A Study Of Secular Tendency In James Baldwin's Novels

James Baldwin (1924-1987) is regarded as one of the most important African American writers in the twentieth century. Through close reading of James Baldwin's three novels, Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953), If Beale Street Could Talk (1974), and Just above My Head (1978), this study detects a secular tendency in these works written over two decades which betrays Baldwin's intention to deny and bridge the secular-sacred dichotomy in Christian spirituality.Christian concerns of suffering and redemption run through the novels. Generally speaking, characters' suffering is mainly caused by the forbidden secular desires and earthly pleasures in the church. Their redemption is achieved only when they feel compelled to serve other sufferers so that they too might remember that they are fully endowed human beings. John in Go Tell It on the Mountain, Fonny in If Beale Street Could Talk, and Julia in Just above My Head, who suffer physically and spiritually in their own ways, are all such heroes.Despite of the Christian concerns, there exists a secular tendency in these novels. In Go Tell it on the Mountain, it first finds expression in distrust of God. In If Beale Street Could Talk, the secular religion of love appears a proof which culminates in the realization of spirituality out of church in Just above My Head. Such trajectory of secular tendency clarifies Baldwin's vision of the possibility of Christian spirituality outside the church.Considering the facts that Baldwin was once a priest himself, and that there has always existed a Christian tradition in African American literature, this study still maintains that the secular tendency in Baldwin's novels is of great significance to understand the writer and his historical importance in the tradition of contemporary African American literature.