The Baptism

The Baptism Summary | Detailed Summary

The Baptism is LeRoi Jones' short, one-act play that satirically portrays conventional religious beliefs and all the accompanying manipulations and interpretations of individuals and established spiritual organizations.

The setting of the play is the interior of a well-to-do Baptist church in New York City in the 1960s. The play opens with a dialogue between the church's pompous minister and an openly homosexual man, who shows disdain for the minister's attempts to save his soul. The minister has obviously profited from the vulnerabilities of his congregation, and the homosexual chastises him for his own indecent behavior on that level.

Suddenly, a beautiful boy of fifteen enters the room carrying a bag on his back. The minister greets the boy, who has come to be baptized, and the homosexual labels the boy "rough trade," meaning that the boy is a homosexual who works the streets. The boy ignores the comments and tells the minister that he has sinned and wants to be baptized.

The homosexual doubts the boy's veracity and tries to get the boy's attention by dropping his pants to reveal red leotards underneath. The minister sees that the boy's attention is wandering away from the intention of baptism and attacks the homosexual for his sins once more.

An old woman rushes into the church accusing the boy of being a sinner. Apparently, the woman has witnessed the boy masturbating while kneeling in prayer. The boy maintains that he has not sinned, and the homosexual is delighted in this twist of events, pirouetting and tossing confetti on the scene.

Eventually, the boy admits to the masturbation, claiming that "thinking of God always gives me a hard-on." Now both the homosexual and the minister are interested in the boy, and the old woman writhes on the floor, almost unconscious in a sexual and religious frenzy.

Disgusted by the old woman passed out on the floor, the homosexual attempts to get the boy to dance with him, but the boy declines because they are in the house of the Lord. The old woman begins to sing a Negro spiritual, which further disgusts the homosexual who engages in more verbal name-calling with the minister.

The group is interrupted by the arrival in the church of six young women wearing ethereal gowns and singing softly while one keeps beat on a drum. The old woman rises and begins to dance seductively, trying to engage the boy to join her. Not to be outdone, the homosexual also begins to gyrate and beckon the boy to join him. The boy will not participate because he has already sinned and dancing in the Lord's house is one more sin he does not need.

The homosexual chides the boy for thinking that the masturbation can be considered a sin and asks the boy how often he engages in the practice. The boy replies that he has "sinned" every time he has prayed after every meal for a year, and the homosexual commends the boy on his record.

The minister is weary of this line of discussion, and the conversation returns to the baptism of the boy. One of the young women announces that the boy is actually Jesus Christ, and the rest of the young women begin to moan and writhe suggestively. The minister and the old woman are taken in by the conjecture, but the homosexual is skeptical, demanding that the boy perform a miracle of some sort on the spot.

The boy is overwhelmed by the attentions and admits to lying to the women in order to have sex, but he never claimed to be Christ. The women just made that assumption. The minister, the old woman and the young women are all angry at the boy's deception and determine that the boy must be killed for his sins. The group moves threateningly toward the boy, knocking the homosexual unconscious in the process.

In a surprise move, the boy retrieves a silver sword from his bag and strikes dead the minister, the old woman and the young women. As the boy surveys the scene, he is interrupted by the arrival of a man called the Messenger, who has ridden into the church on a motorcycle.

The Messenger, dressed in a leather jacket with a crown and the words "The Man" on the back, asks the boy to explain what has happened in the church. The boy confidently replies that he has killed the sinners because he is the Son of Man, The Christ. The Messenger informs the boy that he has come from "The Man, Your Father," with orders to remove the boy from earth.

The boy is outraged that he has not been given adequate time to complete his work on earth and refuses to leave. According to the Messenger, The Father is not pleased with the boy's slow progress in saving the people of earth and intends to destroy the planet in a few hours with a grenade just as the bars are closing.

The boy continues to resist until the Messenger hits the boy on the head with a tire iron and throws him onto the motorcycle, which he wheels offstage. As the play ends, the homosexual rises from the floor, surveys the carnage, which he attributes to the "rough trade" element of the boy, and leaves to get a drink before the bars close.