Corbman examines the far-reaching impact Malcolm X had on diverse Protestant and Catholic leaders and groups, including but not limited to leaders of Black Christian Nationalism, black liberation theology, the Young Lords, and the Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries. Her scholarship builds on the comparative framework of scholars who have studied Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X's influence on the Civil Rights Movement such as James H. Cone (Martin & Malcolm & America: A Dream or a Nightmare [Orbis, 1991]), Joseph E. Penial (The Sword and the Shield: The Revolutionary Lives of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. [Basic Books, 2020]), and Gayraud S. Wilmore (Black Religion and Black Radicalism: An Interpretation of the Religious History of Afro-American People [Orbis Books, 1983]). Employing historical and theological methods, she studies Malcolm X's theological formation in the Nation of Islam (NOI) and a wide range of sources produced by Christians he impacted. She argues that Malcolm's rhetoric and theology profoundly influenced believers to reinterpret their faith and rethink the church's social and political witness.
The NOI's teachings, particularly those of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, informed Malcolm's early theological outlook. He deeply embraced the NOI's emphasis on the sacredness of black people and helped popularize the organization's message to blacks throughout America. Rather than becoming integrated into the dominant white American culture, Malcolm encouraged blacks to prioritize self-love and overcome the internalized racism that is a byproduct of systemic racism. Besides embracing the spiritual message of the NOI, Malcolm echoed its message of divine judgment of racist America and colonial regimes.
Holding the NOI should do more to support the civil rights struggle, Malcolm's political theology was distinct from the NOI. He believed divine judgment would occur through black agency rather than purely through divine power. He expressed, “We [the NOI] spout our militant, revolutionary rhetoric … and we preach Armageddon, but when our own brothers are brutalized or killed, we do nothing” (37). Once Malcolm separated from the NOI, he founded the Muslim Mosque, Inc. and the Organization of Afro-American Unity. He called for blacks throughout the globe to stand in solidarity and resist white supremacy. Malcolm's assassination prevented him from fully developing these organizations. Still, his rhetoric and vision impacted the spirituality of the emerging black power movement.
Often misunderstood as a secular political movement, the black power movement upheld “an alternative spiritual vision” rooted in Malcolm X's spirituality and theology (7). Black power activists such as H. Rap Brown and the poet Sonia Sanchez imbibed Malcolm's prophetic message and called for blacks to seize political power through revolutionary means (75). Albert Cleage, the founder of the Black Christian Nationalist Movement, also embraced Malcolm's black power message and invited him to address his congregation in 1963. Malcolm influenced Cleage to reinterpret Christian narratives. Positing that the mother of Christ and Christ were black, he renamed his church the Shrine of the Black Madonna. He held that oppressed contemporary blacks mirrored God's chosen people in scripture. He interpreted the Holy Spirit as “the revolutionary power” that inspires exploited blacks to recognize their capacity to oppose social injustice (95). Deeply influenced by Malcolm, Cleage's Black Christian Nationalism inspired the black Methodist minister and systematic theologian James Cone to develop black liberation theology. Malcolm's apocalyptic rhetoric was apparent in Cone's first works, Black Power and Black Theology (1969) and Black Theology of Liberation (1970). For example, Cone's eschatology reverberated Malcolm's apocalyptic message of divine judgment of racism and the destruction of the “white devil in us,” systemic and internalized racism (111).
As the black power movement declined in the 1970s, Cleage and former civil rights activists such as Julius Lester and Gwendolyn Zoharah Simmons came to perceive revolution and mysticism as intertwined. Cleage emphasized that spiritual change is essential to black liberation (130, 135). He taught the mystical science of KUA, a program that aimed to teach blacks how to live a fulfilled and joyful life as people made in the image of God. Cleage and many post-black power activists returned to where Malcolm's religious activism started. Before beginning his ministry within the NOI, Malcolm testified of seeing a vision of God as an Asiatic man in his prison cell. This mystical experience undergirded his rise as a NOI Muslim minister. Although Malcolm achieved popularity for his powerful rhetoric, it is important to acknowledge his spiritual and interior life. He was a spiritual revolutionary leader. To engage the seeming diametrical relationship between spirituality and activism in Christianity, Corbman studies the journals of Thomas Merton, a Catholic monk, who reflected on his conflict between joining movement activists in the struggle for justice and his desire to be an ascetic who drew away from the world to seek divine and spiritual direction for living a purposeful life.
Corbman might devote more attention to Malcolm's spirituality during his later years to explicate the link more strongly between Merton and Malcolm. She might offer more reflections about the transformations Malcolm experienced after his break with the NOI. Her analysis focuses heavily on Malcolm's spiritual formation in the NOI. Before his death, his new name el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz reflected his changing theology and spirituality. Although knowing the direction his theology and spirituality would have taken is impossible, it is important to acknowledge that his theology was in flux. He ostensibly would have transformed with the times like Cleage and other Christian activists discussed. Divine Rage focuses more on the Christians Malcolm influenced than Malcolm. She does not intend the book to be a spiritual biography of Malcolm's life. Corbman illuminates the enduring impact of Malcolm's discourse on diverse Christian leaders from the Black Power era to the present.
