Black female writers' perspective on religion: Alice Walker and Calixthe Beyala

Journal of Third World Studies, Spring 2002 by Mainimo, Wirba Ibrahim

Black male writers in Africa and the Diaspora have equally explored religious issues in their literary works. Writers as varied as Countee Cullen, James Baldwin and J. P. Clark, for instance, have posited a typical black male vision of religious issues. The Harlem Renaissance poet, Countee Cullen's religious verse only began by struggling against Christianity and ended by singing of the lack of fulfillment in Christianity. According to Alan R. Shucard, "It is not difficult to find in Cullen an intense religious disdain" with evidence of an "inability to attain Christian faith".6 Citing Helen Dinga, he asserts that "Cullen protests against a God who seems to be identified with the white race... He accuses God of being deaf to `our plaints' and implies that God had lost the Negro race".7 This view comes up very powerfully in Cullen's collection of poems entitled Color, specifically in his poem "Pagan Prayer":

Our Father, God; our Brother, Christ/Or are we bastard kin,/That to our plaints your ears are closed/Your doors barred from within?/Our father, God; our Brother, Christ/Retrieve my race again/So shall you compass this black sheep/This pagan heart. Amen.8

Cullen's indictment (and even refusal) of God for His supposed validation of racism in America is a continuation, and an extension, of the heritage of the slave narrative. It was typical of slave autobiographers to satirize American religious institutions for their continued support of the enslavement of the black race in America. The most famous of slave narrators, Frederick Douglass, has repeatedly indicted American Christianity for its double standards and hypocrisy in the face of slavery.9 Many other slave narrators have equally shown how the practice of slavery in America depended much on religious institutions for its survival (as well as for its ultimate demise).

James Baldwin has critically focused on religion in almost all of his works. Brought up in a profoundly Christian household, Baldwin's radical rebellion against the church became evident with his publication of The Amen Corner, a play that centers uniquely on the black church. The novelty of his own approach to religious issues lies in the weighted attacks on the black church which crop up in this work. The play centers around a congregation of "Sisters" and "Brothers" led by a female preacher, Sister Margaret. Baldwin paints a very negative picture of a black congregation-its members are sex-starved, jealous, and cruel. According to Carolyn Wedin Sylvander, "this unbalanced view of the church is the greatest weakness in the play. A realistic treatment of any church would likely find at least as much virtue or kindness or love or fellowship there as in other human institutions".10 This constitutes an unfair criticism of the play, given that Baldwin's tone in it is openly autobiographical, and hence merely a dramatic representation of his life experiences. The play merely falls within the tradition of black male rebellion against the church and all that the church stands for.