I Write What I Like: Selected Writings

Chapter 10 is a paper Biko gave at the 1972 Conference of Black Ministers of Religion at the Ecumenical Lay Training Center in Natal. Biko argues that religion is a social institution that cannot be divorced from broader culture. To be successful, religion must be flexible and convey relevant messages to varied populations. Although Christianity is an adaptable religion, a rigid form was exported to South Africa. Central to the culture of the colonizers, Christianity divided Africans into converts and pagans, resulting in conflict.

Biko is critical of contemporary Christianity in South Africa. Instead of focusing on racial injustice, oppression, intolerance, and cruelty, the church promotes definitions of sin that encourage self-blame. Ministers call out Black criminality, laziness, and lasciviousness without acknowledging that they are manifestations of a racist system. The church is not an expression of religiosity, but a bureaucratically bloated institution controlled by white people. The church does not prioritize the interests of Black people, but instead focuses on dogma and promotes the idea that whiteness is more valuable than Blackness.

Biko urges Black ministers to unite and transform Christianity by caucusing and putting Black people in positions of power. He also promotes Black Theology, an institutional interpretation of Christianity that connects Black people to God, addresses Black people’s current concerns, and ceases promoting the idea of peaceful suffering.