Open Access Journal Atlanta University Center
Not a member yet
962 research outputs found
Sort by
An Historical Overview of The I.T.C.
Full text linkI.T.C. began as an idea and later a voice before foundations in search of funds to employ a panel of distinguished educators whose task would be to project this idea into a plan of operation. The I.T.C. plan was adopted by four denominations as a cooperative instrument for the theological education of their ministers (Gammon, Phillips, Morehouse, Turner). Following denominational endorsement, two Rockefeller foundations responded with grants. The I.T.C. plan represented the first time predominantly Black denominations developed a workable cooperative approach to theological education. It protected denominational identity in an interdenominational center and placed all matters pertaining to the academic life of the Center under the control of the faculty and the I.T.C. Board of Trustees. Seminarians were afforded the opportunity to attend classes in an interdenominational setting and engage in dialogue across denominational lines without losing their denominational affiliations. Perhaps of greatest significance, the I.T.C. plan provided a facility to enlarge and enhance the conveyance of the good news of the Christian faith to the sufferings and creative potentials of the Black community
The Rebellion Against Absolutes
Full text linkThe times are demanding and calls for action in the face of moral bankruptcy. The author express optimism for graduates, emphasizing the importance of their theological insights and the lessons from black heritage. The speech highlights challenges to prevailing views of reality, including the affirmation of specific humanity, reinterpreting the Christ event, questioning moral theology, redefining God's activity, and promoting a new ethics of power acquisition and use
Journal of the Interdenominational Theological Center, Front Matter, 1974
No full textThe Journal of The Interdenominational Theological Center is published semi-annually by The Interdenominational Theological Center, 671 Beckwith St., S. W.,Atlanta, Georgia 30314. It is published in the interest of the alumni and the constituent seminaries of The Interdenominational Theological Center (GammonTheological Seminary, Absalom Jones Episcopal Institute, Charles H. Mason Theological Seminary, Morehouse School of Religion, Phillips School of Theology,Johnson C. Smith Theological Seminary and Turner Theological Seminary)
The Black Messiah: Revising the Color Symbolism of Western Christology
Full text linkIn An Introduction To African Civilizations, Willis N. Huggins writes that “one of the earliest flares of the race and color question” is recorded in hieroglyphics on a hugh granite stele erected about 2,000 B.C. by the Egyptian Pharoah of the Twelfth Dynasty, Usertesan III. In India, race prejudice may be as much as 5000 years old. Here we see blackness, as a contemptible color, being rejected by Indra, the God of Aryas. During the Middle Ages Talmudic and Midrashic sources sought to explain Blackness with such suggestions as “Ham was smitten in his skin” or that Noah told Ham “your seed will be ugly and dark-skinned,” or that Canaan was “the notorious world-darkener.”3 These and other evidences of color prejudice from very ancient times seem to cast doubt upon the allegation of some Western historians that prejudice against black skin color and African ancestry is of recent origin
Reflections on Cultural Racism: The Theoretical Task of the Black Ethicist
Full text linkSince the publication of The Kerner Report on civil disorders, the issue of racism has been dramatized — receiving widespread attention in both public and private sectors — as a moral cancer in the bodypolitic of white America.1 The issue is of special relevance to the Black American, especially in light of this pivotal juncture in the Nation’s history — the eve of the bicentennial. Of course in the sixties, the civil rights and black power movements were catalytic forces in heightening our awareness to the deleterious character of racial prejudice and its effects upon the American social system. The Kerner Report states emphatically that “race prejudice has shaped our history decisively ... white racism is essentially responsible for the explosive mixture which has been accumulating in our cities since the end of World War II.”
Biblical Theology and Black Theology
Full text linkIt is to the credit of black theologians such as James Cone and J. Deotis Roberts that the black religious experience is beginning to receive a serious hearing within the theological curriculum. In some sense it is incorrect to equate black studies in seminaries with black studies programs in the university, for this investigation has a more pervasive role within the theological curriculum than in the university. A college black studies program can be contained within a given department, no matter how diverse the offerings within that department, but black studies within theological education cannot be so contained. Rightly understood as being revelatory the black religious experience must pervade Bible and church history no less than ethics, theology, and practical theology.1 Therefore, this paper has as its special concern the place of black theology within the area of scripture and vice-versa. Furthermore, of the two major exponents of this emerging discipline a profitable dialogue can take place with James Cone, who has more explicitly tackled the matter of Bible content and interpretation for his theological position than has J. Deotis Roberts
Martin Luther King, Jr., as Theologian
Full text linkA thorough study of this subject remains to be done. As I write the present essay, I am limited not only by the necessity of brevity, but also by a very short time between request and deadline. As a consequence it was impossible to consult any unpublished papers of Martin Luther King, Jr., and especially his Ph.D. dissertation which I supervised twenty years ago. When I moved into formal retirement I gave away most of my books and papers. Of major secondary sources I have at hand only King: A Critical Biography by David L. Lewis1 and a prized autographed copy of My Life with Martin Luther King, Jr. by Coretta Scott King.2 Principal sources for this article are his four volumes published between 1958 and 1967,3 the last three of them represented in my library by treasured copies with generous personal notes in King’s handwriting, and his posthumously published book4 in which Mrs. King inscribed an appreciative autograph
Martin Luther King, Jr., A Selected Bibliography
Full text linkMartin Luther King, Jr., A Selected Bibliograph
Contemporary Black Religion: In Search of a Sociology
Full text linkIn times of unusual tension and anxiety, social systems tend to produce fractures and polarities more readily than under less stressful conditions. Lines of cleavage develop along established or recognized “faults” or weak places in the social structure where the strain in normative social relationships is already endemic, or recurrent because of a confusion of values, or competing interests. Ordinarily, it might be supposed that religion, if not altogether exempt from such cleavages, would certainly be among the last of the major social institutions to show strain, especially if the long-established notion that the church is the leading conservator of established social values is valid. However, on closer inspection it is apparent that the values the church would conserve are often precisely those society seems ready to dispense with, so the church often finds itself on the tail end of social change. If, on the other hand, the church assumes the role of change agent, or departs too readily from established convention, the church may well find itself fragmented by dissenting factions, or suddenly depleted in membership. Certain mainline, characteristically “liberal” denominations are in the painful process of learning this by experience right now
The Image of the Black Man: Contemporary Lyrics as Oral History
Full text linkThe ability of a teacher to stimulate reflection on issues of significance to young blacks is clearly dependent upon his or her skill in identifying universal concerns among members of the Afro-American community. One instructional resource that can help a history instructor accomplish this goal is popular music. Traditionally, the lyrics of black singers have rarely been introduced in classrooms. Why is this true? I contend that the standard scholarly process of assembling historical evidence on the Negro past has created a variety of unforeseen difficulties for classroom teachers. The tendency of academicians, particularly historians, to rely solely upon written sources—newspaper articles and editorials, official records from state legislatures and both Houses of Congress, books and essays by abolitionists, slaves, politicians, and ministers, as well as other standard literary resources—has rendered black history “speechless.” In only a few instances has the rich oral tradition of the black man even been considered, let alone thoroughly investigated, by American historians.4The following pages will illustrate some alternative instructional approaches which should be employed more accurately to portray theconcerns of Afro-Americans and to translate contemporary black history into a more dynamic teaching/learning process