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Book Reviews
Get PDFGarth Baker-Fletcher, Somebodyness: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Theory of Dignity (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993), 193pp
The Myth of Reverse Racism (Or Can Black People Be Racists, Too?)
Get PDFA man was on his way back to his office after his usual lunch break when he was accosted by a gun-wielding drifter. The mugger nervously proceeded to lift the victim’s wallet from the inside pocket of his jacket. The victim, however, seized upon a heroic moment and lunged recklessly at his hijacker. After wrestling the crook to the ground and relieving him of his firearm, the man angrily took back his wallet. As they continued to tussle on the sidewalk the two were surrounded by two sets of police who pryed them apart and spirited them down to the station. They both were booked and held over for arraignment. After a moment of shock the victim cried out, “But why am I being arrested? What’s the charge?” A burly desk sergeant replied “reverse robbery.
Theological Framework for Transformation of White Racists
Get PDFFirst I want to discuss a framework of methodology for this paper which will permit the development of a theological encounter with white racism from a White male perspective. Next I want to place this encounter in the context of justice, engaging the paradigms of Christian understanding. Within this context I will then engage the particular aspect of injustice that I am examining, namely: white racism; the racism of my people. Specifically, I want to look at the racism of White males in a way that engages White male oppression against those who White males define as “other,” or as deviants from a White male norm of acceptable relationship
A Critique of Slave Conversion Consciousness: Its Implications For Black Theology and Ethics
Get PDFRaw physical force alone has never been able to totally define or control behavioral relations between the oppressed and oppressors. Myths and ideologies have been equally instrumental in conditioning the behavioral responses of both groups. Acceptance of this premise makes it easy to understand why many Christian slavemasters of the American South, particularly between 1800 and 1860, intentionallymade the oral instruction of slaves a priority. These masters systematically encouraged southern white preachers to develop special literary sources for this express purpose
How Do We Educate and for What? Reflections on U.S. Graduate Theological Education
Get PDFThe question put before us for discussion at this point in our Colloquium on Theological Education here in Cuba is “How and why do we educate?” This is no small question, for it compels us to look at what we are doing as educators, and to ask if our methods of theological education are consistent with the substance of our teaching and with our concerns for liberation education in global community. Let me begin by situating our discussion around three small words in the question I was asked to discuss: we, how, and why. For we need to look at our context as U.S. participants in this encuentro, as well as howand why our institutions seem to be educating. After looking at the way liberation theologies shift the method and purpose of our educational praxis, I want to turn to a discussion of education as exodus and how we can be at work on this important task of doing liberation/feminist theology together with others
The Bible and Christian Theological Education
Get PDFToday Christians of every variety clamor for a return to the Bible. One would be hard-pressed to find anyone who does not stress Bible reading as a source of nourishment for the Christian life. Cuban Christians are no exception: the Church in Cuba has always placed great emphasis on the Bible in its life and work. It would be interesting, then, to outline the Bible’s place in Cuban theological education, as well as to suggest ways it should function in the future. In this essay we will, first, describe different types of biblical readings or approaches found in the past and present experience of the Cuban Church. Second, we will try to present certain emphasis relevant to our theological education with respect to the Bible
The Black Church’s Mission of Justice: Political Roles in the Context of Oppression
Get PDFThis paper will review the political roles of the black church, black religion and black religious leaders in the struggle against oppression in the U.S.A. The topic is extensive and this survey necessarily brief; nevertheless, it is hoped that this will provide an introduction to the significance of the black church in African American history. The context is the political economy of the U.S.A. characterized by multiple systems of domination and subordination: specifically racism, sexism, and class oppression. As such, it provides a framework for thestudy of black history focusing on questions of power and powerlessness and allows us to assess the impact of the black church on the structures and mechanisms of domination as well as on the efforts of the powerless to resist that domination. For the purpose of illumination, black church history will be divided into four periods, an admittedly risky but useful periodization offered previously by Professor Gayraud Wilmore (unpublished paper presented at the 1984 Martin Luther King, Jr. Seminar in Havana, Cuba) and used here to facilitate a discussion of a few key political roles performed by the black church
The African Inheritance in The Black Church Worship
Get PDFThe origin of the worship of the Black Church is in the ancient African cultural and religious traditions. African peoples are the original ancestors of Black people anywhere, if not indeed all peoples everywhere. For the most part, scientists support the most verifiable evidence that the cradle of civilization was first rocked, so to speak, in Africa. The African, consequently, is the prototype of the human species—the species extending back over 3 1/2 million years. African peoples, “burnt black with heat,” created the first cultures and developed the first civilizations on earth. From the central region of East Africa in the Ouduval Gorge of the Rift Valley, an area including Tanzania, Uganda, Kenya and Ethiopia, even a part of Zaire, indeed, from Egypt on the north to the Nysa Rift in the south, the first locations of the original ancestors, the Anu peoples, have been identified. From this arena, peoplekind emerged and branched off in movements across the length and breadth of Africa. The people on the land now called Egypt, from “kermit” or “Black,” originated in the interior of Africa. They had migrated northward along the Rift Valley of the Nile River to the sea. Another term which identifies a major branch of African peoples is Bantu, a word meaning people. The Bantu migrated southward along the Rift into southern Africa. By the year 10,000 B.C., the Bantu arrived on the West Coast of Africa. The ancient African cultural and religious traditions spread throughout the continent. African peoples are nortoriously religious and carry their religion into every area and department of life
Biblical Characters, Events, Places and Images Remembered and Celebrated in Black Worship
Get PDFThe present title of this article is a restatement and reduction of the much larger topic, “African and Biblical Bases for Black Worship and the Ways in which Biblical Events, Characters, Places and Images Parallel and Interweave Black Experience, and are Remembered and Celebrated in Worship,” an extended project upon which I am constantly at work. It is to be noted, here, that I shall deal in this paper only with Biblical (i.e., not with African) characters, events, places and images. At the very beginning, I must say that what is here presented is to be viewed and evaluated as the first draft of a report of an investigation into the subject. The subject is so vast that several persons, working over an extended period of time, might give attention to it. Therefore, the best that I might hope for is that what is presented may serve as a suggestion for further research and writing. Worship consists of several elements. This investigation was limited to songs, sermons and prayers. In the course of the investigation I perused five hundred fifty Spirituals, chiefly by title; two hundred fifty Gospel Songs which date mainly from the 1930’s to the present; fifty “Tindley” and similar Black Gospel Hymns which date from 1885 to 1935; and three hundred sermons which date from 1800 to the present. Roughly twenty-five prayers, dating from 1785 to the present, were reviewed
Black Catholic Revivalism: The Emergence of A New Form of Worship
Get PDFThe religious phenomenon known as “revivalism” has been a “way of life” in America from its earliest beginnings. It is a phenomenon rooted in the European awakenings which led to religious and political upheavals, and resulted in the flight or forced emigration of many who observed the “wrong” religious practices. Those who fled eventually to the New World brought with them a religion rigidly strict in its beliefs and observances. The Puritans prayed to an omnipotent God who predestined those elected to be saved and damned all others, regardless of the quality of their lives. In the untamed regions of America, however, this sovereign, austere form of worship soon led to problems. The vastness of this country, with its wealth of land and other resources, invited anyone to become independent and wealthy if he or she had a strong back and was hardworking. The novelty of working and thinking for oneself in secular affairs inevitably led to thinking for oneself on religious matters. The new strugglingmiddle-class soon saw the irrelevance of a religion that shut them out and placed all privileges in the hands of a few. The seeds for the First Great Awakening were planted