Race, Politics, and Doctrine
Race, politics, and doctrine represent the major fault lines within American Protestant Christianity. Each word taken by itself has provided enough material to fill hundreds of books worth reading. However, what might deep reflection on the intersection of these three concepts provide us as we attempt to make culture? This reading list provides an introduction to key insights from those who have labored to understand and explain the complex intersection of race, politics, and doctrine in America.
The Civil War as a Theological Crisis (Mark Noll)
Much ink has been spilled on the topic of the Civil War, however, few have undertaken the task of explicating the theological context of a conflict that not only split states, cities, and families, but also churches. In his 2006 monograph The Civil War as a Theological Crisis, historian Mark Noll argues that “the cultural conflict that led to such a crisis for the nation also constituted a crisis for theology.” This book is important for those interested in the intersection of race, politics, and Christianity in America.
The Cross and the lynching Tree (James Cone)
Former Union Theological Seminary theologian and pioneer of Black Liberation Theology James Cone described his 2011 The Cross and the Lynching Tree as “a continuation and culmination” of all of his previous work. In this work Cone attempts to remember the horrors of irrational mob violence against blacks in the south by connecting it with another gruesome act of violence, the crucifixion of Christ. By bringing the two symbolic acts of violence together, lynching and crucifixion, Cone continues his lifelong attempt to answer a central question: “how to reconcile the gospel message of liberation with the reality of black oppression.”
Jesus and the disinherited (Howard thurman)
In his 1949 text Jesus and the Disinherited it is easy to observe Howard Thurman’s influence on the thought of famed civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. In fact, many have noted the “generations-long relationships between the King and Thurman families.” In an age of hostility and marginalization for blacks in America, the pastoral Thurman wrote to unpack “the meaning of religion, of Christianity, to the man who stands with his back against the wall.” The influence of Thurman’s thought on generations of thinkers and actors after him cannot be understated.
God’s Long Summer: Stories of Faith and Civil Rights (Charles Marsh)
Charles Marsh’s God’s Long Summer draws attention to the stories of 5 religious actors in the drama that was the long summer of 1964, giving specific attention to their views of God and God’s activity in the Civil Rights Movement. By weaving their stories together, Marsh’s history provides a sharp and critical perspective from which we might view race, faith, and politics today. While the tone of the book can be dire, Marsh hopes that it will act as a kind of “clearburning,” a deeply penetrating gaze into the dark corridor of racial religious-political history in order to effectively pursue for real change.
The Fire Next Time (James Baldwin)
The (somewhat) recent resurgence of interest in the work of author, thinker, and activist James Baldwin is a testament to the enduring legacy of his contribution to the conversation of race, politics, and doctrine. In The Fire Next Time Baldwin presents two “letters” which encapsulate much of the authors thinking on the subject of race in mid-20th century America. Baldwin writes “people find it very difficult to act on what they know. To act is to be committed, and to be committed is to be in danger.” The Fire Next Time is equal parts gripping, haunting, and elegant. It is essential reading in race literature.
The Divided Mind of the Black Church: Theology, Piety, and Public Witness (Raphael G. Warnock)
Current pastor of the legendary Ebenezer Baptist Church (home church of Martin Luther King Jr.) Raphael G. Warnock’s The Divided Mind of the Black Church provides a helpful engagement with black church history. Warnock’s book gives particular regard to the relationship between the Black Church and Black Liberation Theology, two sometimes divergent streams of black public and political presence, with a view toward promoting a more unified black Christian witness in present day America.
Your Spirits Walk Beside Us: The Politics of Black Religion (Barbara Dianne Savage)
In Your Spirits Walk Beside Us, author Barbara Dianne Savage explores the relationship between African American religion and progressive politics, arguing that they have not historically been as “inextricably intertwined” as previously held for granted. Her book uncovers the tensions and fierce debates that accompanied much of the internal dialogue within the pre-civil rights movement African American religious (and not-so-religious) community.
A Stone of Hope: Prophetic Religion and the Death of Jim Crow (David L. Chappell)
Historian David L. Chappell argues that the political breakthroughs of the Civil Rights Movement were catalyzed in large part by a prophetic religious tradition even though the country’s most dominant religious voice, liberal Protestantism, was largely non-prophetic in nature. Chappell’s thesis is best stated in his own words: the success of the civil rights movement is owed in part to the fact that “black southern activists got strength from old-time religion, and white supremacists failed, at the same moment, to muster the cultural strength that conservatives traditionally get from religion.”
Divided By Faith: Evangelical Religion and the Problem of Race in America (Michael O. Emerson and Christian Smith)
Defining itself as “an assessment of evangelicalism in black-white relations”, Divided by Faith has become crucial reading in the intersection of race, politics, and Christian faith in America. Published at the turn of the 21st century, this work of socio-religious analysis seems as relevant today as it did almost two decades ago. Authors Michael O. Emerson and Christian Smith use portions of interviews and statistical data to tell the “story of how well-intentioned people, their values, and their institutions actually recreate divisions and inequalities they ostensibly oppose.”
The Christian Imagination: Theology and the Origins of Race (Willie James Jennings)
Perhaps the densest selection on this particular list, The Christian Imagination is a complex and critical treatment of the theological development of the modern concept of race. It is a thoroughly interdisciplinary work of anthropology, sociology, history, theology, and biblical studies. Willie Jennings offers his account of modern Christianity’s apparent difficulty with real intimacy, arguing that “Christianity in the Western world lives and moves within a diseased social imagination.” Jennings’ “theological analysis of theology’s social performances” is elegantly written, compellingly argued, and worthy of deep and sustained reflection.
