From Bourgeois to Boojie: Black Middle-Class Performances

15 The Black Church and the Blues Body

235 KELLY BROWN DOUGLAS 15 TheBlackChurchandtheBluesBody Sexual Wrong Ooh, there’s something going all wrong Ooh, ooh there’s something going all wrong The way I’m thinking, I know I can’t last long. ■ Ma Rainey, “Mystery Record,” 1924 There’s something going all wrong” in the black church. So that we may appreciate what that is, let me first clarify what I mean by the black church. The black church is not a single entity. It is a diverse grouping of churches that reflects the rich complexity of the black community itself. Though very different, black churches share a common history and maintain a pivotal role in black sociocultural life; these commonalities suggest their collective identity as the black church. “ 236 Kelly Brown Douglas Historically, the black church emerged as a fundamental part of black people’s resistance to white racial oppression, particularly slavery. This church continues to play a central role in the black struggle for life and freedom . Socioculturally, the black church has been one of the most significant influences upon black values. It shapes black people’s notions of what is morally acceptable or unacceptable. The black church is also a critical resource for black well-being, whether physical, emotional, or spiritual. Black men and women tend to look to the black church to provide the social and cultural resources routinely denied them in a society defined by white privilege and shaped by white cultural standards. W. E. B. Du Bois rightly recognized the black church as both the “religious center” and “social center” for black people.”1 The black church’s significance to black life is undeniable.2 That there is something going wrong within it is therefore of vital concern. What is going wrong in the black church? Its attitudes toward issues of sexuality help answer this question. Black churches consistently garner headlines for what many consider backward, if not unjust, views of sexuality, particularly homoerotic expressions of sexuality. Black clergy have been vocal in their reluctance to support lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) efforts to gain legal protections .3 Various black church leaders have fundamentally refused to equate the “put-upon” LGBT body with the “put-upon” black body—even when the LGBT body is a black body. They have been just as die-hard in their refusal to recognize as civil rights matters issues concerning LGBT equality. Some in the black church community have gone so far as to accuse the LGBT community of hijacking the term civil rights as a ploy to gain black community support.4 The persistence and passion with which too much of the black church opposes the LGBT struggle suggest that more is at stake than the rights of LGBT people. Black church responses to issues of sexuality point to a deeper concern at the center of the black church itself.5 It is no coincidence that sexuality would provide a window into what might be going wrong at the core of the black church. Sexuality is about more than sex. As the ethicist James Nelson said, while sexuality is certainly not the whole of who humans are, it is basic to being human. It is about body-selves. It involves how women and men relate to their own bodies The Black Church and the Blues Body 237 and to the bodies of others. Sexuality is what propels human beings into relationships with themselves, one another, and even with God. According to Nelson, sexuality is a “sign, a symbol, and a means of our call to communication and communion.” In short, sexuality involves embodied selfunderstanding , a way of relating to others and of relating to transcendent reality.6 Given the primacy of sexuality to the ways in which humans see themselves and interact with others—human and divine—it follows that passionate reactions to hot-button matters of sexuality might involve several layers of meaning. Such is the case with the black church when it comes to LGBT sexuality. Black church discomfort with the LGBT body points to its anxiety with the body in general. So to return to the question, what is going wrong in the black church? The answer is that the black church cannot accommodate what I call here a blues body. The blackness of the black church, however, depends upon its morally active commitment to advance the life, freedom, and dignity of...