Since the beginning of slavery, Christianity has been altered in a way to manipulate Black individuals and the justify the horrific acts of racism. Within America, hypocrisy would become a common component of Christianity as god-fearing slave owners would brutally beat, murder, and rape their slaves. Although the Christian religion was meant to serve as a mechanism for maintaining righteousness, holiness, and morality, many white individuals would use this as way gain superiority and dominance. For much of the African-American community, religion, in particular, Christianity, would be used to uplift and empower the spirits of millions of oppressed African-Americans. Despite enduring continuous marginalization and systemic oppression, Christianity …show more content…
Rather, King believes that the church conforms to the ideals of the oppressors, failing to truly represent God’s will of peace, unity, and prosperity for all. In the fight for gaining human rights within the African-American community, the cowardice and silence of the Southern church would eventually cause King to become pessimistic. If Southern churches continued to perform the evils of the white hegemony by dehumanizing the existence of Black individuals, the Christian faith would “lose its authentic ring, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning” (King, p. 17). In the book, The Fire Next, by James Baldwin, we will see how the hypocrisy found in this religion has compelled Baldwin to believe in this same notion. Much like King, Baldwin was also a believer in Christianity. Baldwin was raised in a Christian household and became a preacher later in his lifetime. Baldwin would use the power of religion to escape a world of crime. It was not until Baldwin would read texts such as Dostoevski, encounter Jewish students at his school, learn that bible was written by a white man, and discover that Christianity was used as a tool to justify racism, that his faith would begin to diminish. Criticizing Christianity and displaying the “slow crumbling of his faith,” Baldwin would go on to