Book skims over traditions of Canada’s black church

Book skims over traditions of Canada’s black church

By GEORGE ELLIOTT CLARKE

I DEDICATE THIS COLUMN to the memory of my late great-uncle, Dr. Lorne White, who was an impeccable gentleman, an exquisite singer and a persuaded Christian in the tradition of his father, the Rev. William Andrew White, one of the powers behind the early 20th century African United Baptist Association of Nova Scotia.

Great-uncle Lorne passed away last month. His release from this world reminds me sharply of our mortality, but also of the history of Black Nova Scotian (Africadian) Christianity and its roots in the African-American religious experience.

A new book that canvasses this U.S. history (with references to the AUBANS) is Black Church Studies: An Introduction (Abingdon Press, P.O. Box 801, 201 Eighth Avenue South, Nashville, TN, 37202-0801, USA).

Academic co-authors Stacey Floyd-Thomas, Juan Floyd-Thomas, Stephen G. Ray Jr., Nancy Lynn Westfield, and, the sole Canadian, Carol B. Duncan (of Wilfrid Laurier University) consider exhaustively every major characteristic of "the only coherent (black) institutional area to emerge from slavery," says Lawrence H. Mamiya

In his foreword, Mamiya holds that the black church "still carries burdens and performs functions far beyond its spiritual ones" and remains "the only institution where Black people feel ownership when they speak of ‘my pastor, my church.’ "

The authors of Black Church Studies examine six aspects of the once "invisible institution" (so-called because, under slavery, blacks could not worship spontaneously and freely, but had to express their faith — and its liberatory principles — secretly): black biblical studies, black theology, black church history, black philosophy, black ministry studies and black preaching.

The scholars note that Black Church Studies emerged in the 1970s "with teaching, scholarship, and ministerial praxis focused on developing the worship life, ecclesiastical practice, and theological understanding of African American churches."

Their interest is in interpreting the function of "the Black Church in the history of modern Christendom" and the culturally specific predilections of its congregations, including "resistance … to the separation of theory and practice … (a perspective ) most often encapsulated in the dictum, ‘will it preach?’ "

Rejecting the idea that black Christianity is only "a black patina on a white happening" (to cite C. Eric Lincoln), these theologians view it as a "tradition" (not merely an "institution") concerned with the necessity and the possibility for "liberation."

Indeed, they view the African-heritage Church as having arisen to equip "the people to survive the ravages of oppression." It is also, the authors believe, the creation of black people who "realized and claimed themselves to be children of God in spite of the virulent persistence of white supremacy."

It is also partly African, incorporating such ancestral faith practices as "spirit possession, river baptisms (total immersion), the ring shout, call-and-response, conjuring practices, and cross-cultural identification of African divine spirits with Roman Catholic saints in African-derived religious traditions such as Santeria from Cuba and Vodoun from Haiti."

Nor can one omit the central, bodily role of music, sing, rhythm, and oratorical prowess.

If there is a patron saint of black Christianity, he is none other than Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. King is quoted numerously, and held up as a role-model Bible-scholar-as-citizen-rebel.

For these theologians, the best black Christian is one who protests wrong and who struggles for redemption / liberation. They name the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright (then of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago) as a contemporary social-gospel proponent. It is ironic, indeed, that Wright has lately been an election issue in the U.S.

Black Church Studies is illuminating, richly detailed, and passionately written, but it does feel — at times — like a too-long sermon. Too, though the AUBANS gets mentioned, the working assumption here is that black Christians are American.

Finally, as vital as the African-American theologians are, I would have loved to have heard a discussion of Africadia’s own Father Richard Preston and Dr. Pearleen Oliver.

George Elliott Clarke, a Nova Scotian-born author and poet, teaches literature at the University of Toronto. In 2001, he won the Governor General’s Award for poetry.

© 2008 The Halifax Herald Limited