Black Religious Nationalism and the Politics Of Transcendence

Religion and African American Political Life

“…Historically, African American Christian theologians have used biblical exegesis to challenge and subvert American racial orthodoxy (Lincoln & Mamiya, 1990;McKay, 1989;Paris, 1985;Sawyer, 1994;Smith, 1998;Wilmore, 1998). These biblical interpretations have yielded a set of theologies that are bound together by the shared conviction that God acts through and on behalf of the oppressed (see, e.g., Cone, 1997;Grant, 1989).…”

“…A particularly radical branch of liberationist theology has been dubbed African American religious nationalism. This nationalist approach (represented by the theologies of such groups as the Black Hebrews and the Nation of Islam) emerges from the belief that racism is so intrinsic in the social fabric of America that it will always create and support conditions that are inimical to black survival (Smith, 1998). Although many scholars are attentive to the apparent cynicism of nationalist religious groups, Smith (1998) asserted that the persuasiveness and the radicalism of black religious nationalism is grounded not in its cynicism, but in its explicit rejection of social conditions and practices that keep African Americans subjugated.…”

“…This nationalist approach (represented by the theologies of such groups as the Black Hebrews and the Nation of Islam) emerges from the belief that racism is so intrinsic in the social fabric of America that it will always create and support conditions that are inimical to black survival (Smith, 1998). Although many scholars are attentive to the apparent cynicism of nationalist religious groups, Smith (1998) asserted that the persuasiveness and the radicalism of black religious nationalism is grounded not in its cynicism, but in its explicit rejection of social conditions and practices that keep African Americans subjugated. Black religious nationalists have as their goal the creation of systems of thought and meaning that grant African Americans the power to define their own social reality, and that have the potential to catalyze and sustain societal conditions that are just and otherwise consistent with divine order.…”

The Diminished Public, and Black Christian Promotion of American Civic Ideals

“…There was a politicized black resistance to American politics that scorned American pretentions in promoting black progress and that pursued alternative black political space (ideologically and geographically speaking) where black social interests could be addressed more genuinely. This potentially more radical brand of political and theological resistance toward American formal-sphere activities has reverberated throughout black Christianity, at least as early as the back-to-Africa advocacy of black clergy such as Alexander Crummell and Henry McNeil Turner during the late-1800s, and subsequently in the 20th century black separatist convictions of religious syncretist groups such as the Nation of Islam and Black Hebrews (Smith 1998). These nineteenth and early twentieth century Black Nationalists provided ideological intentionality through an explicit black self-determinationist rationale, while also constructing cultural and organizational spaces that served as liberated operational spaces for black constituencies pending their eventual departure from Ameri-can terrain altogether.…”

Urban marginality, religious liminality, and the black poor

“…It has been a movement away from form to formlessness, away from permanence to impermanence, away from rootedness to rootlessness. With respect to the black urban poor, this also may be connected to deeper disaffections growing out of longstanding race-based and class-based social antagonisms operative within grossly unequal and highly racialised societies, such as the United States and South Africa (Chubb & Van Dijk 2001;Smith 1998;Swartz, Hamilton Harding & De Lannoy 2013;West 1993). Moreover, ethnicity and national origin serve as markers of social difference that may also potentially translate into social marginalisation and distance within urban spaces, especially where these are impoverished population groups as they are in the cases of the predominantly black neighbourhoods that are part of the present study (Bouillon 1998;Card & Raphael 2013;Maharaj 2009;Wacquant & Wilson 1989).…”