{"id":1264,"date":"2013-08-10T09:56:00","date_gmt":"2013-08-10T09:56:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2013\/08\/to-pray-or-to-protest-the-bothand-ness-of-black-christianity.html"},"modified":"2013-08-10T09:56:00","modified_gmt":"2013-08-10T09:56:00","slug":"to-pray-or-to-protest-the-bothand-ness-of-black-christianity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2013\/08\/to-pray-or-to-protest-the-bothand-ness-of-black-christianity.html","title":{"rendered":"To Pray or to Protest? The Both\/And-ness of Black Christianity"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>
The Trayvon Martin murder, the acquital of his killer, and the incarceration of\u00a0Marissa Alexander<\/a>\u00a0are all\u00a0messages that convey America\u2019s disregard for the inherent worth of black and brown bodies.<\/span><\/div>\n
Following the Zimmerman acquittal, black religious institutions were filled with crushed souls desiring to hear sermons of reassurance regarding their inherent value in the sight of God, to collectively mourn with their respective communities, and to hear a plan of action.<\/span><\/div>\n
But not every black person wanted to rush to the altar. Wallace Best, a preeminent historian at Princeton University, did not attend church after the Zimmerman Verdict. In a recent op-ed, \u201cThe Zimmerman Verdict and the Black Religious Left<\/a>,\u201d he argued that prayer and church attending were \u201cweak and impotent responses.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
So instead of going to church Best was, as he explained, \u201c\u2026 at home frustrated by the inability of those spaces\u2014deeply conservative as many of them are\u2014to truly bring about social and political change.\u201d<\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0I do not agree with Best and, in fact, I think indulging in personal frustration at home about other people\u2019s responses is more of an impotent reaction to injustice than praying at an altar.<\/span><\/div>\n
I want to push against Best\u2019s reductionist description of black religious congregants who, in his view, do the \u2018same old, same old\u2019. Simultaneously I want to argue against his reductionist perspective of the black religious left that suggests that we, as black liberal academics, are the only ones who can provide politically potent responses and \u201crecover the culture of complaint and critique,\u201d and against his implicit description of the black religious left as being constituted primarily by black liberal academics.<\/span><\/div>\n
Read the rest here<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Trayvon Martin murder, the acquital of his killer, and the incarceration of\u00a0Marissa Alexander\u00a0are all\u00a0messages that convey America\u2019s disregard for the inherent worth of black and brown bodies. Following the Zimmerman acquittal, black religious institutions were filled with crushed souls desiring to hear sermons of reassurance regarding their inherent value in the sight of God, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1264","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nTo Pray or to Protest? The Both\/And-ness of Black Christianity<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The Trayvon Martin murder, the acquital of his killer, and the incarceration of Marissa Alexander are all messages that convey America\u2019s\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2013\/08\/to-pray-or-to-protest-the-bothand-ness-of-black-christianity.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"To Pray or to Protest? The Both\/And-ness of Black Christianity\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Trayvon Martin murder, the acquital of his killer, and the incarceration of Marissa Alexander are all messages that convey America\u2019s\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2013\/08\/to-pray-or-to-protest-the-bothand-ness-of-black-christianity.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Rhetoric Race and Religion\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-08-10T09:56:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Guest Contributor\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Guest Contributor\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2013\/08\/to-pray-or-to-protest-the-bothand-ness-of-black-christianity.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2013\/08\/to-pray-or-to-protest-the-bothand-ness-of-black-christianity.html\",\"name\":\"To Pray or to Protest? The Both\/And-ness of Black Christianity\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2013-08-10T09:56:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2013-08-10T09:56:00+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/#\/schema\/person\/2869b699bf0e57982cb1f212243705f2\"},\"description\":\"The Trayvon Martin murder, the acquital of his killer, and the incarceration of Marissa Alexander are all messages that convey America\u2019s\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2013\/08\/to-pray-or-to-protest-the-bothand-ness-of-black-christianity.html#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2013\/08\/to-pray-or-to-protest-the-bothand-ness-of-black-christianity.html\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2013\/08\/to-pray-or-to-protest-the-bothand-ness-of-black-christianity.html#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"To Pray or to Protest? The Both\/And-ness of Black Christianity\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/\",\"name\":\"Rhetoric Race and Religion\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/#\/schema\/person\/2869b699bf0e57982cb1f212243705f2\",\"name\":\"Guest Contributor\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/5010a3cc274cdb37811bf24de46dc280?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/5010a3cc274cdb37811bf24de46dc280?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Guest Contributor\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/author\/admin\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"To Pray or to Protest? The Both\/And-ness of Black Christianity","description":"The Trayvon Martin murder, the acquital of his killer, and the incarceration of Marissa Alexander are all messages that convey America\u2019s","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2013\/08\/to-pray-or-to-protest-the-bothand-ness-of-black-christianity.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"To Pray or to Protest? The Both\/And-ness of Black Christianity","og_description":"The Trayvon Martin murder, the acquital of his killer, and the incarceration of Marissa Alexander are all messages that convey America\u2019s","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2013\/08\/to-pray-or-to-protest-the-bothand-ness-of-black-christianity.html","og_site_name":"Rhetoric Race and Religion","article_published_time":"2013-08-10T09:56:00+00:00","author":"Guest Contributor","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Guest Contributor","Est. reading time":"1 minute"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2013\/08\/to-pray-or-to-protest-the-bothand-ness-of-black-christianity.html","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2013\/08\/to-pray-or-to-protest-the-bothand-ness-of-black-christianity.html","name":"To Pray or to Protest? The Both\/And-ness of Black Christianity","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/#website"},"datePublished":"2013-08-10T09:56:00+00:00","dateModified":"2013-08-10T09:56:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/#\/schema\/person\/2869b699bf0e57982cb1f212243705f2"},"description":"The Trayvon Martin murder, the acquital of his killer, and the incarceration of Marissa Alexander are all messages that convey America\u2019s","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2013\/08\/to-pray-or-to-protest-the-bothand-ness-of-black-christianity.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2013\/08\/to-pray-or-to-protest-the-bothand-ness-of-black-christianity.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2013\/08\/to-pray-or-to-protest-the-bothand-ness-of-black-christianity.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"To Pray or to Protest? The Both\/And-ness of Black Christianity"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/","name":"Rhetoric Race and Religion","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/#\/schema\/person\/2869b699bf0e57982cb1f212243705f2","name":"Guest Contributor","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/5010a3cc274cdb37811bf24de46dc280?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/5010a3cc274cdb37811bf24de46dc280?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Guest Contributor"},"url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/author\/admin"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1264","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1264"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1264\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}