Published in Aug 2017

Black Religion as Black Radicalism

Many black religious leaders (and followers) have rejected a revolutionary attitude. In one way or another, they have embraced the ways of the world, meaning the ways of the ruling class -- much like much of the non-religious black middle class. Most black churches sat out the civil rights movement. Black Panther leader David Hilliard attacked black church leaders as “a bunch of bootlicking pimps” in 1970 even as the Panthers were running their free breakfast program out of church basements. The narrative of #BlackLivesMatter often includes the supersession of antiquated, spotlight-seeking black preachers.

Secularism is the name for this problem. It does not just mean rejecting or ignoring religion. Secularism means embracing the world as it is given to us (in medieval Europe saeculum meant “the world”). It means accepting the choices on the table, a table set by the ruling class. It wants to make health care more affordable -- not free. It wants to give the police better training, to give soldiers humanitarian missions -- not abolish the police and the military. It wants to make slavery, or wage slavery, more comfortable -- not bring them to an end.

Secularism can look religious: idolatry means worshipping worldly things. White supremacy certainly is idolatry. It treats one aspect of the world, whiteness, as having extraordinary value. But there can be forms of idolatry that look like religion as well: when preachers say that God wants us to be wealthy, or when they seek proximity to power, or when allegiance to supposedly traditional religion masks misogyny and homophobia.

Source


By Vincent Lloyd