Abstract
As a part of Peter Paris’ ‘Religion, Race, and Ethnicity’ book series, The Divided Mind of the Black Church applies the DuBois’ concept of ‘double consciousness’ to predominantly African American churches in the early twenty-first century as the survival of its sacred heritage clashes with pressure to assimilate with non-progressive and apolitical popular ecclesiastical culture. Throughout the book, the author emphasizes that the ‘Black Church’ has a sense of urgency to remain true to the foundation of its original purpose for its existence as an institution with freedom and social justice as an essential part of its collective mission.
The emergence of the ‘invisible institution’, the independent black church movement, and the civil rights movement provide collective evidence that Black Christians have received a faith, culture, and ideology contrary to what they were given. Although, the author refers to Christianity in the U.S., the same concept applies to the African Diaspora with their unique resistance and liberation movements. ‘The black church was born fighting for freedom.’ (p. 13). Just as the same fight for freedom still exists in the twenty-first century but with different challenges and dynamics, Warnock seeks to expose how an aspect of the Black church has acquired openly expressing high regards for ‘petty moralism’ functions as a means for diverting the ecclesiastical narrative away from the quest for freedom from bondage. The Divided Mind of the Black Church responds to the persistence of African American preachers who have contributed to the creation of a church culture that has ‘embraced a distorted theology of personal prosperity that is disengaged from the needs of the poor who are often surrounding the church and is disconnected from any theological vision of communal liberation’ (p. 152).
The book’s title suggests at the rather great challenge that scholars and clergy alike face in terms of adequately addressing the disconnect between black theology and the black church. However, the author does acknowledge that womanist theological understandings which have been formally introduced into the academy roughly during the mid to late 1980s have provided exposure to the long tradition of the Black church as devoid of a theology that captures the essence of its heritage. Warnock boldly addresses the issues that hegemonic pressure reigns supreme in terms of producing a culture which seeks to evade an honest conversation about race, or religious and theological plurality, which collectively remains misunderstood by, not only a strong numerical majority of Americans but also the Black church as its ecclesial constituency.