Anybody There?
Anybody There?
Reflections on African American Humanism
by Anthony B. Pinn
I argue here for the possibility of a humanist theology, a theology that
holds community rather than God as the center of life altering questions,
accompanied by an understanding of religion and theology as centered on the
problem of evil, or theodicy. Christian theology as done within African
American communities is premised upon a sense of redemptive suffering as
the best response to moral evil in the world. Furthermore, this theological
stance is intimately tied to the Christian tradition, complete with a God
who is concerned for and working on behalf of the oppressed. It continues
to be my belief that, although important in many ways, this theological
stance and its narrow perception of religion may not be the best means of
achieving the social transformation or liberation sought by the African
American community. I conclude that a theological stance on moral evil
requires an alternate religious system--African American humanism. This is
not meant to dismiss Christian approaches out of hand, rather, to broaden
the possibilities, the religious terrain, and to foster conversation
concerning liberating ways of addressing the problem of evil. Humanist
theology, and humanism as a religion, nonetheless need further explication.
Within this essay my goal is to briefly outline the African American
humanist religion to which humanist theology corresponds by pointing out
several institutionalized sites of humanist thought and praxis. I hope to
provide a better sense of where and how humanism functions in African
American communities. More precisely put, I hope to explicate the manner in
which humanism functions in African American communities as a religious
orientation.
I wish to move away from definitions of religion that are strictly
positivist and limiting in nature. Such definitions, those rejected by many
sociologists of religion, do not serve a useful purpose in light of my
comparative agenda. I have in mind, for example, the limited range of
religiosity presented by Hans Baer and Merrill Singer with respect to
spiritual churches and other religious organizations. In addition, I would
like to think of religion in terms of multiple or pluralistic orientations
that do not demand a traditional God idea and singular notions of concern.
Humanism is a manifestation of religion because of concern with
orientations brought to bear on the existential condition of African
Americans. It makes use of established rituals (socio-political
involvements, and both collective and individual critical reflection) that
move toward progressive individual and communal identities. However, my
past use of Paul Tillich's notions of ultimate concern and ultimate
orientation did not provide the best framework for this understanding of
humanism as religion. The Tillichian understanding of ultimate concern is
singular in nature and does not really allow for the multiple and immediate
orientations I have in mind. In actuality, it contradicts my strong
inclination toward multiple locations, of which humanism is one. Rather
than a Tillichian move in order to understand humanism as religion, the
work of Gordon Kaufman may prove more useful as a way to caste humanism as
a religion.
Religion, hence, is understood as that which helps humans find orientation
(or direction) "for life in the world, together with motivation for living
and acting in accordance with this orientation--that is, would gain, and
gradually formulate, a sense of the meaning of human existence." Religion
helps individuals and groups to live in beneficial ways in light of life
altering questions such as the problem of evil that are not easily
addressed through skills and resources associated with "ordinary patterns
of meaning and action internalized from infancy on." While through various
ritual structures and symbolic sources, humans are enabled to understand
their thought and actions as significant and meaningful. In keeping with
Kaufman, I'm not suggesting that this orientation is toward the "sacred"
understood in traditional terms. Instead, this is orientation toward
"reality" in general terms. In this way, both theistic and non-theistic
forms of expression are understandable as religion because religion, in
short, is not limited to easily identified and historically explored forms
of expression. Religion is the "underlying resources of meaning and ritual
that inform and fund the ongoing living and dying in a culture as a whole.
Therefore humanism is a religion because it is one way to gain orientation
and motivation toward the framing of human life through useful goals and
agendas. Humanism does not replace other traditions, instead it contributes
to the diversity, the plurality that characterizes the religious landscape.
Before presenting examples of humanism as praxis oriented religion, it
might be useful to briefly position African American humanism within the
larger arena of humanist thought and practice. We begin with Europe and the
Renaissance.
Early humanists in Europe understood themselves as Christians who addressed
the dilemma of bringing to the process of intellectual inquiry both
Christian doctrine and "pagan" resources. Many were trained clerics with
this question: how does a Christian read the pagan classics without being
contaminated? These clerics and others of Italy and Europe in general were
concerned with bringing the humanistic disciplines to bear on medieval
culture and learning. In this respect, humanism of the medieval period was
active and geared toward problem solving, within the confines of a strong
and determined church.
Because Christianity dominated the landscape and claimed control over the
discussion of moral conduct, humanists were obligated, at least in a
limited way, to address religious institutions and theological concerns to
provide guidance that the professional religious elements of Italy failed
to address. In addressing religious and theological thought, humanists felt
a need to respond to methodological issues that directly effected attitudes
toward action. The centrality of human life in a less than ideal world is
present within humanism at this stage in that humanist scholars saw little
value in abstract theological discussion when people were struggling to
live ethically. Religious conversation and theological language had to
address the moral struggles of humanity. Therefore, humanists of this
period brought into one conversation, devotion to God and a concern for
humanity. These two, with respect to questions of moral living, were
inseparable. In short, an interest in pragmatically connecting thought and
life marked the work of humanists, whether described as Christian or not.
The twin concerns of God and humanity would continue to motivate humanists
as their ideas blazed a trail across Europe, establishing centers of
thought in locations such as Germany, France and England by 1517.
Humanism's compatibility with theism came into question and, with time,
some humanists such as Wilhelm von Humbolt moved away from "religious "
orientations, asserting instead the dominance of experience as the key to
truth. The Enlightenment's emphasis on reason would, therefore, spark a
radical appeal to human perfectibility and the inevitability of progress on
earth. In the twentieth century this "antireligious" sentiment would mutate
into what Lewis W. Spitz and others refer to as a "new humanism"--human
centered and aggressively antireligious in nature.
Similar concerns also fostered an appreciation for humanism in North
America. In the United States the promise and pitfalls of a new democracy
generated a concern for human life. Blood, sweat, and toil generated the
fundamental questions of life's meaning and purpose: the Civil War,
Reconstruction, etc., especially required the creation of a worldview that
made sense of human promise and misery in the modern era. The result was
the emergence of humanist inspired thought and organizations. Although
Enlightenment ideas related to freethought and humanism were under siege
during the Great Awakening revivals, this questioning of God, and the
countervailing idea of the centrality of humanity, were never completely
wiped out. Humanist sentiments continued to grow, then, from this early
period into the work of philosophers such as John Dewey, and radical
liberal clergy like John H. Dietrich of the First Unitarian Society of
Minneapolis.
African American humanism shares the human-centered emphasis of humanism,
but there's a different rationale for this position based upon various
forms of oppression encountered by African Americans that were, at times,
justified theologically. Manifestations of humanism begin early with
suspicion concerning the Christian message as pointed out in 1839 by Daniel
Payne, one of the leading figures in the African Methodist Episcopal
church. Fearful that slaves will completely give up on the Christian faith
if they aren't introduced to the "true " gospel message, Payne writes:
The slaves are sensible of the oppression exercised by their
masters and they see these masters on the Lord's day worshipping
in his holy Sanctuary--and they know that oppression and slavery
are inconsistent with the Christian religion; therefore they
scoff at religion itself--mock their masters, and distrust both
the goodness and justice of God. Yes, I have known them even to
question his existence. A few nights ago between 10 and 11
o'clock a runaway slave came to the house where I live for safety
and succor. I asked him if he was a Christian; "no sir, " said
he, "white men treat us so bad in Mississippi that we can't be
christians. "
Based upon Payne's depiction, it seems fairly clear that the early presence
and rationale for humanism within African American communities revolve
around the inadequacy of Christianity for responding to moral evil. This
initial phase of humanism is primarily addressed on the level of the
individual and in cultural manifestations such as work songs, the blues,
and folklore. Although African Americans have held humanist perspectives
and operated accordingly for centuries, use of the phrase, Black Humanism,
as a reference is fairly recent. Empowerment: One Denomination's Quest for
Racial Justice, 1967-1982 provides the following information concerning the
use of this term, linking its use with the Black Unitarian Universalist
Caucus created to respond to racial issues within the UUA:
Black humanists understood humanism as a process, an existential
process by which one finds and lives his humanity. To be human is
to direct one's own life; therefore, Black Humanism calls for a
seizure of decision making and implementation for oneself.
Gaining power is an essential element of humanism.
Its appeal to social justice is similar to that used historically within
African American Christian churches minus one ingredient: justice is
demanded and premised upon a humanocentric appeal to accountability and
progress, not on the dictates of scripture lived through the Christ figure.
However, because of the work of William R. Jones and Mark Morrison-Reed,
for example, this site of Black humanism--the UUA--is somewhat known.
Therefore let's now give attention to what I think are sites readily
connected with praxis rarely thought of as humanist.
With the development of the Harlem Renaissance and its exploration of
uncomfortable and raw life questions as well as the "de-radicalization of
churches, " the increase in alternate responses to oppression made space
available for humanist interpretations. Although figures such as Richard
Wright are referred to, there are others whose work deserves attention. And
beyond a theological exploration of their writings, attention should also
be given to the personal religious perspectives of these figures. For
instance, how does the agnosticism of a James Baldwin or the humanism of a
Zora Neale Hurston effect their inclusion in theological reflection and
religious studies in general? The literature of the Harlem Renaissance
provides insights that not only inform theological reflection because of
their concern with religious themes and imagery, but it also provides, when
personal positions are considered, a much needed challenge to theological
assumptions (e.g., answers to the problem of evil) and ideas of religious
normality within Black communities. In this way, they provide license to
advocate the humanism I find interesting and noteworthy.
Many of the above figures continued to understand the Christian church as
an important cultural development, but without acceptance of its
theological stance. Others involved themselves in institutional structures
that allowed for the further development of their humanism. That is to say,
Doubt, frustration, and denial of God's existence arise also from
social crises. The repudiation or negation of God may influence
the behavior of Negroes in many ways. It may lead many of them
into the humanistic camp--Negroes would then seek to perfect
social change--without relying on God or super-natural aid. The
negation of the idea of God may also drive Negroes into the
communistic camp, whereby more militant or violent means would be
used to achieve political and economic status.
Not to put too fine a point on it, I nonetheless suspect that the
non-theist stance of the Communist Party and its rhetorical appeal to
African Americans (thin as it was) provided a forum and home for African
American humanists who found churches either uncomfortable or hopelessy
backward.
Documents available at the Schomburg Center, the division of the New York
Public Library geared toward research in African American culture, and
other locations, document Party organizing activities in African American
communities such as Harlem during the early during the 1920s and 1930s. The
Communist Party, however, was reluctant to "attack " black churches owing
to the strength of churches that in the end could hamper organizing
efforts. Others were unwilling to move in this direction because of
personal commitment to the Christian church. Robin D. G. Kelley has
documented this. Nonetheless this support, as Kelley points out, was mixed
with a critique of less than liberating activity on the part of clergy who
spent their time gaining wealth and preaching against transformation. Some
took this critique further and rejected the Christian church and its
doctrine altogether as non-liberating activity and thought. According to
Kelley:
Challenges to religious beliefs frequently surfaced in personal
conversations and arguments within the Party. Such challenges did
not only come from white Communists; they were common among some
leading blacks. What Hosea Hudson's recollections reveal is that
attacks on religion often had little bearing on politics or
theory. He was rebuked by comments such as in "Ain't no
God....Nobody ever seen God. How you know it's a God? " When he
cited the Bible as his witness, he recalled a common retort was,
"The white man wrote the Bible " ÖIn other words, black
Communists who questioned the viability of religion had concerns
kindred to a good portion of working-class blacks throughout the
United States. Therefore, we cannot assume that the party
experience itself was the sole reason for "atheism " practiced by
a small minority of Communists in Alabama. On the contrary, it is
likely that blacks who questioned the existence of an omnipresent
God or were simply fed up with clerical corruption, were drawn to
the party because of its scathing critique of the church.
Although some Black communists like Hosea Hudson were active in the church
they often indirectly critiqued its activities via a challenge of God. As
Hudson recalls:
I challenge one or two deacons one Sunday afternoon. We all
sitting around talking. I told them, I said, "It ain't no such
thing as no God. You all go around here singing and praying, " I
said, "and they regular lynching Negroes, and you ain't doing
nothing about it. "
Hudson recounts that he never lost his belief in God. However, what he
states actually sounds like a version of agnosticism.
I never did finally stop believing in God. I haven't stopped
believing yet today. I don't argue about it. I don't discuss it,
because it's some-thing I can't explain. I don't know whether
it's a God, I don't know whether it's not a God. But I know
science, if you take science for it, and all these developments,
I can't see what God had much to do with it--So it's something
beyond my knowledge to deal with. And I don't deal with it. I
don't try to deal with it.
Hudson also recounts that this type of rejection of God was genuinely
embraced by some members of the Party who never attended church, and who
used this critique of God as more than a challenge to passivity. Hudson
states that:
I had heard other Party people talking. Some of them had never
been members of no church, talking about there wont no such thing
as God: "Where is he at? You say it's a God, where is he at? You
can't prove where he's at." Negro Party people said that to me,
Murphy and Horton and Raymond Knox. We'd have big discussions.
One Sunday I said I was going to church.
"What you going for? What you going for?"
I said, "I'm going to serve God."
They said, "Where is God at? You can't prove it's no God
nowhere."
They said, "Where is God?"
I said, "In heaven."
"Well, where is heaven?"
The objections of Black Communists who rejected God often revolved around
the problem of evil. In the words of Raymond Knox: "...here they lynching
Negroes...if God's all that good, how come he don't stop the police from
killing Negroes, lynching Negroes, if God is all that just? " In rejecting
God, the humanists Hudson knew in the Communist Party held humanity
responsible for social transformation. Hudson found it difficult to respond
to these charges. In his words:
I just didn't have a [sic] answer. And them was the kind of
questions they put. "If God is such a just God, and here you
walking around here, ain't got no food. The only way you can get
food is you have to organize. So if you have to organize to
demand food, why you going to pray to God about it? Why don't you
go on and put your time in organizing and talk to people?"
Disillusionment with the Communist Party grew (as is brilliantly narrated
in the work of Ralph Ellison and Richard Wright) because the Party--by the
time African Americans participated in noticeable numbers--had withdrawn
from a strong interest in the negro question. Although some African
Americans undoubtedly remained within the Party hoping for change in its
policy on racism, others took their humanism in the direction of Black
nationalism.
Theologians such as James Cone gave attention to the Black Power movement
in a way that displayed the distance between the compatibility of
Christianity and Black Power. In his early writings, Cone argues for an
understanding of Christianity (and theological reflection) through
recognizing the Christ event as an affirmation of the need for power. This
connection is certainly present particularly in the early phases of the
Civil Rights movement and SNCC. Nonetheless this distance between Christ
and "mundane" manifestations of power, as expressed in the late 1960s, was
not completely reconciled. Consequently, in the late twentieth century, the
Black Panther Party and SNCC became emblematic of other locations of
humanist praxis and religion.
I cannot help but believe that the movement away from the Christian-based
Civil Rights movement sparked by SNCC and the thundering call for Black
Power pointed to deep theological differences. It's more than likely that
theistic motivations and explanations failed adequately to address the
concerns and ideas of some of the more "radical" elements of the movement.
The break, I argue, also marks a move away from the theism of the Civil
Rights movement and toward materialist analysis and human-centered
solutions. Gone were integrationist goals and reliance upon Christian
doctrine and paradigms for action. SNCC decided that social transformation
would only occur when African Americans took control of their destiny and
worked toward change. Reliance on human potential praxis was heightened in
ways that distinguished this phase of SNCC's personae from the Civil Rights
movement. Although inadequately defined in terms of social transformative
thrusts and foci, Black Power--for some of its advocates--did harness
rather clearly defined theological assumptions based upon humanist leanings
and the language of self-determination. Consider here the thoughts of James
Forman, a member of SNCC.
In his autobiography The Making of Black Revolutionaries, Forman describes
his "conversion" to humanism (as defined above) which did not hamper but
rather informed Forman's praxis. His work toward social transformation with
SNCC, for example, points to the nature and sustainability of humanist
praxis. He notes that during his time at Wilson Junior College in Chicago
his doubts concerning the existence of God, based primarily on the problem
of evil, grew. This process was intensified through contact with
questionable Black preachers whose self-centered and selfish ways resulted
in his distaste for ministry and the church. Such interactions are summed
up by this comment: "God was not quite dead in me, but he was dying fast."
After returning from military service some years later, Forman came to a
final conclusion concerning the existence of God. He writes:
The next six years of my life were a time of ideas. A time when
things were germinating and changing in me. A time of deciding
what I would do with my life. It was also a time in which I rid
myself, once and for all, of the greatest disorder that cluttered
my mind--the belief in God or any type of supreme being.
Outlining the rationale for his "disbelief," Forman notes that during a
philosophy course he set firm upon the following:
I reject the existence of God. He is not all-powerful,
all-knowing, and everywhere. He is not just or unjust because he
does not exist. God is a myth; churches are institutions designed
to perpetuate this myth and thereby keep people in subjugation.
For him humanism required a strong commitment on the part of people to
change their present condition in ways that belief in God did not allow. He
continues:
The belief in a supreme being or God weakens the will of a people
to change conditions themselves. As a Negro who has grown up in
the United States, I believe that the belief in God has hurt my
people. We have put off doing something about our condition on
this earth because we have believed that God was going to take
care of business in heavenÖMy philosophy course had finally
satisfied my need for intellectual as well as emotional certainty
that God did not exist. I reached the point of rejecting God out
of personal experience and observations...
Critiques of the black church based upon materialist approaches to social
transformation continued through the Black Panther Party. The attraction of
some SNCC workers to the Black Panther Party led by Huey Newton and Bobby
Seale was based upon a common concern with transformative activity that
held as its measuring stick the welfare of African Americans and other
oppressed groups. The Party had a clearly defined platform and was much
more certain of its armed and revolutionary stance. Reflecting on the
ultimate demise of many Black Panthers, Bobby Seale sums up the goals of
the Party, goals which speak to a universal humanist agenda:
We need activists who cross all ethnic and religious backgrounds
and color lines who will establish civil and human rights for
all, including the right to an ecologically balanced,
pollution-free environment. We must create a world of decent
human relationships where revolutionary humanism is grounded in
democratic human rights for every person on earth. Those were the
political revolutionary objectives of my old Black Panther Party.
They must now belong to the youth of today.
Drawing heavily from Marx, Fanon, Engels, Lenin, Mao, etc., the Party
initially denounced the church, and, one can assume, its teachings as well,
labelling both counterproductive. Huey P. Newton reflects on this:
As far as the church was concerned, the Black Panther Party and
other community groups emphasized the political and criticized
the spiritual. We said the church is only a ritual, it is
irrelevant, and therefore we will have nothing to do with it. We
said this in the context of the whole community being involved
with the church on one level or another. That is one way of
defecting from the community, and that is exactly what we did.
Once we stepped outside of the whole thing that the community was
involved in and we said, "You follow our example; your reality is
not true and you don't need it."
However, the Party softened its position when it recognized the central
role the church held in Black communities. Like the Communist Party, the
Panthers recognized that recruitment would be difficult if open hostility
existed between the Panthers and Black churches. The Panthers fostered a
relationship of convenience and socio-political necessity, but without a
firm commitment to the churches' theological underpinnings. Newton
rationalizes this strategy by arguing for a different conception of God,
God as the "unknown " that, interestingly enough, science will ultimately
"discover." In this sense, God does not exist in the affirmative. This was
the Panthers compromise with socio-political necessities of community
connections and the teachings of Marx. Quoting Newton again:
So we do go to church, are involved in the church, and not in any
hypocritical way. Religion perhaps is a thing that man needs at
this time because scientists cannot answer all of the
questions--the unexplained and the unknown is God. We know
nothing about God, really, and that is why as soon as the
scientist develops or points out a new way of controlling a part
of the universe, that aspect of the universe is no longer God.
Whether successful or misguided, the Black Panther Party's humanism is
notable. In essence, attention is taken off of divine assistance because
talk of God is ignored. Rather, humans are given sole responsibility for
altering the world. In the words of Bobby Seale:
We are fighting for the preservation of life. We refuse to be
brainwashed by comic-book notions that distort the real
situation. The only way that the world is ever going to be free
is when the youth of this country moves with every principle of
human respect and with every soft spot we have in our hearts for
human life. We know that as a people, we must seize our time.
I realize that the examples provided here, particularly those of the
Communist Party and the Black Panther Party, raise questions concerning the
essential notion of atheism vs. humanism in what I advocate, as well as
questions concerning either one's ultimate usefulness beyond immediate
issues. The latter I address thusly: these serve as useful examples because
they point beyond immediate context to a larger and continued concern for
identities and dignity. Granted, many Blacks moved away from this humanist
position (e.g., Eldridge Cleaver), and humanism has hardly meant the
complete transformation of the world! Still, this does not seal humanism's
fate as indefensible. Rather, it has always understood that failure is a
possibility, but one that should not prevent us from continuing to work.
Humanism does not provide guarantees; rather it suggests possibilities
sustainable through human effort alone. Kaufman's sense of religions
providing world-pictures is helpful here. He writes that these pictures may
not be accurate; ultimately they may not be true, but they are
indispensable because humans need them in order to orient themselves.
Ultimately, humanism provides a world-picture, one that I suggest avoids
the harmful effects of redemptive suffering in ways the Christian tradition
does not. Humanism, I believe, is a way of ordering our world and our lives
through giving equal attention to human failure and human potential as the
launching platform for more sustained engagement with community and
dignity.
Moving back to the first question: what is the relationship between atheism
and humanism? Putting it frankly: the lines between agnosticism, atheism,
and humanism are inevitably blurred. This is particularly evident in the
section of this essay concerning the Communist party when the Church and
God are brought into question as the result of their perceived inability to
respond adequately to the problem of evil as manifested, say, in regard to
the lynching of blacks. But does this mean that the Christian church and
its theology are hopelessly flawed? Must a humanist be an atheist? As I
have argued elsewhere (Why, Lord?: Suffering and Evil in Black Theology),
humanism in some phases of its emergence can arrive in theistic guise. Much
of liberation theology, for example, entails this type of partnership with
God. Therefore, humanists can be theists, concern for humanity assuming
theistic or other comparable forms. As I've argued in my book, theistic
humanists must continue to think through the problem of evil (in ways that
atheistic or agnostic humanists can avoid) because they continue to embrace
a traditional notion of God as present, just, good, and working toward the
liberation of a continually oppressed group.
But for many there is simply not enough evidence of this God to warrant
continued theism. And these, in response to the problem of evil--as the
examples have shown--embrace an atheistic or an agnostic humanism that puts
God aside and relies exclusively upon humanity for the resolution of
questions caused by moral evil. This represents a position that is not
overly concerned with God as a negative myth, but rather God as a
liberating myth that is nonetheless unsubstantiated. I'm wary of such
normative stances because exclusivity is damaging and certainly
unwarranted; yet in the end religious relativism does not completely
satisfy. The key is a reflexive and reflective tension because the
relationship between the various religions and their alleged truth content
is, for all we know, ever unfolding. Thus, while advocating humanism, I
remain mindful of Kaufman's words:
"Religion" is, however, an enormously diverse and diffuse sphere
of human existence, including wide ranges of perspectives and
practices, institutions and symbolisms. Moreover, it is not at
all clear that there is any way, at this time, in which the
descriptive and historical study of this vast and complex field
can (or should attempt to) develop norms or standards coherent
enough and specific enough to provide effective orientation and
guidance for contemporary human life--a central theological
objective. Theologians, therefore, will need to conduct their
explorations and reflections in terms of some particular
meaning-and-value complexes, some frameworks of interpretation
which command their respect and commitment; but whatever
frameworks are employed today must be open enough and
comprehensive enough to allow considerable freedom and
experimentation in the investigation of the many issues pertinent
to the orientation and guidance of contemporary life.
My goal is to challenge both humanists and theists to think through the
consequences (in terms of social transformation) of their claims. But first
it has been necessary to demonstrate the existence and viability of
humanist theology and humanism as a religion.
FOOTNOTES
[Web Admin's Note: The document conversion process unfortunately did not
retain footnote numbering.]
I must thank Dr. Victor Anderson for his careful reading of an earlier
draft of this essay. His insights and suggestions were invaluable. I am
also grateful to two Macalester College students, Gregory Colleton and
Gretchen Rohr, for research assistance during the early phases of
preparation for writing this piece. A more detailed examination of humanism
as a religious system, drawing from this essay, is provided in my book: The
Varieties of African American Religious Experience: Theological
Introduction (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, Fall 1998).
Hans A. Baer and Merrill Singer, African-American Religion in the Twentieth
Century: Varieties of Protest and Accommodation (Knoxville: The University
of Tennessee Press, 1992).
Gordon Kaufman, In Face of Mystery: A Constructive Theology (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 1993), 225.
Ibid., 227.
Ibid.
Charles Trinkaus, "Italian Humanism and Scholastic Theology, " in Albert
Rabil, Jr., Renaissance Humanism: Foundations, Forms, and Legacy, Volume 3
Humanism and the Disciplines (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania
Press, 1988), 327-328.
Lewis W. Spitz, "Humanism and the Protestant Reformation, " in Albert
Rabil, 1988, 380.
Corliss Lamont, The Philosophy of Humanism (New York: Frederick Ungar
Publishing Co., 1965), 17-18.
John H. Dietrich, "Unitarianism and Humanism, " in What If The World Went
Humanist?: Ten Sermons, selected by Mason Olds (Yellow Springs, OH:
Fellowship of Religious Humanists, 1989), 58.
Daniel Alexander Payne, "Daniel Payne's Protestation of Slavery, " in
Lutheran Herald and Journal of the Franckean Synod (August 1, 1839),
114-115.
Empowerment, 1983, 24.
For an interesting discussion of the Harlem Renaissance and literary
developments within other Black communities see: Wilson Jeremiah Moses, The
Wings of Ethiopia: Studies in African-American Life and Letters ( Ames:
Iowa State University Press, 1990), chapter 12.
Benjamin Mays, The Negro's God as Reflected in His Literature (New York:
Atheneum, 1973), 243.
See Mark Naison's "The Communist Party in Harlem, 1928-1936. " Relevant
holdings include: the Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers.
Robin D. G. Kelley, "Comrades, Praise Gawd for Lenin and Them!: Ideology
and Culture Among Black Communists in Alabama, 1930-1935, " Science and
Society, Vol. 52, No. 1, Spring 1988, 61-62. Also see Robin Kelley's
"Afric's Sons with Banners Red " in Imagining Home. Furthermore, some
churches actively worked with the Communist Party:
Although the Communists never had a sympathetic ear from the larger,
well-established black churches, several ministers and working-class
congregations of smaller Baptist churches in and around Birmingham provided
critical support for the Communists and the International Labor Defense in
opposition to a state-wide anti-sedition bill. (Ibid., 63)
Ibid., 64.
In addition some churches supported efforts to organize around economic and
political issues and for this purpose, offered their buildings for
meetings.
Kelley, 1988, 65-66.
Ibid., 133.
Ibid., 134-135.
Nell Irvin Painter, The Narrative of Hosea Hudson: His Life as a Negro
Communist in the South (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1979),
133.
Ibid., 134.
Ibid.
See Harold Cruse, "Jews and Negroes in the Communist Party, " in The Crisis
of the Negro Intellectual: A Historical Analysis of the Failure of Black
Leadership (New York: William Morrow and Company/Quill, © 1984), 147.
James Forman, "Corrupt Black preachers, " in The Making of Black
Revolutionaries (Washington,DC: Open Hand Publishing, Inc., 1985), 58.
Ibid., "God Is Dead: A Question of Power, " 80-81.
Ibid., 83.
Bobby Seale, Seize the Time: The Story of The Black Panther Party and Huey
P. Newton (Baltimore: Black Classic Press, 1991, Introduction, 3.
Huey P. Newton, To Die For The People: The Writings of Huey P. Newton,
edited by Toni Morrison (New York: Writers and Readers Publishing, Inc.,
1995),
Newton, 1995, 64.
Seale, 1991, 429.
Gordon Kaufman, God, Mystery, Diversity: Christian Theology in a
Pluralistic World (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1996), 6. I believe that my
humanist theology and humanism as a religious system avoid charges of
idolatry in light of Kaufman's understanding of religious diversity and
plurality, and because all religious traditions contain an element of
reflection that wrestles with the life altering questions, based upon their
sense of primary concern. For humanism as I understand it, this primary
concern is community and the dignity it must foster; what theological
reflection seeks is to make sense of all else in light of community and
human dignity. Within the religion of humanism, then, this is not idolatry.
New York: Continuum Publishing Company, 1995.
If there were more sustainable evidence that God exists and is working
toward the liberation of the oppressed, atheistic humanism might not exist.
It is, in this way, owing to inadequate responses to the problem of evil:
humanism of this kind is primarily concerned with evidence. Therefore, if
science, for example, were to demonstrate as correct the claims of
liberation minded theists, humanists would have to embrace theism and seek
to work in a fitting manner toward social transformation.
Kaufman, 1993, 27.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
This paper was first published in Religious Humanism, vol. 31, nos. 3 & 4,
summer/fall 1997, p. 61-78. Copyright © 1997 by the Friends of Religious
Humanism, Inc.
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Reflections on African American Humanism
by Anthony B. Pinn
I argue here for the possibility of a humanist theology, a theology that
holds community rather than God as the center of life altering questions,
accompanied by an understanding of religion and theology as centered on the
problem of evil, or theodicy. Christian theology as done within African
American communities is premised upon a sense of redemptive suffering as
the best response to moral evil in the world. Furthermore, this theological
stance is intimately tied to the Christian tradition, complete with a God
who is concerned for and working on behalf of the oppressed. It continues
to be my belief that, although important in many ways, this theological
stance and its narrow perception of religion may not be the best means of
achieving the social transformation or liberation sought by the African
American community. I conclude that a theological stance on moral evil
requires an alternate religious system--African American humanism. This is
not meant to dismiss Christian approaches out of hand, rather, to broaden
the possibilities, the religious terrain, and to foster conversation
concerning liberating ways of addressing the problem of evil. Humanist
theology, and humanism as a religion, nonetheless need further explication.
Within this essay my goal is to briefly outline the African American
humanist religion to which humanist theology corresponds by pointing out
several institutionalized sites of humanist thought and praxis. I hope to
provide a better sense of where and how humanism functions in African
American communities. More precisely put, I hope to explicate the manner in
which humanism functions in African American communities as a religious
orientation.
I wish to move away from definitions of religion that are strictly
positivist and limiting in nature. Such definitions, those rejected by many
sociologists of religion, do not serve a useful purpose in light of my
comparative agenda. I have in mind, for example, the limited range of
religiosity presented by Hans Baer and Merrill Singer with respect to
spiritual churches and other religious organizations. In addition, I would
like to think of religion in terms of multiple or pluralistic orientations
that do not demand a traditional God idea and singular notions of concern.
Humanism is a manifestation of religion because of concern with
orientations brought to bear on the existential condition of African
Americans. It makes use of established rituals (socio-political
involvements, and both collective and individual critical reflection) that
move toward progressive individual and communal identities. However, my
past use of Paul Tillich's notions of ultimate concern and ultimate
orientation did not provide the best framework for this understanding of
humanism as religion. The Tillichian understanding of ultimate concern is
singular in nature and does not really allow for the multiple and immediate
orientations I have in mind. In actuality, it contradicts my strong
inclination toward multiple locations, of which humanism is one. Rather
than a Tillichian move in order to understand humanism as religion, the
work of Gordon Kaufman may prove more useful as a way to caste humanism as
a religion.
Religion, hence, is understood as that which helps humans find orientation
(or direction) "for life in the world, together with motivation for living
and acting in accordance with this orientation--that is, would gain, and
gradually formulate, a sense of the meaning of human existence." Religion
helps individuals and groups to live in beneficial ways in light of life
altering questions such as the problem of evil that are not easily
addressed through skills and resources associated with "ordinary patterns
of meaning and action internalized from infancy on." While through various
ritual structures and symbolic sources, humans are enabled to understand
their thought and actions as significant and meaningful. In keeping with
Kaufman, I'm not suggesting that this orientation is toward the "sacred"
understood in traditional terms. Instead, this is orientation toward
"reality" in general terms. In this way, both theistic and non-theistic
forms of expression are understandable as religion because religion, in
short, is not limited to easily identified and historically explored forms
of expression. Religion is the "underlying resources of meaning and ritual
that inform and fund the ongoing living and dying in a culture as a whole.
Therefore humanism is a religion because it is one way to gain orientation
and motivation toward the framing of human life through useful goals and
agendas. Humanism does not replace other traditions, instead it contributes
to the diversity, the plurality that characterizes the religious landscape.
Before presenting examples of humanism as praxis oriented religion, it
might be useful to briefly position African American humanism within the
larger arena of humanist thought and practice. We begin with Europe and the
Renaissance.
Early humanists in Europe understood themselves as Christians who addressed
the dilemma of bringing to the process of intellectual inquiry both
Christian doctrine and "pagan" resources. Many were trained clerics with
this question: how does a Christian read the pagan classics without being
contaminated? These clerics and others of Italy and Europe in general were
concerned with bringing the humanistic disciplines to bear on medieval
culture and learning. In this respect, humanism of the medieval period was
active and geared toward problem solving, within the confines of a strong
and determined church.
Because Christianity dominated the landscape and claimed control over the
discussion of moral conduct, humanists were obligated, at least in a
limited way, to address religious institutions and theological concerns to
provide guidance that the professional religious elements of Italy failed
to address. In addressing religious and theological thought, humanists felt
a need to respond to methodological issues that directly effected attitudes
toward action. The centrality of human life in a less than ideal world is
present within humanism at this stage in that humanist scholars saw little
value in abstract theological discussion when people were struggling to
live ethically. Religious conversation and theological language had to
address the moral struggles of humanity. Therefore, humanists of this
period brought into one conversation, devotion to God and a concern for
humanity. These two, with respect to questions of moral living, were
inseparable. In short, an interest in pragmatically connecting thought and
life marked the work of humanists, whether described as Christian or not.
The twin concerns of God and humanity would continue to motivate humanists
as their ideas blazed a trail across Europe, establishing centers of
thought in locations such as Germany, France and England by 1517.
Humanism's compatibility with theism came into question and, with time,
some humanists such as Wilhelm von Humbolt moved away from "religious "
orientations, asserting instead the dominance of experience as the key to
truth. The Enlightenment's emphasis on reason would, therefore, spark a
radical appeal to human perfectibility and the inevitability of progress on
earth. In the twentieth century this "antireligious" sentiment would mutate
into what Lewis W. Spitz and others refer to as a "new humanism"--human
centered and aggressively antireligious in nature.
Similar concerns also fostered an appreciation for humanism in North
America. In the United States the promise and pitfalls of a new democracy
generated a concern for human life. Blood, sweat, and toil generated the
fundamental questions of life's meaning and purpose: the Civil War,
Reconstruction, etc., especially required the creation of a worldview that
made sense of human promise and misery in the modern era. The result was
the emergence of humanist inspired thought and organizations. Although
Enlightenment ideas related to freethought and humanism were under siege
during the Great Awakening revivals, this questioning of God, and the
countervailing idea of the centrality of humanity, were never completely
wiped out. Humanist sentiments continued to grow, then, from this early
period into the work of philosophers such as John Dewey, and radical
liberal clergy like John H. Dietrich of the First Unitarian Society of
Minneapolis.
African American humanism shares the human-centered emphasis of humanism,
but there's a different rationale for this position based upon various
forms of oppression encountered by African Americans that were, at times,
justified theologically. Manifestations of humanism begin early with
suspicion concerning the Christian message as pointed out in 1839 by Daniel
Payne, one of the leading figures in the African Methodist Episcopal
church. Fearful that slaves will completely give up on the Christian faith
if they aren't introduced to the "true " gospel message, Payne writes:
The slaves are sensible of the oppression exercised by their
masters and they see these masters on the Lord's day worshipping
in his holy Sanctuary--and they know that oppression and slavery
are inconsistent with the Christian religion; therefore they
scoff at religion itself--mock their masters, and distrust both
the goodness and justice of God. Yes, I have known them even to
question his existence. A few nights ago between 10 and 11
o'clock a runaway slave came to the house where I live for safety
and succor. I asked him if he was a Christian; "no sir, " said
he, "white men treat us so bad in Mississippi that we can't be
christians. "
Based upon Payne's depiction, it seems fairly clear that the early presence
and rationale for humanism within African American communities revolve
around the inadequacy of Christianity for responding to moral evil. This
initial phase of humanism is primarily addressed on the level of the
individual and in cultural manifestations such as work songs, the blues,
and folklore. Although African Americans have held humanist perspectives
and operated accordingly for centuries, use of the phrase, Black Humanism,
as a reference is fairly recent. Empowerment: One Denomination's Quest for
Racial Justice, 1967-1982 provides the following information concerning the
use of this term, linking its use with the Black Unitarian Universalist
Caucus created to respond to racial issues within the UUA:
Black humanists understood humanism as a process, an existential
process by which one finds and lives his humanity. To be human is
to direct one's own life; therefore, Black Humanism calls for a
seizure of decision making and implementation for oneself.
Gaining power is an essential element of humanism.
Its appeal to social justice is similar to that used historically within
African American Christian churches minus one ingredient: justice is
demanded and premised upon a humanocentric appeal to accountability and
progress, not on the dictates of scripture lived through the Christ figure.
However, because of the work of William R. Jones and Mark Morrison-Reed,
for example, this site of Black humanism--the UUA--is somewhat known.
Therefore let's now give attention to what I think are sites readily
connected with praxis rarely thought of as humanist.
With the development of the Harlem Renaissance and its exploration of
uncomfortable and raw life questions as well as the "de-radicalization of
churches, " the increase in alternate responses to oppression made space
available for humanist interpretations. Although figures such as Richard
Wright are referred to, there are others whose work deserves attention. And
beyond a theological exploration of their writings, attention should also
be given to the personal religious perspectives of these figures. For
instance, how does the agnosticism of a James Baldwin or the humanism of a
Zora Neale Hurston effect their inclusion in theological reflection and
religious studies in general? The literature of the Harlem Renaissance
provides insights that not only inform theological reflection because of
their concern with religious themes and imagery, but it also provides, when
personal positions are considered, a much needed challenge to theological
assumptions (e.g., answers to the problem of evil) and ideas of religious
normality within Black communities. In this way, they provide license to
advocate the humanism I find interesting and noteworthy.
Many of the above figures continued to understand the Christian church as
an important cultural development, but without acceptance of its
theological stance. Others involved themselves in institutional structures
that allowed for the further development of their humanism. That is to say,
Doubt, frustration, and denial of God's existence arise also from
social crises. The repudiation or negation of God may influence
the behavior of Negroes in many ways. It may lead many of them
into the humanistic camp--Negroes would then seek to perfect
social change--without relying on God or super-natural aid. The
negation of the idea of God may also drive Negroes into the
communistic camp, whereby more militant or violent means would be
used to achieve political and economic status.
Not to put too fine a point on it, I nonetheless suspect that the
non-theist stance of the Communist Party and its rhetorical appeal to
African Americans (thin as it was) provided a forum and home for African
American humanists who found churches either uncomfortable or hopelessy
backward.
Documents available at the Schomburg Center, the division of the New York
Public Library geared toward research in African American culture, and
other locations, document Party organizing activities in African American
communities such as Harlem during the early during the 1920s and 1930s. The
Communist Party, however, was reluctant to "attack " black churches owing
to the strength of churches that in the end could hamper organizing
efforts. Others were unwilling to move in this direction because of
personal commitment to the Christian church. Robin D. G. Kelley has
documented this. Nonetheless this support, as Kelley points out, was mixed
with a critique of less than liberating activity on the part of clergy who
spent their time gaining wealth and preaching against transformation. Some
took this critique further and rejected the Christian church and its
doctrine altogether as non-liberating activity and thought. According to
Kelley:
Challenges to religious beliefs frequently surfaced in personal
conversations and arguments within the Party. Such challenges did
not only come from white Communists; they were common among some
leading blacks. What Hosea Hudson's recollections reveal is that
attacks on religion often had little bearing on politics or
theory. He was rebuked by comments such as in "Ain't no
God....Nobody ever seen God. How you know it's a God? " When he
cited the Bible as his witness, he recalled a common retort was,
"The white man wrote the Bible " ÖIn other words, black
Communists who questioned the viability of religion had concerns
kindred to a good portion of working-class blacks throughout the
United States. Therefore, we cannot assume that the party
experience itself was the sole reason for "atheism " practiced by
a small minority of Communists in Alabama. On the contrary, it is
likely that blacks who questioned the existence of an omnipresent
God or were simply fed up with clerical corruption, were drawn to
the party because of its scathing critique of the church.
Although some Black communists like Hosea Hudson were active in the church
they often indirectly critiqued its activities via a challenge of God. As
Hudson recalls:
I challenge one or two deacons one Sunday afternoon. We all
sitting around talking. I told them, I said, "It ain't no such
thing as no God. You all go around here singing and praying, " I
said, "and they regular lynching Negroes, and you ain't doing
nothing about it. "
Hudson recounts that he never lost his belief in God. However, what he
states actually sounds like a version of agnosticism.
I never did finally stop believing in God. I haven't stopped
believing yet today. I don't argue about it. I don't discuss it,
because it's some-thing I can't explain. I don't know whether
it's a God, I don't know whether it's not a God. But I know
science, if you take science for it, and all these developments,
I can't see what God had much to do with it--So it's something
beyond my knowledge to deal with. And I don't deal with it. I
don't try to deal with it.
Hudson also recounts that this type of rejection of God was genuinely
embraced by some members of the Party who never attended church, and who
used this critique of God as more than a challenge to passivity. Hudson
states that:
I had heard other Party people talking. Some of them had never
been members of no church, talking about there wont no such thing
as God: "Where is he at? You say it's a God, where is he at? You
can't prove where he's at." Negro Party people said that to me,
Murphy and Horton and Raymond Knox. We'd have big discussions.
One Sunday I said I was going to church.
"What you going for? What you going for?"
I said, "I'm going to serve God."
They said, "Where is God at? You can't prove it's no God
nowhere."
They said, "Where is God?"
I said, "In heaven."
"Well, where is heaven?"
The objections of Black Communists who rejected God often revolved around
the problem of evil. In the words of Raymond Knox: "...here they lynching
Negroes...if God's all that good, how come he don't stop the police from
killing Negroes, lynching Negroes, if God is all that just? " In rejecting
God, the humanists Hudson knew in the Communist Party held humanity
responsible for social transformation. Hudson found it difficult to respond
to these charges. In his words:
I just didn't have a [sic] answer. And them was the kind of
questions they put. "If God is such a just God, and here you
walking around here, ain't got no food. The only way you can get
food is you have to organize. So if you have to organize to
demand food, why you going to pray to God about it? Why don't you
go on and put your time in organizing and talk to people?"
Disillusionment with the Communist Party grew (as is brilliantly narrated
in the work of Ralph Ellison and Richard Wright) because the Party--by the
time African Americans participated in noticeable numbers--had withdrawn
from a strong interest in the negro question. Although some African
Americans undoubtedly remained within the Party hoping for change in its
policy on racism, others took their humanism in the direction of Black
nationalism.
Theologians such as James Cone gave attention to the Black Power movement
in a way that displayed the distance between the compatibility of
Christianity and Black Power. In his early writings, Cone argues for an
understanding of Christianity (and theological reflection) through
recognizing the Christ event as an affirmation of the need for power. This
connection is certainly present particularly in the early phases of the
Civil Rights movement and SNCC. Nonetheless this distance between Christ
and "mundane" manifestations of power, as expressed in the late 1960s, was
not completely reconciled. Consequently, in the late twentieth century, the
Black Panther Party and SNCC became emblematic of other locations of
humanist praxis and religion.
I cannot help but believe that the movement away from the Christian-based
Civil Rights movement sparked by SNCC and the thundering call for Black
Power pointed to deep theological differences. It's more than likely that
theistic motivations and explanations failed adequately to address the
concerns and ideas of some of the more "radical" elements of the movement.
The break, I argue, also marks a move away from the theism of the Civil
Rights movement and toward materialist analysis and human-centered
solutions. Gone were integrationist goals and reliance upon Christian
doctrine and paradigms for action. SNCC decided that social transformation
would only occur when African Americans took control of their destiny and
worked toward change. Reliance on human potential praxis was heightened in
ways that distinguished this phase of SNCC's personae from the Civil Rights
movement. Although inadequately defined in terms of social transformative
thrusts and foci, Black Power--for some of its advocates--did harness
rather clearly defined theological assumptions based upon humanist leanings
and the language of self-determination. Consider here the thoughts of James
Forman, a member of SNCC.
In his autobiography The Making of Black Revolutionaries, Forman describes
his "conversion" to humanism (as defined above) which did not hamper but
rather informed Forman's praxis. His work toward social transformation with
SNCC, for example, points to the nature and sustainability of humanist
praxis. He notes that during his time at Wilson Junior College in Chicago
his doubts concerning the existence of God, based primarily on the problem
of evil, grew. This process was intensified through contact with
questionable Black preachers whose self-centered and selfish ways resulted
in his distaste for ministry and the church. Such interactions are summed
up by this comment: "God was not quite dead in me, but he was dying fast."
After returning from military service some years later, Forman came to a
final conclusion concerning the existence of God. He writes:
The next six years of my life were a time of ideas. A time when
things were germinating and changing in me. A time of deciding
what I would do with my life. It was also a time in which I rid
myself, once and for all, of the greatest disorder that cluttered
my mind--the belief in God or any type of supreme being.
Outlining the rationale for his "disbelief," Forman notes that during a
philosophy course he set firm upon the following:
I reject the existence of God. He is not all-powerful,
all-knowing, and everywhere. He is not just or unjust because he
does not exist. God is a myth; churches are institutions designed
to perpetuate this myth and thereby keep people in subjugation.
For him humanism required a strong commitment on the part of people to
change their present condition in ways that belief in God did not allow. He
continues:
The belief in a supreme being or God weakens the will of a people
to change conditions themselves. As a Negro who has grown up in
the United States, I believe that the belief in God has hurt my
people. We have put off doing something about our condition on
this earth because we have believed that God was going to take
care of business in heavenÖMy philosophy course had finally
satisfied my need for intellectual as well as emotional certainty
that God did not exist. I reached the point of rejecting God out
of personal experience and observations...
Critiques of the black church based upon materialist approaches to social
transformation continued through the Black Panther Party. The attraction of
some SNCC workers to the Black Panther Party led by Huey Newton and Bobby
Seale was based upon a common concern with transformative activity that
held as its measuring stick the welfare of African Americans and other
oppressed groups. The Party had a clearly defined platform and was much
more certain of its armed and revolutionary stance. Reflecting on the
ultimate demise of many Black Panthers, Bobby Seale sums up the goals of
the Party, goals which speak to a universal humanist agenda:
We need activists who cross all ethnic and religious backgrounds
and color lines who will establish civil and human rights for
all, including the right to an ecologically balanced,
pollution-free environment. We must create a world of decent
human relationships where revolutionary humanism is grounded in
democratic human rights for every person on earth. Those were the
political revolutionary objectives of my old Black Panther Party.
They must now belong to the youth of today.
Drawing heavily from Marx, Fanon, Engels, Lenin, Mao, etc., the Party
initially denounced the church, and, one can assume, its teachings as well,
labelling both counterproductive. Huey P. Newton reflects on this:
As far as the church was concerned, the Black Panther Party and
other community groups emphasized the political and criticized
the spiritual. We said the church is only a ritual, it is
irrelevant, and therefore we will have nothing to do with it. We
said this in the context of the whole community being involved
with the church on one level or another. That is one way of
defecting from the community, and that is exactly what we did.
Once we stepped outside of the whole thing that the community was
involved in and we said, "You follow our example; your reality is
not true and you don't need it."
However, the Party softened its position when it recognized the central
role the church held in Black communities. Like the Communist Party, the
Panthers recognized that recruitment would be difficult if open hostility
existed between the Panthers and Black churches. The Panthers fostered a
relationship of convenience and socio-political necessity, but without a
firm commitment to the churches' theological underpinnings. Newton
rationalizes this strategy by arguing for a different conception of God,
God as the "unknown " that, interestingly enough, science will ultimately
"discover." In this sense, God does not exist in the affirmative. This was
the Panthers compromise with socio-political necessities of community
connections and the teachings of Marx. Quoting Newton again:
So we do go to church, are involved in the church, and not in any
hypocritical way. Religion perhaps is a thing that man needs at
this time because scientists cannot answer all of the
questions--the unexplained and the unknown is God. We know
nothing about God, really, and that is why as soon as the
scientist develops or points out a new way of controlling a part
of the universe, that aspect of the universe is no longer God.
Whether successful or misguided, the Black Panther Party's humanism is
notable. In essence, attention is taken off of divine assistance because
talk of God is ignored. Rather, humans are given sole responsibility for
altering the world. In the words of Bobby Seale:
We are fighting for the preservation of life. We refuse to be
brainwashed by comic-book notions that distort the real
situation. The only way that the world is ever going to be free
is when the youth of this country moves with every principle of
human respect and with every soft spot we have in our hearts for
human life. We know that as a people, we must seize our time.
I realize that the examples provided here, particularly those of the
Communist Party and the Black Panther Party, raise questions concerning the
essential notion of atheism vs. humanism in what I advocate, as well as
questions concerning either one's ultimate usefulness beyond immediate
issues. The latter I address thusly: these serve as useful examples because
they point beyond immediate context to a larger and continued concern for
identities and dignity. Granted, many Blacks moved away from this humanist
position (e.g., Eldridge Cleaver), and humanism has hardly meant the
complete transformation of the world! Still, this does not seal humanism's
fate as indefensible. Rather, it has always understood that failure is a
possibility, but one that should not prevent us from continuing to work.
Humanism does not provide guarantees; rather it suggests possibilities
sustainable through human effort alone. Kaufman's sense of religions
providing world-pictures is helpful here. He writes that these pictures may
not be accurate; ultimately they may not be true, but they are
indispensable because humans need them in order to orient themselves.
Ultimately, humanism provides a world-picture, one that I suggest avoids
the harmful effects of redemptive suffering in ways the Christian tradition
does not. Humanism, I believe, is a way of ordering our world and our lives
through giving equal attention to human failure and human potential as the
launching platform for more sustained engagement with community and
dignity.
Moving back to the first question: what is the relationship between atheism
and humanism? Putting it frankly: the lines between agnosticism, atheism,
and humanism are inevitably blurred. This is particularly evident in the
section of this essay concerning the Communist party when the Church and
God are brought into question as the result of their perceived inability to
respond adequately to the problem of evil as manifested, say, in regard to
the lynching of blacks. But does this mean that the Christian church and
its theology are hopelessly flawed? Must a humanist be an atheist? As I
have argued elsewhere (Why, Lord?: Suffering and Evil in Black Theology),
humanism in some phases of its emergence can arrive in theistic guise. Much
of liberation theology, for example, entails this type of partnership with
God. Therefore, humanists can be theists, concern for humanity assuming
theistic or other comparable forms. As I've argued in my book, theistic
humanists must continue to think through the problem of evil (in ways that
atheistic or agnostic humanists can avoid) because they continue to embrace
a traditional notion of God as present, just, good, and working toward the
liberation of a continually oppressed group.
But for many there is simply not enough evidence of this God to warrant
continued theism. And these, in response to the problem of evil--as the
examples have shown--embrace an atheistic or an agnostic humanism that puts
God aside and relies exclusively upon humanity for the resolution of
questions caused by moral evil. This represents a position that is not
overly concerned with God as a negative myth, but rather God as a
liberating myth that is nonetheless unsubstantiated. I'm wary of such
normative stances because exclusivity is damaging and certainly
unwarranted; yet in the end religious relativism does not completely
satisfy. The key is a reflexive and reflective tension because the
relationship between the various religions and their alleged truth content
is, for all we know, ever unfolding. Thus, while advocating humanism, I
remain mindful of Kaufman's words:
"Religion" is, however, an enormously diverse and diffuse sphere
of human existence, including wide ranges of perspectives and
practices, institutions and symbolisms. Moreover, it is not at
all clear that there is any way, at this time, in which the
descriptive and historical study of this vast and complex field
can (or should attempt to) develop norms or standards coherent
enough and specific enough to provide effective orientation and
guidance for contemporary human life--a central theological
objective. Theologians, therefore, will need to conduct their
explorations and reflections in terms of some particular
meaning-and-value complexes, some frameworks of interpretation
which command their respect and commitment; but whatever
frameworks are employed today must be open enough and
comprehensive enough to allow considerable freedom and
experimentation in the investigation of the many issues pertinent
to the orientation and guidance of contemporary life.
My goal is to challenge both humanists and theists to think through the
consequences (in terms of social transformation) of their claims. But first
it has been necessary to demonstrate the existence and viability of
humanist theology and humanism as a religion.
FOOTNOTES
[Web Admin's Note: The document conversion process unfortunately did not
retain footnote numbering.]
I must thank Dr. Victor Anderson for his careful reading of an earlier
draft of this essay. His insights and suggestions were invaluable. I am
also grateful to two Macalester College students, Gregory Colleton and
Gretchen Rohr, for research assistance during the early phases of
preparation for writing this piece. A more detailed examination of humanism
as a religious system, drawing from this essay, is provided in my book: The
Varieties of African American Religious Experience: Theological
Introduction (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, Fall 1998).
Hans A. Baer and Merrill Singer, African-American Religion in the Twentieth
Century: Varieties of Protest and Accommodation (Knoxville: The University
of Tennessee Press, 1992).
Gordon Kaufman, In Face of Mystery: A Constructive Theology (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 1993), 225.
Ibid., 227.
Ibid.
Charles Trinkaus, "Italian Humanism and Scholastic Theology, " in Albert
Rabil, Jr., Renaissance Humanism: Foundations, Forms, and Legacy, Volume 3
Humanism and the Disciplines (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania
Press, 1988), 327-328.
Lewis W. Spitz, "Humanism and the Protestant Reformation, " in Albert
Rabil, 1988, 380.
Corliss Lamont, The Philosophy of Humanism (New York: Frederick Ungar
Publishing Co., 1965), 17-18.
John H. Dietrich, "Unitarianism and Humanism, " in What If The World Went
Humanist?: Ten Sermons, selected by Mason Olds (Yellow Springs, OH:
Fellowship of Religious Humanists, 1989), 58.
Daniel Alexander Payne, "Daniel Payne's Protestation of Slavery, " in
Lutheran Herald and Journal of the Franckean Synod (August 1, 1839),
114-115.
Empowerment, 1983, 24.
For an interesting discussion of the Harlem Renaissance and literary
developments within other Black communities see: Wilson Jeremiah Moses, The
Wings of Ethiopia: Studies in African-American Life and Letters ( Ames:
Iowa State University Press, 1990), chapter 12.
Benjamin Mays, The Negro's God as Reflected in His Literature (New York:
Atheneum, 1973), 243.
See Mark Naison's "The Communist Party in Harlem, 1928-1936. " Relevant
holdings include: the Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers.
Robin D. G. Kelley, "Comrades, Praise Gawd for Lenin and Them!: Ideology
and Culture Among Black Communists in Alabama, 1930-1935, " Science and
Society, Vol. 52, No. 1, Spring 1988, 61-62. Also see Robin Kelley's
"Afric's Sons with Banners Red " in Imagining Home. Furthermore, some
churches actively worked with the Communist Party:
Although the Communists never had a sympathetic ear from the larger,
well-established black churches, several ministers and working-class
congregations of smaller Baptist churches in and around Birmingham provided
critical support for the Communists and the International Labor Defense in
opposition to a state-wide anti-sedition bill. (Ibid., 63)
Ibid., 64.
In addition some churches supported efforts to organize around economic and
political issues and for this purpose, offered their buildings for
meetings.
Kelley, 1988, 65-66.
Ibid., 133.
Ibid., 134-135.
Nell Irvin Painter, The Narrative of Hosea Hudson: His Life as a Negro
Communist in the South (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1979),
133.
Ibid., 134.
Ibid.
See Harold Cruse, "Jews and Negroes in the Communist Party, " in The Crisis
of the Negro Intellectual: A Historical Analysis of the Failure of Black
Leadership (New York: William Morrow and Company/Quill, © 1984), 147.
James Forman, "Corrupt Black preachers, " in The Making of Black
Revolutionaries (Washington,DC: Open Hand Publishing, Inc., 1985), 58.
Ibid., "God Is Dead: A Question of Power, " 80-81.
Ibid., 83.
Bobby Seale, Seize the Time: The Story of The Black Panther Party and Huey
P. Newton (Baltimore: Black Classic Press, 1991, Introduction, 3.
Huey P. Newton, To Die For The People: The Writings of Huey P. Newton,
edited by Toni Morrison (New York: Writers and Readers Publishing, Inc.,
1995),
Newton, 1995, 64.
Seale, 1991, 429.
Gordon Kaufman, God, Mystery, Diversity: Christian Theology in a
Pluralistic World (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1996), 6. I believe that my
humanist theology and humanism as a religious system avoid charges of
idolatry in light of Kaufman's understanding of religious diversity and
plurality, and because all religious traditions contain an element of
reflection that wrestles with the life altering questions, based upon their
sense of primary concern. For humanism as I understand it, this primary
concern is community and the dignity it must foster; what theological
reflection seeks is to make sense of all else in light of community and
human dignity. Within the religion of humanism, then, this is not idolatry.
New York: Continuum Publishing Company, 1995.
If there were more sustainable evidence that God exists and is working
toward the liberation of the oppressed, atheistic humanism might not exist.
It is, in this way, owing to inadequate responses to the problem of evil:
humanism of this kind is primarily concerned with evidence. Therefore, if
science, for example, were to demonstrate as correct the claims of
liberation minded theists, humanists would have to embrace theism and seek
to work in a fitting manner toward social transformation.
Kaufman, 1993, 27.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
This paper was first published in Religious Humanism, vol. 31, nos. 3 & 4,
summer/fall 1997, p. 61-78. Copyright © 1997 by the Friends of Religious
Humanism, Inc.
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