Dispatches from the religious left

by Frederick Clarkson

  Hearing people call me Reverend often sent a chill up my spine, because most days I no longer believed in god. New Orleans had broken something in me. The images of folks stranded on rooftops and packed in the Superdome are the lenses through which I still look for god and for the promise of democracy in America. New Orleans is a phenomenon. It is the birthplace of jazz-America's first original art form-as well as being an extraordinary mix of cultures, reflected in the city's food, architecture, skin tones, and social life. Yet it is also the site of this country's greatest disaster (both natural and human-made). The birthplace of jazz is now the death bed of democracy.

  As I walked through the elegantly dressed streets of Old Algiers Point, I was amused by gawking small children in their strollers. Eventually, I would arrive at the west bank ferry dock, sitting down and smoking my pipe while gazing out at the muddy waters of the Mississippi. A few minutes later, boarding the ferry for the magical ride across the river, I would notice that my fellow ferry travelers were an eclectic mix of artists, anarchists, immigrants and exiles. I was struck most by those who wore maid and maintenance uni- forms.lhese men and women spoke with a unique musicality.' heir term of endearment for one another-"baby"-was elongated and tuned in a minor key that would have made Louis Armstrong smile. But I cried. I cried everyday because their misery was tangible.

  Upon arriving on the east bank, the ferry would dock at the edge of downtown, near the hotels and casinos. My fellow passengers were headed to what author Douglas Coupland called "McJobs"-low wage, low prestige, non-benefited work. In a city whose economy centers on tourism, there is only one union hotel. I would then board a street car to our offices.

  The unwritten part of my job description often called for me to conduct "devastation" tours for academics and activists who were visiting the city. They always requested to go to the ground zero of the greatest man made disaster in this nation's history-the Lower Ninth Ward. For miles, homes were torn from their foundations, democracy cracked to its core. One was overcome with a deep sense of sadness. Silence filled the air. Hope choked. As our minivan crawled through the devastation, we would see the tour buses gawking at the misery of the poor of New Orleans.

  I would always point out to those with me that some of the houses were signed with an odd signature. It was not the infamous X with codes in each quadrant to signify the name of the unit that had searched the residence, its location, date of inspection, and the number of dead (humans and animals) inside. Instead, these houses simply read, "Baghdad." "Baghdad on the bayou,"I thought, aloud.

  On one tour, we crossed back over the St. Cloud Street Bridge and saw a National Guard Humvee in the parking lot of a McDonald's. Moments later, several Guardsmen emerged-machine guns in hand-escorting two Black teenagers out in handcuffs. I later learned that National Guard personnel retain their weapons during their different deployments, and that most of the Guard troops in New Orleans had been redeployed from Iraq. As a result, the same guns that were used to "establish democracy" in Iraq were being used by members of the National Guard to secure the city of New Orleans.

  IMPERIAL GOD

  I spent a lot of time alone, looking for a way out of my crisis of faith. Where was my god in the midst of all this misery? I turned on the television and watched a lot of cable news. There was a god there, but it was one that I did not know. From divining the war in Iraq to Jerry Farewell's proclamation that Katrina was god's wrath visited upon America for its tolerance of gays and other "deviant" behavior, this god had been strategically employed by the powerful to divide the electorate and impose restrictions on democratic opportunity. This god maintained a hegemony over our public discourse; a supreme being that was synonymous with empire and its economy-an imperial god. Consider that for some years one has been able to interchange the words "Christian," "conservative," "religious," "right," and "Republican" in one sentence without necessarily changing the meaning of the sentence. A lexicon shift of this magnitude is an indication of profound meaning-making power. The god I was seeing on television was the chief force driving the constriction of democratic opportunity in the U.S. and the taking of democracy's name in vain abroad.

  After six months in New Orleans in the face of the astounding misery that confronted so many there, and a twenty-four hour electronic barrage from the imperial god, I had to ask myself: "How can you believe in god?" A god that launched a pre-emptive war and punished the most vulnerable was a god I wanted no part of. A religion that defended the powerful over the powerless was not my religion.

  NEO-LIBERAL GOD

  In light of my personal crisis of faith and the global exploitation of religion, I have come to believe that nothing less than an epistemic break on the magnitude of the founding of Christianity and the depth of the Protestant Reformation will save our democracy. What has emerged over the last two decades is not a break, but a theological capitulation to the neo-liberal economy by religious and non-religious folks alike.

  For most, religion is a meaning-making activity. We humans use it to situate ourselves within a broader context in the face of dread, death, and despair because it offers us an eternal story when we are comforted with a finite reality. Given that the critical victory of the Right has been existential rather than political, any countervailing project must highlight the existential. This intervention is critical to our understanding the way in which we derive meaning. To achieve such an aim, we must-as Cornel West often notes-take an on tological risk that will lead to existential vertigo. What is at stake is how we make meaning for ourselves within the dual languages of religion and democracy. This must therefore be a central part of the task of re-visioning a Religious Left. And it will require great theological, spiritual, and political courage on our part.

  Unfortunately, what has been taken by many to be an adequate popular countervailing religious argument is not up to the meaning-making task that is at hand. However, it does let us glimpse what we might call the neo-liberal god. By the neo-liberal god, I am referring to a religious movement in contemporary politics that has absorbed as its own the framework and policies of neo-liberalism. In the same manner in which the religious right has sanctified the imperial aims of the Bush Administration, neo-liberal religious leaders have adopted the policy stances that bless neo-liberal political policies, which includes free trade, welfare reform, personal responsibility, and privatization of social services. These policies born out of the neoliberal discourse provide the "talking" points for many religious leaders on the left.

  The most popular books written by an ostensibly liberal religious leader are God's Politics and The GreatAwakening. Both books attack the supposed lack of religious sensibility on the political left and the religious right's monopoly on god-talk in the marketplace. Both have reached the New York Times Bestseller list, and the books' author, Jim Wallis, speaks to sold-out audiences around the country. Despite his popularity, Wallis and his Sojourners/Call to Renewal organization do not engage or take seriously the discourse of those it claims to serve-i.e. the poor-a discourse which is best embodied by the radical tradition of African-American religion. Wallis' inability to claim the radical politics of the prophetic tradition serves to undermine the stated mission of his work, thereby limiting his capacity to articulate the development of an authentic Religious Left. Indeed, Wallis publicly argues against the organization of a Religious Left, arguing instead for a "moral center." While supporting a neo-liberal politic, Wallis often makes simplistic references to the prophetic tradition of the Black church-which reshaped the meaning of democracy by including those who had been historically "othered." Unfortunately, Wallis does not actually listen to this tradition.

  Equally, his frequent claim that the Religious Right is dead is not only incorrect-it is dangerous. The Religious Right has defined two of the most fundamental activities of meaning making in human ecology-religion and politics. They have set the terms of the discourse in which all political discourse currently responds. We are unable to experience a radica
l break from this frame because the neo-liberal project merely changes the words, not the language. While God's Politics devotes a lot of space to teaching the Democratic Party how to be better at courting religious voters, placing religion in the service of a political party is inappropriate, if not idolatrous. Wallis is concerned with developing new religious forces and claiming the mantle of promoting social justice. But how can he do this while largely ignoring one of the richest histories of social justice in the history of our nation-the Black church? I would go so far as to say that his misguided, unfair and divisive critique of the left serves not the poor and the greater good, but instead unintentionally enables the right and its efforts to roll back the gains of the Civil Rights Movement and a century of social progress.

  Despite this, Wallis has rightly identified that the younger generation hungers for social justice and spirituality. And, the success of his books may be fairly attributed to a widespread hunger for an alternative vision of religion and its role in politics.

  This is the point at which I think we engage the possibility of a shift of such magnitude that an authentic Religious Left may find its heart, its head, its spirit and its voice. This is where I believe we have to go deeper, in order to set aside these essentially neoliberal tracts that smooth over the rough edges, but don't fundamentally challenge the neoliberal god, which emphasized charity over justice in New Orleans; the god whose blue light flickers in the windows of the American night. And this is where we have to take a profound ontological risk, and confront our spiritual hunger, a hunger which requires us to reject the neoliberal god that gave us the devastation of New Orleans.

  The hope for an authentic Religious Left that can salvage our democracy lies in the genius and remarkable theological sophistication of African-American slaves. I believe their wisdom can serve as a guiding light to see us through the contemporary debates about religion and democracy. To begin among the poor and forgotten is both prophetic and revolutionary.

  This essay is born out of my efforts to emerge from a personal crisis of faith, a crisis I saw reflected around me in the devastation of the Ninth Ward and the seeming nonchalance of much of our largely ineffectual response. I found my own way out via the community which birthed me. There I found what I pray others will find as well-the course for the healing of democracy. History bears witness that the prophetic African American religious tradition that led me out of my despair also offers hope and possibility for the nation. We stand in the river of a great tradition whose flow can carry us to greater outpourings of social justice.

  This essay makes two essentialist claims. First, that the black theological project is left-of-center. It begins, historically, with the humanity of black people inside the American empire, and the worship of the prophetic god, which is a left of center claim. Secondly, that the African-American religious tradition has always read the biblical narrative in close proximity to the nation's founding documents-the Constitution and Declaration of Independence. These two streams that flow through our history and inform our contemporary discourse pose two fundamental questions: How have those who have been denied meaning made meaning of god and democ racy? And, what can they teach us about our contemporary crisis?

  My answers to these questions necessarily begins with my story, and how I joined in the prophetic tradition of the African American church.

  THE GOD OF MY GRANDPARENTS

  If Jesus is the author of my faith, then my grandparents were the editors. In rural Arkansas, I was raised in the ways of a Victorian, southern black woman who loved Jesus and justice. My grandmother, a proud Baptist, rescued me as a six-month-old from a fate that may have been too terrible to tell. A King James Bible and encyclopedias were my first gifts of memory. Later, my grandmother's admonishments, shaped by her god, posited existential gems that pointed to the measure of one's humanity: "You must never look down on people."

  My grandfather, Reverend James Thomas, was a railroad worker and retired Pentecostal pastor. He possessed a third-grade education and yet was also possessed by a thirst for knowledge. He especially delighted in tidbits of black history that he had gleaned from folklore. The Bible was the book that he sought to master, and his greatest desire for me was that I also master that text in the struggle for justice. My grandfather may have only had a thirdgrade education, but he articulated a vision of the world that was profound.

  The most magical memory I have of my granddaddy "rightly dividing the word" was on a Friday evening, after the only factory in our town had closed. With the community's economic vitality in question, granddaddy, black and burly, broad-nosed and big-lipped, stood at the sacred desk, looking out upon the sea of black and nearly broken faces. He "took" a text, as the congregation stood, the custom during the reading of scripture. Slowly and deliberately, he solicited, "If you will turn with me in your "Biiible..."-stretch- ing the word to stress its significance-"to the gospel of John, the eleventh chapter and the thirty-fifth verse. When you find it, why don't you say, Amen.""

  "Amen," they responded, with great anticipation on their lips and even greater trepidation in their hearts. My granddaddy then whispered, in a tear-soaked voice, "And it simply, reads `Jesus wept."' Then, in the presence of a voiceless people, he made the book "talk," retelling the familiar story of Lazarus, where Jesus pleaded with his god to raise Lazarus so that others might believe. For over an hour, my granddaddy reminded a people that had been historically alienated, and were now demoralized and insecure, that they were the ones whom Jesus loved. Seamlessly blending Jesus' people's plight with the African-American struggle for freedom, my granddaddy's love for his people and the Bible merged in a way that was life affirming, and which rendered a hopeless town hopeful.

  The signs, symbols, songs, and stories bequeathed to me in rural Arkansas resonated with powerful notions of justice for the poor, democracy for all, and god's desire for human freedom. Folks who were just two-and-a-half generations from slavery and functionally illiterate taught me the profundity of democracy and religion. Among them was Mrs. Roberta. On documents that required her signature, Mrs. Roberta made her mark-an X-because she could not write her name. "Come here and read to me, boy," she would command with her hands on her walking cane and royalty in her voice. "Come here, boy, and read to me about our people."I obliged, with reverence.

  In the singing, prayers, testimony, and other liturgical expressions of my youthful worshipping community, Jesus was hope in hopeless circumstances. Set against the darkness, Jesus and his god were the light. In the midst of what W.E.B DuBois termed the "frenzy," they shouted Jesus is "a bright and morning star," "water in dry places," "the lily of the valley," "the rose of Sharon," "a friend to the friendless," "a rock in a weary land," "a lawyer in the court," "a doctor in the sickroom," and a whole host of phrases that formed the essence of their belief in and about the divine and their situation, which began with an assumption of their worth and redemption. They knew that the darkness would not have the last word because god was with them. My grandfather's hopes, my grandmother's vision, and Mrs. Roberta's desires all flowed from a peculiar conception of god and democracy.

  Called upon during the terrible night of slavery, the prophetic god told them to "tell of Pharaoh to let my people go."Their unsupervised and at times contested gatherings were a counter-hegemonic practice in and of itself. A people who had been historically denied access to the broader democratic project, and ultimately their humanity, affirmed their beauty, intelligence, and capacity while praying and working out their spiritual salvation and social freedom:

  We used to slip off in the de woods in de old slave days on Sunday evening way down in de swamps to sing and pray to our own liking. We prayed for dis day of freedom. We come from four and five miles away to pray together to God dat if we don't live to see it, do please let our chil- lun live to see a better day and be free, so dat dey can give honest and fair service to de Lord and all mankind everywhere.

  The slaves did not leave a dense theological treatise
to articulate their notions of power and freedom, because it was a criminal act for slaves to learn how to read. Thus, the permissible activity of singing was their first theological text. Ex-slave Vinnie Brunson recalled, "Dey sing `bout de joys in de nex' world an de trouble in dis. Dey first jes sung de `ligious songs, den dey commenced to sing `bout de life here an w'en dey sang of bof' dey called dem de `Spirituals."'

  Reflecting death, misery, suffering, judgment, sadness, and hope, the spirituals served to articulate their situation and offer a sense of hope beyond their tragic circumstances. Oft times, the spirituals had dual meanings:

  Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,

  Coming fo'to carry me home.

  Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,

  Coming fo'to carry me home.

  Well, I looked over Jordan and what did I see,

  Coming fo'to carry me home?

  A band of angels coming after me,

  Coming fo'to carry me home

  Lyrically, this song is a telling of the story of the prophetic god's entering into human history to take a faithful servant to paradise for reward, and an eschatological hope beyond the misery of the plantation. However, it was also sung as a signal that the Underground Railroad was near and that those who desired the reward of freedom on this side of the Jordan should get on board. And unlike the slave master's imperial god, their god deemed them worthy.

  With this in mind, a number of African-American religious individuals, institutions, and organizations worked to end the vicious system of slavery and expand democratic opportunity for themselves and their fellow citizens. A former slave named Isabelle Baumfree believed that that god changed her name to Sojourner Truth so that she could go about preaching the good news of freedom: