Many argue that activism within black churches has declined (if not disappeared) since the days of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. But last month, on his birthday, a group of African American faith leaders called for Americans to “Occupy the Dream” with protests at Federal Reserve banks. If black churches are renewing their tradition of activism in this post-civil rights era, what are the most pressing issues for them to address?

To read the debate, go to the New York Times “Room for Debate”

When discussing religion, today it is quite common (perhaps cliché) to hear people say, “Well, I’m not religious, but I’m spiritual.” Even in churches it is not uncommon to hear something along the lines of, “I don’t believe in religion, but I believe in a relationship with God.” A favorite at the church of my youth was, “I’m not religious, but I love the Lord!” Numerous scholars and journalists have directed energies to analyzing this phenomenon. One of the more popular interpretations attributes the emphasis on personal spirituality to novelty in the contemporary historical moment. In this view, younger generations are seen to display an increasing skepticism towards organized religion, even as they embrace an ethic of personal choice in the face of a global cultural marketplace.

In contrast, others have persuasively linked this novel neoliberal spiritual impulse to a long tradition of religious liberalism. For instance, Leigh Schmidt has argued that liberalism, more generally, “was always as much a religious vision of emancipated souls as a political theory of individual rights… For religious liberals, unlike their secular cousins, a deepened and diversified spirituality was part of modernity’s promise.”

Alongside of the grand narrative of religious liberalism that has helped to produce the personal vision of spirituality so popular today, there is a vibrant tradition of African American cultural expression that has cultivated a similar concern with spirituality. In the poetry, prose, performances, visual culture and criticism that comprise this history, one can readily observe what might be called a grammar of spirit (i.e. spirit, spiritual, spirituality). That is, black artists and intellectuals—men and women, alike—have persistently engaged in spirit-talk…

To continue reading, go to: Frequencies

Although we are only about halfway into 2010, it has already been a year full of rich public conversations about religion in America. Much of the credit can be given to the emergence of several new blogs and web portals that direct concentrated attention to the topic. Indeed, there is much material to mine as we think about “The Future of Religion,” in general, and of The Black Church, in particular.

With regard to the latter, to restate a common theme this year, it must be acknowledged that such a conversation can move once and for all from the singular to the plural. There has always been a range of black churches, in terms of theology, polity, politics, aesthetics, etc. So it is also impossible to speak of any one future for the array of institutions lumped together under the rubric, “The Black Church.” That said, there are several things that should be considered in efforts to forecast the futures of black churches…

To continue reading, go to: Washington Post’s “On Faith”

Also, check out the series of essays from which the above was selected, at: Patheos

John Hope Franklin, Black Historian, Dies at 94 By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: March 25, 2009

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — John Hope Franklin, a revered Duke University historian and scholar of life in the South and the African-American experience in the United States, died Wednesday. He was 94.

Duke spokesman David Jarmul said Franklin died of congestive heart failure at the university’s hospital in Durham.

Born and raised in an all-black community in Oklahoma where he was often subjected to humiliating incidents of racism, he was later instrumental in bringing down the legal and historical validations of such a world.

As an author, his book ”From Slavery to Freedom” was a landmark integration of black history into American history. As a scholar, his research helped Thurgood Marshall win Brown v. Board of Education, the 1954 case that outlawed the doctrine of ”separate but equal” in the nation’s public schools.

”It was evident how much the lawyers appreciated what the historians could offer,” Franklin later wrote. ”For me, and I suspect the same was true for the others, it was exhilarating.”

Franklin broke numerous color barriers. He was the first black department chair at a predominantly white institution, Brooklyn College; the first black professor to hold an endowed chair at Duke University; and the first black president of the American Historical Association.

to continue reading go to: New York Times.com

As we near the end of the first Black History Month in age of the first black president, I want to quickly share with everyone the arrival of an important and timely book:  Watch This: The Ethics and Aesthetics of Black Televangelism, by Jonathan L. Walton.

In case you didn’t already know, President Obama’s road to the White House revealed most clearly that African American religion continues to occupy a most pivotal place in the American cultural imagination.  Moreover, his dramatic falling out with Jeremiah Wright (I know, this conversation is already exhausted) confirmed that the common assertion of the United States as a Christian nation is a claim in need of further clarification.  While African Americans have long inserted themselves into the Christian story, the Obama-Wright show served to illustrate that not all forms of American Christianity (really, protestantisms) achieve equally footing in the public culture of the U.S.

Jonathan Walton’s “Watch This” provides a compelling a critical account of the varieties of black Christianity that now dominate airwaves both in the U.S. and around the globe.  I’ve had the privilege of dialoging with the author as the project moved from dissertation to book, and I know him to wield one the sharpest and most insightful interpretations of African American religion, in particular, and religion and culture in America, more broadly.  While I’ve just started to get into the book myself, I am confident that anyone who picks it up will learn something new about religion and race in America.

Kudos, Congratulations, and Thank you, Jonathan!

What follows is the beginning of his discussion of the book on the website ReligionDispatches:

 Ten Questions for Jonathan Walton on Watch This! The Ethics and Aesthetics of Black Televangelism

What inspired you to write Watch This?

My interest in African American religious broadcasting came from what I perceived to be the gaps in the fields of African American religion and Religion, Media and Culture. For the most part, scholars of African American religion in general and black theology in particular theorize about Afro-Protestantism in America according to a particular historiography that privileges liberal Protestantism in general, and civil rights motifs in particular. But the prevailing narrative of the freedom fighting “black church” is in many ways inconsistent with a number of African American Christians whose view of the faith is informed by Trinity Broadcasting, the Word Network, and Streaming Faith.com. Just the same, for sociologists and communication theorists who have examined the world of evangelical religious broadcasting, it is predominantly framed as the domain of the white, Religious Right.

This book, then, is my attempt to illumine, unpack and interrogate the theological and social orientations of prominent black religious broadcasters in order to understand them as a source of attraction and ethically evaluate their dominant messages…

To continue reading go to ReligionDispatches.org.

To purchase book, go to www.nyupress.com

It has been exactly one year since I made my last blog entry – can I still really call myself a blogger?  Anyway, 2009 was quite an eventful year for me both professionally and personally.  With regards to the latter, I entered the land of parenthood as my wife and I welcomed our son into the world in January.  As for the former, less than six months later I walked across the commencement stage at Harvard with the university’s first class of Ph.D.s in African American Studies (and thousands of other graduates as well).

As both a black father and a recently-minted Ph.D. in African American Studies there was perhaps no more intriguing event in 2009 than the historic election of Barack Obama.  Personal background aside, Obama’s rise to the presidency was arguably the biggest headline around the world, rivaled only by the economic collapse that serves as the background to this week’s festivities, around the world.  So much has been written about Obama that I’ve been reluctant to weigh in -  Seriously, what more can be said!  As a good friend, and colleague in the study of religion, recently bemoaned, “Since when did Obama become the arbiter of the black religious experience?”  Moreover, given the culture of celebrity and the fascination with the entire Obama family (we love you Michelle, Sasha and Malia!), they have also become the poster image for the African American family.  Want to know about black love, black parenting, etc – there’s sure to be scores of articles available on each topic that begin with an Obama invocation.

Despite being overwhelmed by Obama-mania (how quick does it take to become an empty signifier?), I’d be lying if I did not admit that I too will be celebrating this Tuesday, or acknowledge how often I’ve considered the question, as a new parent, of what it will mean for my son’s first memories of the White House will be occupied by images of a black family.  As a scholar of African American religion, there is still much that can be said of the subtle ways that Obama appealed to, but also superceded, black church traditions in his campaign.  And, as a historian I still wonder, given the current academic interest in re-thinking Black Power, what it will mean that the man who heads the United States—the last super power—is African American.  Can American imperialism also be a form of black power?

Anyway, at this point I will leave these preliminary thoughts as they are, as simply questions. But I do want to direct attention to one article that I recently read that stood out for me in the sea of stories on Obama, blackness, and the so-called “post-racial” era. Hua Hsu, a colleague and friend of mine from Harvard, who teaches at Vassar College and also happens to be formidable behind the turntables, recently examined what the Obama phenomenon says about the current state of whiteness in America.  The header to his article reads as follows:

“The Election of Barack Obama is just the most startling manifestation of a larger trend: the gradual erosion of “whiteness” as the touchstone of what it means to be American. If the end of white America is a cultural and demographic inevitability, what will the new mainstream look like—and how will white Americans fit into it? What will it mean to be white when whiteness is no longer the norm? And will a post-white America be less racially divided—or more so?”

To read the entire essay, click on the following link to The Atlantic on-line.

This excellent piece is certainly worth reading in its entirety.  Perhaps you’ll turn to it after coming down from the inauguration high, as we celebrate this historic moment and consider the continued promises of American democracy.  Then all of us who live our lives in the many worlds between black and white will begin the difficult work of figuring out what the Obama era will truly offer.  In the meantime, for now I will return to singing “We Shall be Free” with my wife and son, along with Garth Brooks, Shakira, Stevie Wonder and the rest of the pre-inauguration party cast.  GOBAMA!

Good Afternoon and a Merry Christmas to you all:

Yes, I am aware of the obvious contradictions (I prefer the term “complexities”) of sending out a blog that introduces a new work on one of the foremost radicals in the black intellectual tradition – Frantz Fanon – on this day, which has become perhaps the central religious symbol of the high holidays of American capitalist consumption. But, alas, this is the conundrum of being a New World Negro Scholar…

For a number of reasons, I am sending this out in this moment:

First (the selfish reason), I am in the process of sorting through a dissertation chapter on the Black Arts Movement and it is impossible to examine the various iterations of Black Power, in politics and culture, without taking seriously the import of Fanon’s thinking on this generation. I’m thinking about Fanon, so here you go…

Second (perhaps less selfish), in the spirit of giving I wanted to support the work of a good friend of mine, Vivaldi Jean-Marie, who I was privileged to meet at the beginning of 2007, while we were both teaching at Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn.

Val is a sharp brother trained in the continental tradition – in fact, he was the first person of African descent to finish the New School’s PhD program in Philosophy in over twenty years – who I have had the opportunity to break bread with on topics ranging from the unique opportunities of teaching at an HBCU, the challenges of balancing personal commitments and professional aspirations, the joys and anxieties of entering fatherhood (both of our wives are due to give birth in January), and how to find a great sale on high end jeans (the only way most of us in the Academy can afford them)… I digress.

Anyway, it gives me great pleasure to introduce Val to you all and to celebrate the publication of his first book. By the way, he has already finished the manuscript for his second book- a revision of his dissertation on Hegel and Kierkegaard.

What follows is more formal intro provided by Val himself and a link to where you can find his book.

A Peaceful Holiday season to you all!

Respect, Josef

Vivaldi Jean-Marie received his Ph.D. in Philosophy from the New School for Social Research in New York City. He is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn, NY. Fanon: Collective Ethics and Humanism is his first book and focuses on Frantz Fanon’s final book Wretched of the Earth. Dr. Jean-Marie’s research project is to reflect on the ethical experiences of the people of Africa and the African Diaspora. The key question is: What is the good life for the people of Africa and the African Diaspora in the Post-Colonial period? This fundamental question was raised by Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics, which attempts to formulate the Ethos of the happy life for Westerners, but it has not been raised for the people of Africa and the African Diaspora. Fanon:Collective Ethics and Humanism is his first attempt to address this question from a social, cultural, and political perspective.

You can purchase the book on Amazon or at Peter Lang.