Christianity plays an important role in the book, in part because it is a significant part of Baldwin’s family and upbringing—Baldwin’s father was a preacher, and Baldwin spent his teenage years as a junior preacher before leaving both his home and the church. Baldwin’s view of the church is ambivalent, and his views on Christianity reflect his interest (apparent in much of his art and cultural criticism) in the complexity and ambiguity of culture. On the one hand, Baldwin sees the church as embodying many of his least favorite aspects of society: dishonesty, delusion, falsehood, hypocrisy, and artifice. To Baldwin, one of the most significant Christian hypocrisies (which he details in his essay “Stranger in the Village) is Christianity’s role in colonialism and the terrorization of enslaved people in the United States. On the other hand, Baldwin does also highlight ways in which Christianity can be a source of strength, empowerment, and identity for African Americans. At his father’s funeral, Baldwin is moved by the preacher’s words of forgiveness and by hearing one of his father’s favorite songs, which evokes a fond memory of sitting on his father’s lap in church. Baldwin also illustrates the extent to which the church—despite having given moral cover to brutal colonial regimes that destroyed African and African American lives—provides a structural foundation for black communities who have little political or economic power. Baldwin shows that the church itself is not overall an intrinsically positive or negative institution, but rather one that can be used to both just and unjust ends. This view seems to be of a piece with Baldwin’s writing on art and culture in general: he is always committed to looking at the specifics and the context of work of art or cultural phenomenon, rather than allowing that thing to be reduced through sweeping analysis.
The Church Symbol Timeline in Notes of a Native Son
