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ABSTRACT
Through an examination of The Amen Corner and Just Above My Head, this essay explores James Baldwin’s disidentification with Christian conversion. According to queer theorist José Esteban Muñoz, to disidentify with an object is not to embrace (identify) or reject (counteridentify) a phenomenon, but it is a “working on, with, and against a cultural form.” In The Amen Corner Baldwin, to borrow the language of Muñoz, “transfigures” conversion from signifying the entry of a new convert into a life of faith, to reimagining conversion/salvation as the abandonment of Christian belief and the leaving of ecclesiastical community for the higher call of love. While in Just Above My Head, conversion is reinterpreted through the medium of queer sexual expression, which simultaneously sanctifies queer sexuality, while also utilizing the sex act as a fecund space for reimagining the sacred and salvation.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Baldwin, Go Tell It on the Mountain, 192. Although this language is used to describe the conversion of the novel’s main character, John, given the autobiographical nature of Baldwin’s writing it is appropriate to utilize this language here in highlighting Baldwin’s personal conversion moment. For more information concerning the autobiographical nature of Baldwin’s fiction, see Baldwin and Gresham, “James Baldwin Comes Home.”
2 Hardy, III, James Baldwin’s God, xi. It was Hardy's text which first brought the importance of conversion in Baldwin's literature to my attention.
3 Hardy, James Baldwin’s God, 18.
4 Ibid.
5 Baldwin and Goldstein, “‘Go the Way Your Blood Beats:’,” 73.
6 Muñoz, Disidentifications, 39, 58.
7 Ibid., 31.
8 Leeming, James Baldwin: A Biography, 24–5; and Hardy, Baldwin’s God, 4–5.
9 Hardy, Baldwin’s God, 4.
10 Sanders, Saints in Exile, 5. Sander’s states: “Although some of these churches [speaking of the Holiness, Pentecostal, and Apostolic churches] practice speaking in tongues and some baptize only in Jesus’ name, all adhere to some form of doctrine and practice of sanctification; thus, the term ‘Sanctified church’ is inclusive of them all” (5).
11 Ibid., 58.
12 Ibid.
13 Baldwin, Go Tell It, 3.
14 Baldwin, The Fire Next Time, 337.
15 See Baldwin, Go Tell It, 27–8.
16 Baldwin, The Devil Finds Work, 558.
17 Baldwin, Fire Next Time, 338.
18 Baldwin, Go Tell It, 192.
19 Ibid., 195.
20 Hardy, Baldwin’s God, 19.
21 Baldwin, Go Tell It, 225.
22 Lynch, “Staying Out of the Temple,” 37.
23 Baldwin, Fire Next Time, 344, 348–9.
24 For an example of this, see Baldwin, “Everybody’s Protest Novel,” 32–3. See also Hardy, James Baldwin's God, 25–33.
25 Kornegay, in A Queering of Black Theology makes a similar claim in regards to “conversion” and “transformation.” He states: “In the works of James Baldwin, conversion can be likened to transformation, in that the primary outcome of any cultural-religious endeavor should transform the person and their god(s) into becoming larger, freer, and more loving” (102).
26 Muñoz, Disidentifications, 58.
27 Baldwin, “Introduction: The Price of the Ticket,” xviii.
28 Ibid.
29 Muñoz, Disidentifications, 12.
30 Ibid., 31.
31 Lynch, “Staying Out of the Temple,” 47. Lynch’s article offers an excellent examination of “The Amen Corner.” In his “dialectical” (48) reading of Baldwin, Lynch takes seriously Baldwin’s critique of the church while also arguing that Baldwin wrote the play to “[explore] the possibility of an individual’s retaining essentially Christian ideals [while] pursuing one’s vocation outside the church” (37). He is correct in arguing that Baldwin is attempting to show that the play’s main characters must find life and meaning outside the confines of the church. However, Lynch believes the play reflects Baldwin’s “hope for Christian faith,” a claim which my analysis emphatically rejects (67).
32 Ibid.
33 Leeming, James Baldwin, 24–5; and Hardy, James Baldwin’s God, 4–5.
34 Sanders, Saints in Exile, 5.
35 Baldwin, Amen Corner, 25–6.
36 Ibid., 9.
37 Baldwin, Fire Next Time, 337.
38 I borrow the phrase “religion of love” from Trudier Harris’s article “The Eye as Weapon,” 62.
39 Baldwin, Amen Corner, 62.
40 Ibid., 59.
41 Ibid.
42 Ibid., 59–60.
43 Ibid., 14.
44 Baldwin, Fire Next Time, 344.
45 Baldwin, Amen Corner, 57–8.
46 Baldwin, “Notes for the Amen Corner,” xvi.
47 Baldwin, Amen Corner, 57.
48 Ibid., 81.
49 Ibid., 82.
50 Lynch, in “Staying out of the Temple,” also refers to this as a “conversion.” However, he understands it to be a “conversion to the true spirit of Christianity” (63–4).
51 Ibid., 86.
52 Baldwin, “Notes for the Amen Corner,” xvi.
53 Baldwin, The Amen Corner, 42.
54 Ibid., 42–3.
55 Ibid., 44.
56 Baldwin, Fire Next Time, 346.
57 Baldwin, The Devil Finds Work, 577–8.
58 Ibid., 578.
59 Hardy, Baldwin’s God, 58.
60 Simawe, “What is in a Sound?,” 13.
61 Baldwin, Amen Corner, 79–80.
62 Baldwin, Go Tell It, 204.
63 Simawe, “What is in a Sound?,” 29.
64 Lynch makes a similar claim in “Staying out of the Temple.” He states: “Although Baldwin uses David’s development as a completion of Go Tell It and as a rationale for Baldwin’s personal evolution, he positions Margaret as the protagonist to suggest the possibility of even a spiritually corrupt minister’s reformation and discovery of the heart of the gospel. However, as Baldwin himself learned, and as David and Margaret do also, the sanctity and peace promised by the church are attainable only outside of it, either through a commitment to the sacred nature of art (David) or through a revised but identifiably Christian dedication to serve others” (58).
65 Baldwin and Mead, A Rap on Race, 86.
66 Kornegay, in Queering Black Theology, states: “Nakedness here is not intended to be simply bare-skinned, but uncovered in the sense that labels, the shadows of race, sexuality, and gender, are set aside allowing for uninhibited interaction between humans. This interaction was most sacred to Baldwin and central to his sense of identity as a human being” (111).
67 Baldwin, Just Above My Head, 178. See Kornegay’s discussion of this moment of “confession” in A Queering of Black Theology, 112.
68 Baldwin, Just Above My Head, 179.
69 Kornegay, A Queering of Black Theology, 112.
70 Baldwin uses the language of “fear” and “terror,” and variations of these terms, throughout the whole of this scene in Just Above My Head (176–83).
71 Kornegay, in A Queering of Black Theology highlights the role of terror as well, positing: “The terror is not caused by the body itself, but the inheritance of the racial, sexual, and religious prohibitions against black bodies, which makes us see our own nakedness as an exposure of our depravity” (112–13).
72 Baldwin, Just Above My Head, 181–2.
73 Ibid., 182.
74 Kornegay, A Queering of Black Theology, 113.
75 Ibid., 113.
76 Ibid.
77 Ibid., 181.
78 Ibid., 182.
79 Baldwin reiterates the transformational possibility of Crunch and Arthur’s lovemaking in a description found later in the novel. He posits: “Crunch lay on his belly for Arthur and pulled Arthur into him, and Arthur lay on his belly for Crunch, and Crunch entered Arthur – it was incredible that it hurt so much, and yet, hurt so little, that so profound an anguish, thrusting so hard, so deep, accomplished such a transformation, I looked at my hands and they looked new, I looked at my feet and they did, too!” (186).
80 Ibid., 211.
81 Field, All Those Strangers, 108.
82 Baldwin, Just Above My Head, 73. Field also points to this passage in making a similar claim in All Those Strangers, 109.
83 Sneed, Representations of Homosexuality, 94.
84 Baldwin, No Name in the Street, 461.
85 Ibid.
86 Ibid., 460–1.
87 Crawley, Blackpentecostal Breath, 2.
88 Baldwin and Goldstein, “‘Go the Way Your Blood Beats:’,” 73.
89 Crawley, Blackpentecostal Breath, 11.
90 Ibid., 11–12.
91 It is important to note that “queering” and disidentification are not the same, though disidentification is sometimes a means of “queering” a phenomenon. By “queering,” I am referring to the usage of “queer” as a verb. In defining queer as a verb, Donald E. Hall, in his work Queer Theories, argues: “‘Queering’ does pose a particular threat to systems of classification that assert their timelessness and fixity. It may not destroy such systems but it certainly presses upon them, torturing their lines of demarcation, pressuring their easy designations” (14). In other words, “queering” is a means of disruption, particularly, for Hall, in regards to “sexuality and desire” (I would add gender) (14). Baldwin is utilizing a method of disidentification, which in turn sometimes “queers” Christian symbols, troubling and sexually disrupting them. However, disidentification cannot be reduced to queering, but can be utilized to engage and reimagine many different socio-cultural and political phenomena.
92 Muñoz, Disidentifications, 31.
93 Ibid., 31.
94 Crawley, Blackpentecostal Breath, 17–18.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Christopher Hunt
Christopher Hunt is an Assistant Professor of Religion at Colorado College. A scholar of African American religions, his research brings an interdisciplinary lens, including African American religious history, Black studies, contemporary theology (particularly Black, womanist, and queer theologies), and queer studies to bear in exploring the relationship of religion to varying socio-political phenomena, particularly gender, sexuality, and race. These diverse academic disciplines converge in Hunt’s current work on the life and literature of James Baldwin, which explores the ways in which Baldwin utilizes religious language and symbols in offering his powerful critique of anti-Black racism in the United States.