BLACK RELIGION

A book which sets a certain task and fulfills it. The subject is one of the most important, and in some ways the touchiest, in the whole Black Militancy movement. The author - barring a few lapses in style and a polemical excitement which often runs away with his thinking- strikingly questions the idea that increasing estrangement between the Protestant Church and the Negro and the consequent creation of sub-cultures and sub-religions is merely a historical aberrancy bound to pass come the day of melitarist activity and educational opportunities. This, he suggests, is piecemeal nonsense, and only the full-rights, the full-participation of the Negro within the socio-economic and political mainstream can return him to his spiritual bases and renew the Protestant faith itself. ""It is possible to create,"" he says, ""as we have done, an American Negro folk religion and racially separate congregations of Christian persons; it is not possible, as we are desirous of doing, to create a Negro Christian faith."" There are highly illuminating and instructive chapters devoted to Luther King, Clayton Powell, Father Divine, gospel music, Baptist and Methodist colleges, various brands of paternalism and other aspects of a complex and rarely discussed dilemma.