheMetalanguageofRace,”Signs:JournalofWomeninCultureandSociety17:21(1992),251-274;aswellasLaurelC.Schneider,“WhatRaceisYourSex?”inQueerReligion:HomosexualityinModernReligiousHistory,ed.DonaldL.BoisvertandJayEmersonJohnson(SantaBarbara:Praeger,2012).SeealsoJimSidaniusandFeliciaPratto,SocialDominance:AnIntergroupTheoryofSocialHierarchyandOppression(Cambridge:CambridgeUniversityPress,1999).25SeeHazelV.Crosby,RaceMen(Cambridge:HarvardUniversityPress,1998)andDeloresWilliams,SistersintheWilderness:TheChallengeofWomanistGod-talk(Maryknoll:OrbisBooks,1993).26Again,IfollowJackson’suseof“sincerity”insteadof“authenticity”inRealBlack:AdventuresinRacialSincerity(Chicago:UniversityofChicago,2005).JohnL.Jackson,Sr.challengestheapplicationoftheterm“authenticity”towillfulsubjects.Toavoidthedeploymentofthisterm,withitsobjectifying,essentialist

trappings,Jacksoninsteaduses“sincerity”to“addsomenuancetocontemporaryconsiderationsofsocial

solidarityandidentitypoliticking”(13).Seealso,Jackson,“OnEthnographicSincerity,”CurrentAnthropology51:2(October2010),S279-S287.

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4.2. HometoGayHarlem:QueerIdentitiesSeekingSafety

Noprophetisacceptedintheprophet’shometown(Luke4:24)

Hurston had a complicated relationship to her birthplace, Eatonville. At once,

HurstonvalorizesEatonville,oneofthefirstindependentNegrotownsintheUnitedStates.

Sheinheritedthissenseofindependence,whichcoursedthroughherveins;inmanyways

Hurstonwas a product of her place, asmany biographical accounts suggest.27“For Zora

Hurston,Eatonvillewasalwayshome.Throughouther life, shewouldclaimEatonvilleas

herbirthplaceandrefertoitasher ‘nativevillage’,”commentsValerieBoyd.28Thislocale

plays a prominent role in her corpus, sometimes named explicitly and at other times

referencedthroughallusion.

Oftenatoddswithherfather,however,inthewakeofhermother’sdeath,13year-

old Hurston leaves home and begins venturing out on her own. Hurston writes in her

autobiography:

Mamaexhortedherchildrenateveryopportunityto“jumpatdesun.”Wemightnot

land on the sun, but at least we would get off the ground. Papa did not feel so

hopeful.Letwellenoughalone.ItdidnotdoforNegroestohavetoomuchspirit.He

was always threatening to breakmine or kill me in the attempt. Mymotherwas

alwaysstandingbetweenus.SheconcededthatIwasimpudentandgiventotalking

back,butshedidn’twantto“squinchmyspirit”toomuchforfearthatIwouldturn

outtobeamealy-mouthedragdollbythetimeIgotgrown.29

27See,forexample,“APureNegroTown”inValerieBoyd’sWrappedinRainbows:TheLifeofZoraNealeHurston(NewYork:Scribner,2003)and“JumpattheSun”inRobertHemenway,ZoraNealeHurston:ALiteraryBiography(Urbana:UniversityofIllinoisPress,1997).28Boyd,WrappedinRainbows,25.29ZoraNealeHurston,DustTracksontheRoad:AnAutobiography,1942(NewYork:HarperPerennial,1991),13.

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Withhermothernolongerurginghertojump,Hurstonhadtofleelestherfatherkillher

spirit.HavinglivedintermittentlyinEatonville,afteraphysicalfightwithherstepmother,

Hurstonmustcourageouslydepartagainatage21inordertolaterreturnhome.

Insomeregard,HurstonislikeDuBois’s“John,”whobecomesanoutsiderwhenhe

returns to his southern birthplace after his northern education.30After her studies with

famed anthropologist Franz Boas at Barnard, Hurston attempts her first anthropological

researchinFlorida,whichwasbyandlargeafailure.HurstonrevealsinDustTracksthat

the glamor of Barnard Collegewas still uponme. I dwelt inmarble halls. I knew

where the material was, all right. But, I went about asking, in carefully accented

Barnardese,‘Pardonme,butdoyouknowanyfolk-talesorfolk-songs?’Themenand

women who had whole treasuries of material just seeping through their pores

lookedatmeandshooktheirheads.31

Hemenwayjudges,“Theresultswereunsatisfactoryanddispiriting.”32

HemenwayfurtherexplicatesBoas’schastisementofherinabilitytogettotheheart

ofthematter,havingbeencloudedbyherheadknowledge:

Afterreadingtwodifferentbatchesoftranscriptions,Boaswasexasperatedwithhis

student,pointingoutthat“whatyouobtainedisverylargelyrepetitionofthekindof

materialthathasbeencollectedsomuch.”Hestressedthathewasmostinterested

in was manner rather matter, style rather than substance: “You remember that

whenwetalkedabout thismatter Iaskedyouparticularly topayattention,notso

muchtocontent,butrathertotheformofdiction,movements,andsoon.”Boaswas

implying that any white collector could obtain an accurate text of a folktale or

folksong,butwhatHurstoncoulddiscover,sinceinformantswouldbemorenatural

withamemberoftheirownrace,wastheactualfolkstyle.“Habitualmovementsin

telling tales, or in ordinary conservation,” for example, would be more open to

Hurston’sobservationthaninaperformanceforwhitefolks.33

30W.E.B.DuBois,“OntheComingofJohn”,inTheSoulsofBlackFolk,1903inTheOxfordW.E.B.DuBois,ed.HenryLouisGates(NewYork:OxfordUniversityPress,2007),110-120.31Hurston,DustTracks,127-128.32Hemenway,ZoraNealeHurston:ALiteraryBiography,90.33Ibid.,91.

177

Yet,shedoesnotresemblethefictionalJohnatall,becauseshedidattempttorescueand

convertthesouth.Hurstonutilizes“northern”scholarshiptofeaturesouthernsensibilities.

Shestruggledtoallowwhatshehadlearnedtohighlightwhatshealreadyknew.

ClosetoHome:ProximityandCommunity

Harlem was the “Promised Land,” the symbolic home for black folk emerging as

“NewNegroes,” fromtheendofWorldWarIuntil themid-1930s. Itwasthesiteofgreat

creativityandnew life,whichcontinues to shapeAfricanAmerica to thisday. “Whatever

therivalclaimsofBoston,Philadelphia,orWashington,Harlemtook forgranted that the

intellectual center of Afro-America was located above Central Park,” writes the great

historian and biographer David Levering Lewis inWhenHarlemWas inVogue (1979).34

Lewis’s masterful account of the “Harlem Renaissance” depicts the variety of social,

cultural, andpolitical reasons that thisvillagebecameacross-sectionofoftencompeting

ideals forthefutureofAfricanAmericans. Itwashometo“Negrotarians,”Hurston’sterm

forwhitehumanitarians,theNiggerati(learnedblackartists),andeverydayblackfolk,all

whoshared, invaryingdegree, enjoymentof emerging formsofAfrican-Americanmusic,

visualart,literature,andleisure.

Carl Van Vechten’s controversial Nigger Heaven (1926) captures—however

vulgarly—boththeaspirationandassortmentofAfricanAmericansthatmadeHarlemtheir

home. Criticized for its insult of black people, andVanVechten for hiswhite voyeurism,

NiggerHeavenwaspraisedby“youngerartists”likeWallaceThurmanwhosecelebrationof

34DavidLeveringLewis,WhenHarlemWasinVogue,1981(NewYork:PenguinBooks,1997),156.

178

blackness disavowed the principle of respectability, preferred by the senior black

intelligentsia,infavorofamoreconfrontationaldecadence.35

Hurstonmovestothisblackutopiain1925,urgedbyCharlesS.Johnson,theeditor

of the National Urban League’s Opportunity. This transition from Howard to Harlem

accentuates her free spirit, and provides it adequate space to soar. Surrounded by the

supportofothercreativeartists,Harlembecomestheeverydaylivedliteraryclubinwhich

sheparticipatedunderAlainLocke’stutelageatHoward.Althoughshehadpublishedshort

poemsandshortstoriesinOpportunityandMarcusGarvey’sNegroWorldpriortoarriving

inNewYork,therenaissanceafootinHarlemofferedherendlessoccasionstointermingle

withartistsinvariousvenues,includingsocials,soirees,andawardsdinners.

DuringherearlyHarlemdays,Hurston’sresidedatthe“267House”(267West136th

Street)—theNiggeratiManor,as its inhabitantschristenedit.Hurstonbiographer,Robert

Hemenwaydescribes:

HerapartmentwasalwaysopenforNiggeratimeetings,withapotonthestovethat

visitors were expected to contribute to in order to create a community stew. At

other times she fried okra, or cooked Florida eel. Zora had moved into the

apartmentwithoutfurnitureormoney;yetwithinafewdaysithadbeencompletely

furnished by her friends with everything from decorative silver birds, perched

precariouslyatopthelinencloset,toafootstoolforthelivingroom.36

Thelocaleoftransgression,assignifiedinthenameitself,isessentialinsituatingHurston

as an influential 20th century artist. The NiggeratiManor brought Hurston proximate to

queerpeoplewholivedtogetherinacommunityofresistance.Shewasinrelationshipwith

men who, also estranged from their “homes,” created a new sense of togetherness and

35WallaceThurman,“AStrangerattheGates:AReviewofNiggerHeaven,byCarlVanVechten”and“FireBurns:ADepartmentofComment”inCollectedWritingsofWallaceThurman:AHarlemRenaissanceReader,ed.AmritjitSinghandDanielM.ScottII(NewBrunswick:RutgersUniversityPress,2003),191-195.

36Hemenway,ZoraNealeHurston:ALiteraryBiography,44.

179

“beingwith.”AlongwithLangstonHughes,WallaceThurman,andBruceNugent,Hurston

offeredafreshvisionforAfricanAmericans,whichdidnotdependupontherespectability

constraintsofracialuplift.

LangstonHughes,theFavoredSonofHarlem

PerhapsthemostwellknownoftheNiggerati,bothinhisdayandours,isLangston

Hughes.HispoetryhasbecomepartoftheAmericanliterarycanon,capturingthepulseof

hisagewithpoignantbeauty.Hemenwaywrites,“Hugheswasalwaysaquietobserverof

this scene, unfailingly kind, but never missing a thing, well embarked on a career that

wouldmake him the poet laureate ofHarlem.”37It isHughes’s poem “Fire” that inspires

FIRE!!, theone-issue Niggerati journal; it’s refrain: “Fire, Fire Lord! Fire gonna burnmy

soul!”38

Hisessay,“TheNegroArtistandtheRacialMountain,”however,captures indirect

andpoignantlanguagethepulseoftheyoungerartists’revoltagainsttheelders.Published

inTheNation(1926),itisanexplicitchargeagainstrespectabilitypolitics,whichheargues

isrootedintheself-hatredof“NordicizedNegrointelligentsia,”definedbybeingashamed

of dark colored skin, ecstatic and expressive religious worship, and other ‘folksy’ ways.

Hugheslaments,“Theroadfortheseriousblackartist,then,whowouldproducearacialart

ismostcertainlyrockyandthemountainishigh.”39

37Ibid.,45.

38LangstonHughes,“Fire,”TheCollectedWorksofLangstonHughes,VolumeI:ThePoems,1921-1940,ed.ArnoldRampersad(Columbia:UniversityofMissouriPress,2001),94.

39Hughes,“TheNegroArtistandtheRacialMountain,”TheCollectedWorksofLangstonHughes,Volume9:EssaysonArt,Race,Politics,andWorldAffairs,ed.ChristopherDeSantis(Columbia:UniversityofMissouriPress,2002),31-36.

180

AlthoughitisnowcommonlyacceptedthatHugheswasgay,firstwavescholarsof

the Renaissance observed little conclusive evidence to cut through the early ambiguity

around Hughes’s sexuality. Arnold Rampersad’s two-volume biography, The Life of

LangstonHughes (1986, 1988),which remains foundational, casts Hughes as a childlike

asexual.40Subsequent scholarship,nodoubtbuildingoff ofRampersad’swork, aswell as

thenascentinfluenceofintersectionality,interrogateHughesinadifferentlight.

Juda Bennett in “Multiple Passings and the Double Death of Langton Hughes”

interprets the ambiguity of his sexual identity in view of Hughes’s more explicit

meditations on racial passing. Because of his fair complexion and hair texture, Hughes

couldbeandbeperceivedasotherthanblack,anddiscussedinnarrativessuchas“Who’s

PassingforWho?”andhisTheBigSea:AnAutobiography(1940)andIWonderasIWander:

AnAutobiographicalJourney(1956).

Bennett interpretsracialpassingasthe firstactof“disruption,” throughwhichwe

mightconsidertheambiguityofHughes’spersonaandperformance.“Hughesresistskilling

histransgressivecharactersanddelightsintheactoftransgression,rewardingwhatothers

punish.It istheconstantquestionsofastableandnormalizedidentitythatfinallyargues

forHughes’squeersensibilityandpostmodernsophistication.”41

Hughes,accordingtoBennett,refusestolocatehomosexualitystablyinhisoeuvre,

and “insteaddelights in the indeterminacyof identityandother formsofpassing” inNot

Without Laughter, “Café: 3 a.m.,” and “Blessed Assurance.” The latter is a story of an

effeminate young man, Delmar, whose rendition of an anthem about the biblical Ruth,

40JudaBennett,“MultiplePassingsandtheDoubleDeathofLangstonHughes,”Biography23:4(Fall2000):670-693.

41Ibid.,672.

181

intendedforafemalevoice,causesitsmalecomposertoswoonandfallofftheorganbench.

Hughesplaysoff theambiguousnatureoftherealrelationshipbetweenNaomiandRuth,

while playing off the stereotype of gay musicians in black churches. Integrating subtle

insider knowledge of black churches, mixed with delicate humor, Hughes frames one

reason why alternative sexual identities in African-American communities are shunned:

“Negroeshaveenoughcrossestobear.”42Itisalreadyhardenoughbeingblack;tobeblack

andgayisunbearable,asgoesthislogic.

Delmar’sperformancenotonlysends theMinisterofMusic,Dr.Manley Jaxoninto

ecstasy(emphasismine)—whoisonlyrevivedonce“thechurch’snurse-in-uniformapplied

smelling salts”—butalsopromptshis father’soutburst: “‘Shutup, son!Shutup,’hecried.

‘Shutup.’” In response, and interruptingadeafening silence, thepresidingpreacher calls

thedeaconsto“raiseahymn”to“bearusup”:“BlessedAssurance,”whichendsthestory.43

The song’s and story’s titles ironically signify the precarious position of queer folk, in

Hughes’s view.Are the queer lives sacred? Can the black church be safe space for those

whonon-conformtonormativesexualandgenderidentities?

Bennett,whopointsout thatHughes“encouragesus to laughat the ‘outing’ofDr.

Jaxon,” concludes thatHughes challengesus “todistrust the gossip” thathas cloudedhis

ownlife.ReferencingDukeEllington’s“DoNothingTillYouHearFromMe,”whichisplayed

42LangstonHughes,“BlessedAssurance,”TheShortStoriesofLangstonHughes,ed.AkibaSullivanHarper(NewYork:HillandWang,1996)TheShortStoriesofLangstonHughes(p.231).Farrar,StrausandGiroux.

KindleEdition.ThissentimentcontributestotraditionsofheteronormativityinblackAmerica.SeealsoKelly

BrownDouglas’sSexualityandtheBlackChurch:AWomanistPerspective(Maryknoll:OrbisBooks,1999);Taboo:HomosexualityinBlackCommunities,ed.DelroyConstantine-Simms(LosAngeles:AlysonBooks,2001);andHoraceGriffin’sTheirOwnReceiveThemNot:AfricanAmericanLesbiansandGaysinBlackChurches(Eugene:WipfStock,2006).PatrickChengoffersahelpfulsurveyofAfrican-AmericanqueertheologyinRainbowTheology:BridgingRace,Sexuality,andSpirit(NewYork:SeaburyBooks,2013).43Hughes,“BlessedAssurance,”235.

182

at Hughes’s funeral, Bennett ends: “But rather than read the final moment in Hughes’s

funeral as another gesture toward the unknowability of identity, I would argue that it

shouldbereadasafurtherexampleofsilenceasmeaningful.”44Insteadthereisacontra-

knowledgeatplay,acognitionandcelebrationofambiguity,usheredinthroughsong.

WallaceThurman,theInfantofSpring

IfHugheswasthepoetlaureateoftheHarlemRenaissance,thenWallaceThurman

isitsunsunghero.Inhisshortlife,meetinganearlygraveatage32,Thurmanwasafierce

critic and contributor to the New Negro movement. Influenced by the Nietzschean H.L.

Mencken, who famously writes of the “grave-yard of dead gods” (“Memorial Service”),

Thurman also took critical aim at religion. Eleonore van Notten inWallace Thurman’s

HarlemRenaissanceinterpretshispoems“TheLastCitadel”and“God’sEdict” in termsof

“Menckenitepolaritybetweentheisolatedindividualandtheinferiormob.”45

In his descriptionof theNiggerati,HurstonbiographerRobertHemenwaydepicts

Thurmanasamanisolatedfromhimselfandothers:“Thurmanwasatorturedman,never

able tocreateartmeasuringup tohisownhighstandards, tornbyanambivalent sexual

nature, tuberculosis, self-destructive alcoholism, sarcasm, cynicism, and a neurotic

consciousnessofhisverydarkskin.”46Thurmanisneverquiteathomeinhisownskin,at

44Bennett,“MultiplePassings,”688-689.SeealsoEveKosofskySedgwick’sEpistemologyoftheCloset(Berkeley:UniversityofCaliforniaPress,1990,2008).

45EleonoreVanNotten,WallaceThurman’sHarlemRenaissance(Atlanta:Rodopi,1994),122.AsquotedinTheCollectedWritingsofWallaceThurman:AHarlemRenaissanceReader,ed.AmritjitSinghandDanielM.ScotttII(NewBrunswick:RutgersUniversityPress,2003),290.

46Hemenway,ZoraNealeHurston:ALiteraryBiography,43-44.

183

once casting a veil over and motivating his writings. This is to say, he was constantly

strugglingtomakesenseoftheliving,breathingcontradictionsthatotherstriedtobury.

Thurman’ssubmissiontoFIRE!!capturessomeofthistension:“CordeliatheCrude”

places promiscuous sexual activity on display in a manner previously unseen in black

letters. He begins the narrative: “Physically, if not mentally, Cordelia was a potential

prostitute,” continuing on to describe the 16 year-old’s exploration of a Harlem theatre

notoriousforcruising.Thenamelessnarrator(arguablyThurman),“pursues”Cordelia,but

inuncommonfashion.“Cordeliasoonremarked,”writesThurman,thatIwasdifferentfrom

mos’ of des’ sheiks, andwhen pressed for an explanation brazenly toldme in a slightly

scandalized andpatronizing tone that I had not even felt her legs…!”47Perhaps a nod to

Thurman’s same-sex attraction—his marriage to Louise Patterson would last just six

months—the narrator’smeeting of Cordelia climaxes in an “animal kiss” that brusquely

endstherendez-vous.48

Cordelia’s corporeality is extended froma short story to the full-lengthBroadway

hitplay,“Harlem.”Subtitled“AMelodramaofNegrolife inHarlem,”writtenwithWilliam

JourdanRapp,awhiteAmerican,thisplaylivesuptoitsname.Centeredontheinfamous

Harlem rent party, further sensationalized bymurder, thismelodrama features Cordelia

the“chippie”inalovequintangle!Eternallyuntamedinhersensualprowess,“Delia”leaves

homeandcasuallymovesaboutfromBasiltoRoyCrowetoKidVamptoIppyJones,allina

singlenight.Althoughthereisnoevidenceofsexualactivityonthenightoftherentparty,

Cordelia’spromiscuityhoversabovescenesfullofseductionandinnuendo.

47Thurman,CollectedWritings,304.48Ibid.

184

ForThurmanandRapp,Delia’ssexualfreedomconnotesfierceagency.Asherthird

suitorof theevening(KidVamp)moves inonCordelia,who justmomentsago lefthome

withthenow-deadsecondsuitor(Roy),KidsuggeststhatRoy(pretendingthatRoyisstill

alive) was planning to pimp her out. Cordelia responds: “Don’ see how he could, less I

wantedto.Demanain’tborndatcanmakemedosomethingIdon’wanna.”49Cordeliaisin

full control of her body and choices—well, as much as an underage teenager can—

“struttingherbody,”asonestageinstructionindicates.50

Cordelia’s actions deeply upset her parents, whose exasperation runs the

melodrama’s length. Father Williams washes his hands of his daughter, while Mother

WilliamsonlywantsDelia’s sinswashedaway.Unrepentant,Cordelia leaveshomeanda

manwantstomarryher,infavorofanunrestrainedlifeofhedonism.

Thethematicofhomeiscentralin“Harlem,”thepresentationofwhichismixedwith

religiousinnuendo.Inordertosustainaroofoftheirheads,theWilliamsfamilylikemany

othersoftheirday,rentoutspareroomsintheapartmentandregularlythrowrentparties

inordertosupplementtheir incomes.DescribingacouplethatmovesintotheWilliams’s

home,ThurmanandRappwrite:

Tiredofdriftingaroundfromroomtoroomsingly,theyhavedecidedtolivetogetherwithoutthebenefitofclergy.Thisactistypicaloftheirphilosophicalobjectivity.Theyarenotimmoral,butpractical.Theyareallforanythingthatcanassurethemalittlefun.Theygetquiteakickoutoflifeandthemselves.[italicsinoriginalscriptnotes.]51

Thurman andRapp establish theWilliamshome as a partial counter culture of religious

conformity.

49Ibid.,348.

50Ibid.

51Ibid.,326.

185

Therentparties, inparticular,createamonthlymoraldilemmaforMother,whose

reservedreligiosityshunsthescenecreatedinherabode:“Thedancingislewdlyabandoned

and accompanied by much shouting. It is a virtual saturnalia of desire.”52But as Father

pointsouttoMotherwhenevershecondemnsthewickednessofthe“denofiniquity,”there

arenootheroptions.Theparents’ choicelessness contrastsCordelia’sdecision topursue

pleasureanddoasshepleases.

SoMothermust stomach thedance fête full of “mess-around.” ThurmanandRapp

explicitlypokefunatMother’squandary,whoeventuallyexplodesandemptiesherhome,

causinggueststocomplainthattheydidn’tpayforaprayermeeting.Atothertimes,their

critiqueismoresubtle:Asthepartybeginsandthemusicplays,theydescribethegyrating

gatheringlikethebiblicalpsalmist,“Bodycallstobody.”53

Motherstopsatnothingtoredeemherwaywardchildandbringherbackhome,to

whatBasil(Cordelia’soriginalsuitor)describesas“arespectablehouse,andwedon’twant

any questionable underworld characters here.”54Although she is successful in dragging

Deliaback to theirapartmentmomentarily,her stay is short-lived.Cordelia leavesagain,

withyetanotherman.Theplayconcludes:

Mother: (moaning) Lawd, save her soul! Save her soul! She’s only a poor ign’runtsinner!(TheJazzfromthepartyacrossthewayburstsoutinasuddencrescendo.TheMOTHERthrowsupherarmsinagestureofsupplication)Lawd!Lawd!Tellme!Tellme!Disain’tdeCityofRefuge?

(TheJazzbecomeslouderandlouderasthecurtainfalls)55

52Ibid.,361.

53Ibid.,337.Cf“Deepcallstodeep,”Psalm42:7.

54Ibid.,333.

55Ibid.,369.

186

“Harlem: AMelodrama of Negro Life” epitomizes Amrijit Singh’s observation: “Thurman

writes against the grain of black bourgeois respectability, which would shackle literary

creation by requiring it to present a whitewashed and preapproved idea of African

Americanlife.”56

Singhgoesontosay:

Thurman, arguing against the older generation’s insistence on representational

didacticism and idealism—for him, indistinguishable from the bourgeoisie’s

obsessionswithupliftandrespectability—wastheconsumingpassionofhislife.He

notonlywrotemoreforcefullyandpersistentlythanothersontheseissues,healso

triedtoorganizetheoppositionoftheyoungergenerationthroughthepublication

ofbothFire!!andHarlem.57

AlthoughCordeliarepresentsThurman’stransgressiveproject,tobesure,hercharacteris

notwithoutchallenges.

One cannot be blind to the implications of Thurman’smale gaze upon awoman’s

body. Thurman’s Cordelia certainly possesses some of the “Sapphire, the emasculating

bitch”thatTownesexposesinWomanistEthicsandtheCulturalProductionofEvil.58Given

thenatureof (hetero)patriarchy,Thurman to someextentoperateswithin this “fantastic

hegemonic imagination” precisely because it ishe who gives voice to Cordelia. It is two

men—oneblackandonewhite—who tell the storyofablackwoman. Insteadofwriting

about his own sexual identity, Thurmanwrites about awoman’s. Onewonders, perhaps

wishes,thatattheveryleastThurmanwouldhaveco-authoredtheplaywithHurston.

56Ibid.,13.

57Ibid.,18.

58EmileTownes,WomanistEthicsandtheCulturalProductionofEvil(NewYork:PalgraveMacMillan,2006),60-62.

187

Hurston’sshortstory,“Sweat”likewisepublishedinFIRE!!,alsoengagesembodied

agency.Alsotheaccountofa“Delia,”inwhichreligiousrhetoricplaysakeyrole,Hurston

writes:

Delia’swork-wornkneescrawledovertheearthinGethsemaneanduptherocksof

Calvarymany,manytimesduringthesemonths…DeliaandSykesfoughtallthetime

nowwithnopeaceful interludes.Theysleptandate insilence.Twoorthreetimes

Delia had attempted a timid friendliness, but shewas repulsed each time. It was

plainthatthebreachesmustremainagape.59

The philandering Sykes constantly tormented Delia, making her house anything but a

home. Knowing that Delia is deathly afraid of snakes, Sykes brings a rattler into their

abode,which escapes fromhis basket and strikes him, ironically causing his own death.

Although Delia could have warned Sykes, her silence is resistance (recalling Bennett’s

assessment)—ultimately vengeance for his torment. Like Hughes’s “meaningful silence,”

Hurstonoffersadifferentapproachtoembodiedtransgressionthatdoesnotreinscribethe

“emasculatingbitch”stereotype,howevercontrarian.

Thurman’s shortcomings andoversightsnotwithstanding,hiswork isnoteworthy.

Singhexplains: “Thurmanstrikesus todayasa transgressiveartist inalmostall formsof

writingthatheattempted—dealingcourageouslywithradical,evenforbiddenthemessuch

as intraracial color prejudice in The Blacker the Berry and Staatsgewalt of forced

sterilizations in the film script of Tomorrow’s Children.” 60 Overlooked for too long,

Thurman’scontributionsmighthelpustakethefirststeptowardamoreexpansiveviewof

thediversitywithintheHarlemRenaissance.

59ZoraNealeHurston,“Sweat”(1926),inZoraNealeHurston:NovelsandStories,ed.CherylA.Wall(NewYork:LiteraryClassics,1995),961.

60Thurman,CollectedWritings,17.

188

NugenttheGrandTransgressor

AlthoughwenowknowtheretobemanygayartistsoftheRenaissance,Nugentis

chief among them for at least three reasons:Notonlywasheunashamedly “out,”buthe

also featureshomoeroticismexplicitly inhiswork.Oftenscandalizing, third,hisshocking

depictions—visually and verbally—of same-gender love were one of a kind, appearing

decadesbeforeBaldwin,intheirrejectionofrespectability.

His work, like Hurston’s and somewhat like Thurman’s, was a celebration of

transgressionandnon-conformity.InHurston’sbiography,Hemenwaydescribes:

Nugent was a multitalented youth from a proper Washington family who was

probablythemostBohemianofalltheRenaissanceartists.Heseldomknewwhere

hewasgoingtosleep,dressedinwhateverclotheswerearoundwhenhewokeup,

andspentmuchofhistimecreatingbeautifuleroticdrawing,shockingtoeventhe

mostliberatedviewer.61

Nugent was quintessentially a free spirit, unconstrained by racial and socialmores that

wouldconstrainhiscapacitytobehimself inthenameofmodesty.“Onlybyrejectingthe

burdenofrepresenting theraceasawhole,asNugentdid,”writesThomasWirth, “orby

insistingthat‘thepeople’bedefinedbroadlyandpluralisticallysoastoincludegaypeople,

amongothers,havegayblackwritersbeenabletoemerge.”62

Alain Locke, the father of the Harlem Renaissance and editor of The New Negro

anthology, who was also openly gay (and a suitor of Nugent’s), criticized those of the

younger generation for the liberties they took in their art. Wirth, in his extensive

introduction toGayRebelof theHarlemRenaissance:Selections from theWorkofRichard

BruceNugent(2002),recordsthatLocke, inareviewofClaudeMcKay’sALongWayfrom

61Hemenway,ZoraNealeHurston:ALiteraryBiography,44.62GayRebeloftheHarlemRenaissance:SelectionsfromtheWorkofRichardBruceNugent,Introductionanded.ThomasH.Wirth(Durham:DukeUniversityPress,2002),50.

189

Home, condemns an “unspecified New Negro writers and artists, he accused them as a

group of ‘spiritual truancy and social irresponsibility’ and deplored their ‘exhibitionist

flair.’”63Wirthcontinues:

Nugent’sopenassaultonmainstreamreligioussensibilitiesisnotwithoutprecedent

in African American culture; it echoes David Walker’s devastating attack on

hypocritical Christianity in his 1829 Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of theWorld.Nugent’s stories aremore subtle thanWalker’sAppeal, but they, too,were highlysubversive.ByplacingBiblicalcharactersinacontextinwhichtraditionalChristian

assumptions about sexuality and race are violated, Nugent challenged reader to

acknowledgethattheirprejudiceswere(andare)inconsistentwithbasicChristian

principles.Nugentcontinuedhiscommentaryonreligion,thechurch,andsexuality

inhissexuallysuggestivedrawingsofmonks—drawingthatstillhavenotlosttheir

powertoshock.64

Nugentstands inthetransgressivetraditionofWalker:Tobe fullyone’sself,andplacing

thisself inplainview,isaradicalactofcourage.Theprocessofclaimingone’svoice,and

exercisingitpublicly,appealstoinnerstrengthandfortitude,towhichIwillreturninthe

finalchapter.

Arguably his most important piece, “Smoke, Lilies, and Jade,” published in FIRE!!

with its disorienting “modernist prose-style,”65riddledwith fragmenting ellipses, tells of

the protagonist Alex’s carefree, polyamorous lifestyle. This autobiographical short story

referencesbynameothercontributorsofFIRE!!,weavingthemintoAlex’snarrative.Much

to his mother’s disdain, Alex seems unconcerned with the financial security of a

conventional career. Instead, wanderlust was his mind’s work: “he blew a cloud of

63Wirth,GayRebelofHarlem,49-50.64Ibid.,60.

65Ibid.,44.

190

smoke…oh the joyofbeinganartist andofblowingblue smoke throughan ivoryholder

inlaidwithredjadeandgreen…”[sic].66

This brief account is one of the first explicit pieces ofAfrican-American literature

that isunafraid to invokehomoeroticism,andwithout relianceonparodyas inHughes’s

work.With narrow distance between thewriter and hiswork, “Smoke, Lilies, and Jade”

celebrates ‘alternative’ sexual identity: “Nugent was the first African American to write

from a self-declared homosexual perspective; his work therefore occupies an honored

placeinthenow-burgeoningliteratureofthegayblackmale.”67

NugentwasdissatisfiedwithHarlemas“remarkablytolerantofavarietyofsexual

identities,eventhoughhomophobiaremainedafundamentalaspectofblackculture,”68and

thus kept queerness largely veiled and outside of public celebration. He desired more.

Nugentrefusedtobea“dirtylittlesecret,”andshowcasedthefullnessofhisselfinhisdaily

livingandprintedwork.“Nugent,then,wasablackgaymanwhoinsistedonparticipating

in themostadvanceddiscourseof thedominant culture, evenashedefied that culture’s

norms.”69

Nugent’s literary and visual arts called into question Christian theological norms.

LikeHurstonandThurman,NugentcreativelyriffedoffChristianscriptureandexpounded

biblical stories to challenge conventional readings. Although never reaching a wide

audience, “BeyondWhere theStarStoodStill”alters thenativity-epiphanyaccountof the

arrivalofthethreekingsfromtheEast.InNugent’srendition,itisnotadreamthatwarns

66Nugent,GayRebelofHarlem,81.67Ibid.,1.

68HenryLouisGates,Jr.“Foreword”toGayRebelofHarlem,xii.69Wirth,GayRebelofHarlem,45.

191

theMaginot to return toHerod,whowouldkill thenewbornMessiah,but ratherCarus,

Herod’smale attendantwho falls in lovewithCaspar at first sight. The short story ends

withCarus,whoiseffeminatelydepictedinNugent’sprint,fleeingPalestinewiththewise

man:“CaspardrewCarustohimselfashewouldababeandconsoledhim.Andtheysetoff

forBethlehem,wherethestarstoodstill.”70

In a subsequent story, “TheNowDiscordant SongofBells,”Nugent continues this

biblical redaction, expanding upon Caspar’s and Carus’s meeting in Herod’s palace and

Carus’sescapetoEthiopiathroughameditationontheJohanninetheologyoflove.Nugent

draws together,evenconflates, romanticanddivine love.This fusion isembedded in the

heartrending dismissal of Carus, ordering him to go attend to Caspar’s cousin, Simon of

Cyrene.Nugentsuggestivelywrites:

Carus’sfondnessforCasparbecameevenlove,andCarusknewhehadneverloved

before….ThedaythatCaspartoldCarusofhisplanwasbrightandhot.Casparwas

lyingfullinthesunonthepalaceroof,hisbeautifulblackbodybareandalinencloth

ofgreatwhitenessthrownacrosshisloins.71

Thestoryconcludeswithreferencetooneofthekeybiblicaltextsusedinaffirmingsame-

genderlove:1John4:7.Carus,whoisintroducedtothenotionofGod,inhispartingwords,

confesses:“‘Ileavethee,Caspar,todothybiddingandthywish.Ipraytheespeaknothing.I

have learnedtoowell thy teachingsandshallworkthywillwherever Igo.But likewise I

would have thee understand. Thou hast said, “God is love.”Now that I leave thee, know

thou this likewise. Soalso isLoveGod.’AndCarus left asCasparwatched—watchedand

watcheduntilCarusdisappearedintothesettingsunandtears.”72

70Nugent,GayRebelofHarlem,121.71Ibid.,128.

72Ibid.,130.

192

Wirth explains the significance of “Nugent’s Bible stories, written in the late

twentiesafter ‘Smoke,Lilies,and Jade’appeared,werestylistically lessradical,but in the

contextofthetime,theywere,ifanything,moretransgressive.”Hecontinues:

Unlike [John Addington] Symonds and other British homosexual writers, such as

Edward Carpenter, who cited biblical or classical references in an effort tomake

homosexuality respectable by association, Nugent’s use of biblical themes is

confrontational.Same-sexdesire, tohim,requiredno justification—itwasa factof

life. His Bible stories directly challenge both homophobia and shallow

piety…Nugent’s confrontational stance mirrors the iconoclasm of his friend and

fellowHarlemRenaissancewriter,WallaceThurman,theeditorofFIRE!!73

Nugent, like Hurston, writes himself into the biblical canon, which is a profound act of

courage,giventheorthodoxsentimentsofblackChristianityduringthisperiod.

Inaway,Nugent’salterationsareevenmoretransgressivethanHurston’sbecause

they directly confront sexuality, and homosexuality at that. “Few have more skillfully

attacked prevailing sexual, religious, and racial norms simply by celebrating the joyous

potential of transgressive sexuality.”74Hurston,Hughes,Thurman, andNugenthelpus to

see that spirit is FIRE!! The courage to be free manifests in a transgression of sexual

orientation.Hughesiscorrect,accordingtoorthodoxpersonalmorality:“Iain’tbeengood/

Iain’tbeenclean/Ibeenstinkin’,low-down,mean/Fire/Fire,Lord!/Firegonnaburn

mysoul.”75

Or,Hughes offers a propheticmessage that inverts Isaiah’s, and offers a different

notionofholiness,beauty,andglory:

Onthatdaythebranchof theLordshallbebeautifulandglorious,andthe fruitof

thelandshallbetheprideandgloryofthesurvivorsofIsrael.WhoeverisleftinZion

73Wirth,GayRebelofHarlem,45-46.74Ibid.,59.

75LangstonHughes,“Fire,”TheCollectedWorksofLangstonHughes,VolumeI:ThePoems,1921-1940,ed.ArnoldRampersad(Columbia:UniversityofMissouriPress,2001),94.

193

andremains in Jerusalemwillbecalledholy,everyonewhohasbeenrecordedfor

lifeinJerusalem,oncetheLordhaswashedawaythefilthofthedaughtersofZion

andcleansedthebloodstainsofJerusalemfromitsmidstbyaspiritofjudgmentand

byaspiritofburning.ThentheLordwillcreateoverthewholesiteofMountZion

and over its places of assembly a cloud by day and smoke and the shining of a

flamingfirebynight.76

The survivors of the “refiner’s fire,”77those called holy, are they who dared to be their

beautiful selves. Hughes, Thurman, and Nugent cleanse themselves from the spirit of

judgmentandemergegloriouslyathomeintheirownbodies.Indeedtheyrealizethatlike

(Hurston’s)Moses,whoencounters“IAMWHOIAM”inthebushingbush,78theyarestanding

onholygroundinthemselves.

“RootsandRevisions”79:TransgressingPlaceandLiberatingSpiritualIdentity

Aunt Susie and I sat on the porch and talked for hours. Within moments of my

arrival tomyancestralhomeat817BorahAvenue,she instructedmetoretrievemypen

andpad,becauseshehadastory to tell. Iwaseager tocomply:perhapsshewouldoffer

somecluesaboutourfamily’sjourneyfromslaverytowardliberation.

ButIcrossedthelinewhenIstartedtodigtoodeeply,askingthequestioninplain

sight:whydidhersister,mygreat-grandmother,movefromBessemertomyhometownof

Buffalo?While she recitedother facts lucidly,Aunt Susie’smemory fadedhere. I already

had the answer, but I wanted to hear her account of the affair that sent Granny north

76Isaiah4:2-5.

77Isaiah48:10

78Exodus3:1-22.

79Iborrowthistitle“RootsandRevisions”fromafriend’sseniorthesisinperformancestudies(Shelby

BraxtonBrooks,HarvardCollege,2003).

194

withoutherchildrenandsomewhatofabountyonherhead—thetransgressionthatisthe

prefacetomystory.Foucaultishelpfulhere:

Thus,attherootofsexuality,ofthemovementthatnothingcaneverlimit(because

it is, fromitsbirthandin itstotally,constantly involvedwiththe limit),andatthe

rootofthisdiscourseonGodwhichWesternculturehasmaintainedforsolong…a

singularexperienceisshaped:thatoftransgression.Perhapsonedayitwillseemas

decisiveforourculture,asmuchapartofitssoil,astheexperienceofcontradiction

wasatanearliertimefordialecticalthought.Butinspiteofsomanyscatteredsigns,

the language inwhich transgressionwill find its space and the illumination of its

being lies almostentirely in the future…Transgression is anactionwhich involves

the limit, thatnarrowzoneof a linewhere it displays the flashof itspassage, but

perhapsalsoitsentiretrajectory,evenitsorigin;itislikelythattransgressionhasits

entirespaceinthelineitcrosses.80

IimaginethatAuntSusie“forgot”thesedetailstoleavemymemoryofGrannyintact.Little

did she know that this untold story changed nothing at all and everything at once. Or

worse,itsnon-tellingkeepsthe“hiddeninplainsight”thediscipliningpowerofsexuality,

whichcanbecrossedover.Whileloveforkinovercomesthe‘truth,’canonetrulyloveifthe

presentisrootedinalie?Inotherwords,welovemoredeeplywhenmeaningismadeby

confrontingtherealityofthepast-presentandfuture-present.

Still, what does Athens have to do with Jerusalem, or Bessemer with Buffalo, or

moretothepoint,whatdoesFoucaulthavetodowithHurston’shomeandmyfamilytree?

Inaway,nothingatallandeverything.Intheformer,ItakeAmyRitchlin’sfeministcritique

of Foucault quite seriously.81Not only does The History of Sexuality curiously leave me

“absent,”insomeregardsodoesmuchofhisgazeatWesternknowledgeconstructionand

(re)subjectivation.Therichhistories thatFoucault rewrites toexaminepowerstructures

80Foucault,“APrefacetoTransgression”(1963)inReligionandCulture:MichelFoucault,ed.JeremyR.Carrette(NewYork:Routledge,1999),60.81AmyRitchlin,“Foucault’sHistoryofSexuality:AUsefulTheoryforWomen?”inRethinkingSexuality:FoucaultandClassicalAntiquity,ed.DavidLarmouretal(Princeton:PrincetonUniversityPress,1998),138-170.

195

hardly, if ever, directly invoke protagonists—personnages—that outwardly resembleme.

But,inthelatter,tosaythatI,asablacksubject,amnotformedbyandasapartoftheWest

is folly.82Ancient Greece and modern France have quite a bit to do with contemporary

Africandiasporicpeople.83

In fact,manypresent-daytheoristsofblack identitycontendthat thesolegrounds

for black nationalism and transnational black unity is the common struggle for equity,

equality,andjustice.84Althoughthisprocessisscarcelytheinstantaneousandubiquitous

stuff of “transubjectivation,”85it is the best thatwecando. In otherwords, black people

“become black” not by appeal to a mythic African ancestry, but rather through the

experienceofandresistancetooppressioninthehistoricalpresent.86Itseems,then,that

thisre-tellingofthestoryofblacksintheWestbyPaulGilroyandothersquathewritingof

“counter-stories,”87resembles very much the Foucauldian project of rethinking the link

betweenAthensandD.C.,RomeandParis.

The performance of blackness, in sacred worship and sacred quotidian spaces,

cannot be disentangled fully from the histories of oppression that have set the stage.

Gilroy’s concept of the Black Atlantic, a counterculture of modernity and alternative to

82SeePaulGilroy,TheBlackAtlantic:ModernityandDoubleConsciousness(Cambridge:HarvardUniversityPress,1993)andMichaelHanchard’s“Afro-Modernity:Temporality,Politics,andtheAfricanDiaspora”in

PublicCulture11(1999):245-268.83Itisworthnotingthat,inrecentyearsGreeceandFrance,inparticular,havehadtoface“overpopulation”

associatedwithundocumentedimmigrantsfromnorthernAfrica.

84SeeGilroy,aswellasTommieShelby’sWeWhoAreDark:ThePhilosophicalFoundationsofBlackSolidarity(Cambridge:HarvardUniversityPress,2005).

85Foucault,Hermeneutics,214.86SeeMichelleWright’sBecomingBlack:CreatingIdentityintheAfricanDiaspora(Durham:DukeUniversityPress,2004).87Gilroydescribesthe“BlackAtlantic”asa“countercultureofmodernity”;seechapterone.

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“blacknationalism,”ensconcesblacknesswithambiguityandmovement.TheBlackAtlantic

inparticularanddiasporaingeneralnotintermsoforigins,commonheritage,andclaims

topurity,butrather in termsofpolitics. Inotherwords,whatbinds thedisparatenessof

the “BlackAtlantic” into a unifiedwhole is the shared political objectives of overcoming

oppressionandsubjugationandtheempowermentofblackpeople.

The genealogy of the black subject in the West means traversing the “middle

passage”attheexpenseofaneasilyspokennarrative.Theconnectionsandchallengesare

complex and amorphous. Liberation means breaking bonds we thought—or perhaps

wish—we had. Heeding Ritchlin, though, I am not suggesting that such a consideration

dependsuponFoucaultinanycausativeway.LittleisgainedbyfashioningFoucaultasthe

exclusivegateway to suchcritical thought, so in that regardRitchlin is correct.Rather, it

seemsthattheapplicationofsomeofFoucault’sanalytical‘principles’riskstoimprovethe

underlying task.What stands to be gained ifwe allowFoucault to speak to our futures?

What happens if we let Foucault’s concerns “infiltrate” our own?88How does Foucault’s

modeofcritiquebecomeaprefatorytechnologytowardour‘liberation,’orshallIsay,our

re-subjectivation?

Foucaultpromptsme to suggest that liberation (and its theologies), or at least its

preface,isaritualofcrossingover.Itistheprocessofchoosingtomovefromthisspaceto

that space, this time to that time, indeed from this place to that place. My ritual of

constructinga familygenealogy, aprocess so invogueatpresent (andcommercialized, I

might add), yearned to be something like that.89Liberationmeans reframing conceptual

88Foucault,DisciplineandPunish:TheBirthofthePrison,trans.AlanSheridan(NewYork:Vintage,1995),215.

197

space,restartingtime,andreinvestingmeaningintheplaceswe“liveandmoveandhave

our being.”90At the base, Foucault forces us to consider the stories about power and

liberationthatwetellourselves.Thus,liberationbecomeslessabouttheabsenceofpower

and more about changing our configuration to power—or perhaps better said, within

power. Liberation is about risk management. And liberation theology is about

transgression. This process becomesmore about adjustingwhatwemeanwhenwe say

“liberation,”thusmakingtheclaimabitmoremodest.91

Although one cannot change history, ifwhat ismeant is one’s relationship to the

past.Butonemostcertainlycanchangehistoryif,asFoucaultsuggests,itiswrittenofand

forthepresent. Icancontrolmygreat-grandmother’sactionsasmuchasI influencedthe

transatlanticslavetrade.Butbecauseofthem,hereIstand.AndjustasIcanhardlyignore

what landed me here, it behooves me to integrate the ugly histories that comprise my

present identity. In otherwords,we can change howwe talk about the present and the

past, and thus we begin to shape a new future. Veridiction and re-subjectivation are

partners. In a way this has been Foucault’s project all along.92Memory is not merely

Socraticrecollectionbutalsore-membering.93

89JonathanZ.Smith,ToTakePlace:TowardTheoryinRitual(Chicago:UniversityofChicagoPress,1987).Smithwrites:“Ritualis,firstandforemost,amodeofpayingattention.Itisaprocessformarkinginterest…It

isthischaracteristic,aswell,thatexplainstheroleofplaceasafundamentalcomponentofritual:place

directsattention”(103).

90Acts17:28.

91Foucault,“APrefacetoTransgression”(1963)inReligionandCulture:MichelFoucault,ed.JeremyR.Carrette(NewYork:Routledge,1999),57-71.Again,Iamthinkingofwhenhewritesonpage64thatphilosophymusttakeupa“lessambitiousgoal.”

92MichelFoucault’sTheHermeneuticsoftheSubject:LecturesattheCollègedeFrance,1981-1982,trans.GrahamBurchell(NewYork:Picador,2005),229.

93Ibid.,453-476(lecture23).

198

TheanalysisofindividualandsocialidentityformationbyJacquelineNassyBrown

inDroppingAnchor,SettingSail:GeographiesofRaceinBlackLiverpool(2005)relateswell

tothemessinessthatwehavedescribedabove.ForBrown,theclaimingofidentityinthe

Africandiasporaisaprojectthatinterlacespower,personhood,and“place.”Shedescribes

theintentofheressay:

One of this book’s goals is to analyze the ways that place takes on meaning in

relation to ideologies of localness, while also showing that neither place nor the

local is limited to the termssetby theother. Place isanaxisofpower in itsown

right. Asabasis for theconstructionofdifference,hierarchy, and identity, andas

thebasisofideologiesthatrationalizeeconomicinequalitiesandstructurepeople’s

material well-being and life chances, place is a vehicle of power…Place, I further

argue,mustbeunderstoodfirstandforemostasanabstraction,notasetofphysical

properties just there for the eye to see…The very urge to make meaning out of

materialityofplaces—whattheylooklike,feellike,andwheretheyare,forexample,

and who occupies them, what social relations define them, and what processes

unfoldwithinthem—isproducedthroughanaxisofpowerandsubjectivitythatwe

mightcallplace.94

Therefore, in order to liberate our language about liberation, we must be willing to

transgressspaceandtimeintoplace.Andwhenwegettherewehavetobewillingtomove

aroundbit.Buttodancethere,ofcourse,istorealizethat“there”isnowhereatall. Itis

very much an abstraction that is constructed in relation—of the self to the self, and to

others.Wedonotgainfreedomsimplythroughutterance,butthealterationofspeechisa

pathway to the place of emancipation. Surely this has something to do with “the

questioning of language by language in a circularity which the ‘scandalous’ violence of

eroticliterature,farfromending,displaysfromitsfirstuseofwords.”95

LikeCaspar inNugent’s “BeyondWhere the Star StoodStill,”wemight recall that

aftertheirencounterwiththeChrist-child,andinfearofHerod,the“wisemen”hadtogo

94DroppingAnchor,SettingSail:GeographiesofRaceinBlackLiverpool(Princeton:PrincetonUniversityPress,2005),8-9.

95Foucault,“APrefacetoTransgression,”70.

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backhomebyanotherroute.Similarly,wegobackandcomeforwardbyanotherroutein

order to return “home.” And for me home is not Alabama, but rather some place that

resemblesit.Thejourneyacrosstimeandspacelandsusinanentirelydifferenceplaceof

being,ornonbeing,orperhapseveninasearchforBeing-itself.Nowwemightre-thinkthe

promiseoftheGod-childJesusinanewway.

-----

Excursus

Before journeying any farther, a brief detour is in order. Perhaps, in a way, the

excursusillustratesPalmer’spointabout“thirdthings”thatappeartodistractusbytaking

usawayfromthetarget,butinrealityleadusmuchclosertotheplacewherewearegoing.

WhatistobemadeaboutplacingHurstonintheologicalconversationwithaslewof

“deadwhitemen,”andalivingone?Givenourconcernwithrespectabilityvis-à-visDuBois,

and Hurston distancing herself from thatmethod of New Negro social uplift, onemight

wonderwhethersuchengagementisaformofauthorization?Thatis,dependingonwhite

conversation partners merely reinscribes the theological legitimization of the black

religiousexperiencefromwithout.SuchisthechargeleviedagainJamesCone(andothers),

who is accused of turning to Barth, on whom he wrote his dissertation, to provide the

methodological underpinning for the first iterations of his black theology. As discussed

earlier, Cecil Cone (James’s brother) interrogates this “identity crisis,” pointing to the

failuretosourceexplicitlytheAfrican-Americanreligiousexperience.

JamesConeremediesthisfaux-pasinGodoftheOppressedandTheSpiritualsandthe

Blues, inter alia, turning squarely to black sources, the charge persists, sending a ripple

200

effectthroughouthisandothers’works.Onemightsaythattheidentitycrisisyieldstoan

“identitypolitic”towhichmustbeattended.Evenwhenblacksourcesareused,anaccount

mustbegiventotheraceofwhitetheologicalinterlocutors.

For example, in The Cross and the Lynching Tree Cone leans heavily on Reinhold

Niebuhr’sChristologyandatthesametimeConeindictsNiebuhr’ssilenceonracematters.

This silence does not dis-qualify Niebuhr, although it does qualify him. That is, in the

accounting sense, there exists a significant notation that explains certain anomalies.

AlthoughNiebuhrwasaproductofhistime,andthusoften(sub)consciouslyparticipated

in the architecture of white supremacy, which was his privilege, as a theologian

propheticallyaheadofhistimeinothermatters,hispositionalitydoesnotabsolvehimof

contribution to America’s “original sin.” Prophetic theology, therefore, requires

attentivenesstoandaddressingoftheprevailingoppressionsoftheday.

Cone’s approach, rooted in the Du Boisian trajectory, therefore takes us beyond

tragedybyfirstwadingthroughit.Inordertoconversewithwhitetheologians,theremust

beacomprehensiveaccountoftheirwhiteness!HonestlyIfindthisapproachasexhausting

as white liberals socially locating themselves as beneficiaries of white privilege as a

prolegomena. Iamnotsurewhat itaccomplishesotherthanparticipating innowall-too-

expected and all-too-rehearsed political correctness that celebrates instrumental race

consciousness,butstillendsin“nowthatwe’vegottenthatoutoftheway.”

Iamnotattemptingto‘unpack’Cannon’sinterlocutionwithTillich,asiftosuggest

that her treatment is incomplete, because it is not.And I amnot offering an apology for

conversingwith Tillich. Rather, riffing off Gilroy, I situate black/womanist theology as a

counter-cultural critique of systematic theology, offering an alternative discourse in

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conversationwiththeverythingthathashelpedshape—forgoodorforbad—it.

Indescribinghisproject,VincentHardingsays,“Iamsimplycarryingonatradition,

trying to write and to live the story of our struggle, creating a history that has already

createdme,seekingtokeepthefaith.”96IturntoTillichnotforapproval,butbecauseblack

theologians and womanists have just as much claim on Tillich’s systematic theology as

anyoneelse—justasAfricanAmericanshaveastakeinawhitesupremacistUnitedStates

andqueerChristiansinhomophobicchurches.

4.3. CouragetoFindHomeinOne’sSelf

Hurston’s “unshouted courage,” argues Cannon, is the ethical fortitude to live life

welldespitedebilitatingobstacles.Cannonconnectsthis“struggle…toaffirmblackpeople’s

righttohealthyexistence”toTillich’s“couragetobe.”97Inthissection,Ifurthersituatethis

courageamidstTillich’stheologyofSpiritinviewoftheambiguitiesoflife.98Thestruggle

to find safety andhome in one’s self, examined in theprevious section, comes alongside

Tillich’s“questforunambiguouslife”withinthepowerofSpirit.99

96Harding,ThereisaRiver,xxiii.97Cannon,Katie’sCanon,147.QuotingAliceWalkerinILoveMyselfWhenIamLaughing…AZoraNealeHurstonReader,ed.AliceWalker(OldWestbury,NY:TheFeministPress,1979),151.98InframingTheCouragetoBe,Tillichwrites:“Perfectcourageis,accordingtoThomas,agiftoftheDivineSpirit.”Tillich,TheCouragetoBe,1952(NewHaven:YaleUniversityPress,2014),164.99Tillich,SystematicTheology,VolumeIII(Chicago:TheUniversityofChicagoPress,1963).

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InfinitePossibilities

IntheopeningofTheCouragetoBe(1952),Tillichmakesclearthathisselectionof

the concept of “courage” relates essentially to its fundamental place in the human

condition.Preciselybecausecouragehasbeenconsideredinthesciencesandphilosophyis

thereasonwhyhechose itas the topicof theTerryFoundation lectures fromwhich the

book emerges. Thus through the notion of courage, he traced the relationship of

philosophy,sciences,andreligionasperthelecturestipulations.

But for Tillich, the relationship is not simply an epistemological consideration,

whichwouldmeanthatcourageissolelydescriptiveofhumanexistenceandhowhumans

cometoknowanddefineourselveswithinfinitude.No,considerationofcouragehastodo

withthestructureofhumanexistence,andthuspointsbeyondourfinitudetothesourceof

our understanding and our being. Therefore, at the summit of the lectures, Tillich

interprets“thecouragetobeasthekeytobeing-itself.”100Inotherwords,courageextends

beyondhumanitytoGod.Ormoreproperly,courageemergesfrombeing-itself.

Tillichwrites,“Theultimatesourceofthecouragetobeisthe‘GodaboveGod’;this

is the result of our demand to transcend theism.”101Therefore, the ontological nature of

courage, although it relates to religion, transcends religion as well as science and

philosophy.Laterhecontinues:

Absolute faith,or thestateofbeinggraspedby theGodbeyondGod, isnotastate

whichappearsbesideotherstatesofmind…Itisnotaplacewhereonecanlive,itis

without the safetyofwordsand concepts, it iswithout aname, a church, a cult, a

theology. But it ismoving in the depth of all of them. It is the power of being, in

whichtheyparticipateandofwhichtheyarefragmentaryexpressions.102

100Tillich,TheCouragetoBe,164.101Ibid.,186.

102Ibid.,188-189.

203

Thetaskoftheology,then,istopointtothe“placewhereonecannotlive”buttowhichone

desirestobe.Theologygivesvoicetothequestoflife.

At the heart of Tillich’s theology, and therefore the language of theology, is the

dialectic, or the method of correlation. Simply put, without an understanding of the

dialecticalmethodone cannotunderstandTillich.Hebinds togetherpolaropposites in a

necessaryunity. Notonlydoesoneneedtoacknowledgebothpoles,butalsothehuman

mustembracebothpolesandbringthembothforwardtogetherasitadvances.

Similarly,Hurstonutilizesamethodofcorrelationtoadvanceherargumentabout

the spirituals. Folk wisdom discloses knowledge of God, the language of the people

discloses God-talk. By placing them alongside folklore, Hurston relates the spirituals to

somethingmoretangibleandthusmediatesadiscourseoftcriticizedasotherworldly.

Hurston’sactofmediationoperatesonatleasttwodimensions:First,sheexpands

thescopeofspiritualsbeyondsorrowsongs,paceDuBois.Inaway,Hurstoncontendsthat

thereductionofspiritualstosorrowsongisthedeficientmove—notthefrenzyofshouting

songs.AsBurgher’sessayreveals:blackwomenclaimaviewoftheselfthatcelebratesand

constructs life even in the midst of death. Second, by relating the spirituals to folklore,

theological and ethical language become indistinguishable, as the divine permeates

everydaylanguageofliving.AsThiemannnotesinTheHumbleSublime“Godisnot‘beyond’

oureverydaylivesbutratherhiddendeeply‘within’them.”103

Thisdialecticalmethodiscrucialbecauseitframesthistensionnotasaliabilitybut

an ontological reality that, when recognized properly, is productive. This is to say, the

103RonaldF.Thiemann,TheHumbleSublime:SecularityandthePoliticsofBelief(NewYork:I.B.Tauris,2014),41.

204

acknowledgementof finitude’sconnectionto infinitudedrivesbeingtoresistsuccumbing

tononbeing.Becausemethodtakesstockofwhatis,couragestandsinplaceofanxiety.

Indeed Tillich structures his Systematic Theology in the correlative form of a

dialectic. The substantive sectionsof the text are: reason and revelation, being andGod

(volumeI),existenceandtheChrist(volumeII),lifeandSpirit,historyandtheKingdomof

God(volumeIII).Theformerconstituentofthedialecticrepresentsthatwhichissituated

squarely within the ontological structure of being. The latter section is that which

transcendsbeing,andthusbecomesaformofbeing-itself.

While one pole is typically ‘greater’, for Tillich it is impossible to consider the

transcendent pole except through the immanent, lesser one. Indeed there is always an

“and.” The method of correlation interrogates these constituents in their uniqueness,

without destroying their dialectical relationship. He writes: “In using the method of

correlation,systematictheologyproceedsinthefollowingway:itmakesananalysisofthe

humansituationoutofwhichtheexistentialquestionsarise,anditdemonstratesthatthe

symbolsusedintheChristianmessageareanswerstothesequestions.”104

ForTillich,thequestionsarehumanandtheanswersthatemergefromtheological

analysis aredivine.OurknowledgeofGod,Christ, andSpirit are suchdivine revelations.

From the human standpoint, Tillich stresses that there is no way of understanding the

divine parts of the dialectic without their situation in history and through reason. His

sectiononthe“RealityofGod”beginsbyofferingaphenomenologicaldescriptionofGod-

talk.“‘God’istheanswertothequestionimpliedinman’sfinitude;heisthenameforthat

which concernsmanultimately.”He continues: “Thephrase ‘beingultimately concerned’

104Tillich,SystematicTheologyI,62.

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pointstoatensioninhumanexperience.Ontheonehand,itisimpossibletobeconcerned

about something which cannot be encountered concretely…On the other hand, ultimate

concern must transcend every preliminary finite and concrete concern.”105 Thus, the

approachoftheunderstandingofGodfromthestandpointofthehumanbeingrevealsthat

ourconcernintheultimateisincompletewhenconcrete,andthusmustbetranscendedin

the“realmofimagination.”

Tillichalsodescribesmysteryintermsofrevelation,statingthat“‘mystery’should

notbeappliedtosomethingwhichceasestobeamysteryafterithasbeenrevealed”hence

its absolute character. By this definition, the contradiction of a statement like “God has

revealed himself and that God is an infinite mystery” need not be resolved.106On these

grounds it is clear why Tillich ends the volumewith a discussion of holiness and faith.

“Faith in thealmightyGod is theanswer to thequest foracouragewhich is sufficient to

conquer the anxiety of finitude. Ultimate courage is based upon participation in the

ultimate power of being.” Faith is not reconciliation of tension through reason, but to

acknowledgethatreasonisabsorbedintoanotherplaneof‘existence.’Inotherwords,we

need not cancel out ourselves and the uniqueness of human existence. Instead through

reasonweturnelsewhere.“Neitherfinitudenoranxietydisappears,buttheyaretakeninto

infinityandcourage.”107

Thus, the method has three senses for Tillich: as correspondence and

interdependence, as theo-cosmological (God and the world), and as qualification of the

105Ibid.,211.

106Ibid.,109.

107Ibid.,273.

206

“divine-humanrelationshipwithinreligiousexperience.”108Noting theobjectionsofsome

(like Barth, who is a key figure to whom Tillich is ‘relating’), Tillich makes clear that

correlationdoesnotsuggestontologicaldependence,ofGodonman, forexample.109And

neitherdoes ‘correlationimplycausation’becausesystematictheologyisneverdeductive

orderiving;110tothecontraryashemakesclearintheintroductiontothesecondvolume,it

isoftenparadoxical.111“Inusingthemethodofcorrelation,systematictheologyproceedsin

thefollowingway:itmakesananalysisofthehumansituationoutofwhichtheexistential

questionsarise,anditdemonstratesthatthesymbolsusedintheChristianmessagearethe

answerstothesequestions.”112

The method of correlation points directly to the dialectic of philosophy and

theology, to the consideration of being and God.While “philosophy asks the question of

beingasbeing,”forTillich,“thebasictheologicalquestionisthequestionofGod.Godisthe

answertothequestionimpliedinbeing.”113Thismeansthat,constitutingthefirstsection

ofPart II:BeingandGod, the structureof reality (theontological structure)demandsan

answer.Religiouspeoplenamethisanswer“God.”

Theologians, then, interpret “God” to signify the “ground of being.” So while

philosophy is broader, theology is more “essential” insofar as it attempts to unify the

108Ibid.,61.

109Cf.Tillich’smasculinetheologicallanguage,andlaterHowardThurman’stoMaryDaly,BeyondGodtheFather:TowardaPhilosophyofWomen’sLiberation,1973(Boston:BeaconPress,1985).Shewritestowarddivinecastration,“ifGodismale,thenthemaleisGod”(19).

110Ibid.,68.

111Tillich,SystematicTheology,VolumeII:ExistenceandChrist,1957(Chicago:TheUniversityofChicagoPress,1975),4.

112Tillich,SystematicTheologyI,62.113Ibid.,163.

207

analysis of being vis-à-vis its revealed ground. This ground, or ontological object, is the

necessary postulate of the dialectic of self and world [ontological structure]; of

individualization and participation, dynamic and form, freedom and destiny [the

ontologicalelements];andofbeingandfinitude.Tobeclear,whiletheologyisanalysisand

though God is the ground of being, that uponwhich our theology is formed, we cannot

prove God as such in our theological pursuit. Tillich’s summation in the volume’s

introductionisperhapsclearest:

Godistheanswertothequestionimpliedinhumanfinitude.Thisanswercannotbe

derived from the analysis of existence. However, if the notion of God appears in

systematic theology in correlationwith the threatofnonbeingwhich is implied in

existence,Godmustbecalledtheinfinitepowerofbeingwhichresiststhethreatof

nonbeing. In classical theology this is being-itself. If anxiety is defined as the

awarenessofbeingfinite,Godmustbecalledtheinfinitegroundofcourage.114

In this way, the ontological as the category of ultimate concern is understood through

relationship,not thequestionofbeingasbeing,but rather theanswerofbeingasbeing,

whichisGod.

Said differently,whenman confronts his finitude, according toTillich, he risks his

own annihilation. Anxiety of nonbeing has the potential to overcome man because man

exists.Butthisexterminationdoesnotoccurduetocourage:insteadofbeinglostinit,man

participatesininfinity,movesinform,andfreelylivesindestiny.Thisunityconstitutesthe

essenceofbeing.Andit isthepowerofbeingthatsustainsthetension,thisessence.Thus

Godismorethan“essence”sincethepowerhastoprecedethefiniteparts.Being,comprised

of the essential and the existential, then for Tillich, is necessarily ambiguous. So, too, the

groundofbeingasspiritisambiguousinsofarasitincludestheontologicalelements,whose

natureisontological.

114Ibid.,64.

208

Tillich also describes this ambiguity in terms of the possibility of the question of

God.HenotesthatdebatesovertheexistenceofGodpointtothepossibilityofGod,even

though Tillich rejects argumentation as mode of theological discourse. “The ground of

being cannot be foundwithin the totality of beings, nor can the ground of essence and

existenceparticipate in the tensionsanddisruptionscharacteristicof the transition from

essence to existence…God does not exist. He is being-itself beyond essence and

existence.”115

Thus Tillich goes on to clarify again that theology can only be “analysis and not

argument.”ThepossiblequestionofGodbecomesnecessaryvis-à-visthecosmological(the

relationshipofselftoworld).“ThecosmologicalquestionofGodisthequestionaboutthat

which ultimately makes courage possible, a courage which accepts and overcomes the

anxietyofcategoricalfinitude.”116Inotherwords,whentheontologicalquestionofGodqua

argumentshiftstothecosmologicalquestionofGodquaanalysis,thenpossibilitybecomes

necessity.

TheSpiritofCourage

Hurston’s “unshouted courage” represents thepowerofAfricanAmericans to live

amidstthedenialoflife.Thisstrengthisadeeplyparadoxical,andisrootedinthestructure

of life itself. Human life, according to Tillich, is ambiguous and yet always in search of

unambiguity,orself-transcendence.Courageisthepowernottosuccumbtotheanxietyof

humanfinitudeinlightoflife’sambiguity.

115Ibid.,205.

116Ibid.,209.

209

Tillich’stheologyofSpirit,situatedwithintheever-importantmethodofcorrelation,

funds the constructive rebuttal of the heterosupremacist pneumatology, typified in

Sanders’s account of sanctified holiness. More important than a refutation of Sanders,

though, is imagination of sanctification as queer-affirming.Hurston’s quest for the joyful

life beyond sorrow, which I have placed alongside of her queer Niggerati home, is a

courageous act of Spirit. Robust, sanctified spirit-talk, then, chooses to embrace radically

thosewhoradicallyaffirmandcelebratethefullnessoflife.

InpartIVofhisSystematicTheology,“LifeandtheSpirit,”Tillichunitesthequestfor

unambiguouslife(self-transcendence)andpossibilityofanewreality.Lifeisconditioned,

according to Tillich, by external and internal factors, and yet always tends toward

unconditionality: divine Spirit. Tillich correlates the actuality of another possibilitywith

human potentiality and participation in the life of Spirit “We can speak of Spirit only

becausewehavespirit,sowecanspeakofCreationonlybecausecreativepowerisgivento

us.”117

During his discussion of life and Spirit, Tillich’s “courage to be” returns, and is

amplifiedtodiscloseanewdimension:faith.

Thecouragetosurrenderone’sowngoodnesstoGodis thecentralelement inthe

courage of faith. In it the paradox of New Being is experienced, the ambiguity of

good and evil is conquered, unambiguous life has taken hold ofman through the

impactoftheSpiritualPresence.AllthisismanifestthroughthepictureofJesusthe

crucified. God’s acceptance of the unacceptable, God’s participation in man’s

estrangement, and his victory over the ambiguity of good and evil appear in a

unique,definite,andtransformingwayinhim.118

Thatwhichis,isnotallthattherecanbe.Couragenotonlyresistsanxietyoffinitudebutit

participates(paradoxically)inthedynamicprocesstowardSpiritbeyondlife.

117Tillich,SystematicTheologyIII,31.118Ibid.,226.

210

Imagination is a courageous act: the vision of something other than what is, is

glimpsedbecauseintheSpiritualCommunitywehaveseentheNewBeingofJesusasthe

Christ. Tillich describes the relationship of the manifestation of divine Spirit in life

(SpiritualPresence)andJesusChristas“SpiritChristology.”119ThepowerofSpirit,which

is revealed in the “life span of Jesus,”120becomes manifest as spirit in the Spiritual

Community. The Spirit at work in Jesus’ incarnation, baptism, crucifixion, resurrection,

ascension, and Pentecost is also at work in us.121The embrace of this power, which is

courage,breatheslifeintothestruggletoovercomethatwhichresistslife.

Tillich denotes this process as “sanctification,” which he explicates as “increasing

awareness, increasing freedom, increasing relatedness, and increasing transcendence.”122

The Spiritual Presence radically alters human existence, perpetually calling humanity to

overcome the restrictions of ignorance, oppression, separation, and selfishness. The

sanctified life, or life in the power of the Spirit, leaves no room formarginalization, and

exclusion.Tothecontrary,thedivineSpiritmanifestinlifeasfaithandlove,123inspiresus

toimagineotherwise.Thereissomethinginsideofusthatalwayscallsusbeyondourselves

andintorelationshipwitheachother.

119Ibid.,144-161.

120ChristopherMorseinthechapteron“TheHolySpirit”argues:“Theterm‘JesusChrist’inthecontextofthe

NewTestamentaccountsdenotesthefulllifespan,includingwhathappensin,to,andasthefutureofJesusofNazareth,andisnotlimitedtomerelythefactualityofJesus’first-centuryhistoricalexistence.”NotEverySpirit:ADogmaticsofChristianDisbelief(Harrisburg:TrinityPressInternational,1994),181.121Inhischapterthe“TrinitarianExperienceoftheSpirit”,JürgenMoltmannexplicatestheobservation:“The

synopticgospelsbeginwithaSpiritChristology.PaulandJohnhavethisastheirpremise;buttheythemselvesstressachristologicaldoctrineoftheSpirit”[emphasisinoriginal](59).JürgenMoltmann,TheSpiritofLife:AUniversalAffirmation,1992(Minneapolis:FortressPress,2001).122Tillich,SystematicTheologyIII,228-236.123Ibid.,129-137.

211

JesusastheChristandtheSpiritofGod

The ethic of empowerment is a central feature of a “Spirit christology,” which is

significant forapneumatologyadhering to theAfrican-AmericanChristianexperience. In

Jesus, Symbol of God Roger Haight argues that Spirit christology is the “foundational

metaphor”124for a Christian imagination that seeks an interpretation of Jesus that is

contemporarilyrelevant:

ASpiritchristologyempowersChristianlifeonthebasisofthecontinuitybetween

Jesus andus; he is a humanbeing like us in all things except sin…Because of this

continuity between Jesus and disciples, one can be inspired by and imitate Jesus.

Thereisnogapbetweenhimandus.Onecanprojectuponhimalltheweaknessesof

humanexistence inorder to retrieve fromhim the inspirationof thepowerofhis

earthly life.Spiritchristologygivesasolidgrounding foraspiritualityof following

Christ.125

TheSpiritatwork in Jesus,whichrevealshimas theChrist, isalsoatwork inhumanity.

Spiritchristologyemerges“frombelow,”incontrasttoLogoschristologythatisdeveloped

“fromabove”andemphasizestheeternalLogos.Ratherthanrestingsolelyontheauthority

of doctrine, Spirit christology depends upon consonance with human experience and

analogy. Likewise a Christian theology of Spirit is formulated in view of God from the

perspectiveofourlived,everydayreality.126

The orientation of this theological approach parallels Haight’s method in his

constructionofJesusassymbolofGod.Haightexplainsintheprefacetohistext:

Theapologetic intentionof thischristology…isreflected in frequentappeals to the

imagination as integral to the process of knowing, for imagination is the bridge

betweenconcreterealityandourunderstandingofit....Becausethisisachristology

frombelow,Jesusiscalled“SymbolofGod,”foralthoughthissymbolisasacrament

and never “merely” a symbol, “symbol” is the broader and more recognized

interdisciplinary category. In the christology of this book, the symbolmediates in

124RogerHaight,Jesus,SymbolofGod(Maryknoll:OrbisBooks,1999),454.125Ibid.,465.

126Ibid.,447.

212

bothdirections: itdrawshumanconsciousness towardGod, and itmediatesGod’s

presencetothehumanspirit.127Haight’stext,whichledtohiscensorshipasanecclesiasticaltheologianwithintheRoman

Catholic Church,128did not intend to diminish the theology of Jesus as Christ. Instead, it

soughttoempowerpersonsoffaithtounderstandbetterthedynamicsimpliedwithinthe

doctrine of Jesus Christ. By taking seriously human experience as the starting point of

Christian theology, in view of divine revelation, Haight struggled to stimulate human

imaginationasagiftofSpirit.

According to Haight’s approach, then, Christians comes to see a deep symbolic

correlation of God, Spirit, and Jesus that is revealed as a creative life-giving power

experienced as grace, liberation, empowerment, and love.129Such a Spirit christology

asserts

that Jesusexperienced thepowerofGodasSpirit inhis life; thathewasawareof

thisintheseterms;thatthisempowermentwasmanifestedinhisactions;thatthese

empoweredactionswereconstruedastherulingofGod;andthatpeoplerecognized

thisevenduringhislife-time.130

Asaresult,throughbothscripturalandconciliarwitness,Christianscometointerpretthe

resurrectedJesusquaChristquaSpirit.131“JesusistherealsymbolwhobodiesforthGodas

127Ibid.,xiii.

128CongregationfortheDoctrineoftheFaith,“Notificationonthebook‘JesusSymbolofGod’byFatherRoger

HaightS.J.”,December13,2004.http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/

rc_con_cfaith_doc_20041213_notification-fr-haight_en.html.AlsopublishedasAppendixItoJesus,SymbolofGod,507-514.129Ibid.,447-449.Haightexplains:“Amethodofcorrelationentailsbringingtogetherthepresentandthe

past,bringingintoconjunctionourpresentsituationandthetraditionaboutJesusfromapastthatextends

rightuptothepresent.Iunderstandtraditioninabroadsensethatincludesthewitnessofscripture.

Interpretationoccursinthemeeting,sometimestheconfrontation,betweentraditionandourpresent

situation”(45).

130Ibid.,449.

131Ibid.,450.

213

Spirit present and at work within him; Jesus as symbol participates in God as Spirit

mediates God, andmakes God present.”132Christians speak of Jesus in the power of the

Spirit symbolically, which is to participate in divine, and thus is always dialectical and

analogical.133

Haight’s use of symbol and Thiemann’s deployment of sacrament, discussed in

chapterthree,cohereinthatbothpointtothedivinefromtheperspectiveofeverydaylife.

Hurston’s attention to the everyday introduced the engagement with courage, which

inspires the writing of marginalized stories as and into scripture, as seen in her and

Nugent’swork.Blackbodiesbecomesacredtexts,nolongeroppressivelywrittenupon,but

writinganewrealitythatbeginstorightpastwrongs.Ultimately,attheconclusionofthis

chapter, thismovement of couragewill allow us to argue theologically that Jesus is the

SpiritofGodwhoempowersthemarginalizedtoclaimspiritasthefreedomuntolifeafter

death.

Courageand(Non)Conformity

Conformity,toooften,isthepriceoftheticketforcommunity.Haight’sexperiencein

theRomanCatholicChurchpost-Jesus,SymbolofGod,iscaseinpoint.“Don’trocktheboat”

is soundadvicegiven to the individualdesiring successwithout struggle.And consensus

becomes theproductof respectable groupthinkandnot thedeepwrestlingamong those

whorespectthevarietyofeachothers’voices.AsHigginbothamdemonstratesinRighteous

132Ibid.,458.

133Ibid.,457.

214

Discontent,exploredinchaptertwo,policingconformitywasameansofpromotingsocial

upliftintherespectabilitypoliticsofblackBaptistwomen.134

Hurston offers a different take: community is at its best when its members are

courageousenoughtobecomethemselves.Wadingintheseturbulentwatersisnoteasy—

andsometimesparadoxical—becauseitdemandsbothastrongsenseofselfandanequally

strongsenseofone’srelationship toothers. “ZoraHurstonwasacomplexwomanwitha

hightoleranceforcontradiction,”introducesRobertHemenwayinhisauthoritativeliterary

biography.135

Empowermentofblackfolk,accordingtoHurston,wasnottobeachievedthrougha

platform of racial uplift. So she did notwrite about it. Instead, shewrote through black

folklore.Throughthe“lyintales,”Hurstonfoundhervoiceandsubsequentlysoughttotell

these tales to theworld. BecauseHurstonbelieved thatAfricanAmericans claimed their

powerwhentheycelebratedthebeautyofblackculture.Ifspiritualsarelikefolklore,then

sustainedconsiderationofthespiritualsalsotapintoasourceofpower.Wearedeceivers

andyettrue(2Corinthians6:8).136Anddeceptionisnotfalsity.Bynottellingthetruth,itis

dis-covered.We cannot approach it head-on for we risk colonizing. Hurston biographer

Robert E. Hemenway, introducing her turn to anthropology, writes: “Folklore is

exceedinglydifficult todefine,and folklorist themselvesquarreloverpreciselywhat it is.

134EvelynBrooksHigginbotham,RighteousDiscontent:TheWomen’sMovementintheBlackBaptistChurch,1880-1920(Cambridge:HarvardUniversityPress,1993),especially“ThePoliticsofRespectability,”185-229.135Hemenway,ZoraNealeHurston:ALiteraryBiography,5.136SeealsoReinholdNiebuhr’s“AsDeceivers,YetTrue”inBeyondTragedy:EssaysontheChristianInterpretationofHistory,1937(Salem,NH:AyerCompany,1984),1-24.

215

Someclaimsimplytoknowitwhentheyseeit;allagreethatfolkloreisnoterror,asinthe

phrase‘That’sonlyfolklore.’”137Spirituals,too,arenoterror.

Spirituals are derivatives of spirit, and like their integral, cannot be contained.

Spirituals,likespirit,arefree.Theantidotetothesuffocatingstricturesofconformityisthe

celebration of creativity. Although Hemenway (and Hurston) does not use the language

explicitly, Iwould suggest that thiswholeness is achievedat the intersectionof soul and

spirit.

Hurston’schoicetobewholestillcameataprice.Walker’s“cautionarytale”warns

thegentlereaderoftheconsequencesofablackwomanbecomingherselfinpre-civilrights

America.Notonlydid shediepoorand in relativeobscurity,but throughouther life she

had to fight against efforts to containher free spirit. In lightof all the setbacksof “post-

racial”America,oneoughttoflashthiswarningstilltoday.Cannondefends:

WhenZoraHurstonwrappedherhairinbeautifulclothturbans,hercriticscharges

thatshewastryingtopassforanAfricanqueen.Whenshedaredtodivorce,notone,

but two husbands,with rumor alluding to the possibility of a thirdmarriage, her

critics portrayed her as indecent. However, Hurston refused to take a defensive

posture for acting in ways which were not acceptable for women until decades

later.138

Still,Hurstonshapedcommunitywithoutconformity.

Courage isavirtue.Hurstonpossessedthecouragetorewriteoneself inrewritten

holytexts.Hercanonisuncommon.Couragetotellherownstoryevenifnoonereadit,to

speakherowntruthevenifnoonewaslistening.MayaAngelouiscorrect:“DustTrackson

aRoad iswrittenwithroyalhumorandan imperiouscreativity.But thenall creativity is

137Hemenway,ZoraNealeHurston:ALiteraryBiography,84-85.138Cannon,Katie’sCanon,110.

216

imperious,andZoraNealeHurstonwascertainlycreative.”139Thecouragetoliveasoneself

insearchofhomeisatransgressiveactofwar.Spiritgivescouragetobecomeotherthan

whatoneis.Orperhapsspiritisthecouragetolivefullyasone’sself.

4.4. QueerTransgressionsandIndecentTheologicalProposals

Sanders’sempowermentethicsreclaimsthedeviancyofcharismaticChristianityin

the name of biblical holiness. She affirms the “irrational exuberance”140of the Sanctified

church, once deemed backward and associated with (lower) working class southerners,

and attaches it to scriptural orthodoxy. This is to say, Sanders reworks respectability to

denote biblical conformity (inflected through Victorian morality), disinterested in

Enlightenment rationality. Sanders’s ethics expands the limits of what is acceptable

Christian practice, but I argue does not go far enough. It empowers some (i.e., poor,

charismatic Christians), but still leave others (i.e., queer, gender/sexual fluid Christians)

outside the boundaries of acceptability. Further still, this empowerment depends on

disempowerment:otheringofgays,lesbians,andsexualnonconformists.

With the aid of Haight’s transgressive spirit christology, Tillich assisted my

constructive interpretationofHurston’squeerNiggeratiand thecourage to findhome in

one’sself.Still,Tillich’stheologyofSpiritmaintainstheambiguityoflife,whichultimately

is concerned not with transgression but rather with the dialectic of ultimate concern.

139MayaAngelou’s“Foreword”toZoraNealeHurston,DustTracksontheRoad:AnAutobiography,1942(NewYork:HarperPerennial,1991),xii.

140IamplayingoffAlanGreenspan’sphraseregardingtheovervaluationoftechnologycompaniesduringthe

1990sandtheresultingburstingofthedot-combubble.AlanGreenspan,“TheChallengeofCentralBankingin

aDemocraticSociety,”AnnualDinnerandFrancisBoyerLectureofTheAmericanEnterpriseInstitutefor

PublicPolicyResearch,Washington,D.C.,5December1996,http://www.federalreserve.gov/boarddocs/

speeches/1996/19961205.htm,accessed10October2016.

217

Tillich contributes valuable insights in liberation-oriented theologies, but it does not

necessarily chart fully the way forward. As “indecent theologian” Marcella Althaus-Reid

pointsout:

Mary Daly reminds us of Hannah Tillich’s memories of her late husband the

theologianPaulTillich,andhowhewasunabletoconfronttheimmediaterealityof

his lifedrawnas itwas intosadomasochisticpracticesandbondageandwhichhe

replacedbytheo-ideologicalabstractions(Daly1978:95).Whatistobecondemned

and regretted is not thatTillichwas a sadomasochist, but the fact that hedidnot

find‘thecouragetobe’outoftheclosetofhissexuality;asadomasochisttheologian,

for instance, reflectingonan issueof importance inhis lifeas in the lifeofothers.

OurdifficultywithTillich ishis lackof integrityandnotnecessarilyhisdeveloped

taste forbondagepractices,whichwereprobably sharedbymanyotheracademic

colleagues, fellow priests and everyday fellow Christians. Systematic theologians

such as Tillich are representative of themillions of Christian people struggling to

remain in their own sexual closets in their own preferential beds while building

their identitieswithout sharing their sexual storiesandevencondemning them in

theirwritings.141

I maintain that a truly empowering Christianity must wade into the messiness of our

complicatedlives,andadvocateintentionalpathwaysforaction.Althaus-Reid’stheologyof

queernessandindecencyofferssuchaplatform.

Like theblackandwomanist theologiesdiscussedabove,Althaus-Reid theologizes

out of lived, everyday experiences, particularly those of marginalized Latin American

women.HersdifferssignificantlyfromthetheologiesofTownes,Cannon,Cone,andother

womanistsandblacktheologians insofarasshespeaksopenlyaboutsexualpractice,and

theologizesfromthistransgressivesexualposition.Shenotes,“BlackTheology,Liberation

TheologyandmuchoftheGospelandCulturemovementstartsfromthecriterionofSexual

Orthodoxy,thatisbysexual/politicaldogmasfirst,andrealityonlyasrearrangedtofitthis

141MarcellaAlthaus-Reid,IndecentTheology:TheologicalPerversionsinSex,GenderandPolitics(NewYork:Routledge,2000),88.

218

model.”142 Althaus-Reid not only speaks about gender and sexual diversity, but she

theologizes from that queer location in a manner that no conversation or mode of

“Christianimagination”isofflimits.

In fact, Althaus-Reid speaks plainly and provocatively about taboo subjects. She

criticizesliberationtheologiesofGutiérrezandothersfortheerasureofthesexuallivesof

marginalizedpeople,especiallywomen.Sexuallivesandstoriesnotonlyresource,butalso

constitute the starting point for Althaus-Reid’s theological project. The first words of

IndecentTheologyare:

Shouldawomankeepherpantsoninthestreetsornot?Shallsheremovethem,say,

atthemomentofgoingtochurch,foramoreintimatereminderofhersexualityin

relationtoGod?Whatdifferencedoesitmakeifthatwomanisalemonvendorand

sells lemons in the streets without using underwear? Moreover, what difference

woulditmakeifshesitsdowntowritetheologywithoutunderwear?143

LikeRichardNugent,thelived,everydayexperience,forAlthaus-Reid,explicitlynamesand

screamsthings“unspoken”and“unshouted.”

InAlthaus-Reid’soeuvre,theboundariesofcontextualtheologyaretransgressedto

thepointwherelinesarenotonlyblurredbutalsoentirelyredrawnandreconfigured.She

defines:

Indecent Theology is a theologywhich problematises and undresses themythical

layersofmultipleoppressioninLatinAmerica,atheologywhich,findingitspointof

departureatthecrossroadsofLiberationTheologyandQueerThinking,willreflect

oneconomicandtheologicaloppressionwithpassionandimprudence.AnIndecent

TheologywillquestionthetraditionalLatinAmericanfieldofdecencyandorderas

it permeates and supports the multiple (ecclesiological, theological, political and

amatory)structuresoflifeinmycountry,Argentina,andinmycontinent.144

142Ibid.,62.

143Ibid.,1.

144Ibid.,2.

219

Intersectionality converges with Indecent Theology; both strategies take serious

complexity and multiplicity in the constitution of lived realities. The critical praxis

emerging fromthiscomplicatedsituation, then,doesnotseeksimplesolutions.Likewise,

theconstructiveresponse‘contains’complexity.

Forthedissertation’spurposes,though,Althaus-Reid’smethodofmultiplicityoffers

the most useful resource for a transgressive, constructive pneumatology. That is, the

specificity of fascinating proposals, for example, of perceiving “God as a faggot;”145the

bisexualityofChrist;146ora“Trinitybasedonamigoviosinsteadofmedievalconceptionsof

family”147are less importantherethanthemodeof transgressivetheological imagination.

BythisImean,itisabundantlyclearthatMarcellaAlthaus-ReidandCherylSanders

haveverylittlecontentincommon.Andthedevilisinthedetails.TopresentAlthaus-Reid

asarespondenttoSandersoncontentwouldbeinsincere,verymuchcomparingapplesto

oranges. They do share, however, a deep concern for the ethical empowerment of their

people.Icorrelatethem,usingAlthaus-ReidtorespondtoSanders,attheteleologicallevel.

Although the sources for and forms of their theologies could not be farther apart, the

ethicalnorm/thrustoftheirworkofferscommonground.Sanders’s“empowermentethics”

and Althaus-Reid’s “indecent theology” both seek to transgress the boundaries that

marginalizetheirpeople.

Indeed Althaus-Reid explores “a systematically deviant Jesus,” whose “strong

attachment todeviantpeople ispreserved incollectedstorieswhicharecapableofmore

145Ibid.,67.

146Ibid.,112-120.

147Ibid.,144.Shedefines:“Amigovismoisatransitionalcategoryofrelationshipwhichusuallyinvolvessex,butalsoasenseoffriendshipwhichtrespassesbeyondtheheterosexualpatternsoffriendshipinArgentina.”

Thus,Althaus-ReidviewstheTrinityas“friendswithbenefits.”

220

than one reading into his sexuality – per/verted readings, options along the road of

interpretation.”148But I framemyviewof a Jesus, the Spirit ofGod, as chief deviant and

liberating power not by mere substitution, but as a rather as a “deviant theologian.”

Althaus-Reidargues that “Queer theology is, then,a firstperson theology:diasporic, self-

disclosing,autobiographicalandresponsibleforitsownwords.”149

The overarching thrust of the indecent and queer theology of Althaus-Reid is to

move beyond theological binaries, dyads, and dualisms in order to imagine possibility

amidstcomplexity.Shewrites:

TheQueertheologiandevelopsaBisexualTheologybyunderstandingthisfluidityof

thinking and by permanently introducing ‘unsuitable’ new partners in theology,

whichmakesitdifficulttofix–butthisispreciselywhatallowschangesofposition

andnumbers inherconfessor/confessantvocation....QueerTheologyneeds togive

place to located desire, that is, pleasure. Queer Theology is amaterialist theology

thattakesbodiesseriously.150

Here we observe convergence of black theology’s articulation of the blackness of God,

womanisttheology’semphasisontheparticularlyoflivedexperiences(especiallyofblack

women),andqueertheology’smethodologyof“sexualpositioning.”

Transgressive,queertheology,then,providesamodeofimaginingthedeviantJesus

outoftheexperiencesofadevianttheologian,“frombelow.”151Thisisthemannerinwhich

Althaus-ReidimaginesResurrection:

IndecentChristiansarenotdisappeared.They livedandarestillaroundand leave

their traces in history. They aremultitudes. People leave traces of their lives and

everyday little speaks, the frustrations and pains of everyday life, in their

communities, in their neighbourhoods andworkplaces. They live and resurrect in

lust everyday….It is in vain that theological per/versions are condemned and

148Ibid.,113.

149MarcellaAlthaus-Reid,QueerTheology(NewYork:Routledge,2003),8.150Ibid.,17,19.

151Althaus-Reid,IndecentTheology,122.

221

prevented inChristianity.Theobscene(re-discovery)ofGod in IndecentTheology

mayprovethatperhapsGodstillexists,butforthatweshallneedtohaveasexual-

storycasestyleofdoingtheologyfrompeople’ssexualexperiences.152

DespiteattemptstoerasedeviantChristiansofallsorts,theirspiritsthriveinresurrected

bodies.

TheDeathofJesus,theSpiritofGod

Jesus as Christ is indispensable for African-American Christianity. There is no

worship in black churches that does not name, through testimony, gospel music, and

prayer, Jesus as “personal Lord and Savior,” “doctor in a sick room,” and “lawyer in the

court room.” In African-American preaching, especially its charismatic traditions, the

sermonclimaxes,moreoftenthannot,inthepaschaltriduum.Nomatterwherethesermon

begins,itendsinJesusChrist“gettingupearlySunday[Easter]morningwithallpowerin

hishands,”therebyconqueringdeathandthecrosswherehewas“hunghighandstretched

wide,” as the black church phrase goes.153The sermonic peak, stylized in performative

rhetoric,isthecall,greetedbytheresponseofthecongregationinshouts,acclamation,and

dance.154

Thespiritatworkin‘spirited’worship,inviewofthecross,istheSpiritofJesus.155

AllblackChristianity, to someextent,mustgo through Jesus,withparticularattention to

152Ibid.,123-124.

153Cf.LukeA.Powery,SpiritSpeech:LamentandCelebrationinPreaching(Nashville:AbingdonPress,2009).154C.EricLincolnandLawrenceH.Mamiya,TheBlackChurchintheAfricanAmericanExperience(Durham:DukeUniversityPress,1990),6.

155Cf.JürgenMoltmann,TheSpiritofLife:AUniversalAffirmation,1992(Minneapolis:FortressPress,2001),58-82.

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crucifixion and resurrection.156More than a moral exemplar, the Jesus invoked in black

worship must be intimately related to the biblical witness and to the African-American

Christian tradition.ThebondbetweenAfrican-AmericanChristianity,black theology, and

womanisttheologyhasbeenstrainedinanattempttohold“embedded”and“deliberative”

theology—African-AmericanChristianfaithandblacktheologicalthought—inaproductive

tension. The role of the cross, suffering, and resurrection remain at the center of this

struggle.157

Despite the logocentric trappings of black theology 158 and the critiques of

redemptive suffering and surrogacy inwomanist theology,159any theology to be lived in

blackchurchesmustbegrounded in the“lifespanof Jesus.”160Andthis Jesus, inmyview,

alwayspointsbeyondhimself toward ‘hisFather.’ “JesuswasempoweredbyGod’sSpirit;

theSpiritofGodisGodpresent,andthusapersonalpresence,apower,aforce,anenergy,

sothatJesusisanembodimentofGodasSpirit.”161

156GarthBaker-Fletcher,“BlackTheologyandtheHolySpirit,”TheCambridgeCompaniontoBlackTheology(2012),111-125.KarenBaker-Fletcher,DancingwithGod:TheTrinityinWomanistPerspective(St.Louis:ChalicePress,2006).

157JamesH.Evans,WeHaveBeenBelievers:AnAfricanAmericanSystematicTheology(Minneapolis:FortressPress,1992);JamesH.Cone,TheCrossandtheLynchingTree(Maryknoll:OrbisBooks,2011),especiallychapterfive;JoAnneMarieTerrell,PowerintheBlood?TheCrossintheAfricanAmericanExperience,1998(Eugene:Wipf&StockPublishers,2005),especiallychaptersfourandfive;CecilCone,TheIdentityCrisisofBlackTheology(Nashville:AMEC,1975);J.DeotisRoberts,“TheHolySpiritandLiberation”inBlackTheologyinDialogue(Philadelphia:TheWestminsterPress,1987);JacquelynGrant,WhiteWomen’sChrist,BlackWomen’sJesus:FeministChristologyandWomanistResponse(Atlanta:ScholarsPress,1989).158Cf.M.ShawnCopeland,“AThinkingMargin:TheWomanistMovementasCriticalCognitivePraxis,”in

DeeperShadesofPurple:WomanisminReligionandSociety,ed.StaceyFloyd-Thomas(NewYork:NewYorkUniversityPress,2006),226-235.

159ATroublinginMySoul:WomanistPerspectivesonEvilandSuffering,ed.EmileTownes(Maryknoll:OrbisBooks,1993).

160Morse,NotEverySpirit,181.161Haight,JesusSymbolofGod,459.

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The constructive view of Spirit proposed here, if it is to be practiced, has to be

centeredinJesus,whois“allandall.”IconcurwithPowerythat“ThegiftoftheSpirit[is]a

topicthatisusuallymutedinmosttheologicaldiscussions,”162andofferadialogicalwayof

connectingspiritandcrossinthedialecticofAfrican-AmericanChristianity.Myproposalis

fundedbythedissertation’sengagementwithintersectionality,particularlytheneedfora

transgressivequeerspirit-talk.163ByinterpretingJesusastheSpiritofGod,then,wemight

remainfaithfultotheblackchurchtraditionwhileatthesametime,stretchingofit.

Priortothisinquiry,itisworthnotingthat,thisreadingisimplicitlyrisky.IfWalker

is correct that Hurston’s life is a cautionary tale, then herMoses, Man of the Mountain

shootsoneacrossthebow.That is, ifonestretchesanobject toofar, itmayno longerbe

recognizable.But asHurston’smother said: “‘Jumpat de sun.’Wemightnot landon the

sun,butatleastwewouldgetofftheground.”164Soweruntheriskofalienationaltogether,

butitisariskworthtakingbecauseintheprocesswemightopenthewindowwideenough

forafreshwindtoblowthrough.Ifonedoesnotcreateafissureatall,wellthen,thefuture

is already foreclosed. “Transgression entails ‘movement against and beyond

boundaries’…toexplorenewintellectualterrain…compassionatesolidaritywiththepoorin

the advance of justice. Transgressive teaching grasps and communicates with the

differencebetweenlifeanddeath.”165

162Powery,SpiritSpeech,1.163JamesForbes,“ShallWeCallThisDreamProgressivePentecostalism?”inSpirit:AJournalofIssuesIncidenttoBlackPentacostalismI(2):12-15.JamesTinney,“HomosexualityAsAPentecostalPhenomenon,”inSpirit:AJournalofIssuesIncidenttoBlackPentacostalismI(2):45-59.164Hurston,DustTracks,13.165M.ShawnCopeland,quotingbellhooks,inDeeperShadesofPurple:WomanisminReligionandSociety233.

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Jesus is theSpirit ofGod.This is to say, the incarnated, crucified, and resurrected

oneknownasJesusChristcannotbeconceivedexceptinrelationtotransgression.TheGod

whocrossesoverintotimefrometernalityisthesameGodcrucifiedonthecross;thevery

same God whose cross haunts the resurrection.166 This ghastly “spirit essence of a

dream”167hasabodythatresiststhefinalityofdeath,havingbeenfreelybornintolifequa

death. The body of Jesus is a transgressive body—one that does not remain where it

belongs.Itdeviatesfromthenorm:JesusrefusestoremainasdisembodiedGodand,when

inhumanform,refusestostaydead.

Theconcealed,apocryphalaccountinPeter’sgospelbearswitness:

9.34Earlyinthemorning,whenthesabbathdawned,therecameacrowdfromJerusalemand

the country roundabout to see the sepulchre that hadbeen sealed. 35Now in thenight in

which the Lord's day dawned,when the soldierswere keeping guard, there rang out in a

loud voice in heaven; 36and they saw the heavens opened and twomen come down from

thereinagreatbrightnessanddrawnightothesepulchre.37Thatstonewhichhadbeenlaid

againsttheentrancetothesepulchrestartedofitselftorollandgivewaytotheside,andthe

sepulchrewasopened,andboththeyoungmenenteredin.10.38Whennowthosesoldierssaw

this,theyawakenedthecenturionandtheelders–fortheyalsoweretheretoassistatthe

watch.39Andwhilsttheywererelatingwhattheyhadseen,theysawagainthreemencome

out from thesepulchre, and twoof themsustaining theother, anda cross following them,40andtheheadsofthetworeachingtoheaven,butthatofhimwhowasledofthembythe

handoverpassingtheheavens.41Andtheyheardavoiceoutoftheheavenscrying,‘Hastthou

preachedtothemthatsleep?’,42andfromthecrosstherewasheardtheanswer,'Yea.'168

Thecross follows theresurrected Jesusoutof the tomb—and ithasvoice!Peter’sgospel

suggeststousthattheresurrectionisnotsimplythetriumphoverdeath,asifdeathnow

disappears. Indeedtheghostly Jesus is followedby—hauntedby—thevery instrumentof

hisdeath.Thescriptureoffersanall-but-subtleandmuch-neededreminderthatthevoice

ofdead,andthemeansofdeath,stillspeaksfromthegrave.

166Moltmannwrites,“TheothersideofJesus’deathisalsopresentedashisexperienceoftheSpirit–his

raisingthroughtheSpiritandhislivingpresenceintheSpirit”(TheSpiritofLife,65).167LadyLeeAndrews,SanJuan,PuertoRico(privatelypublishedartwork).

168“TheGospelofPeter”inNewTestamentApocrypha,VolumeOne:GospelsandRelatedWritings,ed.WilhelmSchneemelcher(Louisville:Westminster/JohnKnoxPress,1991),216-227.

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In this “Age of Spirit,” then, we see the crucifixion of Jesus, the crucified God,169

which releases this “holy ghost,” is the second death of God. Incarnation,which is God’s

self-emptyingunderthepoweroftheHolySpirit(kenosis),isthefirstdeathofGod.170Gay

CatholicphilosopherGianniVattimo,2010Giffordlecturer(UniversityofGlasgow),points

to kenosis in his theory of secularization and post-modern “weak thought.”171Vattimo

interpretssecularizationquathedeathofGodnotastheprocessofalienation,butrather

itsproduct. Inpostmodernityalienationiscarriedto its ‘logicalconclusion,’suchthatthe

weakthoughtbecomesthebasisofarenewedfaith.Hewrites:

[Secularization]emphasizesthattheweakeningofBeingisonepossiblemeaning—

ifnottheabsolutemeaning—oftheChristianmessage,throughtheradicalreading

of incarnation as kenosis. This message speak of a God who incarnates himself,lowershimself,andconfusesallthepowersofthisworld.172

169JürgenMoltmannwrites:“ThedeathofJesusonthecrossisthecentreofallChristiantheology….theChristeventonthecrossisaGodevent.Andconversely,theGodeventakesplaceonthecrossoftherisen

Christ….SothenewChristologywhichtriestothinkofthe‘deathofJesusasthedeathofGod’,musttakeup

theelementsoftruthwhicharetobefoundinkenoticism(doctrineofGod’semptyingofhimself”(205).TheCrucifiedGod:TheCrossofChristastheFoundationandCriticismofChristianTheology,1974(Minneapolis:FortressPress,1993).MoltmannusesSt.Athanasius’sDeIncarnationetoestablishtheTrinitarianviewofthe“CrucifiedGod.”Hecites,inparticular,§54:“ForhewasmademanthatwemightbemadeGod;andhe

manifestedhimselfbyabodythatwemightreceivetheideaoftheunseenFather;andheenduredthe

insolenceofmenthatwemightinheritimmorality”(Moltmann108).

170HegelinterpretsIncarnationasGod’sdeathin“TheRevealedReligion”(§748-787)inPhenomenologyofSpirit,trans.A.V.Miller(NewYork:OxfordUniversityPress,1977),453-478.Also,indiscussionoftheTrinityin“PartIII:TheConsummateReligion,”LecturesonthePhilosophyofReligion,ed.PeterG.Hodgson(Oxford:OxfordUniversityPress,2006),452-470.SeealsoPaoloDiegoBubbio,“Hegel:DeathofGodandRecognitionoftheSelf,”InternationalJournalofPhilosophicalStudies,23:5(2015):689-706.Cf.ThomasAltizer,inTheGospelofChristianAtheism(Philadelphia:WestminsterPress,1966),pointstoHegel’suseofIncarnationqua“deathofGod”inordertoadvancehisanti-churchradicaltheology.SeealsoAltizer,TheSelf-EmbodimentofGod(NewYork:Harper&Row,1977). 171GianniVattimo,TheEndofModernity:NihilismandHermeneuticsinPostmodernCulture,1985,trans.JohnR.Synder(Baltimore:TheJohnsHopkinsUniversityPress,1991);Vattimo,OfReality:ThePurposesofPhilosophy(NewYork:ColumbiaUniversityPress,2016).172Vattimo,AfterChristianity,trans.LucaD’Isanto(NewYork:ColumbiaUniversityPress,2002),80.

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ThedeathofGodthroughincarnationdefiesabsolutismthatseekstoexercisecontrolover

realitythroughultimatecertainty.Thuskenosisquahumilitycluesusintotohowweought

toliveintheworld.

This turn to Spirit is analogous to Vattimo’s “weak thought” and his view of

incarnation-as-secularization. To this end, the turn continues Vattimo’s inquiry of what

happens “after the death of God.”173Religiously-infused secularization theory then shifts

fromtheincarnationandrebuildingthebodyofChristtoresurrectingGodthroughtheturn

toSpirit.PhyllisTickleobserves,“Oursisashiftingera….andaveryvocalcadreofuswere

on our way to becoming practioners of religionless Christianity.”174An embodied (and

embedded)theologyofSpiritrespondstothecomplexitiesofthepresentage.

The second death of God unleashes the “holy ghost” that ultimately becomes the

inspirationoftheHolySpirit.InspirationastheChristiannotionthatGodisSpirit,andthat

followingJesus’resurrectionandascension,theHolySpiritisgiftedtothefirstChristiansat

Pentecost and poured out on “all people” (book of Acts, chapter 2).175The event of

Pentecost seeds multiculturalism and religious plurality, which from my reading,

transcendsthepersonaofJesusChrist.AlthoughforChristians,particularlyintheWestern

church,176SpiritisinextricablylinkedtoJesus,theverynatureofSpiritisitsresistanceto

173JohnD.CaputoandGianniVattimo,AftertheDeathofGod,ed.JeffreyRobbins(NewYork:ColumbiaUniversityPress,2007).

174PhyllisTickle,TheAgeoftheSpirit:HowtheGhostofanAncientControversyisShapingtheChurch(GrandRapids:BakerBooks,2014),30.

175Tillich,SystematicTheologyIII,115-120.176Ialludetothefilioquedebate,whichbeganinthe4thcentury,andwedgedtheEasternandWesternchurchesinthe11thcentury.ThisdebatereferstowhethertheHolySpiritproceedsfromtheFatherorboth

theFatherandtheSon.TheWesternchurch,asrepresentedintheNiceno-ConstantinopolitanCreedof381,

whichrevisestheNiceneCreedof325,maintainsthattheSpiritcomesfromtheFatherandSon.SeeA.

EdwardSiecienski,TheFilioque:HistoryofaDoctrinalControversy(NewYork:OxfordUniversityPress,2010).

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containment. Inanincreasinglyreligiouslypluralworld,Spirit-talkappearstobeafertile

siteforinterreligiousdialoguefromaChristianperspective.177

AGodalwayspresent in theworld as spirit is aGod that immanently andalways

“withus.”Ultimately,then,thepouringoutoftheHolySpiritatPentecostunderscoreswith

dramatic flairwhatalready livesamongus.Pentecost is (queer)performance!Allhuman

beingsarecreatedofGodandareinvitedtoparticipateintheabundanceofcreation.This

libationoftheHolySpirit,thegiveroflife,then,echoesthedeathofthealreadydeadGod.

Finally, in recent years black religious studies has seen a spiked interest in

theological questionsof thebody.178This attention represents at once a return to classic

theologiesofincarnation,informedandinflectedthroughcontemporarytheoriesofgender

and sexuality—all in this post-secular Age of Spirit. At the same time, writings on

spirituality and sexuality, particularly affirming (black) queer bodies. With spirituality

signifyinganon-possessionby formalreligiousapparatuses(i.e.,denominations,dogmas,

anddoctrines),theseworkshavewrittenagainstreligioussentimentsthatwouldexclude

queer sexualities. 179 Against the backdrop, I look toward the drawing together

pneumatology,theologizingspirit,andthesetheologiesofthebody.

Inspired byHurston and herNiggerati,wemight now think of transgression as a

177Haight,JesusSymbolofGod,456.178Theologizingtheblackbodyespeciallyconcernswomanistsandhumanists:KellyBrownDouglas,SexualityandtheBlackChurch(Maryknoll:OrbisBooks,1999);What’sFaithGottoDoWithIt?BlackBodies/ChristiansSouls(Maryknoll:OrbisBooks,2005);BlackBodiesandtheBlackChurch(Maryknoll:OrbisBooks,2012);M.ShawnCopeland,EnfleshingFreedom:Body,Race,andBeing(Minneapolis:FortressPress,2010);AnthonyPinn,EmbodimentandtheNewShapeofBlackTheologicalThought(NewYork:NewYorkUniversityPress,2010);EboniMarshallTurman,TowardaWomanistEthicofIncarnation:BlackBodies,theBlackChurch,andtheCouncilofChalcedon(NewYork:PalgraveMacmillan,2013).179Asnotedabove,womanistslikeTownesandCannonhaveframedtheireveryday,ethicalworkas

“spirituality.”SeeKatieCannon,Katie'sCanon:WomanismandtheSouloftheBlackCommunity(NewYork:Continuum,1995)andEmileM.Townes,InaBlazeofGlory:WomanistSpiritualityasSocialWitness(Nashville:AbingdonPress,1995).

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formofembodiedspirit-talk,profferedthroughthedeathofGod.Thatis,wespeakofthe

beingathomeinone’sbodyandtheembodimentofGodasJesus,whichisthecrossingof

God into time thatmakes earth God’s home (a reversal of the black Christian desire “to

make heaven my home”) as acts of claiming freedom fiercely. Spirit is not respectable.

Spirit is not cis-heteronormative. And Spirit is not individualistic. Spirit embodies and

enlivens us—all of us. In the next and final chapter, we turn to Howard Thurman’s

materialisttheologyofJesustofurtherexpandourtransgressiveviewofanembodiedfaith.

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Chapter5. EnrichingSpirit:HowardThurmanandaTheologyoftheDisinherited

BlessedarethepoorinspiritfortheirsistheKingdomofGod.

–Matthew5:3,NRSV

ThemovementofthespiritofGodintheheartsofmenoftencallsthemtoactagainstthespiritoftheirtimesor

causesthemtoanticipateaspiritwhichisyetinthemaking…–HowardThurman,FootprintsofaDream

HowproperitisthatChristmasshouldfollowAdvent—for[anyone]wholookstowardthefuture,theMangerissituatedonGolgotha,andtheCrosshasalreadybeenraisedinBethlehem.

–DagHammarskjold

When Thurman left Rochester for Oberlin, one of his most trusted seminary

professors, George Cross, offered a final lesson—one last piece of advice:“But let me

remindyouthatsocialquestionsaretransitoryinnatureanditwouldbeaterriblewaste

foryoutolimityourcreativeenergytothesolutionoftheraceproblem,howeverinsistent

innature.Giveyourselftothetimelessissuesofthehumanspirit.”1

However well-meaning, Cross’s advice wreaked of privilege and paternalism.

Although Thurman chose not to offer a verbal rebuttal, later he articulated the shared

culturalknowledgeofAfricanAmericans:“amanandhisblackskinmustfacethe‘timeless

issues of the human spirit’ together.” 2 Social problems are spiritual problems. For

Thurman,thetransitoryandthetranscendentwereinextricablylinked.3

In this chapter I present away of readingThurman that highlights the embodied

1HowardThurman,WithHeadandHeart:TheAutobiographyofHowardThurman(NewYork:HarcourtJovanovich,1979),60.

2Ibid.

3Cf.LutherSmith,“Introduction:TheCalltoPropheticSpirituality,”HowardThurman:EssentialWritings(Maryknoll:OrbisBooks,2006),13-33.

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consequencesofhis“mysticalspirit.”IexplorewhatitmeanstocallThurmanamystic,and

ask: can Thurman’s mysticism be theological ground for a materialist, social ethic?

Ultimately, I suggest that the conventional characterization of Thurman as a “mystic”

partiallyobscuresourviewofhim.Throughanexaminationof JesusandtheDisinherited

(1949),Thurman’smostinfluentialtext,and“TheNegroSpiritualSpeaksofLifeandDeath”

(1945), I observe that there is an inseparable link between the incarnate Jesus and

embodiedSpirit.ByattendingtotherelationshipofThurman’smysticismandChristology,

Jesus of Nazareth is further revealed not as docile but deviant, indeed the transgressive

Spirit of God. In view of Thurman’s pneumatology, mysticism need not connote

otherworldlyavoidanceofreallifechallenges.

The dissertation’s final chapter, therefore, invokes the spirit of Thurman as a

resource for the contemporary struggle of social justice and freedom.Thurman’s project

does not avoid the real-world implications of practiced faith; it is not a veiled way of

‘spiritualizing’ Christian social action and policing respectability. Rather, Thurman’s

practicalpneumatologyofthedisinheritedisastrategicallysubversivetheo-ethicalmode

oftopplingtheoppressiveconditionsenduredby"thosewhostandwiththeirbacksagainst

the wall.”4 For Thurman,tapping into that which transcends the social—that is, the

spiritual—istheonlywaytoovercomesocialproblems.

5.1. The“UncreatedElement”:HowardThurman’s(Mystical)CallofSpirit

WhenonereadsThurman’sbooksandthelistentohissermons,onecannothelpbut

notice the constant and persistent appeal to things of spirit. Whereas in Du Bois’s and

4Thurman,JesusandtheDisinherited,1949(Boston:BeaconPress,1976),11.

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Hurston’s writings the stream of spirit is more subtle, requiring careful excavation, in

Thurmanspirit-talkisreadytohand.Spirit isoneofthepreferredphrasesthatThurman

usestourgedisciples,likehedidincorrespondencewithMartinKing,toalwaysattendto

one’s own personal growth and development (the inward life), while taking care of

business (the outward life).5Over decades of publishedwritings, in hismeditations and

essays,Thurmantravelsgreatdistancestoexplorevastexpansesofhuman(divine)inquiry

butalwaysreturnshome,tospirit.InhiscommencementaddressesandSundaymessages,

Thurmanconsistentlychallengedhislistenerstosearchwithintofind,hear,andheedthe

“soundofthegenuine.”6Theconcept-term“spirit”ranksamongthedistinctivephraseslike

“centeringdown”7and“nervecenterofconsent”8thatuniquelymarkThurman’scadence.

ThisseminalfocusappearsovertlyinpublishedtitlessuchasDisciplinesoftheSpirit.

Inthistext,Thurmancounselsthespirit-seekertocultivatealifeofcommitment,growth,

prayer, acceptance, and reconciliation. These spiritual practices are aids to living

holisticallyandthrivingasaself-actualizedhumanbeing.Inhisdiscussionofthediscipline

of prayer, Thurman defines that irreducible nature of human existence:“Man is total;

moreover,heisspirit.Thereforeitisnotsurprisingthatinman’sspiritshouldbefoundthe

crucial nexus that connects him with the Creator of Life, the Spirit of the Living God.”9

AccordingtoThurman,thesedisciplinesbecomethecriticalpathwaybywhichthehuman

5WalterFluker,“TheyLookedforaCity:AComparisonoftheIdealofCommunityinHowardThurmanand

MartinLutherKing,Jr.,”TheJournalofReligiousEthics18:2(Fall1990):33-55.6Thurman,“TheSoundoftheGenuine:BaccalaureateAddresstoSpelmanCollege,”TheSpelmanMessenger96:4(Summer1980),14-15.

7Thurman,MeditationsoftheHeart(Boston:BeaconPress,1953),28-29.8Thurman,WithHeadandHeart,222.9Thurman,DisciplinesoftheSpirit,1963(Richmond,Indiana:FriendsUnitedPress,1977),87.

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being harmonizes with self, overcoming self-alienation and achieving unity with God.

HumanspiritreconcileswithSpirit.

Evenwhenthefocusisnotnamedexplicitly,stillspiritsubtlyprovidestheskeletal

framework for much of Thurman's writing. In The Luminous Darkness: A Personal

Interpretation of the Anatomy of Segregation and the Ground ofHope Thurman proceeds

fromthefoundationalpremisethatsocialevilsarerupturesinhumanity’srelationalfabric.

Theessayseekstoshedlightonthisobservation:JimCrow’seclipsingofAfrican-American

dignityinparticularandhumanconnectioningeneral.“Itmustberemembered,”Thurman

writes, “that segregation is a mood, a state of mind, and its external manifestation

isexternal.Therootoftheevil,andevilitis,isinthehumanspirit”[emphasisinoriginal].10

Althoughcorruptionofthehumanspiritspawnssegregation,healingofthewoundedspirit

groundshope.Theenduringpossibility forreunionofcorruptedspiritwiththesourceof

Lifemotivatestheongoingstruggleforjustice.Atthesametime,Thurmanseekstorender

AfricanAmericans—darkpeople—asvisibleandluminoussubjectsandnotsimplyobjects

ofsegregation.

Spirit-talk iseverywhere inThurman’smassivecorpus,permeatingeveryaddress,

every sermon, every page. One can hardly make it a few sentences without mention of

spirit,areferentorderivativethereof.Thesheervolumelendsinstructiontothestudentof

Thurman. Such repetition, however subtle, trains the ear and eye to this axial theme in

Thurman’s thought. It callsourattentionandbegs for interpretation.But therein lies the

rub.ThereisadoublebindinconsideringThurman’sspirit-speech.Atoncespirit-talkboth

beckonsandbefuddles.

10Thurman,TheLuminousDarkness,1965(Richmond,Indiana:FriendsUnitedPress,1989),89-90.

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WearedrawnintotheworldofspiritbyThurman’srepeatedinvocation,ontheone

hand.Thisconstantcalltospiritbringsitfrontandcenter.AndthisispreciselyThurman’s

point.Wearespiritualbeingsenfleshedintheearthlycondition.Unlesswerememberour

primaryidentityweareapttomissthisfundamentalcharacteristicofourexistence.

ThefrequencyofThurman’sappealstospirit-talk,ontheotherhand,beliesafalse

sense of ‘understanding.’ Perhaps even one begins incorporating spirit-talk in everyday

conversation,anditbecomespartofthedailyvernacular.Speechconveysafalsesenseof

domestication.BecauseGod’sSpiritsurroundsus,permeatingthroughall life, throughall

things,onecaneasilymiss it;wesee theworkofSpiritall the timewithoutobserving it.

This quandary is further complicated, because the spirit ofwhichThurman speaksoften

hasamysticaldimension.

MysticalTranscendenceasTransgression

Scholars of Thurman have routinely described him as a mystic.11A student of

Quaker mystic Rufus Jones, the characterization of Thurman has entered into the

conventionalwisdomregardinghislegacy,andhasbroughtwithitmuchbaggagegiventhe

complicatedofthestudyofmysticism.AmyHollywoodoffersahelpfulframe:

Christian mysticism – and on mysticism understood as a more general religious

phenomenon–oftenattempts tocontrol itssubjectbyemphasizingsome features

overothers.Evenmoremarkedisthetendencytoreducecomplexphenomena,such

as the interplay between transcendence and immanence or that between the

communal and the individual, toone sideof thepair, in theprocessoftenmaking

evaluative judgmentsaboutwhat is central andwhat isperipheral to themystical

life or, even more damningly, what constitutes “true” as opposed to “false”

mysticism.(Note6:So,e.g.,Jamesomits“visualandauditoryhallucinations,”among

11LutherSmith,HowardThurman:TheMysticasProphet(Washington,D.C.:UniversityPressofAmerica,1981)andAltonPollard,MysticismandSocialChange:TheSocialWitnessofHowardThurman(NewYork:PeterLang,1992).

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otherphenomena,becausehedeems them insufficiently “illuminative” tocountas

an essential aspect of the mystical life. James is far from alone in his desire to

discountsuchexperiences,althoughhehashisownreasonsfordoingso.SeeJames,

Varieties,p.408,n.2.)12

Because, by its ‘nature,’mysticismdenotes a complicated formof religious experience—

“ineffable”and“defiesexpression,”accordingtoWilliamJames’stypology13—explanation

willbefraughtwithchallenges.14

The characterization of Thurman as mystic has become an implicit, however

masked, indictment of Thurman’s failure to engage directly in the struggles for African-

AmericanequalityintheUnitedStates.Thispathwaycomesundergreatscrutinybythose

whoviewedthesetimelessissuesasahistorical,otherworldly,andescapistdiversionsfrom

the real matter at hand—as the epitome of inaction. Criticizing him for talking about

injusticeandteachinginsteadofprotesting,Thurman’smysticalapproachtosocialchange

is depicted as the quintessential (theological) trope of respectability, the prototypical

smokescreenofinaction.Thurmanrecalls inhisLawrenceLecture, “MysticismandSocial

Action”:

When I was at Howard University, among our list of preachers was Reinhold

Niebuhr.Because theUniversityhadno guestbusiness, they always stayedat our

house, the guest preachers. One night, when Reinhold came, wewere having the

typicalno-holds-barreddiscussionaboutreligionandoursocietyandsocialaction

and all the rest of it. On Tuesday in his lecture at Union, he referred to this

discussion,andtherewasoneNegrofellowinhisclass.AfterReinyfinishedmaking

this reference, this fellow had a rather important comment tomake,whichReiny

passedon tome thatnightbywayof the telephone.Hesaid, «Iwas talkingabout

drawing some illustrations fromour experience, and this young fellow said» --oh,

12AmyHollywood,“Introduction”,TheCambridgeCompaniontoChristianMysticism,ed.AmyHollywoodandPatriciaZ.Beckman(NewYork:CambridgeUniversityPress,2012),4.SeealsoHollywood,SensibleEcstasy:Mysticism,SexualDifference,andtheDemandsofHistory(Chicago:UniversityofChicagoPress,2002).13WilliamJames,TheVarietiesofReligiousExperience:AStudyinHumanNature,1902,ed.MartinE.Marty(NewYork:PenguinBooks,1982),380.14Cf.DavidLamberth’sdiscussionofJames’slecturesonmysticismandphilosophy/rationaltheologyin

WilliamJamesandtheMetaphysicsofExperience(NewYork:CambridgeUniversityPress,1999),122-126.

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I’membarrassednow--anyway,«thisyoungfellowsaid,‘whenthisThurmanfellow

came up out of Florida and began to talk around, many of us who were much

youngerwere sure that at last someonehad comewhowould be ourMoses. And

whatdidhedo?Heturnedmysticonus!’»15

Forsome,likethisstudentatNiebuhr’slecture,mysticismnecessarilydenotessuperfluous

inaction,andevasionfromthisworldlyconcerns.16

Therecentrediscoveryofthe“livingwisdom”17ofThurman,however,hastroubled

the understanding of mysticism and brought with it a reclamation of Thurman’s direct

participation and influence on the movement for social change. During the revival of

interest in Thurman’sworks following his death, scholars have gone to great lengths to

counterthischargethatmysticismwasirrelevanttothedesegregationiststruggle.Luther

Smith in Howard Thurman:The Mystic as Prophet and Alton Pollard inMysticism

andSocialChange: TheSocialWitness ofHoward Thurmanchallenge the caricature of the

mysticasrecluseandwithdrawnascetic.BothessentiallyarguethatThurman’smysticism

oughttobeviewedindialecticaltensionwithhissocialprophecy.Toseparatethetwoisto

doviolencetothemannerinwhichThurmantaughtandhimselflived.

Pollard’sMysticismandSocialChangeandSmith’sTheMysticasProphetattempt to

alter the narrative about Thurman. Thisapologia is circumscribed within the

disparagementofblacktheology,whichisoftenviewedasone’sofThurman’stheological

15RichardBoeke,MysticismandSocialAction:LawrenceLectureandDiscussionswithDr.HowardThurman(IARFPublicationsBook3)(KindleLocations365-372).InternationalAssociationforReligiousFreedom.

KindleEdition.

16MaxWeberdistinguishesbetweenthisworldly(innerworldly)andotherworldly(world-rejecting)

mysticismin“Asceticism,Mysticism,andSalvationReligion”ofTheSociologyofReligion(Boston:BeaconPress,1922),166-183and“Asceticism,Mysticism,andSalvation”ofEconomyandSociety:AnOutlineofInterpretiveSociology(Berkeley:UniversityofCaliforniaPress,1978).SeealsoPawelZałęski,“IdealTypesinMaxWeber'sSociologyofReligion:SomeTheoreticalInspirationsforaStudyoftheReligiousField,”PolishSociologicalReview171(1January2010):319-325.17HowardThurman,TheLivingWisdomofHowardThurman:AVisionaryforOurTime.AudioCD.SoundsTrue,Incorporated,2010.

236

heirs, as an academic endeavor dissociated from the lived religion of African-American

churches.18Furtherstill, thecritiqueofThurmanasmystic,andtheretrievalofhissocial

activism,isstilllodgedwithinaVenndiagramofthecritiqueofsystematictheologyandits

interest in immaterial, and thus inconsequential, abstract concerns. All in all, the

underlyingappraisalsuggeststhattheology—especiallyThurman’smysticism—avoidsthe

real work of social change. Recalling Marx’s critique of Feuerbach: “philosophers have

hithertoonlyinterpretedtheworldinvariousways;thepointistochangeit.”19

Against chargesofThurman’sdisengagement,SmithandPollardargue that critics

myopicallyinterpretThurman’sworkandundulytypecasthislegacy.Inotherwords,such

charges are dehistoricized on two degrees. First, it ignores Thurman’smentorship: As a

public intellectual, pulpit preacher, and collegeprofessorThurman’s vocational taskwas

alwaystoinfluence.ItreadsadefinitionofmysticismthatisapoliticalbackontoThurman.

Second, andmore basically, it getswrong the history of Christianmysticism. Sure, some

mysticsweredisinterestedinthesocialissuesoftheday;butthecategoricalassessmentis

overstated.

Asociologistofreligion,Pollardexplainsthat“thereexistsinAmericansociological

circlesaconsiderableintellectualparochialismandprejudicetowardanythingresembling

‘mysticism,’ifthepreponderanceofreductioniststudiesistobetakenseriously.”20Further,

18SeeCecilCone’sTheIdentityCrisisofBlackTheology(Nashville:AMEC,1975)andAlistairKee’sTheRiseandDemiseofBlackTheology(Burlington:Ashgate,2006).19KarlMarx,“ThesesonFeuerbach,”https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/theses/

theses.htm,originallypublishedasappendixtoLudwigFeuerbachandtheEndofClassicalGermanPhilosophy(1888).ThisquotationisengravedastairwayatHumboldtUniversitywhereDuBoisstudied,asnotedin

KwameAppiah’sLinesofDescent:W.E.B.DuBoisandtheEmergenceofIdentity(Cambridge:HarvardUniversityPress,2014),1-2.

20Pollard,MysticismandSocialChange,3.

237

PollardgoesonexplainthatThurmansaid,“Ihaveneverconsideredmyselfasanykindof

leader. I’m not amovementman”; still hewas a significant influence on the Civil Rights

Movement.Infact,hedrewinspirationfromMahatmaGandhi,asdidKingandothersuch

leaders:

it is Gandhi’s words to Thurmanwhich provide the best conceptualization of his role as

mystic-activist:

“I devoted my life; I withdrew from politics entirely, withdrew from

anythinghavingtodowiththemechanismofsocialchangeandmymandate

forcarryingoutthetruthintermsofitsethicalandmoralsignificance,and

devotedmy time to this other –anenergybuilding thing for themassesofpeoplesotheywouldhaveenoughvitalitytobenon-violent.”(emphasisaddedinPollard).21

WemustapproachcommentaryaboutThurman’smysticism,therefore,withcaution.Any

attempttonarrowthebreadthofsourcesandscope inThurmanwill inevitably leadtoa

misreadingofhisoeuvre.

Such is the definitional quandary that cautions the present task. When one has

prefixedthedefinition,thereliesaslipperyslopeofapplication.Itisquiteeasytomakethe

subject fit as an object of discussion. Of course, discursive purposes require “working

theories,”thisissure.Howeversuchcategoriescannotthemselvesbecomehermeneutical

prisonsthatcageinourimagination.Insteadengagement—experiencewiththeobjectasa

subject—must be the leading edge of interpretation. In the Lawrence Lecture Thurman

goesontoexplain:

Fortunatelyforme,theouterandtheinnerareonerhythm.AndIfeel,therefore,in

myworkwiththemysticsthatthelife-denyingandthelife-affirmingdimensionsof

thereligionoftheinnerliferepresentoneemphasis,ratherthantwocontradictory

emphases.Butthecenterisintheindividual,andtheindividualisalwaystryingto

find at the heart of the conflict that which is, what’s laid bare, integrating it,

integrating it, integrating it.Announcing that all life is one, that this is auniverse,

thatthecontradictionsoflifeareneverfinalandultimate,thatliferejectsultimately

21Ibid.,112,quoting“MysticismandSocialChange.”15-partseries.PacificSchoolofReligion.5-28July1978.

238

alldualisms,theyfinallybreakdown.AndIbelievethis.22

Wemustlistentowhatisbeingsaid,andnotwhatwewanttohear.

In fact, Thurman wrote and lectured extensively on the social manifestations of

mysticism.Forexample,in“MysticismandEthics,”Thurmanwrites:

It does not necessarily follow that because the mystic does not accept the

contradictions of experience as ultimate he is singularly devoid of protest and

indignation.Thestructureofhumanexperienceconsistsoftensionsandreleases,of

veritablecontradictionsandparadoxes,of trialbalancesbetweenaffirmationsand

negations;infine,thereseemstobeade-focalizedbutconsciousdialetic[sic]atthe

very core of experience which may have only secondary reference to reflective

thought.Itisasalutaryfact,however,thatthehumanspiritisreluctanttogivethis

tensionanultimatesignificanceorreality.Thespiritseeksasitsfinalrestingplace

somekindof synthesis.Themystics’ senseofunionwithGod is thegroundof the

creativesynthesiswhichheachievesinexperience.23

Thurmanpoints toadeepdesire for reconciliation thatmysticism facilitates.Thehuman

spiritseeks(comm)unionwithGod’sspirit;theworlddesireswholenessfreefromdivision

andstrife.

Our view of Jesus as chief deviant, the incarnate Godwho transgresses time and

spaceinordertobewithhumanity,findsevendeepermeaninginconsiderationofoneof

Thurman’s inspirations, Meister Eckhart. “Meister,” that German corruption of the Latin

magister, in reality left no school because of the demise of his career under charges of

heresy. To be sure, Eckhart and his interpretations were threats to conventional

orthodoxy.24

22RichardBoeke,MysticismandSocialAction:LawrenceLectureandDiscussionswithDr.HowardThurman(IARFPublicationsBook3)(KindleLocations372-377).InternationalAssociationforReligiousFreedom.

KindleEdition.

23Thurman,“MysticismandEthics,”TheJournalofReligiousThought27(Supplement1970):23.24FrankTobin,MeisterEckhart:ThoughtandLanguage(Philadelphia:UniversityofPennsylvaniaPress,1986).

239

In“TheNegroSpiritualSpeaksofLifeandDeath,”whichwillbeexplored indetail

later,Thurmanwrites:

ThemostsignificantthingaboutmaniswhatEckhartcalls ‘theuncreatedelement’

inhissoul.Thiswasanassumedfactprofoundlyatworkinthelifeandthoughtof

the early slaves. This much was certainly clear to them—the soul of man was

immortal.Itcouldgotoheavenorhell,butitcouldnotdie.25

Themostsuccessfultacticforovercomingtheconditionalityofhumanexistence—qualified

byinjusticeandinequity—istotapintounconditionality.“Every[person],”saysThurman

in “Inward Journey” sermon series on Eckhart, “has the same essential increment in

him…regardlesstotheparticularcircumstancesofhisexistence.”26Thereisapowerwithin

thatresists(oppressive)powerswithout.

InhisLawrenceLecture,“MysticismandSocialAction,”Thurmanpointsoutthe

lifelongstruggleofpersonalidentitythatensueswhenoneresiststhesocialorderinwhich

onehasbeenborn:

DuetothevicissitudesofthesocialsituationinwhichIhavebeenforcedtolivein

Americansociety,ithasbeenvitalformetofindwithinmyselfthedoorthatnoman

couldshut,tolocateresourcesthatareuniquelymine,towhichImustbetrueifthe

personalenterpriseofmylifeistobesustaineddespitetheravagesinflicteduponit

bysociety.27

By callingup spirit, one canendure, resist, andbegindismantling these societal ravages.

Thurman’s theology of the disinherited, framed from the perspective of Jesus of

Nazareth, integrated the spiritual journey and social struggle. Thurman contends that

Jesus’ solidarity in suffering provides the resources for the human encounter with

25Thurman,“TheNegroSpiritualSpeaksofLifeandDeath,”inAfricanAmericanReligiousThought,ed.CornelWestandEddieS.Glaude(Louisville:WestminsterJohnKnoxPress,2003),47-48.

26Thurman,“TheInwardJourney:MeisterEckhart–FromWhomGodHidNothing#3,”SermonSeries

(October15,1961):http://hgar-srv3.bu.edu/web/howard-thurman/virtual-listening-

room/detail?id=342411,accessedMarch1,2015.

27MysticismandSocialAction:LawrenceLectureandDiscussionswithDr.HowardThurman(IARFPublicationsBook3)(KindleLocations112-114).InternationalAssociationforReligiousFreedom.KindleEdition.

240

suffering.TherealityofJesusmodelsenduranceinnaturalsufferingandtheoverpowering

forces that createunduesuffering. Jesus’ story reveals that “There iswithineverymana

defense against the assault.”28This defense has outward manifestations that confront

injustice in the social order: “There is a profound element of anarchy in all spiritually

motivatedbehavior.”29

5.2. TheDeviantJesusoftheDisinherited

Duringhislife,Thurmanwassupremelyconcernedwiththeconditionofblackfolk

in JimCrowAmerica.Thurman taught atAtlanta’sMorehouseCollegeandD.C.’sHoward

University during a deliberative attempt to build up the social, political, and economic

capital of African Americans. UnderMordecai Johnson, Howard’s first black president, a

leagueofextraordinarythoughtleaderswasassembledinthenation’scapitaltodrivethis

vision forward. With the likes of heavyweights such as Alain Locke in philosophy, E.

Franklin Frazier in sociology, and BenjaminMays in religion, Thurman became the first

African-AmericanDeanoftheAndrewRankinMemorialChapelatHoward.“Histenureas

Dean of Chapel reflected an evolving desire to transcend differences based on race, sex,

religiousorientation,andclass.”30

Long before the concept of intersectionality emerges, we find in Thurman a

28Thurman,“MysticismandSocialAction,”LawrenceLectures,Berkeley,California(October13,1978):

http://hgar-srv3.bu.edu/web/howard-thurman/virtual-listening-room/detail?id=359760,accessedMarch

15,2015.

29Thurman,“MysticismandEthics,”29.

30ZacheryWilliams,“ProphetsofBlackProgress:BenjaminMaysandHowardW.Thurman,PioneeringBlack

ReligiousIntellectuals,”JournalofAfricanAmericanStudies5:4(March2001):23-37.

241

sophisticated treatment of the overlapping relationship of class and race. This critical

analysis unfolds most comprehensively inJesus and the Disinherited, which remains a

classic and perhaps the most enduring of Thurman’s texts. Historian Lerone Bennett

recounts that often Martin King carried a copy of Jesus andthe Disinherited in his

briefcase.31Although the Poor People’s Campaign emerged in King’s twilight, Thurman’s

publictheologyindictedeconomicinjusticeearlyon.

Similarly, in that vein, Thurman is seen as a forerunner of black liberation

theology.32ButifwesituateThurmanmoresquarelyinhisowntime,inconversationwith

hisownpeers,whatemergesisaprofoundcontributiontotheblackradicalandAmerican

liberation tradition. In fact, I will argue that Thurman offers a theological alternative to

blackMarxism that takes seriously the class struggle and theplightof thepoor.Howard

ThurmananticipatesWest’sphrase:“prophesydeliverance!”33

Fromthestart,Thurmanpresentsatheologicalassessmentofthepoliticaleconomy

of race in the United States. In order to understand the plight of subjugated African

Americans, one must appreciate the interlocking nature of race and class in the U.S.

Economic status is racialized. Segregationdoesnot justkeepblackpeople separate from

whites,butitalsokeepsthempoorerthanwhites.Bydelimitingpolitical,educational,and

social access to capital based on a system ofwhite supremacy, economic opportunity is

31LeroneBennett,WhatMannerofMan:ABiographyofMartinLutherKing(Chicago:JohnsonPublishing,Co.,1964).

32JamesCone,GodoftheOppressed,1975(Maryknoll:OrbisBooks,1997)29;J.DeotisRoberts,BlackTheologyinDialogue(Philadelphia:WestminsterPress,1987),104;AlonzoJohnson,GoodNewsfortheDisinherited:HowardThurmanonJesusofNazarethandHumanLiberation(Lanham:UniversityPressofAmerica,1997).33CornelWest,ProphesyDeliverance!AnAfro-AmericanRevolutionaryChristianity(Philadelphia,PA:WestminsterPress,1982).WestmentionsThurmanasingletime:“ExceptforpioneerworksbyBenjamin

Mays,HowardThurman,GeorgeKelsey,andafewothers,blackpropheticChristians[duringthe1864-1969

period]hadnotsystematicallycodifiedtheirtheologicalviewpoints”(103).

242

necessarily restricted. In other words, segregation’s insidious hold around the necks of

poorblackpeoplekeepsblackpeoplepoor.

Thurman’s assessment’s is theological in his view, because racism has a

metaphysics:ultimatelyitisnotsolelyasocialquestionbutaspiritualone.“Thereissome

regionineverymanthatlistensforthesoundofthegenuineinothermen.Butwherethere

iscontactthatisstrippedoffellow-feeling,thesoundcannotcomethroughandthewillto

listenforitisnotmanifest.”34Howeversociallyconstructedraceis,racismmanifestsfrom

anindividual’sfailuretoacknowledgethehumanityofanother.Andthatfailureflowsfrom

hisownfailuretoembracehisownhumanity.Because ifonebecomes ‘fullyhuman’then

shestandsperpetuallyinthepresenceofGod.Thurmanconcludes:

There is a spirit abroad in life of which the Judaeo-Christian ethic is but one

expression.Itisaspiritthatmakesforwholenessandforcommunity…Itisthevoice

ofGodandthevoiceofman;itisthemeaningofallthestrivingsofthewholehuman

racetowardaworldoffriendlymenunderneathafriendlysky.35

True communion with God, therefore, forecloses the possibility of any form of racial

supremacy.

Thereare,nodoubt,veryrealmaterialistconsequencesofracism: limitedhousing

options,underemployment,over-sentencing,andthelike.Andthespiritualrootofracism

isnolessreal—therendingofthesocialfabricistheechoofafractureofSpirititself.“May

itbe remembered,”writesThurman, “that the cost to theperpetratorof segregation is a

corrosionofthespiritandtheslowdeadlycorruptionofthesoul.It istobeovercomeby

evil.” 36 This spiritual decay not only damages the culprit as well as the victim of

34Thurman,TheLuminousDarkness:APersonalInterpretationoftheAnatomyofSegregationandtheGroundofHope(Richmond,IN:FriendsUnitedPress,1965),38.35Ibid.,112-113.

243

segregation,indis-easelikefashion.Hegoesontoexplain:“Thespiritdoeswiththeliteral

factoftheexistenceofwhitepersonwhatthebodydoeswithaninfection.Athickwallis

builtaroundtheinfectedareainanattempttopreventthespreadoftheinfectionintothe

restof thesystemtopoisonanddestroy it.”37Insomemanner, thespiritual root ismore

importantbecauseitistherootcause.

InhisclassicJesusandtheDisinherited,Thurmanplacessocioeconomicstatusatthe

heartofhistheologicaltreatise,honinginonthematerialconsequencesofsocialdisparity.

TheoppressivecircumstancesenduredbyAfricanAmericans,Thurmanobserved,werenot

solelyfactorsofrace,butalsomattersofclass.Andtheseinequitiesweredirectaffrontsto

God.HisinterpretationofJesus,whichisthepointofdepartureforhisethicaladvicetothe

oppressed,restscentrallyonThurman’sclaimthatJesusofNazarethwasdispossessed—a

poor,colonized,racialminority.

He exhumes the body of Jesus, performing an autopsy on his remains and in the

processdiscoversthathislifeisstillspeakingalthoughithadbeensilenced.Thisautopsy

revealsthatthe“anatomyofsegregation”isacomplexecosystemuntoitself,althoughitoft

hasbeeninterpretedasasingle-cellorganism.Raceandclasshaveasymbioticrelationship

tooneanother.Classcomesintoclearfocusinadialecticalongsiderace.

Thurman’s firstchapter“Jesus—AnInterpretation”emphasizes thehistoricity that

Jesuswasapoor,Jewishman,partofanoccupied,racialminoritygroup.38Thurmanclaims

that in order to interpret Jesus as the embodiment of God’s spirit, onemust really take

36Ibid.,26.

37Ibid.,29.

38Cf.J.KameronCarter’schapter“TheologizingRace:JamesH.Cone,Liberation,andtheTheologicalMeaning

ofBlackness”inhisRace:ATheologicalAccount(NewYork:OxfordUniversityPress,2007),157-193.

244

stakeofhismaterialbody.Jesus’sturntoinnerstrength,thesoul,asasourceofresistance

totheexternal forcesofoppression,cannotbedissociatedfromthecarnalrealityofhow

his body moved in the world of ancient Palestine. In other words, there can be no

mobilizingofJesusofNazarethforsocialchangewhileatthesametimespiritualizinghim.

Jesusisthe“logicalfloweringofalongdevelopmentofracialexperience,ethicalinquality

and Godlike in tone...so perfect a flower from the brooding spirit of God in the soul of

Israel.”39

Thurman interrogates thesubstanceof inequalityandobserves that its form takes

the shapes of the decidedly ‘modern’ categories of identity. Deployed for the sake of

assisting us in better understanding the depth of such inequality, race and class are

inextricably linked because they share a common origin, a common genealogy. The

singularityofsocialinequity—thedifference—manifestsmultiplicitously(e.g.,asracismor

classism) insofar aswehave created these various categories.Thurman’s examination is

situated in the particularity of Jesus. Thurman’sfirst order claim is that Jesus is

disinherited. It isnotraceorclass,perse, that is thepoint forThurman. Instead it is the

fundamentalfactthattheseraced-classedsubjectshavebeensubjugated.Theseheuristics

ofraceandclassdisentanglethedeepmessiness,sothatwemightintervene.Butwhatis

most important to see is that violence has been done against human bodies—and that

interventionisnecessary.

Thurman’s text speaks to and from the experience of black people, but it is not

onlyaboutblackpeople.ThecircumstancesofAfricanAmericansinJimCrowUnitedStates

meet the circumstances of Jesus in occupied Palestine. They do not intersect, however,

39Thurman,JesusandtheDisinherited,15-16.

245

becauseJesuswasblack.Thurman’sclaimdoesnotdependuponremakingtheGod-Sonin

the imageofAfricanAmericans; it is correlative. (Later,Coneattempts tomake“black”a

universal category,which continues to trouble our racialized sensibilities.40) Rather, the

disinheritedisatranscendent/universalcategory.

Still, the Jesus thatwesee inThurman is a Jesus thatwecome toknowdistinctly

throughthestrugglesofsegregatedblacks.His identity isspecificenoughtospeaktothe

particular injustices that Thurman seeks to remedy, while remaining broad enough to

allowa varietyofpeople to see themselves in thenarrative and thus stand in solidarity.

Disinherited is a term that can be appropriated by a variety of communities without

belongingexclusivelytoanyspecificone.

In Jesus and the Disinherited that great sage Howard Thurman reveals the

relationshipbetweenfearandsocietalinjustice.Fear,alongwithdeceptionandhatred,are

age-oldsurvivalmechanismsofthoselivingundertheconstantthreatofviolence.Thurman

maintainsthat,howeverefficaciousintheshortterm,thesetacticsself-implodeinthelong

run. While Thurman centers on the disinherited, his wisdom remains transcendent,

speakingtotheheartofournation’spresentproblem.“ThecoreoftheanalysisofJesusis

thatmanisachildofGod,theGodoflifethatsustainsallofnatureandguaranteesallthe

intricaciesofthelife-processitself…TheawarenessofbeingachildofGodtendstostabilize

theegoandresultsinanewcourage,fearlessness,andpower.”41 Thelogicoffear,Thurman

40Cone,GodoftheOppressed,99-126.41Thurman,JesusandtheDisinherited,49-50.

246

argues, canonlybeneutralizedby thepowerof love. Far fromweak sentimentality, this

courageousloveenactsjusticethroughradicaltransformationofoursocialfabric.42

The incarnation of Jesus, then, is an embodied, ethical, divine act that unites the

human spirit with the Spirit of God in a common story, indeed a common struggle. For

Thurman,Jesusistheturningpoint—thelocationofconversion—onwhichhistheologyof

social change pivots. The restorative love ethic, which overcomes the destructive

seductions of fear, deception, and hatred, comes into clear historical view in the life of

Jesus.

TheinextricabilityofSpiritandJesusforeclosesanyexclusivism,becauseinsofaras

JesusistheSpiritofGod,hedoesnotbelongtoChristianity.“Whereverhisspiritappears,

theoppressedgatherfreshcourage;forheannouncedthegoodnewsthatfear,hypocrisy,

andhatred, the threehoundsofhell that track the trailof thedisinherited,needhaveno

dominionoverthem.”43Infact,theChristianreligion,whichisnotnecessarilythereligion

of Jesus, has been absorbed in “missionizing superiority” that sinfully ignores the poor,

disinherited, and dispossessed, and such as can be a hindrance to fully realizing the

transcendentcharacterofJesusofNazareth.44

ThroughThurman’sinterpretationofJesus,Spiritbecomesan“essence,”butnotin

anessentializing,reductionistfashion.Rather, it isanechothatresonatesintheheartsof

humanity, an energy that ignites aliveness. Spirit is the generative, creativemind-heart:

consciousness of being passionately alive. “In many ways beyond all calculation and

42SeealsoPaulTillich,Love,Power,andJustice:OntologicalAnalysesandEthicalApplications(NewYork:OxfordUniversityPress,1954)andReinholdNiebuhr,LoveandJustice:SelectionsfromtheShorterWritingsofReinholdNiebuhr,ed.D.B.Robertson(Louisville:Westminster/JohnKnoxPress,1957).43Thurman,JesusandtheDisinherited,29.44Ibid.,13.

247

reflection, our lives have been deeply touched and influenced by the character, the

teaching,andthespiritof JesusofNazareth,”writesThurman inTheInwardJourney. “He

movesinandoutuponthehorizonofourdayslikesomefleetingghost…Likeagreatwind

they[Jesus’words]move,fanningintoaflametheburningspiritofthelivingGod,andour

leadenspiritsaregivenwingsthatsweepbeyondallvistasandbeyondallhorizons.”45The

disinheritedJesushauntsuslikeaghost—ignitinglikefireandinspiringlikewind.

5.3. StillMoreRiverstoCross:SingingtheNegroSpirituals

Thurman’s 1947 Ingersoll Lecture on Immortality, “TheNegro Spiritual Speaks of

Life and Death,” argues that the particular experiences of the Negro, as captured in the

spirituals,revealsomethingaboutthecommonexperienceoflivinginthefaceofdeath.The

lecture expands more systematically his meditations in Deep River, and articulates the

spirituals as “thevoice, sometimes strident, sometimesmutedandwearyof apeople for

whom the cup of suffering overflowed in haunting overtones of majesty, beauty and

power!”46He continues to make clear: “The real significance of the songs, however, is

revealedatadeeperlevelofexperience,intheebbandflowofthetidesthatfeedtherivers

ofman’sthinkingandaspiring.”47

NotonlydoesSpirithoverabovetheearthlywatersofcreation,48Spiritpermeates

45Thurman,TheInwardJourney,126-127asquotedinEssentialWritings,77.46Thurman,“TheNegroSpiritualSpeaksofLifeandDeath,”inAfricanAmericanReligiousThought,ed.CornelWestandEddieS.Glaude(Louisville:WestminsterJohnKnoxPress,2003),29.

47Ibid.

48Genesis1:2.

248

thewaters.Still,spiritisnotthewaterandwaterisnotthespirit.Spiritisahigher,deeper

planeof conceiving the livedexperience in thematerialworld.The “uncreated” soulqua

spirit-in-potentiatranscendseventhe“riverofdeath.”ThecalltospiritisacallofSpirit.

AccordingtoThurman,thespiritualsarekeenlyinsightfulofthehumanexperience,

because they are not limited to a single theme. Instead, they emerge from a variety of

existential outlooks and moods. They address human fear, frustration, and freedom

of/fromdeath,andlivingresponsesofdiscouragementanddespair.Thurmanargues,“The

noteof the transcendenceofdeath isnever lacking….outof the fullnessof a tremendous

vitalitytheloweringcloudsarehighlightedbyanoverflowingofutterexuberance.”49Ina

way,theyencompassboththe“sorrowsongs”ofDuBoisandthecreativejoyofHurston.

Thurmandemonstratesthroughhisexegesisofthespiritualsthat,althoughthereis

death in spite of the immorality of the soul, there is also vitality in the face of death.

Howeverdebilitatingandfear-inducing,theprospectofdeathdoesnotobliteratethedrive

tolive.Moreover,thedrivetoabundantlifelevelsdeathitselftothepointthatitceasesto

havedominion.Quoting“OhFreedom,”Thurmanconcludes,“Therearesomethingsinlife

thatareworsethandeath.”50Insteadoflivingunfree,thespiritualspeaksoftheembraceof

death.

Thurmanissuretoestablishthatsuchembraceishardlyescapist.“Deathwhereis

yourvictory?Death,whereisyoursting(1Corinthians15:55)?”Noritisotherworldly.The

sourceofthisovercomingofdeath,forThurman,isembodiedSpirit.TheChristianviewof

Spirit can only be invoked in relationship to embodiment, which makes manifest

49Thurman,“NegroSpiritualSpeaks,”34,36.

50Ibid.,31.

249

transcendentpowerinreallife.Thurmanwrites,“theunfulfilled,theundevelopedonlyhas

afuture;thefulfilled,theroundedout,thefinishedcanonlyhaveapast.Thehumanspirit

participatesinbothpastandfutureinwhatitregardsasthepresentbutitisindependent

ofboth”[emphasisinoriginal].51

AnIncarnationalSpirit

Although Thurman view of the incarnate God comes into fuller view explicitly in

Jesus and the Disinherited, Thurman’s theology of embodiment is found throughout his

works, complementing his spirit-talk. In The Creative Encounter: An Interpretation of

ReligionandSocialWitness(1954)Thurmanexplains:

When the individual’s life comes under the influence of the God of his religious

experience,thenthestagemaybesetforasoul-shakingconflictofloyalty.Atlasthe

must decide without regard to the bearing of the decision on his loyalty to the

group.Thisdecisioncallsforsomethingmuchmorecoherentandintelligiblethana

mere feeling that this iswhat God demands of him. It is here that the concept of

incarnationintheChristianfaithtakesonapracticalsignificance…Jesusbecomesfor

suchaviewtheforinstanceofthemindofGodinreachofthetoolsoftheindividual[emphasis in original]….All of this may be achieved without any necessity

whatsoeverofmakingaGodoutofJesus.52

This revealing passage points to incarnation as a unique paradigm that mitigates the

intangibility of inward religious experience. Jesus qua “for instance of themind of God”

provides a practical pathway for discipleship. The way of Jesus models how one lives

ethicallyintheworld.

In“TheNegroSpiritualSpeaksofLifeandDeath”Thurmanfurtherexplainshowthe

embodimentofGodinJesushaspersonal,practicalconsequences:

51Ibid.,49.

52Thurman,TheCreativeEncounter,82-83asquotedinEssentialWritings,65.

250

For the most part, a very simple theory of the incarnation is ever present. The

simpler assumptions of Christian orthodoxy are utilized. There was no elaborate

schemeofseparateofficeandfunctionbetweenGodandJesusandonlyaveryrare

reference to the Holy Spirit. Whether the song use the term, Jesus, or the oft

repeatedLord,orSaviour,orGod,thesameinsistenceispresent—Godisinthem,in

their souls, as theyput it, andwhat is justas important,He is in the factsof their

world. Inshort,God isactive inhistory inapersonalandprimarymanner.People

who live under great pressures, grapplingwith tremendous imponderableswhich

lefttothemselvestheycouldnotmanage,havenosurplusenergyformetaphysical

distinctions.53

Intheimmediatecontextofslavery,spirit-talkisaneverydaymeansofdenotingfreedom

andself-empowerment.“They[enslavedAfricanAmericans]madeaworthlesslife,thelife

of chattel property, a mere thing, a body,worth living!”54According to Thurman, in the

spirituals,thereisreallynoneedtonametheHolySpiritassuch,becausethesongsareall

aboutspirit,asanactofSpirit.WhileSpiritpervadesThurman’swritings,thereisfarless

appealtothetraditionalChristiandoctrineofHolySpirit,perse.ThetraditionsofChristian

teaching therefore do not offer a hermeneutical shortcut. Spirit is not for the individual

what the magisterium has instructed. If anything, the catechesis and songs of Christian

religion are templates ontowhich onemight finds footing. They are at best the training

wheels for spirit-discovery that doubles as self-discovery. They are means of not only

stayingalive,butalsoofmorefullycomingalive!

Although there has been a history criticizing Christianity in general, and African-

American Christianity in particular, as being otherworldly and blind to the everyday

mattersofhumanexistence,commonlylabeleda“spiritualizedreligion,”thiscannotbethe

meaningderivedfromanaccuratereadingofThurman’sdeploymentof(immortal)spirit.

Toooften,however,formalizedecclesiasticaldogmastandinthewayofthetruesearch.He

53Thurman,“NegroSpiritualSpeaks,”41-42.

54Ibid.,49.

251

writes:

Theconceptofdenominationalismseemstometobein itselfaviolationofwhatI

amdelineatingastheJesusidea….Butwhenthechurch,evenwithintheframework

of the principle of discrimination inherent in denominationalism, further delimits

itselfintermsofclassandrace,ittendstobecomeaninstrumentofviolencetothe

religiousexperience.Herewecomeupontheshameofwhatismeantbythephrase

ofacertainminister[MartinKing]inreferringtotheeleveno’clockhouronSunday

morningas“thegreatandsacredhourofsegregation.”55

Thurmanmaintainedthatdenominationalismconflictedwiththispursuitofself-discovery

inSpirit.OnemustwadeinthewatersofSpirit,drenchedinitswakeandsaturatedbyclose

contact.Spirit is free.ForThurman, theexistential inquiry isessentiallyandeffectivelya

theologicalandethicalconsideration,deeplyrootedinJesus’greatcommandmentto love

God,self,andneighbor.

Thurman speaks of aliveness and the “Jesus idea” in terms of developing “life’s

workingpaper.”TheepiloguetoJesusandtheDisinheritedvoicesthenecessityofallpeople

totaketheconditionsofone’sbirthandenvironmentandwritethemannerinwhichshe

willliveinlightofthesethem.DescribingJesusofNazarethasthestorybeyondstories—

the “Eternal Presence,” “God fact,” “Divine Moment”—Thurman concludes: “In him the

miracle of the working paper is writ large, for what he did all [people] may do. Thus

interpreted,hebelongstonoage,norace,nocreed.”56

CenteringDownbyCallingUpSpirit

Speaking of creeds,W.E.B. Du Bois once quipped, “What Howard Thurman really

55Thurman,TheCreativeEncounter,140-142asquotedinHowardThurman:EssentialWritings78.56Thurman,JesusandtheDisinherited,112.

252

believes I have never been able to find out.”57Therefore, it is our quest to speak plainly

about the ethical thrust of Thurman’s project, now illumined in his Jesus-grounded

theologyofthedisinherited.Thurmanrecountsin“Beginnings”ofhisautobiographythat,

from an early age, he was surrounded by those in his biological family and his church

family that affirmed his inherent worth and dignity. These affirmations provided

insulation—abufferfromtheoutsideworld—throughwhichThurmanwasabletobecome

himself.These lovedonesspokeacounter-narrativetothenormativestorythatpropped

up segregation, exposing its falsityandherebyestablishinganewnorm.Hewrites, “It is

cleartomethatthewatchfulattentionofmysponsorsinthechurchservedtoenhancemy

consciousnessthatwhateverIdidwithmylifemattered.Theyaddedtothesecuritygiven

to me by the quiet insistence of my mother and especially my grandmother that their

children’sliveswereapreciousgift.”58

This incubatory effect of this spiritual foundation cannot be underestimated. Not

onlyisitoneofthenecessaryconditionsofThurman’sownflourishing,butalsoweseethat

the role of nurture is an underlying thread within his entire oeuvre. In his sermons,

writings, and lectures, Thurman seeks to cultivate in the listener-reader the sense of

personalgrowthanddevelopmentasahumanbeing.Thisquesttobecomefullyhumanisa

process in self-discovery,wherebyone’s identity is shaped—or remade, as itwere—and

reinforcedbythesediscoveries.Whenonecomestopossessthesespiritualresources,she

isabouttoresistandtherebytranscendtemporalconditionality.Itistheactivationofthis

57AStrangeFreedom:TheBestofHowardThurmanonReligiousExperienceandPublicLife,ed.WalterEarlFlukerandCatherineTumber(Boston:BeaconPress,1998),8.

58Thurman,WithHeadandHeart,20.

253

possibilityinwhich,Thurmansuggests,anindividualtrulybecomesone’sself.

ThurmaninDisciplinesoftheSpirit(1963)exploresthe“techniques”bywhichone

overcomes debilitating conditions of life and comes into deep communion with the

“PresenceofGod.”59Throughthepracticesofcommitment,growth,suffering,prayer,and

reconciliation, Thurman suggests that human beings might come alive and become

themselves.“Giventheyieldingofthenervecenterofconsentandtheactivereleaseofthe

SpiritofGodinaman’slife,aradicalreorientationbecamepossible…Therehasbeenaslow

invasionoftheSpiritofGodthatmarkednoplaceortime.”60Hewritesofatranscendent

capacity that is not the possession of the Christian church, although the institution has

facilitated religious experience for millennia. Thurman draws upon, and operates in a

multiplicityoftraditionaldisciplines,inordertoengagetheSpirit,whichisapossessionof

none. The manner in which Thurman destabilizes some of traditional modes of

classification is particularly instructive in the exploration of spirit in African-American

religiousculture.

Through thecommitment togrowthand thepracticeofprayer,althoughonemay

notbeabletoavoidsuffering,shecanendureitinhope.Theembodimentofself,according

toThurman,isrootedinthesenseofsomebodiness.Forhim,oneofthemostbasicspiritual

resources is the imago dei principle.In several of his writings and sermons, Thurman

referencesthestoryhisgrandmotherwouldoftentellhimandherothergrandchildrenofa

slave preacher who would visit the plantation occasionally over the years, always

culminating the sermon in the same manner: with an affirmation of the slaves’ basic

59Thurman,DisciplinesoftheSpirit(Richmond,IN:FriendsUnitedPress,1977),21-26.60Ibid.,26.

254

humanity.Thurmanrecounts:

When the slave preacher told the Calvary narrative to my grandmother and the

other slaves, it had the same effect on them as it would later have on their

descendants. But this preacher, when he had finished, would pause, his eyes

scrutinizing every face in the congregation, and thenhewould tell them, ‘You are

notniggers!Youarenotslaves!YouareGod’schildren!’Whenmygrandmothergot

tothatpartofherstory,therewouldbeaslightstiffeninginherspineaswesucked

inourbreath.Whenshehadfinished,ourspiritswererestored.61

“Forthosewhostandwiththeirbacksagainstthewall,”theblackchurchanditsantecedent

slave religion interrupted the spiritual assault on the African-American psyche and

establishedasenseofsomebodiness.BeingtheonlyrealmwhereAfrican-Americanagency

wasexercisedcommunallyandpublicly,partiallyfreefromthepanopticismofwhiteslave

master domination, this “invisible institution” as Albert Raboteau describes it, cultivates

self-love and mediates healing and empowerment.62 As a “safe space” within white-

controlledsociety,thisinstitutionfunctionsnotonlyinthetechnicalsensebutratherinthe

adaptiveone.63Itisthe“place”wheremeaningismade,relationshipsareformed,andthe

egoissolidified.64

Theself-affirmingroleoftheblackchurchisindispensableandmustbeconsidered

within thematricesof theemancipatory rolesofAfrican-Americanreligion. IfThurman’s

platform was too often criticized with being too passive and charged with over-

sentimentality, then this turn in the active function of the black church may invite a

reconsiderationofthetrueforceofThurman’sagenda.Implicitly,thefirststepinoutward

61Thurman,WithHeadandHeart,21.62AlbertRaboteau,SlaveReligion:The“InvisibleInstitution”intheAntebellumSouth(NewYork:OxfordUniversityPress,1978).

63RonaldHeifetz,ThePracticeofAdaptiveLeadership:ToolsandTacticsforChangingYourOrganizationandtheWorld(Cambridge:HarvardBusinessPress,2009).64JacquelineNassyBrown,DroppingAnchor,SettingSail:GeographiesofRaceinBlackLiverpool(Princeton:PrincetonUniversityPress,2005),8-9.

255

protestagainstwhitesupremacyisthe inwardassertionofone’sownworthandplace in

society.Thisisliberationandsocialprogress.

Bynamingspirit,Thurmandrawsourattentionboth to thematterathandandto

theheart of thematter. Spirit-talk forThurman speaks toour surrounding circumstance

and its underlying conditions. This social commentary is accomplished paradoxically by

turninginward.Notonlyistheindividual’scareofthesoulnecessarytosustainone’ssocial

activism,butalsoitistheactualmethodforrealizinganychangeinsociety.Transformation

in the world results from the transformation in the hearts of men and women. Social

policies, legalaction, andpolitical strategyhave theirplace.They,however, are technical

answers.Attheroot,theremustbeananatomicalintervention.

The call to spirit, first, is an invitation to lookwithin—as an personal enterprise

withsocialconsequence.Spirit-talkisameansofgettingintouchwithourdeepestselves

andthetruestreality.Thisjourneytotheheartofthematterrequiresthehumanbody,and

notthebodypolitic,tobetheprimarysiteofexploration.Becausesomuchofourownlives

have gonewithout excavation, says Thurman, the first order of business is the ongoing

process of self-work. It is the process of getting to know the self as self. It is becoming

intimately familiar with one’s own desires and passions and proclivities. It requires

spending time with oneself and asking questions of the self that lead to deeper

understanding. The work of spiritual disciplines is but a mode of intentionality that

respondstothebasicquestions:Whoareyou?WhyamIhere?65

ForThurman,whenoneprobesherownpersonalanatomy,sheinevitablydiscovers

65DisciplinesoftheSpirit,26,33-34.SeealsoWalkerFluker,“Preface”toThePapersofHowardWashingtonThurman,VolumeI(Columbia:TheUniversityofSouthCarolina,Press,2009),xiv.

256

thatspiritisthe“stuff”ofourcomposition.Thecalltospirit,second,isaninvitationtoself-

discovery. If there is to be any value of thework, theremust exist an openness to learn

something about the self that has the capacity to transform the self. The initial step of

introspection has to be met with an equally important, albeit subsequent, step of

confrontation.Thisself-acknowledgementisaformofpersonaltruthtellingthatdemands

courage.Forit isquite likelythatonecaneasilyfearwhatisseenwhenonelooksinside,

and thus flee from the scene of inquiry. This introspection is a reckoning that requires

probingofwhat Fluker calls “sites ofmemory,”whichmaybepainful placesof personal

andsocialtrauma.66

ForThurman,theturntotheselfinevitablyleadsonetofindthatanatomicallythe

human being is spirit (and not individual soul). Thus, the call to Spirit is a summons to

bringhumanspiritinagreementwithsomethinggreaterthantheself.Thisiswhywefind

thatThurmanpreferstheconcept“spirit”over“soul.”Spiritsignifiesmultiplicity,orbetter

still,community.67

OnemightsaythatthethrustofThurman’sinvocation,therefore,isattunementor

alignment. Becoming truly human is the process of approaching the “nerve center of

consent”—theplacewheretheindividualcomesintocontactwiththecoreofone’sbeing.

When one becomes fully aware of and fully in touch with the driving appetites of the

actionsthatanimateexistence,thehumanbeingmovesfromtheperipherytotheessence

66Fluker,“Dangerousmemoriesandredemptivepossibilities:reflectionsonthelifeandworkofHoward

Thurman,”CriticalReviewofInternationalSocialandPoliticalPhilosophy,7:4(1January2004):147-176.

67Fluker,directoroftheHowardThurmanPapersProject,haswrittenwellontheassociationbetweenethics

andcommunityinThurman’sthought.Seeforexample“TheyLookforaCity:AComparisonoftheIdeaof

CommunityinHowardThurmanandMartinLutherKing,Jr.”,TheJournalofReligiousEthics18,no.2(Fall1990):33-65.

257

ofherself.Anditisinthisplace,thatfeelingismostacute.Infact,thislocationistheplace

ofaliveness.

Thurmanmaintainsthatminingtheselfwill leadtodiscoveriesthathaveexternal

consequences.Onlywhenone’sknowsoneselfcanonedoanyexternalgood.Andforthose

whohavebeeninjuredbydehumanizingacts,knowingtheselfgivesthespiritualresources

andfortitudetoresistthedeafeningeffectsofevil.Fundamentally,then,anepistemological

examination predicates the ethical consideration. It is a call to self-relationship as self-

knowledge through interiority that, according to Thurman, ought to lead to relationship

withothersandGod.Whilethisisnottheonlylogicalconclusion,itisforThurmantheonly

legitimateresponse.Thatistosay,theturntointerioritycouldleadtoindividualitythatat

apathetictosocio-communalconcerns.Suchamove,however,wouldrequiretheindividual

todenytheinherentrelatednessofalllifeandthusdenyone’sidentityasspirit.Experience

prohibitsasequencethatfailstohaveethicalconsequences.

Spirit-talk is to not to be taken asa spirituality that signifies withdrawal or

detachment from the lived reality. Instead Thurman’s living wisdom is practical in

orientation. As noted, in The Luminous Darkness Thurman appeals contextually to the

racialized society of his day with insights intended to govern appropriate response.

Thurman’swordsweredisinterestedindetachedandabstractsocialcommentary.Instead

he sought to intervene by speaking directly to the situation at hand, with the aim of

transformingtheheartsofmenandwomen listeners.WhilesomecriticizedThurmanfor

not himself participating directly in social action and protest movements that shaped a

goodportionofhislifetime,suchindictmentmissesthemark.Itisarathermyopicwayof

definingandinterpretingsocialchange.This indictmentsuggeststhattheonlymannerof

258

resistinginjusticeandsocialinequityisthroughgrassrootsorganizingandproteststruggle.

James Baldwin’s critique of RichardWright in “Everybody’s ProtestNovel”warns

against such a one-sided view of things.68Social commentary in the form of explicit

indictment,whilesometimesproductive,alsocomeswithrisks:Theprotestnovelbecomes

predictable andultimately cliché. As an alternative, Baldwin advocates for and takes up

countermeasureswithmorefinesseinwhichthecharactersarenottypecast.Theapproach

thoughtacticallyindirecthasgreaterpropensitytopenetratethesurfacelevelandthusget

closertothecoreoftheissue.Similarly,Thurmanbelievesthatthereareothermeansthan

grassrootsprotest,whichconstitute“directaction,”thatadvancethemarchtowardtheend

ofajustsociety.ThecritiqueofThurmanandotherswhojoinhistacticaldirectionfurther

functionsasadistractionfromtherootcause.

This is the basic and enduring charge of Thurman’s mentor George Cross: social

issuesarefleeting;mattersofspiritaretimeless.Becausethesocialissuesarematerialand

practical, they are the ones we most readily see because they most directly shape the

humanexperience.But forThurman,as influencedbyCross, they themselvesarenot the

root cause of the present condition. Instead they are secondary, symptoms of a more

primordialmisalignmentthatresides,ifyouwill,inthespirit-realm.

Cross’s remarkable declaration to focus on “timeless issues of spirit” and not the

raceproblem—asiftheyaremutuallyexclusive—framesThurman’sentirelifeproject.This

finalchargewasacallfromthetransitorytotranscendence,aimedatteasingoutthevery

best that Thurman had to offer the world. Maybe Cross possessed the prescience that

Thurmanwouldbecomeathoughtleadernotonlyforblackpeoplebutalsoforallpeople,

68JamesBaldwin,NotesofaNativeSon(Boston:BeaconPress,1955).

259

hisinsightshavinggreatappealtobothwhitesandAfricanAmericansalike.Cross’scharges

hauntThurman.Hisresponse—“amanandhisblackskinmustfacethe‘timelessissuesof

the human spirit’ together”—frames Thurman’s work.69He seeks to demonstrate this

abiding relationship—this interplay—between the communal experience of African

Americans and its continuity with the human condition. Although Cross relegates the

question of race in the United States to a second-order and tangential significance in

comparisontoloftierandmoresubstantivepursuits,Thurmanknewotherwise.

Thurmandoesnotseekexclusivelytoaffirmthehumanityofblackpeople,although

thisisanindispensableundertoneofhiswork.Insteadheprobes(theessenceof)humanity

through the black experience. He seeks to elevate the human’s knowledge of self by

encountering African Americans. By considering intensely themoment in history of Jim

CrowAmerica, one opens thewindow to the timeless nature of fear and hatred and the

disciplines of spirit motivated by love. This processsimultaneously and

necessarilyconstitutes the emancipatory empowerment of black people. Overcoming the

raceproblem,then,cannotbedissociatedfromthebasichumanstruggleofself-knowledge

andself-identification.

In fact, for black people to overcomewhite supremacy, Thurman believed it was

necessaryforAfricanAmericanstoturntointeriority,andtapintospirit,thetranscendent

innerpowerand innerstrength thataffirmsandshoresup theselfagainst therelentless

assaultsandattacksofwhitesupremacy.ForThurman,thenthecentralquestionis“What

does it mean to be human?” But not in the sense that Cross seemingly intended. The

timeless spiritualquest is concomitant to the social question, andnot antithetical toone

69Thurman,WithHeadandHeart,60.

260

another.

5.4. CreativeEncounters:PneumatologicalAffinitytoThurman’sSpirit

HowardThurmanwasalivingadvocateforwhathecalled“creativeencounters.”In

ordertotranscendsocialdivisionsthatfractureoursharedhumanity,personsofcourage

must be lean into the love ethic. That is, they must be bold enough to embrace their

neighborasself.HisChurchfortheFellowshipofAllPeoples,amulticultural,interreligious

communityisarealmanifestationofthisprinciple.70

Atthispoint,Iwouldliketoriskacreativeencounter,ofsorts.Whereasthepathway

between Du Bois and Cone, and Hurston and Tillich was paved immanently, here I am

constructing the route. Part of the rationale is practical: because Thurman was

uninterested in crafting systematic theology per se, placing him in conversation with a

constructive (systematic) theologian advances the dissertation’s constructive aims.

WhereasThurman’s theology is entirelyuninterested indogma,Boff thoroughly engages

churchdoctrine.Readcentrallyinlightof“theChurch’sthreegreat‘options’orchoices:for

the poor, for their liberation, and for the base church communities,”71Boff presents an

apologia(defense)ofwhatthechurch’sdoctrinalteachingoughttobe.

More importantly, I observe a deep affinity between Thurman’s and Boff’s

pneumatological concern for the poor. Both center what might be expressed as “the

impoverishmentofspirit.”Theypointtoanunderwhelmingdependencyonspirit-talkand

70Thurman,TheSearchforCommonGround:AnInquiryintotheBasisofMan’sExperienceofCommunity,1971(Richmond,Indiana:FriendsUnitedPress,1986).

71LeonardoBoff,FaithontheEdge:ReligionandMarginalizedExistence,trans.RobertBarr,(SanFrancisco:Harper&Row,Publishers,1989),13-17.

261

interest in the disinherited. Spirit provides empowerment for personal and social

transformation.

Interestingly,ThurmanandBoffpointstothedemiseoftheRomanEmpireintheir

analysis of pneumatology of the poor. Boff discusses the “cultural malaise” in antiquity,

whichhasresurfacedinpostmodernity(andthuscreatingayearningforspirituality,orlife

inthewayofspirit).72InhisLawrenceLectureon“MysticismandSocialAction,”Thurman

discussesthelossof individualresponsibilityforthewholeoftheempire,thuscreatinga

vacuumintowhichChristianityenters.BoffandThurmanreject imperialpower,andstill

identifywhatislearnedfromit.Thatis,Jesus’andthechurch’sidentityareshapedunder

andinrelationshiptoempire.73

There isno liberation theology,or theology for thosewho“standwith theirbacks

against thewall” (Thurman),withoutsuchproperaccountofpower,andresistance to it.

Boffwrites:

The theology emerging from this process of gestation of a new kind of Christian

offersusanewparadigmfor theology.Herewehaveareflectiononsocial reality,

especiallyfromtheviewpointofthepoor,inthelightoftheWordofRevelationand

the practice of Jesus of Nazareth and his Apostles. Suddenly a theologian ismore

than just a teacher, a professor. Theologians are militants, Christian intellectuals

organically involved with the historical movement of the poor, their thinking,

speaking, writing, and action all incorporated into the messianic struggle of “the

ones who have survived the great period of trial” (Rev. 7:14). They will count

themselvesblessediftheirdiscourseinquestoftheinterconnectionsoftheWordof

Godwiththecourseofthehistoryoftheoppressedgeneratesmeaning,joidevivre,andanapostolicparrhesia.Thengladlywill they spend their livesand intellectual

72LeonardoBoff,Come,HolySpirit:InnerFire,GiverofLifeandComforterofthePoor(Maryknoll:OrbisBooks,2015),8.

73Boeke,MysticismandSocialAction:LawrenceLectureandDiscussionswithDr.HowardThurman(IARFPublicationsBook3)(KindleLocations159-166).InternationalAssociationforReligiousFreedom.Kindle

Edition.

262

energiesonbehalfofthosewhoactualizeforusthepassionoftheSufferingServant,

aswesharewiththemtheirjourneythroughhistorytowardtheReignofGod.74

Boffconscriptstheologiansintheworkofthe“churchmilitant,”whichisspiritualwarfare

againstsystemsofoppression.

Infact,theoppressedsurvivorsofthegreattrial,accordingtoBoff,arethosecalled

to bring about a new “way of being” church. The reforming pulse is a gift of Spirit—

charisma—that surges forth from egalitarian, grassroots base communities that stand in

contrast to institutional hierarchy. The birth of this new way of being church—

“ecclesiogenesis”—isnot aimed at the demise of theChurchperse, only the “top-down,”

ecclesialstructuresthatparticipateintheoppressionofthedisinheritedbycollusionwith

state power and privilege.75Boff articulates an emergence of church that encourages

innovation:

Meditating on the Gospels and with a theological reading of the signs of the

times…weareseeingtheriseofanewChurch,bornintheheartoftheoldChurch,in

the form of comunidades de base, communities on the peripheries of our cities, aChurchof thepoor, comprisedofpoorpeople, in the formofbishops,priests, and

religiousenteringintothelifeofthemarginalized,centersofevangelizationheaded

by lay people, and so on. It is a Church that has definitively renounced the

centralization of power; unity resides in the idea of Church as People of God, a

pilgrimChurch,opentothehistoricalmarchofpeoples,aChurchthatsharesinall

the risks and enjoys the small victorieswith a very deep sense of following Jesus

Christ,identifiedwiththepoor,therejected,andthedisinheritedoftheearth.76

Whilethisnewwayofbeingchurchisdisruptivetoinstitutionalpower,accordingtoBoff,it

iscompletelycontinuouswiththeteachingsofJesusinthepoweroftheSpirit.

74Boff,WhenTheologyListenstothePoor,trans.RobertBarr(SanFrancisco:Harper&Row,Publishers,1988),31.

75Boff,Ecclesiogenesis:TheBaseCommunitiesReinventtheChurch,trans.RobertBarr(Maryknoll:OrbisBooks,1986),23-44.Boff,Church:CharismandPower:LiberationTheologyandtheInstitutionalChurch,trans.JohnDiercksmeier(London:SCMPress,1985),47-65.

76Boff,Church:CharismandPower,62.

263

Boffpointsto“thebasicunitybetweenChristologyandPneumatology.”Heoffersa

scriptural hermeneutic inextricably linked to the embodied God that comes through

inspiration. This interpretation is not rooted in abstract Trinitarian formulations, but

rather in amode of relationality: a triune God qua society,acting in, liberating, and re-

creatingtheworld(society).77“FromareflectionontheNewTestamentcomestwobasic

propositions:first,thecarnalJesuswasthepresenceoftheHolySpiritintheworld;second,

theHolySpiritintheChurchisthepresenceofthepneumatic(risen)Christintheworld.”78

Throughthecharisms,whicharepouredouttoallpeopleinPentecost,thechurchfollows

intheinspiredwayofJesusinordertodevelopabetterworld.79Boffwrites:

ThestoryofPentecost,with itsclamorousdescentof theHolySpirit, is ladenwith

theologicalmeaning,expressedinasymbolic languageknownto its listeners....The

foundersoftheChurchkeptinmindthatitwasnotsoimportanttolooktothepast

andrepeatwhatChristsaidanddid,buttolooktothepresentandallowthemselves

tobeinspiredbytheHolySpiritandtherisenChrist,makingdecisionsthatwould

belendthemselvestosalvationandtothepassingonofChrist’sproject.80

PentecostisadisruptiveactofGodthatdoesnotconstrainfaithfulpeople,butratherfrees

theminordertoconstructasocietystimulatedbySpiritastherisenChrist.Relationalityis

a primary characteristic in dismantling marginalization. This approach coheres with

Thurman’s: when humans understand themselves in vital relationship to one another,

doingviolencetoeachotherbecomesmuchmoredifficult,ifnotimpossible.

InBoff’stheology,thebirthoftheChurchatPentecostmustbesituatedinrelation

toabroadermovementofSpirit,whichoffersanalternativeinterpretationofincarnation

77Boff,TrinityandSociety,trans.PaulBurns(Eugene:Wipf&StockPublishers,1988),11-13,227-237.78Ibid.,147.

79Boff,Church:CharismandPower,154-164.80Ibid.,150,152.

264

qua embodied pneumatology. Whereas incarnation nearly always connotes the

(disinherited)JesusinChristiantheology,Boffoffersotherwise.InhisconclusiontoCome,

HolySpirithewrites,“TheHolySpiritwasthefirstdivinePersontocomeintoourhistory.

ItcameuponMaryofNazareth;thatis,itcametodwellpermanentlyinher(Luke1:35).”81

Inthisview,thecomingofGodintotheworld,then,isnotonlyanactofbutalsoratherthe

embodiment—the personification—of Spirit. This alternative reading not only disrupts

theologicalandrocentrism,butalsoundermineschristomonism.82Godentersintotime, in

history, firstbyMary,awomanandonlysecondarily inJesusasthesecondpersonofthe

Trinity.Christiantheology,then,mightthinkdifferentlyaboutthefemalebody,becauseas

Boffpointsout,inMary’sbodydwelledGodtheSpiritandGodtheSonasonce.83

Boff’s reading, however, is not without complications. We must acknowledge

Althaus-Reid’s Indecent Theology, which challenges the theological grounds of the

impregnationofMary,especiallygiventheFatherhoodofGod(whichBoffreferencesinthe

same ‘breath’).84So while not entirely successful in overcoming androcentrism, Boff’s

proposaldoesprovideafracturing.

WhileThurmandidnotpublishworksinsystematictheology(althoughhedidhold

thepostofProfessorofTheologyatMorehouseandProfessorof SystematicTheologyat

Howard),when interpreted analogically through the lensof systematic theology—and in

relationshipto ‘formal’systematicians—theenduringpotencyofhisapproachcomesinto

81Boff,ComeHolySpirit,199.SeealsoBoff,HolyTrinity,PerfectCommunity,trans.PhillipBerryman(Maryknoll:OrbisBooks,2000),95-97.82Ibid.,97-98.

83Ibid.,124.

84MarcellaAthaus-Reid,IndecentTheology:TheologicalPerversionsinSex,GenderandPolitics(NewYork:Routledge,2000),53,90-91.

265

greaterrelief.WhenrefractedthroughthelensofLeonardoBoff,andhispneumatological

concernforthematerialconcernsofthepoor,Thurman’sproject isfurtherilluminated—

notforthesakeofvalidationassuch,butratherforthepurposeofgreaterunderstanding

totheveiled—mystical—significations,whichwilloffermethodologyforreconsideringthe

roleofmysticismincontemporarycriticalstudies.85Therefore,Thurman’sapproachitself

is becomes more timeless, possessing significant implications beyond his epoch. And

because Thurman’s theology is pneumatocentric, it necessarily has wider appeal than

Christocentric theologies; potentially correlating to other African diasporic religious

traditions.

TheHolySpiritispower.Fortheoppressed,poor,andmarginalized,itislife-giving

powerinaworldthattrieseverydaytodehumanize,demoralize,anddestroythem.Evenas

the powers that be press daily to kill these bodies that do not matter, the Holy Ghost

renews their strengthwith thepower to fightback.Thesealready-deadbodiesgainnew

life,asiftheyareresurrectedflesh.

The Spirit gives life. It finds itsway into otherwise dead placeswherewe do not

typicallylookforsignsofvitality.Spiritsearchesthroughthevalleyofdrybonesandthere

findstheremnantthatrefusestodie.86Itdiscoversthepossibilitythatstrugglesforairand

sotheSpiritbreathes.SpiritresuscitatesThurman’s“fleetingghostofJesus”thatstabilizes

aresurrectednewlifefortheunsteady,disinherited,andmarginalized.

85SeeAmyHollywood,SensibleEcstasy:Mysticism,SexualDifference,andtheDemandsofHistory(Chicago:UniversityofChicagoPress,2002).

86Ezekiel37:1-14.

266

TheSpiritlivesforjustice.Itsreasontobeistomakerightthewrongs.Spirithovers

in creation. It is rebornoutof thedeathofChrist.AndSpirit ispouredoutonallpeople

againforthesakeofbringingtheenvisioneddreamintoexistence.

ThisSpirit isHoly.Becausenothingcreated in the imageofGod isunholy.Weare

created,andsimplybecauseweexistwe,too,areholy.Despitewhathasbeensaid.Inspite

ofwhathasbeendeemedun-holy.Yes,“whatisbornofSpiritisspirit.”87Deepcallsoutto

deepanddrawsoutthedeepest,sometimesfragile,sourceoflifethatdwellswithin.

It is thatdogged,persistentundyingstrengthwithinthatstruggles for lifewithout

needforpermission.Spiritisunquenchablefire,eternalflamethatburnsatalltimesandin

allplaces.Occasionallyitblazes,yetmosttimeitkindlesjustbelowthesurfaceuntilittruly

ignites—catchesholdandrefines thesociety into the imageofwhatmightyetbe.This is

thespiritoftheOne(Jesus)thatproclaimedtheYearoftheLord’sfavor—“thespiritofthe

Lordisuponme.”88

Thurmanarguesthattappingintothespiritwithinrendersonefearlessintheface

ofsocialoppression.“TheawarenessthatamanisachildoftheGodofreligion,whoisat

one and the same time the God of life, creates a profound faith in life that nothing can

destroy.”89Whentheindividualissecureinoneself,thatconfidenceovercomesfear.

ForThurman,theloveethicisrootedinSpirit.Itisimpossibletolovewithoutdeep

connectionthatnotonlytranscendsboundaries,butalsoobliteratesthem.Therecannotbe

an ethic of love predicated on separation or group-preservation. Rather, the Spirit of

87John3:6.

88Luke4:14-21.

89Thurman,JesusandtheDisinherited,56.

267

humanityisattheheartoftruelove.“Thedisinheritedwillknowforthemselvesthatthere

isaSpiritatwork in lifeand intheheartsofmenwhich iscommittedtoovercomingthe

world.”90

Spirit, therefore, is on the side of the disinherited and the oppressed because it

seeksoutthosewhohavebeendehumanizedandthusseparatedfromuniversality.Weare

allconnected—thisisthenatureofSpirit—somarginalizationistheattempttorupturethe

fundamentalcharacteristicofhumanexistence.IftheloveethicislodgedinSpirit(spiritual

connection), then it is unethical to utilize Spirit as a means of dissociation

…disinheriting…cuttingoff.Spiritisradicallyegalitarian.

Thurman’s basic assumption is that the Christian love ethic emerges from the

economic underclass: the disinherited. Jesus, a poor Jew, envisions justice for the

oppressedbyunderminingthelogicofoppressivepower.

Thurman was a free spirit. At once uncontained by the vestiges of Christian

orthodoxyandthe“blackchurch,”stillThurmanremainsoneofthemostprolificChristians

ministers concerned with the plight of black people. How can this be?While deeply

committed to the life of the church and its transformative power on the people (the

laos)and the world, he could not have been less interested in preserving the Christian

religion. Instead he wasmuchmore concernedwith the religion of Jesus. Ultimately he

strived to achieve the type of communion with God that Jesus epitomized. Thurman’s

approacheschewsorthodoxy,whichisthenormofChristianity.Beforeourshascometobe

knownasthe“AgeofSpirit,”Thurmanleftbehindthe“AgeofBelief.”91

90Ibid.,109.

91HarveyCox,TheFutureofFaith(NewYork:HarperOne,2009)andPhyllisTickle,TheAgeoftheSpirit:How

268

5.5. SpiritandthePowerWithin:OvercomingtheFearofDeath

Godhasnotgivenusaspiritoffear,butaspiritofpower,andoflove,andofasoundmind–2Timothy1:7

Somethingdidnotfeelrightinmygut.WhenrookiecopPeterLiangwasindictedfor

the death of Akai Gurley, many rejoiced. After a series of failed indictments of police

officersthatkilledblackpeople,manyfeltthatjusticewasserved—finally.Aftermonthsof

rally cries that “Black Lives Matter” and protest questions, “What do we want? Justice.

Whendowewhenit?Now!”,thetideseeminglyhadchanged.OntheeveningofFebruary

10, 2015manybreathed a collective sigh of relief as theBrooklyndistrict attorney filed

manslaughterchargesagainstLiang.Icouldnotyetbreathe.

AlthoughIhadralliedandpreachedagainstpolicebrutality,Irealizedinthedeadof

winterthatjusticewasnotenough.Myspiritremainedunsettled,thedeepfireinsidestill

ragedonthatbittercoldevening.Notoutofanger,butinsadness:thecop’sconvictionwill

notbringbackthebrother lostonthat fatefulNovembernight.Sadderstillbecause I too

hadbeenlulledintobelievingthatso-calledjusticewastherealdemand.Somethinggreater

thanjustice,however,isneededtobalancethesescales.

Gurleylaydeadinhishome,andscoresofotherblackpeopleinthestreets,because

Liangwasscared.Alreadyonedge,patrollingwithhisfingeronthetrigger,Liangpanicked

when startled by the presence of Gurley. “It was so dark. I was so scared,” confessed

Liang.92HewasafraidofGurley’sdarkbody,inadarkstairwell,onadarknight.Therefore,

theGhostofanAncientControversyisShapingtheChurch(GrandRapids:BakerBooks,2014).92J.DavidGoodman,“InBrooklyn,2YoungMen,aDarkStairwellandaGunshot,”NewYorkTimes,November23,2104.http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/24/nyregion/police-tactic-scrutinized-after-accidental-

shooting.html?_r=0.SeealsotheattributionoffearinDarrenWilson’sslayingofMichaelBrown:Michael

269

ifweareevertotrulyaddresstheinjusticeofGurley’sslaying,thenfirstwemustexcavate

what isburiedbelow: fear.Unlessweuproot thexenophobic fearof thedarkenedother,

therecanbeno true justice.Notuntilwecanseeotherasequals—andnot threats—will

ourspiritsfeelcalm.

Following Thurman, we must observe that racial bias, police brutality, and mass

incarceration are spiritual problems. These social ills challenge our common humanity,

upendingourbasic connection tooneanother.TheydenySpirit.And these symptomatic

maladiesexposeanunderlyingcondition:wearefundamentallydisconnectedpeople.Asa

result,thedominanceoffearanddecayofspiritinevitablybecomedeathdealing.

“I feared formy life” is theclassicrefrainsungall-too-oftenbypoliceofficers that

gundownblackfolkinthestreet.93Onlynow,asasociety,arewebeginningtointerrogate

the legitimacyofsuch“justifiableusesof force.”Viralvideosofkilledblackbodies finally

areforcingustolookagainattheso-called“menacetosociety.”94Whenbarelypubescent

boysaremistakenforadults,andadultsautomaticallyviewedaspredators,muchhasgone

Schmidtetal,“PoliceOfficerinFergusonIsSaidtoRecountaStruggle,NewYorkTimes,October17,2014.http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/18/us/ferguson-case-officer-is-said-to-cite-struggle.html?_r=093SeeMichaelWinesandFrancesRobles,“KeyFactorinPoliceShootings:‘ReasonableFear,’”NewYorkTimes,August22,2014.http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/23/us/ferguson-mo-key-factor-in-police-shootings-

reasonable-fear.html.Seealso,SethWessler,“InFerguson,FearIsCommonDenominatorforPolice,

Protesters”,NBCNews,November24,2014.http://www.nbcnews.com/feature/in-plain-sight/ferguson-fear-common-denominator-police-protesters-n255096.

94Thecorrelationofracialbias,psychologyoffear,perceptionsofsafety,andpolicingiswelldocumented.For

example,seeKatherynRussell-Brown’sTheColorofCrime:RacialHoaxes,WhiteFear,BlackProtectionism,PoliceHarassmentandOtherMacroaggressions(NewYork:NewYorkUniversityPress,1998),particularlychaptersix“RacialHoaxes”;MalcolmGladwell’sBlink:ThePowerofThinkingWithoutThinking(NewYork:BackBayBooks,2005),especiallychaptersix,“SevenSecondsintheBronx:TheDelicateArtofMind

Reading”;andNormStamper’sBreakingRank:ATopCop’sExposéoftheDarkSideofAmericanPolicing(NewYork:NationBooks,2005),especiallychaptereight,“WhyWhiteCopsKillBlackMen”andchapternine,

“RacismintheRanks.”SeealsoB.KeithPayne’s“PrejudiceandPerception:TheRoleofAutomaticand

ControlledProcessesinMisperceivingaWeapon,”JournalofPersonalityandSocialPsychology81:2(2001):181-192.Payneetal,“Bestlaidplans:Effectsofgoalsonaccessibilitybiasandcognitivecontrolinrace-based

misperceptionsofweapons,”JournalofExperimentalSocialPsychology38(2002):384-396.

270

terriblyawry.95Increasingly,theperceptionofblackpeopleasmonsters,boogeymen,and

villains is being substituted for reasonable fear.96And, at long last someone is asking:

What—orbetteryet,who—areweafraidof?Becauseitseemsthatsomeoneisafraidofthe

dark.

ThepatterneddeathsofunarmedAfricanAmericansbringtolightasystemicfearof

blackness. And protest cries of “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot” dramatize the lengths towhich

somemustgonottobedeemedanimminentthreat.Asasociety,weareafraidof“wewho

aredark.”Theblackbodytoooftenstrikesfearinthesoulofnon-blackfolk.97

Socializedracialbias98challengethebasictruththatBlackLivesMatter.99Suchfear

constructsasocialrealityinwhichAfricanAmericansaresegregatedoutofthecollective,

theirveryhumanitycalled intoquestion.Whenblack folkarenotseenasmeriting life—

95PhillipGoffetal,“TheEssenceofInnocence:ConsequencesofDehumanizingBlackChildren,”JournalofPersonalityandSocialPsychology106:4(2014):526–545.SeealsoEmileM.Townes,WomanistEthicsandtheCulturalProductionofEvil(NewYork:PalgraveMacMillan,2006)andToniMorrison’sPlayingintheDark:WhitenessandtheLiteraryImagination(NewYork,VintageBooks,1992).96Speakingofracialbias,insteadofracismthoughitexists,addsadimensionoftexturetothediscussionof

policemisconduct.See“WhenItComestoPoliceBrutality,FearisalsoaFactor”,U.S.NewsandWorldReport,December5,2014.http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/washington-whispers/2014/12/05/when-it-

comes-to-police-brutality-fear-is-also-a-factor.

97W.E.B.DuBois,“CriteriaofNegroArt”inTheOxfordW.E.B.DuBoisReader,ed.EricSundquist(NewYork:OxfordUniversityPress,1996)325-328andTheSoulsofBlackFolk,1903(NewYork:OxfordUniversityPress,2007).SeealsoTommieShelby’s,WeWhoAreDark:ThePhilosophicalFoundationsofBlackSolidarity(Cambridge:BelknapPress/HarvardUniversityPress,2005)andShamoonZamir’sDarkVoices:W.E.B.DuBoisandAmericanThought,1888-1903(Chicago:TheUniversityofChicagoPress,1995).98JoshuaCorrelletal,“ThePoliceOfficer’sDilemma:UsingEthnicitytoDisambiguatePotentiallyThreatening

Individuals,”JournalofPersonalityandSocialPsychology83:6(2002):1314-1329.99AliciaGarza,“AHerstoryofthe#BlackLivesMatterMovement,”TheFeministWire,October7,2014.http://thefeministwire.com/2014/10/blacklivesmatter-2/.

271

whenthey literallyarenotseenatall100—it is thatmucheasiertokill theiralreadydead

bodies.101Thespectralityofinvisiblepeoplewalkstheearth.

AfraidoftheDark Fearsurroundsus.Hauntsus.Seducesus,even.Thurmanexpressesthat“fearisone

of thepersistenthoundsof hell that dog the footstepsof thepoor, thedispossessed, the

disinherited.” 102 Ironically, this is why I could not rejoice with Liang’s indictment.

Somethinginsidemeached.Tragically,wewhoaredarkunderstandfear.Farfrompitying

Liang,however,wemusttakeacloser lookatthearchitectureof fearthatcontributedto

Gurley’sdeath.Racializedbiasmanifest inprejudice findsroot in theuniversalityof fear.

Becauseofthesebiases,Liang’s“accidentaldischarge”wasnotunexpected—noaccidentat

all.Suchincidentsarebecomingfartooprevalent—fartoopredictable.

Thoughangeredby theprofoundly tragic lossof life,andenragedbysystemsthat

placedLianginverticalpatrolofanunlitpublichousingprojectstairway,punishmentisa

resolutionthatdoesnotsolve theproblem. Justicemustrundeeper thanthiseye-for-an-

eye circularity. If, in fact, Liang fired accidentally and without malice, what actually is

gainedinhispunishment?

PerhapssocietywillnottakeGurley’sdeathinvain,ormistakeLiang’spunishment

forjustice,ifwelookmoredeeplyunderfear’slid.Gurley’sfear-causedfatalitymusthaunt

us.Thoseinpursuitofjusticehavetodissect“theanatomyoftheissuesfacingthem…[and]

100RalphEllison,InvisibleMan(NewYork:RandomHouse,1952).101J.KameronCarter,“RaceandtheExperienceofDeath:TheologicallyReappraisingAmerican

Evangelicalism,”inTheCambridgeCompaniontoEvangelicalTheology,ed.TimothyLarsonandDanielJ.Treier(NewYork:CambridgeUniversityPress,2007),177-198.

102Thurman,JesusandtheDisinherited,36.

272

recognizefear,deception,hatred,eachforwhatitis.”103AlthoughThurman’sinterrogation

focuses on the disinherited, the conclusion has broader implication: fear is not a

sustainablewayofbeingforanyone.Oursocietycannotrelyonalawenforcementsystem

predicated on the self-destructive outlook of fear. And most certainly officers that are

afraidofthedark—ofdarkwomenandmen—cannotpatroltheplaceswheredarkpeople

live.Becausefearinevitablyleadstodeath.Wedesperatelyneedadetourawayfromthis

dead-endlogic.

Thosemotivatedby thestoryand love-ethicof Jesus,however,willappreciate the

difficultyoffindinganalternativeroute,a“moreexcellentway.”104Indeedthe“lifespanof

Jesus”—fromincarnationtoresurrection—itselfismarkedbyfear.TheBiblicalwitnessof

Jesus’birthandhislifeafterdeathiscircumscribedonbothsidesbyfear.Ontheonehand,

thereisaninvitationto“fearnot”byangelsandJesushimself.Yet,ontheotherhand,there

remainsthedoggedpersistenceoffear.105Despitethesummons,thewitnessestonewlife

andresurrectionpowerstillshudder.“Sometimesitcausesmetotremble.”106Fearlingers,

eveninresurrection,justasthecrossfollowsJesusoutofthetomb.107Althoughweremain

Easterpeople,the“terriblebeautyofthecross”captivatesourtheologicalimagination.108

103Ibid.,108.

1041Corinthians12:31.

105Luke1:26-38;24:1-11,36-43.

106“WereYouThere?”,African-Americanspiritual,Traditional.

107John20:1-18.

108ReinholdNiebuhr,“TheTerribleBeautyoftheCross,”TheChristianCentury(March21,1929):386-88.

273

HolyGhostStories

Thespiritoffearanddeathstillhauntstheresurrectedlife.Itisnoteasilyexorcised.

And nor should it be. So too must the fear-induced slaying of Akai Gurley trouble our

longingforabetterday.Thesightofthecross—thesiteofunjustcrucifixion—forcesusto

face this intersection. The elimination of “stop and frisk” and vertical patrols, while

essential, doesnot eliminate fear as anunderlying cause of somepolicemisconduct.We

must delve deeper into the crisscrossing issues at play. We cannot be satisfied with

piecemeal answers or systems of retribution. Instead we need an entirely different

system—always remembering “the master’s tools will not dismantle the master’s

house.”109Thisnewapproachdoesnottakeroot inhowuncommonweare,butrather in

theradicalrelationalityofJesus’love-ethic.

ThearcofJesusandtheDisinheritedtendstowardthispropheticwitness.Whenone

views the self as a “child ofGod,” fearbegins to subside, saysThurman.Deception gives

waytosinceritybecausetheindividualstartstoactalwaysasbeingseenbyGod.Andthe

child of God, perpetually in communion with God, cannot hate an-other human being.

InsteadtheotherisalwaysapproachedalsoasachildofGod,perpetuallyinrelationtothe

self, equallydeservingof respectandcare,becausea commonSpirit runs throughusall.

Love, according to Thurman, becomes manifest in this courage, honesty, and

neighborliness.Thisloveisexceedinglytough,anythingbutaromanticizedpipedream.Itis

theidealthatincarnatesand‘executes’truejustice.

Thespiritoffear,then,giveswaytoanotherSpiritborneattheintersectionofthe

cross. The spirit of the cross is the Holy Ghost of God’s incarnate love, crucified yet

109AudreLorde,“TheMaster’sToolsWillNeverDismantletheMaster’sHouse,”inSisterOutsider:EssaysandSpeechesbyAudreLorde(Berkeley:CrossingPress,1984),110-113.

274

lingering and alive. The haunting of a life unjustly lost meets the pursuit of justice. A

pneumatologyofthecrossconvergeswiththetheoryofintersectionality.

Confronting these intersectional oppressionsdemandsnot only acknowledgement

of shared origins of these societal ills, but also coalition-building and simultaneously

addressing wrongs experienced by disparate subgroups. “For the privileged and

underprivileged alike, if the individual puts at the disposal of the Spirit the needful

dedicationanddiscipline,[thisone]canliveeffectivelyinthechaosofthepresentthehigh

destiny of a son [or daughter] of God.”110Because these ills are spiritual maladies, our

intersectionalresponsebeginstheprocessofspiritualhealing.

Thosewhoseekjustice,then,shouldspeakthelanguageofSpirit.“Godhasnotgiven

us thespiritof fear.”111Humanity finds itselfmostathome in thisvernacular,because in

oursoulswedeeplyyearn forconnection tooneanother.Spirit-talkundermines the far-

too-frequentlypolarizedconversationonraceandpolicebrutality,becauseitassumesthe

fundamental oneness of humanity. To be sure, Spirit like love is exceedingly difficult to

define.Weapproachthembothindirectly,oftenbyanalogyandmetaphors.Still,weknow

itwhenwefeelit.Andwefeelwhensomethingiswrong—andwhenitisright.“Whenthe

day of Pentecost arrived, theywere all together in one place. And suddenly there came

fromheavenasound likeamightyrushingwind,andit filledthehousewheretheywere

sitting.”112

110Thurman,JesusandtheDisinherited,109.Althoughpropheticinmanyareas,Thurmandidnotusegenderinclusivelanguage.

1112Timothy1:7.

112Acts2:1-2.ESV:StudyBible:EnglishStandardVersion(Wheaton:CrosswayBibles,2007).Emphasisadded.

275

Spirit is thepowerwithinus that changes theworldaroundus. In aworld full of

deathanddying,surelyweneedmoreloveandmoreSpirit,“theLord,thegiveroflife.”113

Bylisteningtothesoundofanewwindblowing,wemightyetbecalledtosomethingthat

looksandfeelslikejustice.

5.6. ConcludingTheologicalPostscripts114

“Ican’tbreathe.”ThesewereEricGarner’sfinalwordsasthelifeforcewaschoked

fromhisbody;anexecutionrecordedfortheworldtosee.BecauseSpirit isthebreathof

God,Ihaveofferedatheologicalinterventionthathopestobreathelifeintothestrugglefor

justice for themarginalized.W.E.B. Du Bois’s “hope that is not hopeless but unhopeful”

discloseda life lamentingdeath.ZoraNealeHurston’s “unshoutedcourage”rejectedboth

tragicblacknessandspiritualsassorrowsongs,andpointedtolifeinspiteofdeath.Howard

Thurman’s “uncreatedelement”activatedhisgrandmother’s restorativewit revealing life

transcending death. Drawing from black, womanist, and queer theologies, as well as

canonicalandapocryphaltexts,IhaveinterpretedSpiritaspoweruntolifeafterdeath.

In thisprocessofexcavation, Ihavepaidattention to thediscursiveproductionof

deviancythatunfoldsalongsidethedeploymentofspiritasasignifierofblackidentityand

social progress. At the same time that spirit-talk is spoken as a language of liberation, a

counter-discourse of the “demonic” emerges aswell. This is to say, the politics of black

113TheNiceneCreed,asprintedinTheUnitedMethodistHymnal:BookofUnitedMethodistWorship(Nashville:TheUnitedMethodistPublishingHouse,1989).

114IhaveinmindSørenKierkegaard’sConcludingUnscientificPostscriptstoPhilosophicalFragments,1846,ed.HowardHongandEdnaHong(Princeton:PrincetonUniversityPress,1992).

276

respectability and cisheteronormativity has rendered the souls of some black folk as

“unholyghosts.”

Byobservingwhathashappenedtospirit-talkat the intersectionsofrace,gender,

sexuality,andclass,thisconstructivetheologicalinterventionofferedan-otherstoryofthe

lifeofSpirit.Theinfrastructurewehavebuiltnolongersufficesforourpresentreality.If

constructive theology implicitly is a petition for progress, grounded in thepotential that

anotherworldispossible,thisthesiscontributestothisremedy.

The pathway forward depends on howwe tell the story. You see, we like to tell

stories.Inmanyways,weneedtotellthem.Theyshapeourrealityandgivemeaningtothe

past.Wespeaktruth.Wetelllies.Wecreatefictions.Wepennonfictions.Throughdifferent

genreandmedia,wewritenarratives.Theyarestoriesofhowwethinkthingshappened,

howwewishtheyhappened,howwewishthingswerehappening,howweimaginethings

shouldhappen,andhowwehopeforfuturethingstohappen.115

Andweactbecausewemust.Fromwherewestandthereisnootheroptionbutto

act out inopposition toour experienceof injustice.There is adeepurge inone’s soul, a

deep tugofspirit thatcompelsus.Thecalling topursue justice isacallingofSpirit from

“deepuntodeep”(Psalm42:7).EllaBaker iscorrect:“Wewhobelieveinfreedomcannot

restuntilitcomes.”One’sexperienceofabrokenrealityisnothingshortofheartbreak.The

very core of one’s being, therefore, yearns for wholeness. The soul, spirit in potentia,

115Thestory,whichisnotarulebook,compelsustowritenewones.Seeessaysonthedevelopmentoftheo-

ethicsthroughstoriesin“ReframingTheologicalEthics”sectionofTheHauerwasReader(2001).Hauerwascompellingly argues that there is nomoral to the story, but rather themoral is the story (“Vision, Stories,Character,”165-170).

277

remainsunsatisfieduntilanewdaydawns.Soweworkwhilethereisstilllightintheday

(John9:4),insearchofabetterone.

AfreshwindoftheSpiritisblowing.Letustakeadeepbreath.

278

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