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Winter
Books Faith with a liberating edge
CANAAN LAND: A
RELIGIOUS HISTORY OF AFRICAN AMERICANS By Albert J.
Raboteau Oxford University Press, 151 pages, $9.95
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LAY MY BURDEN DOWN:
UNRAVELING SUICIDE AND THE MENTAL HEALTH CRISIS AMONG AFRICAN
AMERICANS By Alvin J. Poussaint and Amy Alexander Beacon Press,
194 pages, $25 |
REVIEWED By DIANA L.
HAYES
Albert Raboteau, author of Canaan Land, has been in the
forefront of scholars seeking to recover the religious history of
African-Americans. Starting with his groundbreaking work, Slave
Religion, he has revealed the richness and variety of that history and its
connections to African religions. His works serve as a needed historical
foundation for black liberation theology as they highlight the two-century
quest for freedom that so often centered in African-American churches.
In Lay My Burden Down, psychologist Alvin Poussaint and
sociologist Amy Alexander see black religion and the black church less
positively. Raboteaus work has been of special significance in revealing
the religious experience of African-American Catholics, a group often
overlooked by other religious scholars, and Canaan Land is an excellent
introductory text for high school through graduate school courses in American
religion, African-American religion and black theology.
The book begins, as it must, in Africa with the beginnings of the
slave trade in 1502. It continues to the present day, showing the significance
of the independent African church movement, slave religion (or the
invisible institution as it was known) and the role of black
Christians, Protestant and Catholic, in developing and supporting the black
community. It reveals how Africans contributed not only their labor, but also
their culture, music, dance, language, art and religion to the multiracial and
multicultural societies that constituted what became the new worlds
of the Americas.
The last chapter, Black Faith: Continuity Within
Change is particularly significant as Raboteau attempts to reveal in
greater depth the role that the black church -- which he defines as broader
than the historically black Protestant churches -- has played and continues to
play as both a source of stability and as a vehicle of change. He
recognizes, however, the fragmenting of the black community. This happened as
blacks went through the aftermath of the civil rights movement and what can be
called a second reconstruction effort on the part of dominant society, all too
often aided and abetted by African-Americans themselves. Thus, the church is
still instrumental in helping blacks with todays societal shifts but is
also finding itself at a loss in attempting to deal with the challenges of
today.
In a parallel examination of the black community, Poussaint and
Alexander present a somewhat less positive perspective. Lay My Burden
Down is not a study of religious history but of the psychological and
sociological impact of race and its accompanying ills in American society
today. They look at the apparent disintegration of the black community and its
inhabitants decreasing ability to withstand economic and other factors
that continue to traumatize their community. They raise the question of why
there is a growing number of African-American suicides, especially among young
males. In their search, the authors raise the issue of black-on-black violence
and suicide by cop as possible further evidence of blacks
growing inability to withstand contemporary pressures. And these investigators
ask why.
They note that with upward progress has come declining
levels of religious belief. Historically, because of their orthodox
religious beliefs and personal devotion, the black community rejected suicide
and other self-destructive behaviors. Seeing someone about ones problems
was and still is frowned upon as a sign of weakness. This raises a critical
challenge for black theologians and the black church: How do we teach of the
goodness and righteousness of a God of justice to those who no longer are being
raised in the black religious traditions or who no longer see God and Jesus
Christ as the answer to their every need? How do we help our young men and
women to see faith as a strength and not as a weakness while also helping them
deal with the realities of todays more secular and individualistic world?
How do we reinterpret our Christian faith for the challenges of today so that
those mired in deep despair in our neglected inner cities and rural areas
especially but also in the growing black suburbs can find healing and
solace?
Raboteau shows what the black church has done historically to help
the black community survive and thrive, but Poussaint and Alexander call for
the need to recognize other, more secular sources as well. Both books, albeit
radically different in many ways, complement each other, for they show how a
people of faith were able to survive against overwhelming odds, and what
happens when that faith becomes complacent, loses its liberating edge, and thus
fails its people. We must look at what we are teaching in the church and ask
whether it helps or hinders us today.
Stoicism and acceptance of suffering helped blacks in the past,
but these attitudes are self-destructive in todays world. Poussaint and
Alexander raise an alarm directed to everyone in the black community, calling
us to reclaim our histories and to rebuild our communities by providing a
reason to believe in the possibility of a better tomorrow that will overcome
the bitterness of today. Raboteau reveals the historical source of that belief
and gives us a foundation for retapping the strength and courage of black
Americans and rebuilding those communities.
Diana Hayes is assistant professor of theology at Georgetown
University, Washington.
National Catholic Reporter, October 26,
2001
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