James Baldwin on Loving Your Enemies in The Fire Next Time
(excerpt)
Raised in the evangelical church as a pastor’s son, James Baldwin discovered his own sense of potential and power after becoming a young preacher in Harlem. A number of factors drew him to the Church and the pulpit, including the fear of not surviving his Harlem environment, his desperate need for a “gimmick,” and the desire for a source of leverage against an abusive father.
Consisting of two letters, Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time (1963) identifies a stark divide between the Church’s theology and its practices. Love and what it means to love others are critical questions for Baldwin; they are directly linked to his fractious relationship to God and the Church, and his equally complicated relationship to white Americans.
In acknowledging the hatred he often feels toward white people, Baldwin also asserts that the redemption of our common humanity requires a radical form of embracing the other—a task inextricably tied to the theme of love.
Baldwin tries to comprehend how he might show love to white Americans who greet him with hate. How can he follow Christ’s command to “love one another as I have loved you” when those to whom Baldwin extends his love respond with violence and vitriol? Those who, in the face of Baldwin’s love, often threaten the very life of the Black subject? A central question underlies much of Baldwin’s essay: what could be more Christian and ethically hyperbolic that to love those who hate you?
Even as he lambasts the Church for its hypocrisy, Baldwin’s own definition of love appears to be rooted in scripture, particularly the type of love Christ preaches during the Sermon on the Mount: “You have heard the law that says, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you! … If you love only those who love you, what reward is there in that?” (NLT, Matt. 5:43-47)
Baldwin’s adherence to this form of love is evident in “My Dungeon Shook” as he writes to his nephew, James:
“There is no reason for you to try to become like white people and there is no basis whatever for their impertinent assumption that they must accept you. The really terrible thing, old buddy, is that you must accept them. And I mean that very seriously. You must accept them and accept them with love. For these innocent people have no other hope.”
Baldwin finds himself fiercely at odds with the church in which he was raised; one he vehemently believes does not subscribe to the doctrine of love outlined in Christ’s sermon. In “Down at the Cross” Baldwin declares the major source of his disillusionment in the Church’s failure to apply the principle of love found in Matthew:
“There was no love in the church. It was a mask for hatred and self-hatred and despair. The transfiguring power of the Holy Ghost ended when the service ended, and salvation stopped at the church door. When we were told to love everybody, I had thought that that meant everybody. But no. It applied only to those who believed as we did, and did not apply to white people at all.”
Baldwin also recalls the moment his father “slammed [him] across the face with his great palm” after bringing home a Jewish friend who was not “saved,” and would therefore burn for eternity. His response to his father, “He’s a better Christian than you are,” epitomizes Baldwin’s lifelong search for love outside the Church.