"Lord I know I been saved" : religious experience in James Baldwin's Go Tell it on the Mountain / by Andrew Connolly.

Abstract

"The world of Go Tell It on the Mountain is a theological world. Not only do the characters themselves follow a theology, but a version of the Christian God arguably appears as a character in the novel. Rather than promote or celebrate this Christian understanding of God, the novel critiques it, especially as it appears in the Black Holiness context of the novel. Theories on religious experience provide a way of understanding the focus and scope of this critique: Louis Dupre's theories provide a way of breaking down religious experience into parts and finding what significance the novel gives each of each of those parts; Ron Grimes' theories provide a way of uncovering the underlying theological assumptions inherent in the practices of the characters, and ways of linking those assumptions to race relations; William James' theories provide a contrast through which it is easier to see where and how Baldwin breaks away from the idealized, Protestant expectations of conversion experiences. These theories become tools for understanding the ways that Baldwin uses religious experiences to explore the intersection between religious practices, sexuality, and racial tension in the Black Holiness tradition in the novel."--Abstract