James Baldwin and Audre Lorde as Theological Resources for the Celebration of Darkness

Abstract

Fear of the dark undermines our efforts to understand and change the world. The writings and lives of James Baldwin and Audre Lorde are valuable resources in the effort to undermine this fear, and especially to overcome the cultural and religious valorization of lightness over darkness. Although neither of them identified as theologians, Baldwin and Lorde may be considered meta-theologians because they transcend the boundaries of traditional white supremacist and heterosupremacist theological discourse, while maintaining a focus on liberative moral values and spiritual life. Thus, they constitute valuable resources for anti-white supremacist, feminist and queer theologies, as well as for black theology and womanist theology, and spiritual healing for all. Opening ourselves to these resources requires that we unmask, debunk and dismantle the fear and loathing of, and distorted fascination with, the dark, and examining three themes in their works helps us do so. Those themes are: their responses to the admonition to ‘never trust white people’, their treatments of human difference, and their honesty about sexuality. Drawing upon these resources we see that celebrating darkness offers hope for saving humanity from destructive hierarchies based on supremacies of race, sex and gender, and provides support in the struggle against black/ dark-phobic and erotophobic traditions of Western Christianity.