{"id":926,"date":"2023-09-24T19:35:50","date_gmt":"2023-09-24T23:35:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/jamesbaldwin\/?p=926"},"modified":"2023-09-24T19:35:50","modified_gmt":"2023-09-24T23:35:50","slug":"baldwins-religion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/jamesbaldwin\/2023\/09\/24\/baldwins-religion\/","title":{"rendered":"Baldwin\u2019s Religion"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Douglas Field\u2019s Pentecostalism and All That Jazz: Tracing James Baldwin\u2019s Religion is probably one of my favorite articles that we\u2019ve read so far. I appreciated how this article made sense of Baldwin\u2019s understanding of religion and it allowed me to think about how growing up in the Baptist Church has affected my perspective of religion. I agreed with Baldwin\u2019s argument of how the church as an institution can be contradictory and produce a lack of self love. I\u2019ve seen how the Baptist church can condemn its members and I\u2019ve seen how the Baptist church can be a safe haven. The point that I resonated with the most is that you can be critical of the church and still be very Christian or religious. I also appreciated the history lesson on jazz music and the Pentecostal church. I think that being involved with music in any aspect can be religious or spiritual. I also never thought about how religion can lead to passivity and I think Field makes a great point when he states, \u201cBaldwin suggests that piety not only leads to passivity, but that it damages personal relationships\u201d (446). I feel as though this happens with a lot of religious people who blame their actions on God instead of taking responsibility for it. Further it is often people who claim to be the most Christian that I\u2019ve seen do this. It also turns people away from faith in anything when people of the church continuously act hypocritically. Baldwin\u2019s practice of an anti-institutional spiritually shifted my interpretation of part one of Go Tell It on The Mountain<\/em>. I didn\u2019t think that this novel was going to be critical of the church. I knew that religion was going to be a theme in the novel but I didn\u2019t think the criticization of the church was going to be a central point of chapter one. I am curious to see how Roy\u2019s and John\u2019s paths diverge or connect throughout the rest of the novel. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Field also addresses Baldwin\u2019s ideology of salvation through the love and support of one another. He states, \u201cBaldwin\u2019s most radical rewriting of Christian\u2013or at least spiritual identity\u2013is to place emphasis on salvation and redemption, not through God, but through a love that is founded on the sharing of pain\u201d (450). Can we be saved through each other? If God is the ultimate judge, do humans have the agency to save each other in a religious sense? I am not sure if Field meant for this to be taken quite literally. However, I am taking Jesus and Salvation for my second theo requirement right now so that could also be a reason why I am reading so deeply into this statement.  The purpose of this article is to address Baldwin\u2019s opposition to the church. However, I did not expect his interpretation of his use of religious language in his writing to be taboo. He states, \u201cIn Baldwin\u2019s later fiction, nakedness is holy, but the fear of judgment is replaced by the act of complete surrender to another lover. This authentic sexual love becomes itself an act of both revelation and of redemption\u201d (452). Baldwin\u2019s idea of a holy sort of love is what we would associate as traditionally taboo, which makes his work all the more thought provoking to me. Field is quick to acknowledge that Baldwin is not talking about sexual gratification, but more of a spiritual sexual love that is received by both people involved. I have seen If Beale Street Could Talk<\/em> and I think the movie captured this aspect of a spiritual love. I loved how the article ended by reiterating that \u201cLove, then aided and nurtured through gospel music, becomes the bedrock of Baldwin\u2019s new religion. Irrespective of class, gender or sexuality, love becomes, for Baldwin, a redemptive act\u201d (453). Further, \u201cLove, spiritual love, is the new religion. For it is \u2018love\u2019, Baldwin concludes, \u2018which is salvation.\u2019\u201d I think Baldwin\u2019s understanding of religion is digestible, coming from the perspective of someone who is a Baptist Christian and his philosophy makes a lot of sense to me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Douglas Field\u2019s Pentecostalism and All That Jazz: Tracing James Baldwin\u2019s Religion is probably one of my favorite articles that we\u2019ve read so far. I appreciated how this article made sense of Baldwin\u2019s understanding of religion and it allowed me to think about how growing up in the Baptist Church has affected my perspective of religion. … Continue reading Baldwin\u2019s Religion<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4684,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[49822,503965,471414,146],"class_list":["post-926","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-christianity","tag-go-tell-it-on-the-mountain","tag-native-son","tag-religion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/jamesbaldwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/926","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/jamesbaldwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/jamesbaldwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/jamesbaldwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4684"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/jamesbaldwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=926"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/jamesbaldwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/926\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":927,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/jamesbaldwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/926\/revisions\/927"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/jamesbaldwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/jamesbaldwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=926"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/jamesbaldwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}