{"id":1892,"date":"2020-09-14T11:03:14","date_gmt":"2020-09-14T11:03:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/crcc\/far-from-being-anti-religious-faith-and-spirituality-run-deep-in-black-lives-matter\/"},"modified":"2025-10-15T18:44:20","modified_gmt":"2025-10-15T18:44:20","slug":"far-from-being-anti-religious-faith-and-spirituality-run-deep-in-black-lives-matter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/crcc\/far-from-being-anti-religious-faith-and-spirituality-run-deep-in-black-lives-matter\/","title":{"rendered":"Far from Being Anti-Religious, Faith and Spirituality Run Deep in Black Lives Matter"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n\n\n \n \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
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Far from Being Anti-Religious, Faith and Spirituality Run Deep in Black Lives Matter<\/h1>\n\n\n<\/div>\n \n \n By<\/span>Hebah Farrag<\/a> and Ann Gleig<\/strong>\n \n September 14, 2020<\/span>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n <\/div><\/div>\n\n \n \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
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This article was originally published on The Conversation.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Black Lives Matters (BLM) has been portrayed by its detractors as many things: Marxist<\/a>, radical, anti-American<\/a>. Added to this growing list of charges is that it is either irreligious or doing religion wrong<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In late July, for instance, conservative commentator Andrew Sullivan tweeted<\/a> that BLM was \u201cincompatible\u201d with Christianity.<\/p>\n

He isn\u2019t alone in that belief. Despite receiving the backing of diverse faith leaders and groups, BLM has been attacked by sections of the religious right. One evangelical institution felt compelled to issue a statement<\/a> warning Christians about the movement\u2019s \u201cGodless agenda.\u201d Other evangelicals have gone further, accusing BLM founders of being \u201cwitches\u201d and \u201coperating in the demonic realm<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Joining conservative Christians are some self-proclaimed liberals and atheists who have also denounced BLM as a social movement that functions like a
\n\u201ccult<\/a>\u201d or \u201cpseudo<\/a>\u201d religion.<\/p>\n

As scholars of religion, we believe such views fail to acknowledge \u2013 let alone engage with \u2013 the rich spiritual and religious pluralism of Black Lives Matter. For the past few years, we have been observing<\/a> the way the movement and affiliated organizations express faith and spirituality.<\/p>\n

Since 2015 we have interviewed BLM leaders and organizers as well as Buddhist leaders inspired by the movement. What we found was that BLM was not only a movement seeking radical political reform, but a spiritual movement<\/a> seeking to heal and empower while
\ninspiring other religious allies<\/a> seeking inclusivity.<\/p>\n

A love letter<\/h2>\n

Black Lives Matter was born from a love letter.<\/p>\n

On July 13, 2013 \u2013 the day of the acquittal of George Zimmerman, who had killed an unarmed black teenage named Trayvon Martin \u2013 soon-to-be BLM co-founder Alicia Garza, posted \u201cA Love Letter to Black People<\/a>\u201d on Facebook. She declared:<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t deserve to be killed with impunity. We need to love ourselves and fight for a world where black lives matter. Black people, I love you. I love us. We matter. Our lives matter.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since its inception, BLM organizers have expressed their founding spirit of love through an emphasis on spiritual healing, principles, and practices in their racial justice work.<\/p>\n

BLM leaders, such as co-founder Patrisse Cullors<\/a>, are deeply committed to incorporating spiritual leadership. Cullors grew up as a Jehovah\u2019s Witness, and later became ordained in If\u00e0, a west African Yoruba religion. Drawing on Native American, Buddhist and mindfulness traditions, her syncretic spiritual practice is fundamental to her work<\/a>. As Cullors explained to us, \u201cThe fight to save your life is a spiritual fight.\u201d<\/p>\n

Theologian Tricia Hersey<\/a>, known as the \u201cNap Bishop<\/a>,\u201d a nod to her Divinity degree and her work advocating for rest as a form of resistance, founded the BLM affiliated organization, The Nap Ministry<\/a> in 2016.<\/p>\n

In an interview with Cullors, Hersey said she considers human bodies as \u201csites of liberation\u201d that connect Black Americans to the \u201ccreator, ancestors, and universe.\u201d She describes rest as a spiritual practice for community healing and resistance and naps as \u201chealing portals<\/a>.\u201d Hersey connects this belief to her upbringing in the Black Pentecostal Church of God in Christ, where, she explained, \u201cI was able to see the body being a vehicle for spirit.\u201d<\/p>\n

The movement is committed to spiritual principles, such as \u201chealing<\/a> justice\u201d \u2013 which uses a range of holistic approaches to address trauma and oppression by centering emotional and spiritual well-being \u2013 and \u201ctransformative justice<\/a>\u201d which assists with creating processes to repair harm without violence.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Black Lives Matter protesters pray near the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. <\/span>Drew Angerer\/Getty Images<\/a><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

Transformative justice<\/a>, central to the beliefs of many in the BLM movement, is a philosophic approach to peacemaking. With roots in the Quaker tradition, it approaches harms committed as an opportunity for education. Crime is taken to be a community problem to be solved through mutual understanding, as often seen in work to decriminalize sex work and drug addiction.<\/p>\n

BLM affiliated organizer Cara Page, who coined the term \u201chealing justice<\/a>,\u201d did so in response to watching decades of activists commit themselves completely to social justice causes to the detriment of their physical and mental health. She advocates<\/a> that \u201cmovements themselves have to be healing, or there\u2019s no point to them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018Without healing, no justice\u2019<\/h2>\n

BLM-affiliated organizations utilize spiritual tools such as meditation, reiki, acupuncture, plant medicine, chanting, and prayer, along with other African and Indigenous spiritualities to connect and care for those directly impacted by state violence and white supremacy.<\/p>\n

For instance, Dignity and Power Now<\/a> or DPN, an organization founded by Cullors in Los Angeles in 2012, hosts almost weekly wellness clinics on Sundays, often referred to as \u201cchurch<\/a>\u201d by attendees.<\/p>\n

On July 26, 2020, they held a virtual event called Calm-Unity<\/a>, to remind people that \u201cwithout healing there is no justice.\u201d Classes included yoga, meditation, African dance, Chinese medicine, and altar making.<\/p>\n

In interviews, movement leaders described honoring their body, mind and soul as an act of resilience<\/a>. They see themselves as inheritors of the spiritual duty to fight for racial justice, following in the footsteps of freedom fighters like abolitionist Harriet Tubman<\/a>.<\/p>\n

BLM leaders often invoke the names of abolitionist ancestors in a ceremony<\/a> used at the beginning of protests. In fact, protests often contain many spiritual purification, protection and healing practices including the burning of sage, the practice of wearing white<\/a> and the creation of sacred esites and altars<\/a> at locations of mourning.<\/p>\n

\u2018More religion, not less\u2019<\/h2>\n

BLM\u2019s rich spiritual expressions have also inspired and transformed many American faith leaders. Black evangelical leader Barbara Salter McNeil<\/a> credits BLM activists in Ferguson as changing the Christian church by showing racism must be tackled structurally and not just as individual sin.<\/p>\n

U.S. Buddhist leaders presented a statement on racial justice<\/a> to the White House in which they shared they were \u201cinspired by the courage and leadership\u201d of Black Lives Matter. Jewish<\/a>, Muslim<\/a> and many other religious organizations, have incorporated BLM principles to make their communities more inclusive and justice oriented.<\/p>\n

As University of Arizona scholar Erika Gault<\/a> observes, \u201cThe Black church is not the only religious well from which Black movements have historically drawn,\u201d and with Black Lives Matter, \u201cWe are actually seeing more religion, not less.\u201d<\/p>\n

Religious pluralism<\/h2>\n

Attempts to erase the rich religious landscape of Black Lives Matter by both conservative<\/a> and liberal voices<\/a> continues a long history<\/a> of denouncing Black spirituality as inauthentic and threatening.<\/p>\n

The history of white supremacy, often enacted within institutional Christianity<\/a>, has often vilified and criminalized Indigenous<\/a> and African beliefs, promoted the idea that Black people are divinely destined to servitude<\/a>, and subjected communities to forced conversions<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As Cullors said to us in response to current attacks against BLM as demonic, \u201cFor centuries, the way we are allowed to commune with the divine has been policed; in the movement for Black lives, we believe that all connections to the creator are sacred and essential.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Ann Gleig<\/a> is an associate professor of religion at University of Central Florida<\/a>.<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n\n\n <\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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