Discussed within this essay is the viewpoint that The Amen Corner is strictly a "religious drama."

Sometimes the phrase "religious drama" is applied by Baldwin's critics to his first dramatic effort, The Amen Corner. This meaningless and inappropriate epithet reflects a superficial grasp of the more significant aspects of the drama. It is a categorization which precisely points up the reason many critics are unable to analyze the broader philosophical aspects that dominate the play. They cannot view the whole drama of conflict because religion, the part, has obscured their view. Perhaps also, the critics have fallen victim to the idea that the black man's world is a sphere of religious and racial consciousness, and therefore it is expected that the theme of religion should dominate his writings in the instances where race has failed to prevail. I suggest that Amen is not a "religious drama...