The Fire Next Time - James Baldwin

Churches and Junkies:

The role of religion in James Baldwin’s “Down at the Cross”

If the title “Down at the Cross” doesn’t say it, the opening paragraph does: James Baldwin’s essay is, at least initially, a meditation on the functions of religion. Set against the particularly tumultuous social atmosphere of the early 1960’s, the text examines the differences – and, most notably, the similarities – between the few possible outlets of a Harlem youth. Baldwin examines the roles and functions of religion in an oppressed society, and his eventual equation of the junkie to the churchgoer carries societal implications rooted in a larger dialogue of sociological study.

The essay begins with what Baldwin calls a “prolonged religious crisis” (15). He retraces his Harlem upbringing and, in doing so, the footprints which led him to the door of the church. He depicts his move toward religion not as a spiritual calling, but as one option in a narrow set of possibilities:

Every Negro boy […] stands in great peril and must find, with speed, a “thing,” a gimmick, to lift him out, to start him on his way. And it does not matter what the gimmick is. It was this last realization that terrified me and – since it revealed that the door opened on so many dangers – helped to hurl me into the church. And, by an unforeseeable paradox, it was my career in the church that turned out, precisely, to be my gimmick. (24)

Baldwin doesn’t explicitly state that a career in the church is a “gimmick” for everybody, but his personal realization does imply that the church is both a mode of escape and a form of self-defense. He continues, “all the fears with which I had grown up, and which were now a part of me and controlled my vision of the world, rose up like a wall between the world and me, and drove me into the church” (27). It’s the diction in these passages that’s particularly compelling; Baldwin, in reaction to external stimuli, was “hurled” and “driven” into the church. These are not unlike the words of a person who, as the result of, say, a particularly unfavorable divorce settlement, is driven to drink (or shoot up, for that matter).

Baldwin uses this comparison repeatedly. As he lists the various escape routes of his Harlem friends, he acknowledges the limited possibilities for a young man in his situation.

[…] many of my friends fled into the service, all to be changed there, and rarely for the better, many to be ruined, and many to die. Others fled to other states and cities – that is, to other ghettos. Some went on wine or whiskey or the needle, and are still on it. And others, like me, fled into the church. (20)

This passage clarifies the relationship, for Baldwin, between the four routes mentioned. Each is qualified by the word “fled” or the notion of fleeing, and all are attempting to flee the same racial tension, the same oppression. But the basis for these escapes is a less compelling similarity than their respective destinations; each path mentioned – with the exception of the church – ends with a dismal fate. And although Baldwin doesn’t overtly condemn the Christian church at this early point in the text, he provides an equation with a dangling equal sign that, using the previous statements as a model, can only end in trouble. With this progression, Baldwin sets up a correlation between the church and the junkie – one which he maintains throughout the text.

In the second section of the essay, Baldwin recounts his meeting with Elijah Mohammad. From the moment he steps into Elijah’s mansion, Baldwin expresses hints of envy for the happiness and closeness of Elijah and his followers. Later, as they sit down to dinner, Elijah’s insistence that Baldwin become a member of the Black Muslim movement is reinforced by the audible assent of the other men at the table; the scene evokes the middle school skits designed to warn students about the ever-menacing “peer pressure” which precludes drug addictions and pregnancies. And, as he considers the words of the prophet, Baldwin draws upon his past to analyze Elijah’s meaning:

I remembered my buddies of years ago, in the hallways, with their wine and their whiskey and their tears; in hallways still, frozen on the needle; and my brother saying to me once, “If Harlem didn’t have so many churches and junkies, there’d be blood flowing in the streets.” (76)

And so, Baldwin’s equation of the church to the junkie does not stop at Christianity; he notes its application to the Nation of Islam movement as well. His brother’s comment is, at once, a testament to the pacifying powers of the church and an insinuation that religion is little more than a dose of dope for the oppressed many.

This marks the realization that propels Baldwin into the last section of the essay, and which primes the reader for his unflinching critique of religion as a propagating factor of the problem of race relations in America. Baldwin goes as far as to relate the extremism of the Nation of Islam movement to that of the American Nazi party. Similarly, in his meditation on the adopted surname “X”, Baldwin decries Christianity as a social construction which serves the purposes of white oppression. “I am called Baldwin because I was either sold by my African tribe or kidnapped out of it into the hands of a white Christian named Baldwin, who forced me to kneel at the foot of the cross” (84). This specific mention of Christianity’s hand in the slave trade illuminates a dichotomy that Baldwin projects upon the difference – and, most importantly, the similarity – between Christians and Black Muslims: for Baldwin, an African American who identifies as Christian is playing into the designs and accepting the forces of white oppression while a Black Muslim is utilizing the same ideologies as the oppressor – is, in effect, no better than “they” are.

In light of Baldwin’s indictment of religion as a dividing institution and his prolonged conceit that religion and dope serve similar purposes in the ghetto, one is reminded of the words of Karl Marx:

Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people. (Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right)

To make the argument that dope serves a positive function in society is to carry the opinion that “the oppressed creature” should be neutralized, rendered complacent and ineffective. And since, like Marx, Baldwin equates the church and the Nation of Islam movement to “the opium of the people”, he simultaneously recognizes their short-term benefits as pacifiers and their large-scale consequences as institutions which will, if not render their followers moot and useless, promote a racial violence that is not unlike the injustices perpetrated by white Christians at the dawn of American slavery.