James Baldwin's God: Sex, Hope, and Crisis in Black Holiness Culture (review)

In this deceptively slim volume, Clarence E. Hardy III provides a rich and complex portrait of the black holiness tradition as manifested in the life and writings of James Baldwin, the noted black writer, playwright, and social critic. This is particularly notable because Baldwin's literary works such as Go Tell It on the Mountain and The Fire Next Time reflect a sophisticated use of black Christianity as a wellspring of inspiration for his fiction and non-fiction alike. Interestingly, many of Baldwin's biographers have concentrated most squarely on the late writer's considerations of racial identity and sexuality to the exclusion of any religious or spiritual concerns. While this book certainly investigates the construction of race, gender, and sexuality in Baldwin's life, Hardy offers a sensitive yet poignant examination of the writer's theological insights and moral development that includes yet ultimately goes beyond such matters. This book proves worthwhile in the ways that the author focuses upon Baldwin's rejection of Christianity and its deity as well as the plethora of sacred symbols that have been used perennially to demonize black people. To accomplish this task, Hardy utilizes a sublime interdisciplinary approach drawing upon literary criticism, cultural theory, black theology, and African-American religious history to interpret the tangible and theological legacies of black holiness culture as portrayed in Baldwin's writings.

Readers will benefit from Hardy's two-fold analysis of both the religious dimensions of James Baldwin's work and the definition of black religiosity in the modern era as a complex, multivalent reality. In Hardy's initial discussion of sex, hope, and crisis as a functional rubric for his treatment of black religiosity, the author indicates that he will "explore and situate this fundamental contradiction of church culture within the historical development of black evangelicalism in the United States and the complexities of Baldwin's own biography that has offered up these images of sexual bodies prancing before ancient gods" (16). Using Baldwin's work and its critique of black Christianity in this manner, Hardy proposes to amend what he deems a gross underappreciation of Baldwin's work within religious studies and theological education. That is, he contends that a figure like Baldwin deserves greater recognition within the canon of black theological discourse. He argues persuasively and passionately that Baldwin's writing serves as a model (or possibly even a cautionary tale) for present-day black theologians and religious scholars. Furthermore, he argues that Baldwin's writings prophesied the pernicious reality of living in a postwar American society becoming increasingly more balkanized along lines of race, gender, class, sexuality, and religion. As Hardy illustrates throughout this book, it is because Baldwin identifies himself and argues very much from the margins of mainstream society, the writer's work is important in understanding key tensions within the contemporary black religious experience.

Probably, the strongest feature of Hardy's work is his keen insight into how the black holiness church and the broader evangelical Christian tradition shaped James Baldwin. Even though the black holiness tradition, as in the case of Pentecostalism, is one of the most thriving and fastest growing branches of black Protestantism, theologians and historians have devoted little scholarly notice to its remarkable rise and development. Renowned for upholding the moral purity of evangelical Christianity, the black holiness tradition emphasizes the primacy of divine will in the believer's life, human flesh as a manifestation of evil, a deeply intimate and ritualized conversion experience as a requisite measure of one's faith, and its endorsement of an unwavering standard of personal piety. Yet Hardy states, "despite his view that black religious expression harbored vengeful attitudes and illusory promises, [Baldwin] remained captive to its rhythms, language, and themes throughout his career" (xi). Therefore, with irony fully intact, Hardy deftly employs James Baldwin as the ultimate eyewitness into the rarefied sacred realm of the black holiness...