The Divided Mind of the Black Church: Theology, Piety, and Public Witness. By Raphael G.Warnock. New York: NYU Press, 276 pages

Abstract

In The Divided Mind of the Black Church, Warnock, senior pastor of the historic Ebenezer Baptist Church (the church where Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., served), wrestles with the crucial question of ecclesiological purpose in the context of the black church. Laying out the historical trajectory of the black Christian community combatting the systematic oppression of racism and informed by Jesus’ gospel, Warnock discusses the double consciousness of black Christians as it has emerged in the historical context of white evangelism's focus on individual salvation and their own emphasis on socio-political freedom in the face of racism. The former underscores an individual's freedom (piety), while the latter involves a social freedom (protest). Warnock throughout the book attempts to hold the double consciousness of “piety” and “protest” together. According to Warnock, this sense of double consciousness or “divided mind” offers a framework to bring black and womanist theologians in conversation with black churches and pastors on the essential question of the central mission of the black church. Warnock outlines four moments in the history of the black church. The first moment in black church history was “the formation of a liberationist faith,” otherwise known as, the Invisible Institution. Making a distinction between the slave's Christian faith and the white slave master's Christian faith, Warnock asserts that slaves were active and critical recipients of Christian faith and not passive believers. The second moment was the “the founding of a liberationist church” (the independent black church movement). He frames this movement as institutionalization. Here he argues that by opting to separate from rather than to accept the racialized polity of white churches, black Christians were positing an egalitarian understanding of the church, exposing the hypocrisy of the white church. In this sense, the movement implicitly makes an ecclesiological statement informed by the black faith's double consciousness. Warnock sees here a creative counter-worldliness or eschatological consciousness that empowered his people to fight as hopeful agents of freedom against the overwhelming tide of history and an uncritical otherworldliness that has endeavored simply to avoid the contradictions of history, holding out for freedom in the world to come. The third moment was the “fomenting of a church-led liberationist movement” specifically manifested in the Civil Rights Movement. Warnock sees this moment as the process of conscientization, specifically explaining King's understanding of the church's mission. Warnock underscores King's emphasis on the dialectical relationship between personal and social dimensions of salvation, and King's own ministry, which embraced the latter as an integral part of the church's missiological task. Finally, the fourth moment was the “rise of black theology.” Warnock affirms that black theology is a logical result of the history of the black church's creatively linking personal salvation with the radical protest that prioritizes social salvation from the racial oppression of slavery. Black theology was the first theological project privileging black experiences in addressing the mission of the black church. Warnock calls this moment systematization. Analyzing that context, Warnock points out that the post-Civil War black churches were largely otherworldly and the understanding of piety as personal was dominant. He writes that unlike the previous three moments, the black church, at that time, embraced a bifurcated understanding of salvation that privileged individuals’ souls, not seeing the redemption of black bodies and the transformation of the whole of society as central to its vocation as an instrument of God's salvation. Warnock states that, in relation to that context, black theologian James Cone fulfills two tasks. One, he protests against the white church and Christians, calling them anti-Christ. Two, Cone corrects the false dichotomy between body and soul operating in the religious imagination of the black Christians by explicating a view of salvation and gospel as liberation. Warnock, engaging with the first and second generation of black theologians, discusses the “critical and self-conscious theological principle” that continuously challenges the black church for a radical reinterpretation of Christian faith. He states that the challenge is to embody this principle into the institutional practice of the black church. Further, Warnock traces exchanges between the black church and black theology. He outlines the conversation of two groups of pastors. One group includes black pastors like Joseph A. Johnson, who embraces black theology and proposes that the black theologian and preacher must detheologize black minds of racist interpretations of the meaning of the revelation of Jesus Christ in history. On the other hand, Warnock lists black pastors like Joseph H. Jackson, who decried black theology as a theology of polarization, and J. Alfred Smith, who critiques the scandal of particularity in black theological imagination of God and soteriology. Considering the complex intersectionality of black women's piety and black theological themes, Warnock brings in Womanists’ critical engagement. According to Warnock, more than black theology, Womanist theology is farther removed from the black church. Elucidating Delores Williams's critiques of justification of black women's tragic historical experience of surrogacy through surrogate imagination of the Christ-event, Jacquelyn Grant's critiques of the Christology of servanthood, JoAnne Marie Terrell's explication of the oppressive manifestation of the hermeneutics of sacrifice, and Kelly Brown Douglas's problematization of the sacralization of violence directed against black bodies, Warnock elaborates Womanist critiques. While admitting that he is in solidarity with Womanist theology, he argues that the concerns that Womanist theologians are raising are related to “symptomatic secretion” of Western theology. Warnock sees two problems here. First, Western Christianity has been co-opted by powers and second, Western Christianity has linked Christian doctrines to pietistic understandings, which lead to privatization of all theological themes, like the cross and salvation. Warnock's point of “symptomatic secretion of Western theology” is well argued. However, Warnock, ironically, seems to fail to recognize the agency of the black Christian in appropriating Christian faith and seems self-contradicting. Though he speaks against sexism and takes seriously the voice of Womanist theology, yet he fails to listen and incorporate black queer voices. According to Warnock, one obstacle that hinders black theology and Womanist theology from integrating into the black church is classism. Class tension among black theologians, preachers and congregations has made it difficult for black theology, as a movement, to fully ignite the fires of radical discontent latent in the religion of the black church. Further, he asserts that with the upward social mobility of a burgeoning black middle class and upper class, which usually comprises theologians and preachers, there is a danger of holding a soteriology that clearly privileges “the slavery of sin” over “the sin of slavery.” This, according to Warnock, risks becoming a truncated soteriology that dismisses the concerns of the margin. While this is a very strong analysis, one limitation of Warnock is that he does not explore this aspect in depth, mentioning this only in the conclusion. Recognizing the complex cuts between black theologians, Womanist theologians and black pastors, Warnock challenges all groups to a deeper engagement with King's prophetic vision and public theology for the church's own self-understanding, mission, and institutional agenda. He points out that in all the four historical moments (as mentioned above), liberationist understanding is closely tied together with the reality of an oppressed people's testimony to their spiritual encounter with the mystery of God. Therefore, he asserts that an authentic black piety is intrinsically connected to liberation. It is here that he proposes a fifth moment, “integration.” Since both black pastoral and theological communities are committed to the “critical theological principle,” he calls for a deeper, risk-taking dialogue between the two. Because of the inextricable relationship between “proclamation, praxis, and critical reflection” for any faith community, the effectiveness of each is each tied to the other. Further, Warnock asserts the fifth moment involves “broadening of communal space” for challenging together the systematic injustice of the whole society, recognizing the complex intersections of racism with other forms of oppressions. In the integrative moment, black theology will be more in conversation with its community and thereby reconnect black theology to its roots and provide a forum for doing theology. The black church in turn will be enriched by the critical and self-conscious theological principle that will help it to form a more holistic mission vision. Consequently, the black community will walk further toward a life-flourishing society. Resilient in its hope and perceptive in its analysis, this book makes a valuable contribution to imagining a liberation-focused ecclesiology. Esther Parajuli is a graduate student at Union Theological Seminary, New York City