Baldblogger Interviews Edward J. Blum, Part 3

Today's interview topic is autobiography and constructing the self; next time Blum answers questions on the other chapters of his book.

Baldblogger (BB): Looking back on ch. 1, in which you chart Du Bois’s construction of his autobiographical selves, what strikes you the most about the ways Du Bois imagined himself and presented himself to the world?

Ed Blum (EB): Let me first say that chapter one on Du Bois’s many autobiographies was inspired, in part, by Patricia Schechter’s book on Ida B. Wells and by Louis DeCaro’s work on Malcolm X (and here and here). Both of them, along with many other scholars, started to read autobiographies not just to find the facts about someone’s life but also to determine how the individual conceived of his or her existence. What did they want most remembered? What did they want forgotten (and hence not mentioned)? Du Bois was a perfect person for this type of analysis because he wrote several autobiographies. His first, and perhaps best, was in Darkwater (1920); his last was published after his death. What I found with Du Bois was that over and over and over he talked about his religious and spiritual influences. Even in his final autobiography, he claimed to have never lost a spiritual side. And, to be blunt, I found that David Levering Lewis quoted from Du Bois’s final autobiography disingenuously. Lewis shortened a passage that Du Bois clearly intended to be taken as evidence of his religiosity so that it reads as if Du Bois was irreligious. You can check that out in the final chapter of my book.

The most important ways Du Bois projected his life are as emblem of race in America and as prophetic figure. He wanted his life narrative, on one hand, to speak about racial issues in the United States – whether interracial sexuality, education, job discrimination, etc. He also presented himself as a prophetic figure in these accounts, oftentimes showing that he wanted to be thought of as one who could speak cosmic realities to the world.

BB: In what ways would Du Bois recognize himself in your work? Why or why not? Has David Graham Du Bois (W.E.B. Du Bois’s son) communicated with you after reading your book?

EB: Sometimes, I think Du Bois would have thought it strange that a religious biography of him exists. Perhaps he would have feared being appropriated by those who are religiously dogmatic and would want to use him to defend religious beliefs that he did not hold. For example, it seems pretty clear that Du Bois did not consider belief in Jesus Christ the only means to heaven. But then again, Du Bois never complained when others regarded him as a spiritual figure. In fact, he was usually the one who published such regards. When William Howard Melish said that he was like Elijah, Du Bois published that in an autobiography; when Horace Bumstead said that Du Bois had a pure kind of religion, again it made its way into the autobiography. So I think Du Bois would have seen a lot of himself in here.

I have never communicated with David Graham Du Bois, and sadly he died in 2005. I was hoping that he would read the work and let me know. Another person who would have had deep insight into my book is Herbert Aptheker, but he too is gone.

BB: For those unfamiliar with Du Bois’s autobiographical publications, where’s a good place to start? Why?

EB: The best place to start for Du Bois’s autobiographies is to get a copy of Darkwater; it was originally published in 1920, but there are plenty of good editions out now that are cheap. Then, if you really get into Du Bois, check out his 1940 work Dusk of Dawn. It is part autobiography, part plan for an all-black socialism. And it is there that Du Bois creates a distinction between the true Christian and the white American that will blow your mind. And as always, you can read about that in depth in W. E. B. Du Bois, American Prophet.

"Blum(ing)" Around with W.E.B. Du Bois, American Prophet, Part 4

Ch. 5
Blum’s final chapter, “Christ Was a Communist,” chronicles the closing decades of Du Bois’s life, as he traveled widely throughout the world, forged key relationships among the globe’s communists, spent a considerable amount of his public reflection on Africa, and as is well known finally joined the Communist Party. Importantly, Du Bois remained steadfastly religious, presented himself as such in his final autobiographical installment along with a vast array of other publications, and both Langston Hughes and Paul Robeson still described Du Bois as a prophet in the 1950s.

Blum argues that Du Bois’s critical reflection on church and missionary collusion with colonialism, notably in his work Color and Democracy (1945), is not evidence of his irreligion, but is actually consistent with his understanding of white supremacy in theological categories and his fervent hope for redemption through various social means. Moreover, Blum documents several of Du Bois’s key friendships with liberal white ministers during this period, not to mention his regular presence at their churches. Du Bois continued to draw on religious imagery at the end of his life, Blum shows, through poems such as “Ghana Calls” (1962), and invoked Genesis when in one of his final speeches remarked (to Africans): “China is flesh of your flesh, and blood of your blood” (201). For Du Bois Communism was the last great hope for humankind, but this firm conviction did not impugn religion or render it powerless—it imbued it with sacred significance and spiritual power.

Although some may describe the tone of Blum’s book as very appreciative of Du Bois, and clearly laudatory, Blum tackles shortcomings of one of his spiritual heroes—namely Du Bois’s harsh anti-Semitic statements in several early versions of Souls (Du Bois removed sinister statements against Jews in later editions of Souls, evidently inspired by what he witnessed in the Holocaust), and his consistent praise of Stalin even after Nikita Khrushchev in 1956 began to reveal details of some of his predecessor’s murderous rampages. Given the media’s crafted presentation of news and caricatures of black Americans, Blum argues that Du Bois had legitimate reasons to doubt reports he heard coming out of Russia. This Cold War context is an important point to remember, and one that Brenda Plummer and Mary Dudziak contextualize very helpfully in their work, and the subject of critical discussion here. In my reading, Blum’s navigation of these difficulties is both careful and convincing.

Build It, and They Will Come, or, The Cost of Doing Business: Megachurches and American Religion

Megachurches have been the subject of much interest--the faithful flock to them, journalists are endlessly fascinated by them, the media often misunderstand them, sometimes scholars scoff at them, while others steer clear of them.....the list goes on. How would you know a megachurch if you saw one? How does one define a megachurch? (Find some answers here.)

Either way, according to a new book by megachurch expert Scott Thumma and co-author Dave Travis, Beyond Megachurch Myths, megachurches are here to stay. See the book's website here, blog here, on-line extras here, an interesting megachurch research portal here, and excerpts here. I had the privilege of lunching with Scott last summer on a dissertation research trip to New England, and he is quite welcoming, quite generous, and a fine scholar--not to mention a scholar with expert web skills.

If you are not familiar with Thumma's work, and if you want to learn about these mysterious entities we call megachurches, spend some time surfing around the Hartford Institute for Religion Research website, and you will see why. The bibliography is extensive, and helpful. The Megachurches Today Surveys from 2000 and 2005 are important to read through. The resources are beyond helpful. And the learning is, as the commercial says, "priceless"--an apt term for megachurches no doubt.

Living in Houston, I often drive by megachurches--including Lakewood Church, Second Baptist Church, First Baptist Church, Fellowship of the Woodlands, Grace Community Church, etc. The list goes on and on, since Houston freeways, highways, and byways seemingly run forever, particularly if you are stuck in Houston traffic. I should also say that a large amount of my research is on megachurches, and megapastors--subjects worthy of critical scholarly endeavor. Just ask Robert Wuthnow, Nancy Ammerman, Donald Miller, Mara Einstein, Shayne Lee, James Twitchell, etc. There are many others....

And I'm persuaded that one way to understand megachurches is to use a marketplace approach to studying American religion. Popularized by the likes of sociologists of religion--and Rodney Stark and Roger Finke in particular--this approach more or less see churches as firms that offer religious goods and services to spiritual consumers. This is not as reductionistic as it sounds, nor am I necessarily proposing statistical understandings of religious firms and spiritual consumers, but suggesting a historically-grounded sociological analysis tempered with insights drawn from anthropology, media studies, ethnography, etc. Using multiple angles of analysis, with enough participant-observation, allows one to examine conceptions of sacred space, understand the lived religion of participants and members, explore the uses of media, intersections between religion and commodification, etc. [Look for project announcements about something like this soon.]

Have you ever been to a megachurch? Your expectations before going? Impressions afterward? What were your experiences like? Were you greeted as a consumer? Are these structures too big?

[Photo comes from an MSNBC story on Lakewood. Readers may also note that this picture appears on the cover of the New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, Volume 1: Religion. Oddly, and surprisingly, while Lakewood appears on the cover, it is nowhere to be found inside the covers--a really, really, shocking omission for a "new" volume on southern religion.]

Baldblogger Interviews Edward J. Blum, Part 2

Baldblogger (BB): Your previous book Reforging the White Republic, chronicled the reasons for sectional reunion following the Civil War and the central role Christianity played in the process. In many ways W.E.B. Du Bois, American Prophet is in very deep conversation with this work, as you recount the multiple and inventive, creative ways Du Bois responded to the history you traced in Reforging. Can you discuss how, in your own mind, these books relate?

Ed Blum (EB): I first decided to write about Du Bois and religion when I was finishing my dissertation and had an interview at the Harvard Divinity School. The position was in African American religion and so I thought – who better to talk about at Harvard than Du Bois (since Du Bois was a student there in the late nineteenth century and was the first black man to receive a PhD from Harvard). And wouldn’t you know, I was looking through a box of “used” books at the local bookstore and they had a copy of Phil Zuckerman’s edited Du Bois on Religion. Talk about serendipitous or providence or dumb luck. The documents that Zuckerman edited, along with my dissertation research, were the core of my Harvard job talk. I didn’t get the job, but that’s another story. One fascinating outcome of not getting the Harvard job is that half of my Du Bois book was written in the basement of house (when I was a fellow) and I reveled in writing a subversive book from underground. It made me think a little of the beginning of Ellison’s Invisible Man.

It seemed to me that Du Bois understood what few other scholars had: that religion sat at the base of American notions of its nationhood, which tended to privilege being white and being Protestant. And this was the story I wrote about in my first book. In it, I looked at how religious ideas and leaders reconciled northern and southern whites after the Civil War. The tragedy of this was not their reunion, but its white supremacist form. By 1900, northern and southern whites seemed to agree on one thing – they were equally invested in subordinating African Americans. And both sections did it in the name of Christianity.

After writing a book about how Protestant Christianity played a role in reconciling whites and legitimating Jim Crow, lynchings, and racial imperialism, I thought it would be neat to write on those who challenged that world. And Du Bois was the man. So the Du Bois book is kind of a sequel to my first book, or perhaps its an anti-sequel.


BB: Du Bois is a seemingly timeless and very complex historical actor. What sparked your interest in Du Bois, perhaps in terms of historiographical project and in terms of your own personal respect and adoration for him?

EB: The scholarship on Du Bois is massive and it tends to come from the very best in the field. David Lewis, a doyen of American history, wrote two mammoth biographies of Du Bois – both of which are wonderful. Arnold Rampersad, a world-renowned literary critic, had done a book on the literary imagination of Du Bois. Gerald Horne, one of the best historians of the past decades [BB: one of my graduate professors at the University of Houston], did a biography on Du Bois’s years during the Cold War; Shamoon Zamir wrote a wonderful monograph on Du Bois’s early education. The list could go on and on. But they had formed a consensus – that Du Bois was irreligious or antireligious. And this led to some weird interpretations. For example, Rampersad claimed that Du Bois’s poem “A Litany at Atlanta” was a “debate … not between a man and a distant God, but within the speaker himself.” But if you read the poem, Du Bois speaks directly to God. And it was written just before Du Bois wrote prayers for his students at Atlanta University.

This was completely unintended, but all of the claims that Du Bois was anti-religious led religious historians to pay him little heed. This, to me, was a tragedy. So I decided to take on the existing literature, especially David Lewis, and to claim that Du Bois was perhaps the most thoughtful writer on religion in American history.

I was also deeply influenced by Louis DeCaro's [BB: Be sure to check out DeCaro's work on abolitionist John Brown] marvelous religious biography of Malcolm X, On the Side of My People. Even though Malcolm X was a minister, most scholarship on him had focused on his political and civil rights work, as if they could be separated from his religious imagination. DeCaro's study helped me think about how spirituality animated Du Bois's life and times were as well.

I also wrote the book because Du Bois is a teacher of mine. I feel so privileged to sit with his works, to read them, to digest them, to consider not only their contents but also the amazing work that he put in for them. With few research funds; with little access to archives; with hundreds of projects on his docket, Du Bois wrote with such depth and insight that it gives me chills. I wrote on Du Bois to forge a stronger relationship with him; and I often imagine what he would think of the book.


BB: Is it accurate to say you envision yourself as a scholar in a kind of Du Boisian tradition, canvassing multiple historical and contemporary terrains, and crafting perspectives using historical, sociological, ethnographic, philosophical, etc. lenses? Do you consider yourself a “moral intellectual” (p. 132) in a Du Boisian sense? If so, how do you see your work reflecting this?

EB: I definitely consider myself writing in a Du Boisian tradition – basically meaning I take an interdisciplinary approach. This type of work is usually done by scholars in American Studies circles, and I would suggest that Du Bois pioneered this tradition well before Perry Miller and Arthur Schlesinger. I guess I see myself as a moral historian but it comes more from Sidney Ahlstrom (perhaps the twentieth century's finest historian of US religion). Ahlstrom always said that the historian must look at the moral world around her or him and see how it came to be. So I write about race and religion always with an eye to today. This does not mean that my work is presentist. I certainly believe that the past should be understood on its own terms. Yet I want to see paths that seemed to work and paths that did not in creating loving communities.

BB: Often biographers talk about putting their subjects on the proverbial psychologist’s couch—an allusion to an author’s psychoanalysis of his/her subject. Was this an exercise in which you engaged writing the book on Du Bois?

EB: Oh no, there was no putting Du Bois on the couch. In fact, I tried to avoid any form of psychoanalysis. The main reason for this is that too often biographers had written of Du Bois’s mind and soul as if they knew what he believed. But we never really know that. We know what he wrote, what he said, what others said about him. We cannot truly know what went on in the recesses of his head or his subconscious. For Du Bois, we really do not need to do that kind of work. He wrote so much – whether in letters, monographs, autobiographies, and novels – that there is plenty of material. Perhaps I psychoanalyze Du Bois when I examine his literary works – his poems about black Christs and his novels about female messiahs. I definitely suggest that these fictional works point to a deep spirituality; that could be wrong. They could be purely pragmatic and Du Bois could have thought, deep down, that they were fictional lies. I doubt it, but it’s possible.

"Blum(ing)" Around with W.E.B. Du Bois, American Prophet, Part 3

Ch. 3
Blum’s third chapter studies Du Bois as a historian and a sociologist, paying particular attention to the religious dimensions and spiritual interpretations Du Bois offered in works such as The Philadelphia Negro (1899) and John Brown (1909). Blum shows that at the base of Du Bois’s careful social, economic, cultural, and political analyses of black life in the United States rested the deep conviction that white supremacy and its expressions of faith constituted a religious problem, what Blum terms the “spiritual wages of whiteness” (103). For Du Bois, white supremacy was a problem of global significance, chronicled in key works throughout the twentieth century: Darkwater (1920), Color and Democracy: Colonies and Peace (1945), and The World and Africa (1946). Spiritual rage and righteous indignation peppered Du Bois's reflections.

Ch. 4
Further clarifying Du Bois’s conception of white supremacy as a theological concept, chapter four provides careful readings of Du Bois’s creative writing, and the imaginative ways he testified to and about the sacred dimensions of black religious life. In novels, plays, short stories, and reflections that appeared in the NAACP magazine The Crisis, Du Bois reimagined religious life in the United States where black biblical characters assailed and condemned the religion of white supremacy. Blum’s starkly disturbing and jarring accounts of the ritualized dimensions of lynching and the sacred significance whites attached to it, renders the spiritual dimensions of Du Bois’s creative offerings striking—particularly in Crisis articles “The Gospel According to Mary Brown” (1919) and “The Son of God” (1933), short stories in Darkwater, and novels—works Blum discusses alongside similarly creative musings from Langston Hughes and Countee Cullen, for instance, and even Frederick Douglass and David Walker the century previous. Blum perceptively demonstrates how like a Hebrew prophet of old, in his literary work Du Bois located “dramas of redemption” (180) in the midst of suffering, violence, and gross inhumanity, placing black characters at the center of the story as spiritual exemplars and arbiters of redemption; it is here readers may rightly find “the gospel according to W.E.B. Du Bois” (153).

[Photo from UMass Digital Archive]

Baldblogger Interviews Edward J. Blum, Part 1

As promised in a previous post, this summer will feature an interview with Ed Blum about his work on W.E.B. Du Bois and related topics. Our hope is to use this forum to have a conversation; we hope you will join the discussion. Here we go.....


Baldblogger (BB): From a previous interview we know you grew up in NYC. If you don’t mind, briefly trace your academic journey through your undergrad years and grad school. Any formative teachers? Why were they so influential?

Ed Blum (EB): I attended the University of Michigan in the late 1990s and majored in history. There, I had a course in American Religious History with Susan Juster, and it convinced me that religious history was the discipline for me. I was fascinated by the primary and secondary documents she put together, especially Gail Bederman’s article on the Men and Religion Forward Movement of the early twentieth century. For the end of the semester, I wrote a paper comparing and contrasting that movement with the Promise Keepers, who were at the time growing and garnering a lot of attention. I remember going with my father to Promise Keeper’s mammoth meeting in Washington, DC, and thinking how weird it was that I studied these guys. I had a bunch of other professors at Michigan who were fantastic. Jon Carson was new and he agreed to direct my undergraduate thesis, which was a study of Dwight Moody’s revivals in Boston in 1877. Since my name is Ed, My peers teased me about working with “Johnny Carson.” Of course, my students wouldn’t even get that joke today. I remember getting coffee with Jon and feeling like I was somebody, because at such a large school it was easy to feel like a number.

During my junior year, which turned out to be my final year at Michigan, I started applying to graduate programs in history and to seminaries. I decided that becoming a 23 year old minister just didn’t feel right so I trekked off to the University of Kentucky to work with Kathi Kern. I went with the object of studying religion and gender, but found myself pulled into issues of race in the course of my reading. It didn’t hurt that Joanne Melish, a scholar of New England and slavery, had just arrived and pushed me in that direction. Kern and Melish, along with Mark Summers (a political historian) were amazing. They read my material right away; they critiqued it; they encouraged me; they brought me into their families; Melish even read my paragraphs out loud to me so that I could hear the sound of the phrases and rhythm. And Kern, while I was there, published a book on religion and Elizabeth Cady Stanton – another figure who is often considered anti-religious so I feel honored that my Du Bois book joins her work on Stanton. When I finished my dissertation, Dr. Kern and I would sit, have cupcakes, and discuss how each chapter could be improved. Those conversations helped me transform it from a dissertation into a book.


BB: What inspired your interest in the 19th century American history, and why race and religion?

EB: I was drawn to the nineteenth century, particularly the issue of post-Civil War race and religion, because I felt like historians had done a poor job there. I found that of the antebellum era, there were great books on religion: Timothy Smith and David [Richard] Carwardine had done amazing studies, along with Paul Johnson, Sean Wilentz, and Ann Braude. But after the war, religion seemed to be unimportant. Eric Foner and James McPherson hardly discussed religion at all, and when they did it was only black religion. Evangelical scholars, like George Marsden and Mark Noll, paid little attention too. When they did, moreover, they failed to discuss what seemed to be the most important element: race. So basically I wanted to challenge both the broader historians, like Foner, by including religion and the religious historians, by including race. From there my first book came out on race, religion, and American nationalism from the civil war to the end of the century.

I decided to write on Du Bois after that for a number of reasons. He was the great critic of the white supremacist America of the nineteenth century; religious historians ignored him basically; scholars on him, like David Lewis and Arnold Rampersad, had ignored religion. Finally, I found as I was reading Du Bois that I was learning so much about religion and society. I found that Du Bois seemed to understand the joys and the pains, the hopes and the disappointments that had come from faith and religious ideas in the American experiment. So I wanted to join his journey.

BB: Can you discuss identity politics and the/your study of race and religion?

EB: Identity politics are very important for good and for ill. I grew up with every advantage that the white upper-middle-class world offers. I had small classes; I had highly educated high school teachers; I was never pulled over when driving because of my skin tone; if and when I screwed up, we had the money to overcome any mistakes. My family paid for my entire college education – as an out-of-state student at Michigan. Basically an unspoken white affirmative action plan was in place for me. Only a handful of times did I ever attend a black church; and I did not have any African American friends as a young man. So, there is an experiential side of African American life that I do not understand and cannot understand – that I cannot feel. I didn’t sing the spirituals in those days; I didn’t fear the police; I didn’t worry about finances. And I believe this is important. Those types of experiences offer unique insights and perceptions – and they allow individuals to relate in different ways. When on the job market, there were definitely times when universities seemed to want a candidate who had had these experiences. I know that many whites begrudge this, but I don’t. The truth is there are too few African Americans in the academy. We need more; we need their variety of experiences to be brought to the study not only of African American life, but to all of the disciplines. As a white person, I think it is crucial to approach the study of race as a listener, as one open to hear the voices of others. I think Edward Said put it best about the kind of listening I try to do: “there is a difference between knowledge of other peoples and other times that is the result of understanding, compassion, careful study and analysis for their own sakes, and on the other hand knowledge – if that is what it is – that is part of an overall campaign of self-affirmation, belligerency, and outright war. There is, after all, a profound difference between the will to understand for purposes of coexistence and humanistic enlargement of horizons, and the will to dominate for the purposes of control and external enlargement of horizons.” My goal is the kind of understanding that leads to enlargements of horizons and communities.

Interesting, I have found that some students seem to think my courses on women’s history or on African American history are “more true” because I’m a white male. I think their (flawed) reasoning goes that since I (seemingly) do not have a vested interest in the study I will teach the facts and not just politics. A middle-aged white male student said to me after the first day of women’s history, “I’m so glad a feminist isn’t teaching the class.” Of course, little did he know that I am in support of the feminist movement. To me, this is a sad commentary on how our media presents members of the women’s movement and the civil rights movement – that somehow they have an interest, but white men are disinterested and therefore more believable. C’mon, who understand not only black life, but American life, better in 1965: Fannie Lou Hamer or Daniel Patrick Moynihan? Obviously, Hamer.

BB: What is a “typical” day for you in San Diego? At SDSU? What are the best things about being a history professor? What classes do you teach at SDSU, and what classes do you hope to teach in the future?

EB: San Diego is an oasis (or at the very least a desert that is nicely watered). A typical day begins with a walk of our dog SNCC (he’s named after the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee; we don’t have children yet but they’ll probably get historical names too). Then it’s off to the gym to try and run 3 miles. It gets harder and harder. Then, by about 8 I get to the office. I try to reserve my mornings to write. That is the best time for me. I usually put on some kind of piano music and try to write to the rhythm. I see prose writing as quite similar to music. And then after lunch I typically teach. I am the nineteenth century U.S. historian at SDSU so I teach courses on the Civil War and Reconstruction, on the Age of Jackson, on religion in America, and the US history survey courses. In time, I will put together a class on the Gilded Age and Progressive Era and on biography and autobiography. Then, after class, I have a few die-hard students who have question after questions. This is my favorite part of the day; these students are busily comparing what they learn in my class with their other ones. I love seeing their minds at work. At about 5 I head home; dinner, play with the dog, tell my wife that she is amazing (which is true) and then read some on our deck. It’s a good life.

"Blum(ing)" Around with W.E.B. Du Bois, American Prophet, Part 2

No new devotions with Du Bois as outlined in a previous post, but I return here with the second of several posts reviewing Ed Blum's new book on W.E.B. Du Bois. Hopefully readers have had a chance to begin reading this fine book.

Ch. 1
Blum's opening chapter helpfully situates Du Bois’s created self within the history of black autobiography. Drawing from literary theory, Blum tours Du Bois’s autobiographies, publications such as Darkwater (1920), “The Revelation of Saint Orgne, the Damned” (1938), and Dusk of Dawn (1940). Blum deftly shows how Du Bois created and offered a religious self to readers in conversation with and in response to the particularities of the moment, whether it was instances of lynching, the publications of a racist author (i.e., Thomas Dixon’s The Clansman [1905]), or imperialistic and immoral wars that took place during his lifetime.

Ch. 2
Du Bois’s The Souls of Black Folk (1903) is the subject of chapter 2. Here Blum illuminatingly situates Souls in the context of nineteenth century reflection on spiritually-informed racial understanding, and pays keen attention to the book’s reception both in America and abroad throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. From these vantage points, Blum brings Souls into conversation with nineteenth-century theological and historical reflection on racialized conceptions of religion and spiritual worth, though he asserts not with the depth of spiritual insight that Du Bois offered.

Adding to his previous work in Reforging the White Republic: Race, Religion, and American Nationalism, 1865-1898 (2005), Blum crafts a late-nineteenth and early twentieth history of American religion that intelligently shows who, what, when, where, why, and how both Northern and Southern whites more aggressively associated whiteness with godliness, baptizing white supremacy as a kind of national religion, replete with sacred texts, religious rituals, and spiritual practices, subjects Blum takes up with gripping detail in chapters three and four as well. It is against this backdrop that Blum’s reading of Souls becomes so powerful, as he captures the spiritual fervor, righteous anger, theological creativity, and sacred understanding Du Bois displayed in this seminal text—from his careful rendering of black spirituals, for instance, to the brilliant way Du Bois imagined and aligned chapter titles with the Thirty Nine Articles—clear evidence Du Bois intended Souls “to be taken as a new set of religious articles, a new code of faith for the new century” (78). Ultimately, Blum clearly shows that Du Bois’s literary, historical, sociological, and even theological prowess stands unmatched, and in the book’s most important chapter solidifies Du Bois’s role as an American prophet who still speaks.

Up next: chs. 3 and 4.

[Photo from UMass Digital Archive.]

Child's Play?: Religious Toys and Race

Mara Einstein over at Brands of Faith (in light of this post be sure to pick up her forthcoming book) posts about Bible toys at Wal-Mart. In collaboration with the religious toy company one2believe, next month Wal-Mart begins selling Bible characters -- Jesus, Mary, Paul, Peter, Esther, and David, just to name a few.

Interesting as well are the company's P31 dolls, toys (according to its website) "based on the biblical teaching of Proverbs 31...specifically designed to provide a Bible-based, Christian alternative to other secular toys on the market, and to encourage young girls to pursue biblical womanhood....It is our prayer that the Lord would use these dolls as a means to encourage the girls of today to become Proverbs 31 women of tomorrow!" Included with the toys are Bible lessons, an accessory kit, recipies, and cookie cutters, tools that suggest the company supports domestic teaching and learning for P31 women. Of the four P31 dolls currently available, "Leah" is an African American doll, while the others are clearly white.

From the vantage point of religious goods in the spiritual marketplace, these toys are simply the latest example of trends and products religion scholars Colleen McDannell and Heather Hendershot carefully write about here and here.

From another perspective, these products display another sad example of the association of whiteness with godliness, and the depiction of biblical characters as Euro-Americans. American religion and capitalism work in sinister collusion yet again. No doubt the company sees these toys as evangelistic tools, but I wonder if parents who purchase these products will realize the connections these toys suggest, and the psychological associations their kids will invariably make playing with these figures, in many cases subtly and powerfully reinforcing racial codes of white supremacy?

Religion and Politics in 2008

Ed Blum has an interesting and provacative article on what W.E.B. Du Bois has to say to contemporary politicians, and the contribution Du Bois can make to today's discussions about politics. Read it here. (HT: Paul Harvey)

Devotions with Du Bois, Day 2

Commentary and context:

Prayers for Dark People constitutes the prayers Du Bois penned during 1909-1910, in his early 40s, while teaching at Atlanta University, which at the time held classes for what today we’d call elementary, middle, high school, and college students. This gives the prayers and meditations a didactic quality, though not pedantic, and it is probably not too much to say that the prayers reflect something of a pastoral tone. The messages are certainly moralistic, focused on virtue (sometimes even “holiness”), yet there is a spiritual urgency in his words as well, a firm conviction to sieze the day. Some prayers have a theme attached to them (e.g., “Cleanliness”), while others end with one or two scripture references. The upshot is clearly practical theology, something akin to what some contemporaries called the Social Gospel.

At the time, Du Bois had published his well-known The Souls of Black Folk (1903), and in 1909 published his study of John Brown, who he considered to be something of a spiritual exemplar. In 1095 Du Bois co-organized the Niagra Movement, which later became the the NAACP. Du Bois lost his first son Burghart in 1899, and the following year attened the first Pan-African Congress in London, at which he was elected Secretary. The final point to mention about the larger context surrounding the composition of the prayers, Du Bois left Atlanta Univeristy in 1910 to assume editorship of The Crisis, the key publication of the NAACP, and oversee other editorial tasks for the organization.

[Photo from the online archive at UMASS-Amherst.]

Scholars and Starbucks

No, this is not a post about drinking coffee to stay up late to read or write, though that is often what I do in these final days and weeks of dissertation writing. Rather, this is a presentation by historian Bryant Simon discussing the cultural meaning of Starbucks, and the social meanings of coffee, consumption, and commodification. No doubt his forthcoming book will stir up great discussion -- conducted over a cup of coffee of course. (HT: The Brew)

NEW: My good friend and colleague LK (read here) has some interesting thoughts related to what Simon discusses.

Matisyahu in Houston

Tonight with two good friends and my son Matthew, I went to the Matisyahu show in Houston. For those who may not know, Matisyahu is a Hasidic reggae artist. You've probably never heard anything like it. (NEW: Matisyahu interview here.)

It was the first concert I had been to since my freshman year in college, sometime in 1996. In fact, Matisyahu played at the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion in The Woodlands, where I went to my last concert--and if memory serves me correctly I saw Sheryl Crow. (I'm not even a Crow fan, I think I got the tickets for free.)

The set lasted for about an hour, and he was in top form. Matisyahu opened with "Fire of Heaven/Alter of Earth" (the opening track on the Youth CD) , sang "Jerusalem" of course, as well as the prayerful "Close My Eyes" (from Live at Stubbs), among others. He also displayed his customary beatboxing skills, this time linking his vocally percussive expression to a nice piano tune. (For examples, check out this blog.) One hopes to hear more of this on future CDs.

I sat way out on the lawn, and so was away from the energy of the stage. Nevertheless it was a good show.

The biblical scope of Matisyahu's music still resonates deeply; his music possesses the depth of the blues, and the energy and improvisational quality of jazz. Every encounter changes the soul.

Devotions with Du Bois, Day 1

This post announces a summer series, a new venture of sorts. I’ll craft devotionals from W.E.B. Du Bois, Prayers for Dark People, ed. Herbert Aptheker (University of Massachusetts Press, 1980). Perhaps you’ll purchase a copy and read along, offering your own take in the comments section. Think of it as an interactive call and response, with Du Bois in the pulpit. He still speaks today.

The series, what I’m calling “Devotions with Du Bois,” reflects a growing interest in W.E.B. Du Bois, and an explicit investigation into that which constituted his faith--or at least his relationship to Christianity. It also comes from a pedagogical conviction that interactive (literally), organic exchanges constitute learning. I don’t know everything, and conversation is sometimes a wonderful teacher. Third, it is also my conviction that some of the keenest spiritual insight often shows up in the unlikeliest of places. Scholars of religion call this “lived religion,” and theologians call it “practical theology.”

This series also comes as I’m reading through the first book length study of Du Bois’s spirituality, Ed Blum’s W.E.B. Du Bois: American Prophet, recently published with Penn State University Press. (For a summary of posts about Ed's book, read here.)

What do you think? To what extent can Du Bois speak as a spiritual authority, or even a “pastor” today? Can he be called a spiritual leader? Is he a prophet? Why or why not?

[Picture from the online archive at UMASS-Amherst.]

A Hot Topic: Spending the Summer with W.E.B. Du Bois

This post announces a series of reflections on Ed Blum’s new book titled W.E.B. Du Bois: American Prophet. A companion series will examine some of Du Bois’s prayers. In addition to commentary on Blum’s book, I’m happy to report Ed will appear in a few weeks in the form of an interview here at bald blogging. (See another interview with Ed here.)

(Interested readers may also want to pick up Phil Zuckerman’s wonderful compilation of Du Bois’s religious writings, Du Bois on Religion. It is a must read.)

Now, on to the opening post….

In Manning Marable’s Living History: How Reimagining the African-American Past Can Remake America’s Racial Future (2006), he writes about “Resurrecting the Radical Du Bois” (ch. 3). Marable’s stellar book prompts readers to resurrect Du Bois’s “revolutionary and radical politics” (111), and in particular Du Bois’s relationship with and to Marxism in the U.S. and Europe. Revolutionary politics, of course, involves a trenchant critique of “structural racism,” (113) across the globe. Marable also suggests anew studies of Du Bois in light of feminist scholarship as well as analyses of the aesthetic sensibilities that appear in his work.

Marable’s choice of the word “resurrection” to call for a study of Du Bois with new eyes ironically overlooks religion altogether. What Marable overlooks, Blum centers, and the result is a fascinatingly stunning look at an American prophet.

Blum’s work uncovers multiple religious selves in Du Bois, and charts the evolution of his relationship to faith, spirituality, and Christianity. Blum canvasses Du Bois’s corpus, and thematically investigates The Souls of Black Folk, Du Bois’s sociology of religion, his understanding of Christianity and Communism, the uses of religion in Du Bois’s creative work, and the reception of the spiritual Du Bois.

Blum’s writing is clear and lucid, and his ability to craft poetic statements that summarize and/or explain is something to emulation. Here’s an example: “What emerges from Du Bois’s imagination is a riveting tale where angels masqueraded as teachers, where demons cloaked themselves as moderates, where economic policies had spiritual outcomes, where prophets postured as professors, and where the seemingly irreligious Du Bois [according to previous biographers] was the nation’s holy seer” (8). And another: “It is the spiritual side, the soulfulness of his life and the religious power of his prose and personality that this book seeks to unveil” (10). Readers familiar with Du Bois will notice the interesting use of terms here.

It is also worth mentioning Blum’s personal reflections on Du Bois in the Acknowledgements section of the book. “I wrote this book as an acolyte,” Blum writes, “imagining myself sitting at Du Bois’s feet, reading over his shoulder, and listening to the responses of the many he touch. I wrote this book to learn religion and spirituality from Du Bois….I prayed his prayers to my students and endeavored to feel his moving in their hearts” (273). Such a personal revelation offers helpful perspective, and it is not too much to say that one feels Blum’s deep engagement with Du Bois on nearly every page. The Professor still teaches. And if Blum learned from Du Bois, then we can listen to and learn from him too, and with Blum, understand, embrace, and enact the ways Du Bois prompted people to make the world a more peaceful, just, and equitable place to live.

Religion, History on the Web

Completing a dissertation continues to keep me from posting more frequently (I'll get back to Reconciliation Blues soon), but I want to draw attention to two item.

Media studies scholar Mara Einstein now has a blog, Brands of Faith, and has a forthcoming book on religion and America's spiritual marketplace. Make sure you pick it up, since it features some of the first serious scholarship on Joel Osteen.

Historian of race and religion in America, Edward J. Blum, was featured this week on History News Network. I've posted a little about him here, and look forward to his book on W.E.B. Du Bois, due out next week. I plan to post about the book later this summer.

Jerry Falwell

Bible Belt Blogger posts a number of Falwell stories here, Get Religion has this story, and Prof. Jonathan Walton offers his own remembrance here. Christianity Today writer Ed Gilbreath links to an interview he did with Falwell in 2000, and Randall Balmer cites the following 1965 Falwell quote in Thy Kingdom Come: How the Religious Right Distorts the Faith and Threatens America (2006): "Believing the Bible as I do, I would find it impossible to stop preaching the pure saving gospel of Jesus Christ, and begin doing anything else--including fighting Communism, or participating in civil-rights reforms" (p. 17). (For the gist of his book, read this Balmer essay.) While the implications of such a posture are clear-read any history of the Religious Right-interested readers may also want to read Susan Friend Harding's patient, probing, critical, and interesting anthropological reflections in The Book of Jerry Falwell: Fundamentalist Language and Politics (2000).

Reconciliation Blues, Part I

This post begins a series that will offer a book review and analysis of Ed Gilbreath's Reconciliation Blues: A Black Evangelical's Inside View of White Christianity. I've commented about Ed's fabulous blog here, and I look forward to fruitful engagement and constructive conversation with his important book.

It is important to point out, as Ed helpfully explains in the Prologue, and chapters 1-3 and 5, that he made a decision to stay within "white Christianity," that is live, work, and worship in largely Anglo evangelical institutions. He describes attending a white church/Sunday school early in life, attending a largely white evangelical college, and working as the first black editor at Christianity today.

"I hope to give you a glimpse of what it means to be black and evangelical," Gilbreath writes in the Prologue, "My hope is that this inside perspective on what I regrettably call 'white Christianity' can help both blacks and whites get a better sense of the condition of our racial reconciliation and the distance we need to travel to make it more authentic and true....[t]hat's why reconciliation blues isnt' just a sob story; it's a call to action. The good news is that, despite our frequent missteps, the church is the one institution that's best equipped to overcome the racial divide" (p. 19-21). [Gilbreath is keen to acknowledge multicultural America, but writes out of the primary range of his experiences, black-white relations.]

Gilbreath's aim is a critical point white readers must neither overlook nor take lightly. White folks rarely realize they are white, and don't see that projecting race onto others makes them "raced" beings as well. What am I saying here? Black folks know white folks better than white folks know themselves. Who is willing to admit this? Who actually believes this and is willing to sit silent and learn? (Read more of what I'm talking about here.)

This is a crucial point to make, and represents, in one sense, the signal gift of this book. Gilbreath privileges white readers with an "inside view of white Christianity." Here I'm reminded, once again, of the words of James Baldwin in No Name in the Street (1972): "Actually, black people have known the truth about white people for a long time, but now there is no longer any way for the truth to be hidden. The whole world knows it. The truth which frees black people will also free white people, but this is a truth which white people find very difficult to swallow."

Again, who is willing to admit this? Who actually believes this? Who will take such a posture of listening?

Up next: chapel at Judson and listening to Tom Skinner.

Milestones and Modalities

Well, I turned 30 yesterday. A milestone, and now a perspective from a new modality. I've entered a new decade. Had a great time with friends and family, and their presence, to me, was the gift. I did get several other gifts, including The Bible Experience. It is interesting to hear familiar voices in a whole new context -- reading the New Testament.

In addition to working on my dissertation, I've been reading some W.E.B. Du Bois, mostly inspired by the work of Edward J. Blum. Blum teaches at San Diego State University and has a very impressive arrary of projects completed, underway, and in the works.

I'm looking forward to his biography of Du Bois, out next month with University of Pennsylvania Press, and his article on Du Bois's relationship to and with Christianity is, I hope, a taste of things to come.

Blum also alerted me to a collection of prayers by Du Bois, published in 1980 (17 years after Du Bois's death) under the title Prayers for Dark People. I've been reading through them, thinking not only about the times and places that inspired these reflections, but about their resonance with and application for contemporary times.

Here's a sample, composed on one Christmas day during Du Bois's lifetime:

"O Thou Incarnate Word of God to man, make us this Christmas night to realize Thy truth: we are not Christians because we profess Thy name and celebrate the ceremonies and idly reiterate the prayers of the church, but only in so far as we really comprehend and follow the Christ spirit -- we must be poor and not rich, meek and not proud, merciful and not oppressors, peaceful and not warlike or quarrelsome. For the sake of the righteousness of our cause we must bow to persecution and reviling, and again and again turn the stricken cheek to the striker, and above all the cause of our neightbor must be to us dearer than our own cause. This is Christianity. God help us all to be Christians. Amen. Luke 2:8-14" (p. 63).

And Amen.

Will You Love Your Neighbor?

Jasie posted this video of Bono's acceptance speech for the Chairman's Award given by the NAACP.

It is evident to me that Bono understands the Christian gospel.

Darfur: New Books

Just a quick word about some forthcoming books on an important issue in an important place in important times:

John Prendergast and Don Cheadle, Not on Our Watch: The Mission to End Genocide in Darfur and Beyond.

Prendergast will be speaking in Houston on Monday. I'll report on it later. In the meantime, read more about Prendergast here, here, and here.

Journalist Eric Reeves will publish A Long Day's Dying: Critical Moments in the Darfur Genocide soon. Find out more here and read the Preface by John Prendergast.


Though published, here is another important book on Rwanda and Sudan.

All About Books

Rod Garvin tagged me back in August, and so here are my responses -- finally:

One book that changed your life: Jim Marrs’s Crossfire:The Plot that Killed Kennedy. While some call Marrs’ work “conspiracy theory,” I read this book as a high school senior because I wanted to know more about the Kennedy Assassination. I wasn’t satisfied with the “official” story. Reading this book whet my appetitie for the inquisitive historical investigation to which I’ve devoted my professional life. Looking back eleven years later, it also oriented me to begin to read history from alternative vantage points, what you might call history from below.

One book you've read more than once: Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselevs to Death. The late Neil Postman helped me to better understand the powerful role media shapes and influences both individual and collective thought. I’ve never watched television the same since.

One book you'd want on a desert island, besides the Bible: James Baldwin’s Collected Essays, edited by Toni Morrison. This is what I’d call my “Baldwin Bible.” Reading James Baldwin I’ve discovered he knows me better than I know myself, many times, and his pointed honesty calls me to be more authentic.

One book that made you laugh: Anything related to The Far Side by Gary Larson and Paul Lewis’s Cracking Up: American Humor in a Time of Conflict. I’m chuckling even as I write.

One book that made you cry: Timothy Tyson’s Blood Done Sign My Name. This powerful story of racial violence brought me to tears, while the redemptive end to the book prompted me to sob with hope.

One book you wish had been written: A solid social and cultural history, an ethnographic study of contemporary megachurch ministers – a book I’m working on right now with a fellow scholar. Also, a book that offers a template for race reconciliation that follows the traditional Christian year (Lent, Pentecost, Advent, etc.) – a book a friend and I are working on.

One book you wish had never been written: Hmmm…..I’ll have to think about this one.

One book that you've been meaning to read: Charles Marsh’s The Beloved Community: How Faith Shapes Social Justice, from the Civil Rights Movement to Today. I've browsed some parts of it, but need to read it more closely.

One book that you are currently reading: Richard A. Horsley, Jesus and Empire: The Kingdom of God and the New World Disorder.

Alright, Jasie and LK, you are now it!

Remembering Emmett Till

In addition to an assignments on Martin Luther King, Jr. and Carter G. Woodson, and several other activities, during Black History Month (and at other times during the academic year) I spend some time talking about Emmett Till. Since I teach high school students, I find that Till's story hits my students in deep and profound ways since they are around the age Till was when he was brutally murdered in August 1955.

The screening of Keith Beauchamp's stunning documentary The Untold Story of Emmett Till coincided with my unit on Till last year, and a number of my students went to the screening and later wrote critical essays on the film for extra credit. (Read about another important documentary here.)

I'll be showing Beauchamp's documentary in my classes this year, and will use Christopher Metress's The Lynching of Emmett Till: A Documentary History to follow the story along through primary documents.

Here's a poem about Till, a great web resource and labor of love devoted to Till, and here Cornel West weighs in.

Till's blood still cries out for justice, and I hope my students will learn to listen. More later.

Western White Captivity of the Christian Church

On January 29, Soong-Chan Rah, the Milton B. Engebretson Assistant Professor of Church Growth & Evangelism at North Park Theological Seminary, spoke at Wheaton College's chapel service.

The title of his talk was "White Privilege," and out of Acts 15 he diagnosed the critical issue for the (evangelical) church -- western white captivity. Citing the demographic changes afoot in America and in the Christian church as a whole, Rah issued a critical wake-up call to those slumbering in the warm, cozy caves of Euro-American whiteness.

According to Rah, this white western captivity shows up in areas areas of biblical interpretation and understandings of the self and society, and thus, to borrow a phrase from Cornel West, adopt the "normative gaze" of white Euro-American culture.

The essence of the Christian message, Rah argued, is about reconciliation, restoration, and unity; the Cross reconciles division, restores dis-union, a draws all peoples together.

Listen here.

At his Xanga site Rah also mentions this about Urbana 2006:

"Easily, the most impressive talk I heard was by Pastor Oscar Muriu. Amazing. This talk is long, long overdue at a major mission conference. It's way past time to realize that "missions" in the 21st century is more likely to be the Christian South/East (i.e. Asia, Africa and Latin America) evangelizing the "mission field" of Europe and North America."

Rah then offers two quotes from Muriu:

1. "To drink from the cup of Western theology is to drink from a poisoned chalice."

2. "The African church knows that it needs the American church. How does the church in North America need the African church?"

Listen to Oscar Muriu's talk here. He is the pastor of Nairobi Chapel in Kenya.

I wish I heard more messages like this. I'm listening....

Musings

I waited with anticipaton to read his book and was not disappointed. In fact, I was humbled, challenged, and inspired. And now I can read more of Ed Gilbreath's thoughts on his new blog. Check it out.

Also, Tony Campolo has some fascinating thoughts on wealth, poverty, and faith. Read it, and read it again. (HT: Scot McKnight) In light of Campolo's thoughts, I'd also recommend Fr. Gary Smith's Radical Compassion: Finding Christ in the Heart of the Poor (Loyola Press, 2002). There is also an interesting on-line study guide for the book here.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Anthony Smith has started a new series of weekend posts in anticipation of MLK Day. These petitions are creative and thoughtful, and something worthy of deep reflection.

Here's something else: I'm having students read MLK's Nobel Prize speech from 1964 in anticipation of Monday's discussion (yes, we are in school). For a world history class, this speech offers a way to reimagine MLK in the context of global history and therefore retain his voice's prophetic edge. Students will answer questions from this study guide in anticipation of Monday's discussion.

Read and listen to clips of the speech, which still addresses issues of injustice and empire in today's world.

I got the speech from the MLK Research and Education Institute at Stanford under the direction of Clayborne Carson.

The "Talking Book" Talks Back

Late last week I read an interesting op-ed by Washington Post journalist E.J. Dionne in my hometown newspaper.

Partly a review of Allen Dwight Callahan's recently published The Talking Book: African Americans and the Bible, a carefully researched and (if I may) in places poetically and powerfully written multidisciplinary analysis of how some African Americans have responded to, interpreted, lived out, criticized, and embraced various biblical texts, Dionne argues that via insights drawn from Callahan's book, folks would do well to remember that Jesus' birth signaled a revolutionary moment in history.

Dionne makes some interesting observations. For instance, he opens with: "Great traditions are subversive. They constantly call the imperfections of the present to account in the name of a more exalted standard." From here he suggests to readers that the nativity story annually disrupts "understandings of power and privilege." Dionne also quotes Callahan, such as when Callahan observes that the scripture "privileges those without privilege and honors those without honor," as well as the notion that the Bible "has a penchant for bringing peripheral people to the center of history."

Dionne ends by stating that Jesus spoke to "[t]he poor, the outcastes, [and] the slaves," who have responded to him throughout history. Earlier in the piece Dionne also takes shots at some on the far Left and far Right who each ignore the revolutionary witness Jesus bore.

"The African-American religious tradition is a blessing to all," Dionne's concluding sentence reads, "because it requires us to remember that Jesus of Nazareth really did revolutionize the world."

I applaud Dionne for such an important reminder. Yet, I still feel unsettled. For one, the totalizing statement "The African-American religious tradition" (italics mine) only generalizes and fails to capture the complexity of African American religious experiences across time and space. Perhaps this is just a historian's quibble, but it is important to state nonetheless. In the end, though, Dionne's op-ed reads as a polite liberal nod to what African Americans can teach about the life of Jesus.

Not only do some of the scripture readings Callahan highlights "require us to remember" the radicality of the nativity, but to act, to hope, to long, and to live the Advent revolution. This is where my criticism with Dionne lies. The op-ed's intellectual acuity subverts real solutions to the powers and principalities Jesus' life bore witness against. In other words, to quote bell hooks from her book Killing Rage: Ending Racism (1995, p. 185): "When liberal whites fail to understand how they can and/or do emobdy white supremacist values and beliefs even though they may not embrace racism as prejudice or domination (especially domination that involves coervice control), they cannot recognize the ways their actions support and affirm the very structure of racist domination and oppression that they profess to wish to see eradicated."

(For more on what the Advent revolution is, read this, this, and this. And for a reading of Jesus' life as revolutionary see Obery Hendricks' new book.)

Readers of this blog know what to expect at this point: a word from James Baldwin.

Today's thoughts come from a short piece that appeared Creative America in 1962 titled "The Creative Process." Baldwin describes the artist as one always "at war" with society, bearing witness to justice, peace, and equity, in fact very similar the the Hebrew prophets one reads about in the Old Testament. So, for Baldwin the artist lives in prophetic spaces. And those about whom Callahan writes in The Talking Book are artists, from James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw in the 1770s to Tupac Shakur in the 1990s for example, who offer a better picture.

Yet the best artists -- those to whom Baldwin refers and those about whom Callahan writes -- are often provacative, bearing witness to (and against) realities in the past that shape present conditions, in this case the white supremacy upon which North Atlantic/American slavery rested and which still structures many things today. The artist paints a picture of the past that, if seen, can prophetically and constructively influence the present and shape the future.

Here's Baldwin: "We know, in the case of the person, that whoever cannot tell himself the truth about his past is trapped in it, is immobilized in the prison of his undiscovered self. This is also true of nations. We know how a person, in such a paralysis, is unable to assess either his weaknesses or his strengths, and how frequently indeed he mistakes one for the other. And this, I think, we do. We are the strongest nation in the western world, but this is not for the reasons that we think. It is because we have an opportunity which no other nation has of moving beyond the Old World concepts of race and class and caste, and create, finally, what we must have had in mind when we first began speaking of the New World. But the price for this is a long look backward when we came and an unflinching assessment of the record. For an artist, the record of that journey is most clearly revealed in the personalities of the people the journey produced. Societies never know it, but the war of an artist with his society is a lover's war, and he does, at his best, what lovers do, which is to reveal the beloved to himself, and with that revelation, make freedom real."

If you listen, the book talks back.

What's That I Hear?

Partly inspired by this post, and partly a result of my own interests, (and, I should say, thanks to a nice gift card from a student of mine) I picked up Matisyahu's new CD today titled No Place to Be. It was released on 12./26. There are 7 tracks along with a DVD that features interviews intersperced with footage from a live show in Israel.

I'm not a music critic, can neither sing nor play an instrument, but this music, to my ears and interests, is quite unique and resonates at deep levels. Hasidic. Jewish. Reggae. Hip Hop. Torah. Jerusalem. Shalom. Tikkun Olam.

It's music that comes from the heart, can shape the mind, and inspire and encourage the weary. In a certain way, Matisyahu is a kind of griot for those with ears to hear and eyes to see.

Playing the CD for my two young sons, ages 3 and 5, I remarked to my wife with a wry smile that this is "family friendly hip hop." They recognize some of the Old Testament stories and individuals (e.g., Joseph, Moses) that they've heard before, and they quite enjoy Matisyahu's amazing beatboxing abilities.

Enough said. Listen, enjoy, and offer your own thoughts.

Religion, the Spiritual Marketplace, and Other News

It is fashionable among some scholars to use the image, or metaphor, of a marketplace to describe the religious dynamics that exist in the United States. Producers compete for consumers while consumers seemingly make rational choices about which producer to affiliate with or buy into. Producers attempt to gain a market share by diversifying products, by recalibrating what they offer, all attuned to the tastes and preferences of consumers.

In this scenario, Joel Osteen is one of the savviest of the religious producers in America's religious marketplace, competing with fellow producers like Rick Warren, Joyce Meyer, T.D. Jakes, and so many others.

Most of you are no doubt familiar with Osteen's book, Your Best Life Now, a handbook to divine blessing organized around 7 life principles. Well, not only can you read the book, when hanging out with family over the holidays you can play your way to your best life now. That's right, it's the "Your Best Life Now: The Game."

For those who live in the religious marketplace, this is a brilliant move. To my knowledge, this is the only major preacher in American history who has had a book turned into a boardgame. I'd love to hear confirmation if this is actually the case. In a way, this validates the sociological work of Roger Finke and Rodney Stark, and exemplifies the perspective of R. Laurence Moore, among others.

In other news, the first book about Joel Osteen is due out soon. Written by Richard Young, it is titled The Rise of Lakewood Church and Joel Osteen. From news reports it sounds like a book that offers glowing praise for the man and the ministry; I'm not sure to what extent it sets Osteen in the context of American religious history and culture.

For more on that, I will soon unveil a project I'm working on with a sociologist at Tulane University....stay tuned.

Is Jesus Black?, Part 2

Well, "tomorrow" has arrived, though much later than expected.

After I returned from seeing The Color of the Cross a couple of weeks back, I reread Baldwin’s 1968 address to the World Council of Churches titled “White Racism or World Community?” The essay is poignantly sharp and prophetically accusatory, which is to say Baldwin’s critical comments contain a seed of hope, the possibility of redemption. Baldwin describes his life as a minister in The Fire Next Time and makes connection to this story in this essay. In my opinion, Baldwin’s prophetic voice resonates precisely because he left the church of his youth. Sometimes distance provides clarity, and deconversion sometimes results in faith. Such is the irony of life.

The operative dynamic in the essay is that of confrontation. Baldwin boldly confronts white supremacy in the church just as The Color of the Cross confronts the image, the aesthetics, in short the panopticon of a Euro-American Jesus.

Listen to Baldwin:
“Now it would seem to me that the nature of the confrontation, the actual historical confrontation between the non-white peoples of the world and the white peoples of the world, between the Christian Church and those people outside the Christian Church who are unable to conceive themselves as being equally the sons of God, the nature of that confrontation is involved with the nature of the experience which a black person represents vis-à-vis the Cross of Christ, and vis-à-vis that enormous structure which is called the Church….This has to do, of course, with the fact that though he was born in Nazareth under a very hot sun, and though we know that he spent his life between that sun, the Christ I was presented with was presented to me with blue eyes and blond hair, and all the virtues to which I, as a black man, was expected to aspired had, by definition, to be white. This may seems a very simple thing and from some points of view it might even seem to be a desirable thing. But in fact what it did was make me very early, make us, the blacks, very early distrust our own experience and refuse, in effect, to articulate that experience to the Christians who were our oppressors. That was a great loss for me, as a black man. I want to suggest that is was also a great loss for you, as white people” (pp. 753-54).

He goes on to interpret Jesus’ claim to be the Son of God as a “claim that was a revelation and a revolution because it means that we are all the sons of God” (p. 755).

Baldwin suggests first that a way forward is possible, though it will take a keen eye to see the panopticon and a bold resovle to risk confronting the ubiquity of a Euro-American Jesus. This, I think, is the kind of revelation Baldwin suggests could spark a revolution.

Is Jesus Black?, Part I

Is Jesus black? Is the son of God a person of African descent? A recent movie, The Color of the Cross, imagines – or rather argues – that Jesus is indeed black.

First brought to my attention by hip-hop intellectual and assistant professor of African American religion at UC-Riverside Jonathan Walton, I went to see this movie recently. It debuted on Friday, November 10. (For those not familiar with Walton’s work, you need to check it out. And you need to mull over his own thoughts about the movie.)

As I watched the movie, my mind went back and forth between what I’ve learned from my reading of James Cone and my deep interest in James Baldwin, two writers who each in their own way interrogates, deconstructs, and ultimately rejects conventional North American/Western images of a Euro-American Jesus. (My comrade Anthony Smith describes the white aesthetic of the Western Jesus as a panopticon and offers reflections here.) Cone makes a profound and compelling theological case borne out of his early life experiences in the American South, while Baldwin muses about the topic in reflections on the vicissitudes of life as a black man in mid-twentieth century America. Similarly, the music of Hasidic reggae artist Matisyahu (and here) offers its own critique of society, with redemptive dimensions that pulsate through the beats and emerge poetically through the rhymes.

It is obvious – or is it? – that a movie such as The Color of the Cross would resituate Jesus of Nazareth as a “Black Jew” and therefore offer cinematic commentary on first-century Palestinian society. A laborer from the margins of Palestinian society who spoke funny, who claimed to be the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy, who claimed to be God? It is also clear that in 21st century North American society such a film would interrogate the white supremacist structures of American society, and in particular the panopticon of many North American churches. To my knowledge no white church rented out theatres for their parishioners to see the movie, no white churches have screened the film in their churches and hosted discussions about what it can teach about Jesus’ life. Sadly, I’m afraid that such a response suggests that most white churches lack the humility to listen and will therefore lose an important opportunity to enact Jesus’ redemptive message and life. Pardon the pun, but in a year’s time, “the Passion” has subsided. Remember the fury and flurry of interest over Mel Gibson’s film?

The silence of the white evangelical community about this film attests to the prophetic power the movie contains. Do they (we) have eyes to see and ears to hear?

Tune in tomorrow to hear James Baldwin speak to these issues.

WWJD?: A Meditation on Redemption, Suffering, and Community

Driving to the library to do research on Tuesday afternoon, I heard a story on NPR's All Things Considered about the shootings at the Amish school in Pennsylvania. While the focus of the story was on growing Amish interest in and use of mental health services, the latter end of the piece related how some members of the community are already seeking to reach out to the shooter's family and extend hands of forgiveness. The bloggers over at GetReligion noted this element of the events as well.

For some reason, this story struck me today. How, I wondered, could people in the midst of rupture, death, and destruction think about extending grace and forgiveness? Of course the Amish are well known for pacifist convictions, yet to hear that, according to this story, some practice what they preach, it was refreshing and encouraging to say the least.

And in a day where (un)righteous revenge very often informs and dictates matters of national import, it is nice to hear that some people have a sensible answer to the now commodified question, "What Would Jesus Do?"

Though ironic and mysterious, hope exists in the midst of despair, community in the midst of fracture, life in the midst of death, and redemption in the midst of suffering.

As the liturgy says, "Lord, hear our prayers."

World Christianity in St. Louis

In addition to the recently formed institutes devoted to the study of world Christianity in the global south -- Calvin College's Nagel Institute for the Study of World Christianity and New York Theological Seminary's Center for World Christianity -- Saint Louis University professor Michael J. McClymond's vision, organizing, and collaboration led to the formation of The Institute for World Christianity. According to its website, the institute "exists to heal divisions and to promote mutual understanding and fruitful collaboration among Christian leaders from all cultures, regions, and traditions." In addition, the institute will hold a consulation for emerging church leaders in January.

Here's the blurb: "An important event in the life of the Institute is the annual Consultation for Emerging Leaders. The IWC week-long January consultation will be a select gathering up to 70 younger Christian leaders (mostly under 35 years of age) who will (1) pray and worship the Lord together, (2) listen to and learn from one another about what God is doing in churches throughout the world, and (3) develop new strategies and plans during the week for their own fields of ministry and Christian service. The food and housing costs in St. Louis will be met by the IWC, and, in most cases, the travel expenses to and from St. Louis will also be covered."

This is surely a notable development, and will not doubt lead to fruitful conversation, interesting collaboration, and continue the conversation about the multiform expressions of Christiainty in the global south.