Blog Post 3

Reverend Cleage and the Black Church

The article that discussed the conversation with Ida B. Wells and Reverend Albert B. Cleage Jr. proved especially interesting. He began the article by claiming that it was a fact that Jesus Christ was a Black Messiah who is determined to liberate his people from the white gentiles. Reverend Cleage’s radical ideas have a lot to do with the involvement of the Church. He has the belief that the Church has to relate the true Christian message to a Black Revolution. He believes that the black seminarian has have a sense of urgency to make the black church more effective. While Church has to become more effective, there are still groups within society that can become more involved as well, specifically, the youth. The idea of the Black Messiah greatly impacts the youth. The current black youth are rejecting the church and by rejecting the church, they are rejecting one of the only things that black people had control over. Control is important when wanting to impose a movement. The Church and the movement had to have a symbiotic relationship in order to maintain a level of control over the movement. Black people were struggling to escape from powerlessness and that is what the revolution is about. The Church was a way in which they could escape powerlessness through control.

          The article concludes with the discussion of how the Black church should be a training ground for the struggle and its liberation. There needs to be a reformation of the entire Christian faith, but is that actually a possibility? Blacks are still struggling to escape from powerlessness. There is a negative tone as to the possibility of Blacks escaping the struggle because all institutions in America are said to be racist by Reverend Cleage. He discusses the possibility of there never being a solution to the black struggle because we are only as free as we are powerful. There is a type of substitution or interchange with freedom and power. The youth must continue to be invested in the Church in order for the black community to maintain control over some aspect of the liberation movement. This article proved to be particularly interesting because it connected the Church with the liberation movement in a way that I have never seen. By presenting the idea that the Christian faith was a formulation by the white race and is in need of reformation. He makes valid points with his arguments of the black messiah; however, his conclusion or lack thereof is hard to swallow. Movements continue because of hope and it seems that Reverend Cleage had given up hope as far as the black community gaining power or control.