In my opinion, one of the most moving and important writers or voices of the 20th century was James Baldwin. I first read his book, The Fire Next Time in 2016 and it has left a mark on me that I have yet, and never want to, be rid of. Baldwin was a playwright, essayist, civil rights activist, author, and speaker who was born in Harlem, and died in France. Often Baldwin wrote and spoke on injustice, and had spoken how his activism clashed with his sexuality, and spent some of his later writings before his death covered homosexuality and homophobia in very frank ways. In his book The Fire Next Time, Baldwin reflects autobiographically on the civil rights, and other interactions between whites and people of color. I have picked out three quotes that rings as true today for people, places of worship, and society, as the day he wrote them. While not all may be true of Trinity, there are some areas that may be true in our own lives, so as you read, ask yourself, what parts do I need to work on in order to see through the tears of injustice, and embrace this life of advocating for the world we want to live in:
“But I had been in the pulpit too long and I had seen too many monstrous things. I don’t refer merely to the glaring fact that the minster eventually acquires houses and Cadillacs while the faithful continue to scrub floors and drop their dimes and quarters and dollars into the plate. I really mean that there was no love in the church. It was a mask for hatred and self-hatred and despair. The transfiguring power of the Holy Ghost ended when the service ended, and salvation stopped at the church door. When we were told to love everybody, I thought that that meant everybody.” pg. 39,40
“When a white man faces a black man, especially if the black man is helpless, terrible things are revealed. I know. I have been carried into precinct basements often enough, and I have seen and heard and endured the secrets of desperate white men and women, which they knew were safe with me, because even if I should speak, no one would believe me. And they would not believe me precisely because they would know that what I said was true.” Pg. 53,54
“Behind what we think of as the Russian menace lies what we do not wish to face, and what white Americans do not face when they regard a Negro: reality-the fact that life is tragic. Life is tragic simply because the earth turns and the sun inexorably rises and sets, and one day, for each of us, the sun will go down for the last, last time. Perhaps the whole root of our trouble, the human trouble, is that we will sacrifice all the beautify of our ives, will imprison ourselves in totems, taboos, crosses, blood sacrifices, steeples, mosques, races, armies, flags, nations, in order to deny the fact that death, which is the only fact we have. It seems to me that one ought to rejoice in the fact of death- out to decide, indeed, to earn one’s death by confronting with passion the conundrum of life.” Pg. 91,92
You can purchase The Fire Next Time here.
Grace and peace,
George Benson (he/him)