A Plot Summary of James Baldwin’s “The Fire Next Time”

The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin is not a story in the conventional way we are used to a story with a main character, a plot and so forth. This book is more of a diary entry of Baldwins experiences with certain topics, mainly racism and religion. Baldwin examines his relationship with the church in his youth, the events surrounding him that lead him to that relationship. During his meeting with the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, he compares the feelings of his past relationship with God, to the Nation of Islam.

Baldwin, like myself and many other Americans, was pushed into church as a child. Not attending for the enlightenment that God is supposed to bring us, nor the divine revelation that we experience when we are saved, he attended church because it was the right thing to do. I supposed that God and safety were synonymous (Baldwin 16). He walked the streets of my current neighborhood, and saw the things that I witnessed as a child attending school in lower Manhattan. Hookers, pimps, gamblers, addicts, and an assortment of other things made a bad neighborhood. Witnessing this, he felt that the only safe place from this was church. He was eventually saved. He explains in the book that the church was a racket, and that it was good luck that I found my self in the church racket instead of some other, and surrendered to a spiritual seduction long before I came to any camal knowledge (Baldwin 28). His knowledge of the structure of the church, not to be mistaken with religion, founded the idea of the church being a racket. I knew how to work on a congregation until the last dime was surrendered-it was not very hard to do-and I knew where the money for the lords work went (Baldwin 38). He stated that being in the pulpit was like being in the theatre; I was behind the scenes and knew how the illusion was worked (Baldwin 37). That is the primary reason that I do not attend church, not out of disrespect for God, or religion, but out of dislike of those that use the word of God as a game. It is not a game, and I feel that anyone that who takes the belief of people, the only thing that shouldnt be tampered with, and defiles them in such a way as in the name of God deserves any evils that happen to them in this life or another. People, not just white, have always tried to manipulate things to their advantage, especially religion. That, aside from all the other moral wrongs that are committed against the innocent, should be what it is called, sacred. People should be allowed to have their relationship with God not to be tainted by any one of the seven deadly sins.

Baldwin saw deceit not only behind the pulpit but in front of it as well. He was not the only person to seek safety in the house of God. Many people were there for many different reasons. Some were there to save their souls from perishing in hell, some were there to stay off the streets, some were there because it was the right thing to do, and many other reasons. People, I felt, ought to love the lord because they loved him, and not because they were afraid of going to hell (Baldwin 35). Baldwin himself went through an experience where he was saved. Where his soul was purged of the sins he had committed, he had given his life to God, out of what he though was love. One moment I was on my feet singing and clapping and, at the same time, working out in my head the plot of a play I was working on then; the next moment, with no transition, no sensation of falling, I was on my back, with the lights beating down onto my face and all the vertical saints above me. All I really!

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remember is the pain, the unspeakable pain; it was as though I were yelling up to heaven and heaven would not hear meAnd in the morning when they raised me, they told me that I was saved (Baldwin 29). This was before he became a preacher. A teenage boy would become a preacher in this church. Yet the reason that he devoted himself to the church in that manner was not just to spread the word of God, but also I realized immediately that I could not remain in the church merely as another worshiper. I would have to give myself something to do, in order no to be too bored and find myself among all the wretched unsaved of the Avenue (Baldwin 33). He used his religious standing to break the hold his father had on him, but a few years after his ministry began, he had an argument with his father. In the end his father ended up slapping him; In that moment everything flooded back-all the hatred and all the fear, and the depth of a merciless resolve to kill my father rather that al! low my father to kill me (Baldwin 37) Everything that Baldwin had repented had come screaming back to him. And the blood of the lamb had not cleansed me in anyway whatever.

I was just as black as I had been the day that I was born. There for when I faced the congregation, it began to take all the strength I had not to stammer, not to curse, not to tell them to throw away their bibles and get off their knees and go home and organize, for example, a rent strike as I taught Sunday school, I felt that I was committing a crime in talking about the gentile Jesus, in telling them to reconcile themselves to their misery on earth in order to gain the crown of eternal life (Baldwin 39). That is what every preacher should do. The truth. Let people know that the things that they invest their money in are ripping them off, let your congregation know that you are not going to mislead them any longer. Thats whats wrong with organized religion. There is too much deceit, and the recent! case of molestation in the Catholic Church is a prime example. Taking advantage of the weak and vulnerable is what the devil does, would that indicate that there are the devils imps standing in front of you every Sunday telling you what is right and wrong?

Later in his life, he is able to meet the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, and have a conversation with him about religion. When asked about the white devil Baldwin responded by saying that he had white friends, and that interracial marriage did not bother him one bit. To this Elijah Muhammad responded with The real reason, that I failed to realize that the white man was a devil was that I had been too long exposed to white teaching and had never received true instruction (Baldwin 66). Baldwin proceeded to explain to Elijah Muhammad that he had many white friends that were worthy of living. and that they were not the devil. His one friend Mary, he explained in detail, who was a great person and he named all the things that she had done for him, and Elijah Muhammad responded with well she is all right but-what about the others! (Baldwin 73). The one thing that Baldwin keeps pointing out about Minister Elijah Muhammad is that every time he speaks, his entire table agrees. That there is a warm happy feeling in the room, I remember being astounded by the quietness, the ease, the peace, the tastethey greeted me with a genuine cordiality and respect (Baldwin 62). When Elijah Muhammad entered the room his disciples joy at seeing him, his joy at seeing themit is so rare that people enjoy one another (Baldwin 63) At the dinner table during their conversation, Whenever Elijah spoke, a kind of chorus arose from the table, saying yes, thats right (Baldwin 65). That kind of power is not one received out of fear, it is received out of respect. Although I do not agree with many of Elijah Muhammads beliefs, particularly that the white man is the devil, I can respect him for what he has done for the black race of Muslims. He single-handedly managed to keep men out of returning to prison, keeping them off drugs, restoring virtue to the women, and many other things that has caused him to earn his reverence (Baldwin 76).

Throughout history, every religion has had its high points and its very low points. Wars have been fought for generations and centuries over the right to praise God in any way you want. Wars not just in the dictionary definition, but wars even in the home, families are separated over religious beliefs. Within the walls of worship, a temple, church, Mecca, what have you, there are wars fought there as well. Battles over good and bad, the people who are there to take your money, and allow you to put your trust into your God the way they say you should are the ones who you should be able to trust as Gods messengers. The only ones who are trust worthy are the ones who recognize that what they were doing was wrong, and removed them selves from the pedestal that many have put them on.

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