James Baldwin The Fire Next Time Analysis

In the book, “The Fire Next Time”, written by James Baldwin, there are two letters written; one was to Baldwin 's fourteen-year-old nephew, and the second focused on race and religion based on Baldwin’s personal experiences. James Baldwin was an African-American novelist, essayist, playwright, poet, and social critic. Baldwin wrote this book to inform America about the incessant race issues that continue to plague our nation. The Fire Next Time was a well-written book and does a mediocre job of describing what was transpiring during the 1960s and the race problems throughout the world. The first letter that Baldwin wrote to his nephew was about the difficulties he has faced as a result of being African American. He illustrates what he thinks

I would love to believe that the principles were Faith, Hope, and Charity, but this is clearly not so for most Christians, or for what we call the Christian World” (31). In this passage he is telling the reader that people do not understand what being a true Christian is; that a majority of people are going through the motions because they believe they are expected to. Baldwin desires to affect changes in the world of religion; especially for the blacks. He underscores in his essay that there is no love in the church, and that the love stopped once people left the church. Baldwin concludes the book with “God gave Noah the rainbow sign, No more water, the fire next time!” (106). What he means by this is that we all need to work together to make this world better. Baldwin provides a fine undertaking of representing the struggles of being a black man and how he is attempts to have a positive impact on the world, and not just on religion. The Fire Next Time communicates various stories about how it was like to live in the 1960s as a black man. Overall, I proffer that this reading was informative about enduring racial tensions, religious problems, and struggles of being an African American at this time. It was very enlightening when James Baldwin had the conference with Elijah Muhammad about how he wanted to make changes in the church. When reading this book I found it interesting as to how important religion was to some, and how routine it was for others at this