Beyond Christianity: African Americans in a New Thought Church (review)

I approached this book with an expectation of reading a serious and deeply considered exploration of a variety of religious practices by African Americans that transcended Christianity. I was not wholly disappointed but I was also much less than thrilled. This “ethnographic” analysis of findings from interviews conducted with twenty members of an East Bay California Church of Religious Science, and based upon the author’s “experiences as a participant-observer over a roughly two-year period” is a work of research and writing that could have benefited from considerably more profound conceptual thinking.

Darnise C. Martin, who earned a PhD in Cultural and Historical Studies of Religion from the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California, seems to have wanted to write a book that explores the diversity within U.S. African American religious practice. However, in 159 pages of text, a brief appendix and reference notes to six short chapters, the author has produced a conceptually unfocused review of one west coast, U.S. African American congregation that falls under the rubric of the New Thought Movement of Earnest Holmes’ 1927 thinking. The book is titled, Beyond Christianity: African Americans in a New Thought Church but throughout my read of the volume, I kept asking the question, “So why is this different than African American Christian practices?”

This is not to suggest that Dr. Martin has not raised serious questions about diversity within the religious practices of Blacks in the United States. On the contrary, the totality of the expressive work begs the question of what other examples of religious diversity exist within this racial ethnic community in our country? But Martin gives only passing glimpses toward an answer to this question. Rather, she is content to presume that her rich descriptive presentation is sufficient to contend that there are “diversities.” Early in studying scientific and systematic research methods, we learn that a single example is not, in and of itself, part of a norm. A single example can be understood as a variant, an anomaly, a glitch, or an indication of something larger that may be forthcoming: a trend. However, Dr. Martin does not seem to have considered any of these possibilities as she continually suggests that her single congregational study represents the U.S. African American community’s step “Beyond Christianity.” Where are the data, not mere passing references and citations, of other, non-Christian examples to accompany her propositions about Religious Science? I am not convinced.

For example, in the chapter on “Methodological Intersections and Conclusions,” the reader is offered several references that the author suggests demonstrate other than Christian practices and/or teachings. She proposes that, “messages of empowerment are couched within the predominant ideology of the church, which rests upon the proposition that the universe is responsive to thoughts, beliefs, and words.” She immediately follows this consideration with, “Supported by the scripture, ‘Let it be done for you according to your faith’ (Matthew 8:13)” (111). My read of these juxtapositioned statements that characterize messages of the East Bay Church of Religious Science is that the congregation sits within the Christian family. I continue to wonder how Dr. Martin conceptualizes her congregants and the congregation as “Beyond Christianity?”

This absence of deep critical thinking about the topic, the research project, and/or the data appears as early as the Introduction when Martin contends that New Thought doctrine and her Religious Science congregation are successful because of “a culturally familiar liturgical style reminiscent of the music, preaching style and congregational responses of Black Pentecostals and Black Spiritualists.” The author further proposes that, “African Americans involved in Religious Science represent an exception to traditional descriptions of African American religious practice” yet she proceeds, to demonstrate that congregants of her research population “feel that they have adapted the religion to fit their needs, regardless of the founder’s race.”

This book is worrisome because Martin does not appear conceptually clear about what...