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The Bible and the African Experience: The Biblical Period
Get PDFIn my opinion, the subject that has been announced for me to discuss, “The Bible and African Experience” is sufficiently broad to permit of, indeed to require, a division into several subtopics, each one of which merits serious consideration. It could well treat of relationships between the Bible, viewed as a collection of writings that came into existence over a period of some twelve hundred years, and the continent of Africa from the time that the earliest of those writings were produced down to the present moment. For indeed Africa has a place in the biblical writings from the very beginning, however far back in history one may set those beginnings
Who Are We as Theological Educators? Do We Constitute Part of/Train for a Church of the Poor?
Get PDFThe theme proposed for our work on who we are as theological educators is a very difficult one. There is nothing more difficult than to answer in a sincere way the most terrible and profound question for a human being: “Who am I?” It was Don Quixote de la Mancha who openly affirmed, “I know who I am.” However pitiful, Alonso Quijano felt satisfied suggesting that he did not know who he was. Going into the theological arena, allow me to point out that John Calvin began his Institutes with the premise that the knowledge of the human phenomenon, i.e., to know who we are, and the knowledge of God constitute similar knowledge. As a matter of fact, they were only one knowledge, they were the same. The Confession of Faith of 1977 of the Presbyterian-Reformed Church in Cuba ends with a statement that clarifies our ultimate concern: to achieve in Jesus Christ the divine answer toour greatest questions: “Tell us Thy name. Tell me who I am.” 
Closing Devotions: The Eucharist
Get PDFLEADER: Rejoice, all the earth!Rejoice, continents and numerous islands!Rejoice, Cuba! God reigns!PEOPLE: We cannot help rejoicing in this celebrationbecause the powerful hand of God has been upon usand has sustained and directed us through all our life
The Cuban Woman in Church and in Theology
Get PDFWe had thought to start by thanking the organizers of this event for the space given to women in this very successful Martin Luther King workshop. However, do you think it necessary that we be grateful for this? Gratitude? I don’t think it would be honest to be grateful for what is given. But we believe that our voice, the voice of Christian and revolutionary woman, is nothing more than our inalienable right which we use with fervor and full consciousness of the responsibility it entails. We believe it just that the voice of the Cuban Christian women be heard here — their feelings, concerns, frustrations, achievements and future hopes — because during these days in Cuba, beneath the sky and sun of this island of liberty and love, women and men, whites and blacks, Cubans and North Americans have met to remember Dr. King who, pushing aside all the myths and legends which for years had been woven about inequality based on the color of skin, set forth on a passive but firm war against all that minimized men and women, that made them inferior. His struggle was one against all types of discrimination
Worship and Anti-Structure in Thurman’s Vision of the Sacred
Get PDFAs an ecstatic modality of ritual, worship, in a real sense, is an endeavor to free one’s thoughts, to enliven one’s conscience, and to revitalize one’s heart. To be sure, worship takes place in a cultural field; that is, worship transpires in the realms of solitary reflection and complex social dealings. Worship, then, is grounded in and is conditioned by a single vision of “the winged moment as it flies” (William Blake). In other words, the experience of adoration and sacred awe is impacted by means of an unique and singular something (Rudolf Otto), by means of the spirit which both contains and revives our spirit (Howard Thurman), and by means of the ritual symbols which reflect and create anti-structures in an otherwise structured world (Victor Turner). Moreover, worship has to do with acts of sheer worthiness, reverence, and respect as these acts are associated with ritually endowed religious practices
A Response to Dr. Wimberly’s Paper
Get PDFThe paper begins with a discussion of three basic impulses behind black worship, namely, positive self image, wholeness and praise to God. He pinpoints the problem of an imbalance between ideological battles and a full understanding of the impulses behind black worship. Finally he offers an understanding of worship and takes a look at the place of small groups in community life. Although I agree with many of Dr. Wimberly’s notions, the paper doesn’t challenge me to explore new possibilities nor offer additional insights. It lacks originality. Some questions come to mind that would have been stimulating: Have the psychosocial needs of black people changed? What is the role of black worship in a world where blacks are being acculturated, or are attempting to assimilate into the mainstream of American life: What new needs are emerging for those who are achieving some success in the larger society? Is black worship responsive to the corresponding psychosocial and spiritual needs
Womanist Theology: Black Women’s Experience as a Source for Doing Theology, with Special Reference to Christology
Get PDFThis paper is an exploration into the experiences of Black Women for the purpose of providing alternative sources for doing theology. Black theology and other third world theologies of liberation have shown through their challenge of the methodologies of classical theologies that experience of the dominant culture has been the invisible crucible for theologizing. They have demonstrated that theology is not unrelated to socio-political realities of existence; and that historically it has been used to maintain the social and political advantages of the status quo. The portrayal of the universal God was such that an affirmation of this God meant a simultaneous negation of all others’ cultural perceptions of the divinity, as well as a negation of those very cultures. Nowhere was this more clear than in the area of Christian foreign missions where conversion to Christianity implicitly meant deculturalization and acceptance of the western value system on the part of Asians, Africans, and Latin Americans. Upon conversion, one had to withdraw from indigenous ways of imaging the divine reality, and embrace foreign, western ways which often served to undergird oppressive religious, social and political structures
The Debate Over Interracial Cooperation Among Black Baptists in the African Mission Movement, 1895-1905
Get PDFOne of the perennial problems facing Afro-Americans since their introduction into the western hemisphere has been that of choosing between integration and separation in their quest for political and economic justice and equity. W.E.B. DuBois’s often quoted observation that American blacks have within them two warring souls, one black and one American, is in many ways at the root of any discussion concerning this problem. For, throughout American history blacks have been confronted with the goals, aspirations, and demands attendant to their American presence and those relating to their African or racial heritage. Concisely, should they struggle to become a part of the American system in a manner which relegates their African and Afro-American traditions to a secondary or tertiary consideration? Or, do they commit themselves to a nationalistic, separatist course which accents the peculiarities, strengths, and needs of their race and thus place lesser emphasis upon their American identity
“Lift up Your Voice Like a Trumpet!” Mobilizing African-American Churches to Respond to The HIV/Aids Pandemic, 2007
Get PDFEven prior to their lormal organization in the nineteenth century, Black religious leaders and communities in “invisible institutions,” served as prophetic voices and advocates for liberation and justice. Motivated by visions of freedom and biblical exemplars, prophetic preachers like Nat Turner and Gabriel Prosser in Virginia, and Denmark Vesey in South Carolina, plotted and executed slave uprisings that threatened the foundations of the slavocracy. Inspired by the liberating Spirit of God, prophetic Black abolitionists like Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, and Frederick Douglass lifted their portending voices like trumpets to proclaim deliverance to the captives
A Response to “Lift up Your Voice Like A Trumpet!” Mobilizing African American Churches to Respond To the HIV/Aids Pandemic, 2007
Get PDFThis passage expresses God’s concern for the oppressed in society and reflects a call for those who would be responsive to the needs of an oppressed people. It is possible to consider persons living with HIV/AIDS among the oppressed, not only due to the physical effects of the disease but also because of social responses. We are encouraged to consider the prophetic role of the church as significant in addressing the challenges of HIV/AIDS. We are a people in crisis! Although ours is not a crisis of meaning nor a crisis of faith, the current predicament in the African-American community involving HIV/AIDS is ontological—a “crisis of being," threatening our existence