Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly . INTERVIEW . Michael Eric Dyson . August 17, 2007

Read more of R & E producer Gail Fendley's interview with Michael Eric Dyson:

Q: How would you describe the historic role of the African American church in society and black communities?

A: The role of the black church has been enormously important, historically speaking, for these black communities. First of all, it's been an institution that housed the educational aspiration of black people. The quest for literacy has motivated us from the beginning of our time in this country. The schoolhouse was always found in the church house; the church house was the disseminator of profound forms of intellectual engagement and scholarship. Also it was a social center. It provided the opportunity for black people to gather together to articulate their interests in social networks. And of course it was a political center. When you think of the greatest leaders who have emerged from within the context of African American people, they have been part and parcel, woof and warp of that institutional matrix called the black church. So the black church, historically speaking, has been incredibly important in expressing the political sensibilities of African American people, articulating their spiritual desires—also the educational ambition and their desire to be equal and free in a society that imposed restrictions upon them that were harsh and unjust.

Q: And it has also been a center of outreach, of social uplift to those who are being left behind?

A: Oh, it's no question. I mean, the point of the meeting places and gathering places there was to spark the upward mobility of black people, not necessarily or primarily economically, but to get them a foothold, a toehold into the larger circle of American privilege and to make sure that they could be stabilized with the delivery of social resources to them. I mean, politicians usually have that role, but before black people were allowed to occupy public office, the arbiters, if you will, of the distribution of resources for black communities were often black ministers. So it was they [who] played a role individually, and the church collectively, dealing with the resource needs of the black community, encouraging them to prosper and allowing them to pool their resources to make a difference in their lives economically and socially and politically. So there was an enormous push on the part of certain segments of the church, not altogether, but a small enough, powerful enough minority to make a huge difference for the rest of the majority.

Q: That led to the civil rights movement and it informed the preaching of Martin Luther King.

A: Absolutely. Martin Luther King Jr. was a powerful wave, but a wave as part of a broader ocean, a response to black suffering. His attempt was to articulate a Christianity informed, though not exclusively of religious concern, about how people were being mistreated, and as a result of that, borrowing from his own theological training and his own religious emphasis and his homiletical practices, Martin Luther King Jr. was able to express some of the most poignant and clear articulation of black desires, rooted in religious sensibilities to be free and equal and just in America. He dealt with the personal, but he also dealt with the political. He dealt with the personal because as the pastor of a church he was able to deal with the rituals of marrying and burying and counseling people for marriage and the like, but he also dealt with the political. How do we make sure that this society more easily adheres to the principles of democracy that it articulates at its best? So Martin Luther King Jr. was a powerful figure, but he was representative of a broader ocean of response to the legitimate claims of black people upon the state, and the desire to make certain that some of those resources for which we had worked earnestly could flow toward us.

Q: How does that all figure in and lead to the new phenomenon within some black churches, what critics call the prosperity gospel?

A: There have been moments where the prosperity gospel, in black and white churches throughout the 20th century—even the great Harry Emerson Fosdick for a moment got caught up in some of the rather more interesting departures from his liberal gospel. Father Divine, Reverend Ike—there were precedents established in black religious culture before now, but there's no question that the spread—some would say benignly, others would say metastasization—as a cancer in the body religious within black America has been enormous and rapid, taking the cells of opposition away and establishing beachheads, if we're going to extend this metaphor, maybe to the mitochondria, who knows? The point is that the body has been besieged, the body religious that is black has been besieged by this prosperity gospel that is deeply and largely political, and then when it is political largely conservative and preserving the status quo, and then it has no emphasis upon the historic and traditional aspects that have been emphasized in black religious traditions that deal with racism, that deal with the quest for equality in America. The irony is that the prosperity gospel, however, is being preached upon the basis of the civil rights movement. Without all of this affirmative action making it possible for black people to enjoy these middle-class existences and lives, there would be no prosperity gospel, so why didn't the prosperity gospel get preached when people were truly poor and you could see God could raise you up, but they're piggybacking off of, oddly enough, affirmative action being articulated by the civil rights branch of the religious institutions, which is now being obscured in the prosperity gospel.

The prosperity gospel gets to have it both ways; it denies the legitimacy of civil rights because none of them mention it or hardly any of them mention these historic legacies of white supremacy, social injustice, economic inequality, or black class warfare, on the one hand, but at the same time they can pretend to be part of a religious and spiritual journey that is the best of that tradition. So to me, quite frankly, it's a very disturbing phenomenon, and the prosperity gospel has all but precluded a political expression of the gospel in ways that most black people can find uplifting. Martin Luther King Jr. was a minority figure within black religion—let's not get it twisted, as the young people say. The black politicized clergy was relatively small, it always has been, but it's been hugely influential, and it invited the rest of black Christendom to join its journey toward justice freedom and democracy. The problem now, of course, is that there's an even smaller coterie of ministers who are gathering together in their pulpits across the country to articulate a vision that is increasingly unpopular, demanding responsibility of the rich toward the poor, as opposed to the prosperity gospel. I mean, hey, you can pray for them but you're not praying right, that's why you don't have it. It's not because of structural barriers, it's not because of the prohibition of race, of your opportunity to get employed; you don't have because you're not praying right, you're not speaking right, you're not speaking in tongues right, you're not bowing down before the altar of a certain conception theologically of God. It has nothing to do with the state, it has nothing to do with the encumbrances of social injustice, so what we lose in the balance is the emphasis on social and structural features that prevent people from enjoying greater prosperity. They personalize it through a theology of prosperity as opposed to—as Martin Luther King Jr. and the best of that tradition does, Jesse Jackson, William Gray and the like, talk about—the constitutional expression of an idea that then has theological credence, because they bring to bear their powerful preaching and social analysis.

Q: Is it divisive to the point that it has made the long tradition of Martin Luther King and others irrelevant?

A: That tradition of Martin Luther King is not irrelevant, but it's certainly marginal, and the reality is that people in today's society who are African American Christians are increasingly not exposed to what used to be taken for granted as a battlefield for black people in the '60s and early '70s. At least we knew that there was going to be a contentious faction of preachers and other Christians demanding that the social relevance of the gospel be displayed in the kind of preaching and activism that the church engaged in. Now those times are relatively marginal, those emphases are relatively marginal, and what's happened [is the] prosperity gospel has smothered, if you will, the enormous attention that should be paid to these issues. Again, not to overrepresent and romanticize what happened in the '60s, Martin Luther King Jr. after all joined the Progressive National Baptist Convention because the National Baptist Convention, through its leader Joseph H. Jackson, was not inclined to embrace civil rights, so there was a splinter movement. The relative minority of people involved in the social justice agenda within black Christendom, however, was still powerful. Now they've been rendered marginal, because the gospel of prosperity is much more attractive. Why wouldn't it be? If you're telling people as opposed to sacrifice for social justice, speak out against social inequity and deal with the disparities of race versus let's all be rich, let's enjoy the bounty of God, let's celebrate the status quo, lets redistribute capitalism so we can get a bigger piece of the pie—of course you're attracted to that easy gospel, and not to be vindictive, but to borrow Dietrich Bonhoeffer's notion of cheap grace here, this is an example, one could argue, of a certain kind of theological cheap grace that doesn't atone for its sins in the light of a gospel that is demanding and rigorous of the Christian believer.

Q: Two years after Hurricane Katrina, what is the role of the black church in rebuilding?

A: The role of the black church should be huge. First of all, many of the people who were suffering were members of churches. Many of the black people who are poor go to church, or believe in God and believe in the sanctuary politics that the church has accustomed them to. So the black church has a responsibility also to explain why this thing happened in public and to ally the resources of God and faith and the community of religious ritual on behalf of the people, not against them. You will remember in the immediate aftermath of Katrina some people were saying it was God's judgment because you're gay and have parades down there, because you're black and you're poor and on welfare and addicted. We heard the theology seep into Bill O'Reilly and on the local programs where people were remonstrating against the so called excesses of the poor black people. That's nonsense and balderdash theologically, but we've got to express that. Those of us that are committed to a religious tradition which is prophetic must say to those people who articulate that that's wrong, that's a misuse of the gospel. The black church must be on the front line defending that. But it also must share the resources. Some of these prosperity gospel churches were down there in New Orleans, ironically enough—the home of baling is New Orleans within hip-hop culture, one of the poorest places in the world, and certainly in this country [it] is the birthplace of the shining jewelry and the desire for the diamonds that occupies the bling gospel, so it's not ironic that some of the poorest people are also attending some of the biggest prosperity gospel churches down there. But they've got to be pushed. What are you doing for the people, the most vulnerable? How can you repatriate them to their country of New Orleans, so to speak, and to their local parishes?

Q: Is the black church doing enough?

A: No, of course not. I mean, the government ain't doing nearly enough, and that's the biggest responsibility, but the black church has to step up even more, first of all to bring the political economy of attention to bear. I mean, the resource of actually acknowledging and being conscious of what's going on down there, and then prophetically articulating to the country and to the church at large that we're not doing enough and that the black church and the white church and the Latino church and every other segment, the Asian church, must be concerned, because there were Vietnamese shrimpers down there, 40,000 of them; Mexican workers who were down there who are now part of the so called taco economy. You have Native American tribes, eight of them dispersed along the Gulf Coast, so there's enough work for everybody and everybody's religious and ethnic community to take care of.

Q: Why are there few black church groups on the ground helping to rebuild?

A: Well, you know, first of all they figure it's white folks turn to help out because they done messed up so much of the country, we're not mad at them for having the leisure as a student or somebody else who is involved in a community organization, and if you have that kind of leisure, and I'm not knocking the people that do, because I've been down there in the community with Common Ground and the like, so there's, in one sense, an interesting shift in the politics of representation among the poorest people, and I think the white community and the white church has to step up in serious and significant numbers. But the black church has to be on the ground as well. Partly the difficulty is finding the resource base among the poorer people to do so, but even among the more affluent African American people, the shredding of the attention, the shriveling of the attention, and the popularity of the discourse of assault and attack on poor black people. The reason I wrote my book on Bill Cosby is because black rich people find it attractive to put their colossal foots on the vulnerable necks of people who have little, and we find theological justifications for that among many ministers. I believe what Proverbs says: rich people have a bunch of friends; poor people barely have anybody to speak for them. This is what we see in Katrina. This is why we see the black rich and elite largely abandoning them, though not altogether. Susan Taylor from Essence magazine is leading a call to return there on August 29, the second anniversary [of Hurricane Katrina]. That's important work to be done. Thomas Dorch from 100 Black Men, important black organizations—but the black church has to step up and put its money where its theological mouth is.

Q: Do traditional preachers resent the popularity of prosperity gospel preachers?

A: Some people criticize mainstream religious clergy as saying, you know, you're just jealous of the so called prosperity gospel. They have these megachurches, they have thousands of people coming to church, their coffers are overrunning, the choir stand is full, they're on television, they are sexy whereas you're unsexy in your local church. I think that's a bit precious. Now I'm sure there's some jealousy, because when you've got anything big and successful and the person who used to be on the top is left behind, I'm sure there's some of that theological envy, but for the most part I think that's balderdash. I think the point is that it's easier to get a bigger audience with a gospel that's not demanding, and it's more difficult to try to preach to people about the necessity of a sacrificial gospel. Look at the theological themes that are being underscored in the prosperity gospel. They are not about self-sacrifice for the purposes of ennobling the community; they're about self-aggrandizing economic opportunity. I think especially in black communities one of the explanations for the exponential increase in the prosperity gospel is a way to justify black upward mobility and middle-class existence without feeling guilty. The civil rights movement said you are responsible for your brother and sister; you ought to bring them along. The prosperity gospel says your brother and sister is responsible for him or herself, and what they should be doing is praying right so God can bless them too. And you've got to sacrifice alright, but you've got to give up your tithes to the minister and to the church in order to reap the benefit economically. That is a perversion of the fundamental structure of the gospel, and certainly of the impulse to be generous and to be loving and to be devoted to a disciplined pursuit of the life of Christ. So at the end of the day, jealousy and envy aside, I think there's strong theological opposition to the prosperity gospel. Not all of it, of course, is altogether bad, but for the most part the refusal of prosperity gospel—when have we ever heard Creflo Dollar actually talk about racism? When have we heard prosperity gospel ministers actually address the social injustice systemically that continues to haunt black America? When have we heard prosperity gospel actually address the fact that you can be a black man with a college education in New York and still not have as good a chance of getting a job as a white guy with a prison record? When have we heard prosperity gospel address the Supreme Court decision that said voluntary forms of desegregation in public schools is something that is horrendous, that the judgment of the Supreme Court is horrendous? We don't hear any emphasis upon the political, for the most part, within prosperity gospel, except to second the status quo and to justify conservative values within a political realm. So the problem is we don't find any prophetic expression, or at least a judgment of the larger society.