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Doing the Right Thing Isaiah 53: 1-12, Luke 23: 13-25
Get PDFWhen all is said and done, one of life’s great achievements is doing the right thing. For many of us, we place a premium on knowing the right thing as an assemblage of information. Doing the right thing is a matter of conduct, of ethics. A great fissure exists between what we know and what we do. Sin, war, strife and most of the mental and physical anguish we face is caused by the dichotomy between what we know and what we do
Guerrilla Exegesis: A Post-Modern Proposal For Insurgent African American Biblical Interpretation
Get PDFGuerrilla exegesis. Guerrilla, the diminuitive of the Spanish term for war, meaning “little war” or “little warrior.” Has marked affinities with Redfield’s notion of “little tradition,” the stream(s) of discourse from beneath the heel of the “great tradition” of hegemonic discourse. From above, Webster defines a guerrilla as “one who engages in irregular warfare, especially as a member of an independent unit carrying out harassment and sabotage.” From below, s/he is simply “somebody trying to make a dollar out of fifty cents.” Exegesis, from the Greek term signifying a narrative, a description, an explanation, an interpretation; a process of bringing out/leading out/teasing out meanings and significances heretofore obscured or hidden from view. Guerrilla exegesis, then, is the bringing or leading out of oppressed/suppressed/ don’t-get-no-press meanings by sabotage, subversion or other non-traditional appropriations of hegemonic renderings, by independent non-conventional means of struggle and attack. Not playing by or audaciously rewriting hegemonic rules or both
The Politics of Conversion and The Civilization of Friday
Get PDFWith a renaissance in scholarship on Malcolm X (El Hajj Malik El Shabazz) and Martin Luther King, Jr., conversations within and beyond the African American community have focused on the political and social strategies of these two men as resources in articulating a new vision for the struggle against the jagged and complex congeries of race, gender, and class, and their impact onplight of African Americans. Sorely neglected in these conversations is the place of spirituality in the social and political thought and praxis of these two men. Beyond their respective approaches to the political and economic spheres of Black existence is a more profound and relevant legacy. Malcolm and Martin leave living testaments of their hope: an irrepressible hope that will not relinquish its hold on the redemptive possibilities inherent in human beings
Christianity in a Changing South Africa
Get PDFIt is very daunting to undertake discussion of Christianity in a changing South Africa while we still find ourselves in the transition from a known past to an as yet unclear future. The ideas presented here are intended to simply add to an ongoing debate about the appropriateness of the contributions of different sectors to the transition itself and to the future
Interdependence As A Normative Value In Pastoral Counseling With African Americans
Get PDFIn West Africa, the Yoruba have a proverb which says: “Omo omode ko to pepe, t’ abalagba ko wo keregbe.” It means, “The small hand of the child cannot reach the high shelf. The large hand of the adult cannot enter the narrow neck of the gourd.” Ogunbowale interprets this proverb to mean that “. .. Adults and children need each other. None can exist without the other, and each must respect the other. . In essence, this is the type of Interdependence in human relationships that concerns me in this paper. A Womanist kind of Interdependence. “I am because we are, and since we are, therefore I am,” speaks poignantly and ontologically of our inter-relatedness. The African proverb just cited graphically reminds us of the vulnerableness and the concreteness, often precarious in nature, of our dependency; our blatant need for one another, young and old, large and small, female and male
The Cherubim and Seraphim Church
Get PDFThe Cherubim and Seraphim Church founded in 1925, is the first indigenous Church formally established in Nigeria. It started as a “prayer group” protesting against the spiritual bankruptcy and foreign outlook of Christianity in the European-oriented Mission Churches. It was finally organized into a separate church. The Cherubim and Seraphim Church as an Independent African Church has tried to make Christianity more meaningful and more relevant to the African by conveying its teaching through essentially traditional means while preserving and practicing all the essential tenets of the Christian faith
From Luthuli To Mandela: The Struggle Goes On
Get PDFIn order to put the topic of this presentation into proper perspective, let me relate the history of our struggle which began decades before the Luthuli'Mandela era. The white settler community at the Cape of Good Hope arrived in 1652. The Dutch East India Company needed to obtain regular supplies of fresh meat, fruit and vegetables for the trading post and transient ships rounding the Cape. Many wars were fought between the indigenous people and the newly arrived whites as they pushed into the interior and extended to the northeast. The Dutch and the English first fought the Khoikhoi and San peoples whom they easily decimated. Later they met the moremilitant Xhosas and Zulus in frontier wars. Fierce military confrontations with those indigenous nations lasted 250 years. The Africans were no easy prey, but eventually in 1906 Chief Bambatha was crushed. The superior technology of the whites gave them the victory and they took our land by means of gunpowder
African Caribbean Christianity
Get PDFThe Caribbean is the name given to that group of islands situated between the southern tip of Florida, U.S.A., and the northern section of the mainland of South America. “Caribbean” is the adjective derived from “Carib,” one of the original Amerindian tribes. The other indigenous people were the Arawaks. The Caribs were warlike, whereas the Arawaks were a gentle people. Both groups suffered a terrible fate with the coming of European invaders in the latter part of the fifteenth century. They were massacred by the Spaniards whose main aim had been to reap profits fromtheir labours. The Spaniards preached the Gospel, but at the same time took away all that they possessed, including their lives
An Overview of Basic Issues in Theological Education in the United States of North America Today
Get PDFThose of us who come from the United States of North America to Matanzas for the encuentro on theological education are mindful of the generosity expressed by our Cuban brothers and sisters in welcoming us and taking precious time and energy to join us in conversations about what it means to set our work in a global and cross cultural context. TheChristian community in Cuba has lived, since the Revolution, in relative isolation from the United States of North America (USNA) Christian communities — an isolation imposed by our government. Theological educators in Cuba are overextended, seeking to serve their churches and their people in myriad ways, with few resources. That so many are willing to meet with us to engage our theme bespeaks the reality of ongoing Cuban openness to us, an openness especially remarkable, given our nation’s refusal to respect the integrity of Cuba’s post-revolutionary struggles and accomplishments
Black Theology Project Papers in Dialogue With Cubans
Get PDFThe documents which follow were selected from a growing collection of scholarly papers, lectures, short talks, poems and devotional pieces shared over the past five years by members of the Black Theology Project of the United States with various groups of Christians in Cuba. The dialogues between African North American and Cuban Christians have recently included partners from other parts of the Caribbean and Latin America, thereby broadening the conversation to encompass perspectives from Jamaica, Central America, and Brazil