Malcolm X threw down the gauntlet on religion and violence. Did Christianity have nothing more to offer, he asked, than spiritual "novocaine," enabling Black Americans to suffer peacefully? On the face of it, this critique--religion as opiate of the masses--was nothing new, but in other ways Malcolm X's challenge was strikingly novel. He straightforwardly gave voice to the anger and frustration many Blacks felt over the expectation, in the words...