Religion of the Field Negro: On Black Secularism and Black Theology
Vincent W. Lloyd
Abstract
This book argues that black theology has lost its direction. To reclaim its original power and to advance racial justice struggles today, black theology must fully embrace blackness and theology. Multiculturalism and religious pluralism have boxed in black theology, forcing it to speak in terms dictated by white supremacy. While critics have argued that secularism is entangled with the disciplining impulses of modernity, with neoliberal economics, and with Western imperialism, relatively little attention has been paid to the effects of secularism on black religion. Drawing on critics of secula ... More
This book argues that black theology has lost its direction. To reclaim its original power and to advance racial justice struggles today, black theology must fully embrace blackness and theology. Multiculturalism and religious pluralism have boxed in black theology, forcing it to speak in terms dictated by white supremacy. While critics have argued that secularism is entangled with the disciplining impulses of modernity, with neoliberal economics, and with Western imperialism, relatively little attention has been paid to the effects of secularism on black religion. Drawing on critics of secularism in other fields, this book probes the subtle ways in which religion is excluded and managed in black culture. Using Barack Obama, Huey Newton, and Steve Biko as case studies, the book shows how the criticism of secularism is the prerequisite of all criticism, and it shows how criticism and grassroots organizing must go hand in hand. Weaving together theological sources, critical theory, and cultural analysis, this book addresses questions about race and justice, love and hope, theorizing and organizing, and the role of whites in black struggle. The insights of James Cone are developed together with those of James Baldwin, Sylvia Wynter, and Achille Mbembe, all in the service of developing a political-theological vision that motivates challenges to white supremacy.
Keywords:
critical theory,
criticism,
racial justice,
religion,
secularism,
white supremacy
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2017 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780823277636 |
| Published to Fordham Scholarship Online: May 2018 |
DOI:10.5422/fordham/9780823277636.001.0001 |
