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Black Religion: The Negro and Christianity in the United States

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At the time this book was written in 1964, Joseph R. Washington Jr. was Dean of the Chapel and Associate Professor of Religion at Albion College in Michigan. (He was black, by the way.)

He writes in the Preface, "The aim of this work is to evaluate critically the religion of the Negro in America. What were the forces which produced it? How do its present forms further the original intention? Why does it differ from and yet adhere to patterns developed in white Protestantism? Is there a relationship between the content of Negro religion and its white counterpart? Has the religion of the Negro a creative potential? Does it have a sense of mission?"

Here are some quotations from the book:

"It is considerably more helpful to acknowledge that the socio-economic forces excluding the Negro from full participation in the society also exclude him from full participation in the Christian faith." (Pg. viii)
"King borrowed more than nonviolence from Gandhi. He accepted his syncretic spirit, and it is as though Socrates, Thoreau, Hegel, and Jesus were all dumped together into one philosophical bowl like tossed salad. It is this syncretistic inclination combined with King's undoubted impact that continues to make Negroes mistake religion for faith." (Pg. 9)
"Nonviolence clearly lost any claim to what is Christian in its coercive tactics... by advancing a situation to the point of violence and then claiming innocence, whereupon the resister turns into a sacrificial lamb. Yet a sacrificial lamb ... is innocent in a way that the resister is not." (Pg. 27)
"The massive noncooperation movement may be the clearest evidence available that Christianity has always been of less than primary importance for the Negro. Just as Christianity is perverted in this movement for the purposes of control and morale, so it may have been with black religion all along." (Pg. 28)
"Negroes have failed to make real contributions to Protestantism, the Christian faith, or the Christian Church, or to suggest any ecclesiastical change in the white organizations after which they are modeled. The reason for this failure is not inherent inability; it is primarily because of the fact that Negro institutions were not established to propound theology or liturgical matters." (Pg. 38)
"But the Social Gospel was oblivious to the question of the Negro, except insofar as he was a victim, like all other Americans, of the socio-politico-economic system. Thurman perceived that those Protestants whose voices were the loudest in protest against the inadequacies of the capitalistic system were conversely indifferent to the Negro." (Pg. 107)
"Free to say whatever he chooses in every generally accepted area of controversy, the Negro minister is not free to preach and teach the great questions of faith, theological insights, and the movements of renewal and reform within the Protestant tradition. In matters of faith, the Negro minister is a prisoner." (Pg. 135)
"The absence of theology in Negro religious communities and the opposition to all forms of intellectual endeavor within the sphere of religion have not provided a place for creative, independent thinkers... There are no first-rate Negro theologians..." (Pg. 143)
"It is to be expected that few Negroes will be involved in white missions when even the predominant Negro institutions are near total defection in the realm of missionary endeavor." (Pg. 153)"
"Negro religion was never steeped in the theological, Biblical, cultural, and historical reality of Protestantism. Negro religion would wither away were it not for the forces of segregation and discrimination which demand its existence as an option for Negro outcasts." (Pg. 234)
"It is incumbent upon the Negro now to close his houses of worship and enter the white congregations of his choice en masse... Without some voluntary sacrifice of the unessential areas of its past for the essential life of the future, the Negro congregation will simply wither away, a liability rather than an asset to the spirit and the community." (Pg. 290)

The product was received in excellent condition. The only issue I have is the delivery. By the time I received the merchandise my class was almost over.