Black Liberation Theology

This article submits that the confluence of language and power proliferate social strata and exacts violence on subaltern bodies in a punitive age of mass incarceration. I explore racialized social hierarchies in Judeo- Christian sacred texts and its relationship to secular texts that mark subaltern bodies for punishment. I argue that hegemonic scriptural economies perpetuate discursive violence that is evident in the imperial use of jurisprudence to warehouse black bodies in a prison industrial complex. In response, proclamations of protest become the voice of victors to self-name, overcome silence and rewrite histories as authors of subaltern narratives of resistance.

Lewis V. Baldwin and Victor Anderson, eds. "Revives My Soul Again: The Spirituality of Martin Luther King Jr." Minneapolis: Fortress, 2018.

This is the original manuscript version of a book review that was eventually published in Spiritus. For the final published version, see Spiritus: A Journal of Christian Spirituality, vol. 21, no. 1, (Spring 2021): 164-166.

The following is actually an end of the semester project that I did for my Liberation Theologies Seminar where I worked with my professor (a student of James Cone) and wanted to construct a Black Liberation Theology teamed with Marxism. The problem is, I am a white male, and I cannot "create" a Black Liberation Theology. Liberation Theology tends to start at experience, and I could never existentially communicate Black experience as a white male; nor would I want to attempt to do so. However, as a white male abolitionist and ally to the Black Liberation struggle, and as a philosopher/theologian-in-the-making, I can move the conversation forward, if I am careful. And luckily for our purposes: 1.) Black Liberation Theologian James Cone had already started the work for Black Liberation Theology to be teamed with the Marxist tradition before he passed. 2.) There isn't a large Black Marxist historical tradition, but there is *enough* to build consciousness in that direction. Originally, I set out in the beginning of this project to sort of "create" or construct (if you will) a dialogue with some of these historical Black Marxist thinkers, where they were sort of engaging back and forth with each other's ideas/theories, etc. within the Black liberation tradition. However, because of the confined limits on this project (mainly page length and time), what I ended up deciding to do with this paper, was use James Cone as the backbone for this work and utilize him as the core focus, opposed to an extensive dialogue back and forth between Black Marxist historical thinkers. In my Liberation Theologies Seminar, we were reading the (1986) "A Black Theology of Liberation" and as I was reading it, I thought, "Cone isn't overtly making efforts in the *gist* of this theological argument to make the resistance methods "Marxist" so to speak, but so much of his Black Theology *is* Marxist by nature, or phenomenologically Marxist, or Marxist by its fundamental critique and resistance dynamic of class/race struggle." (There are a couple exceptions where he does talk about Marxist ideology to make certain points, but my thinking is that they weren't present in the original 1970 release of this book, and even still in the 1986 version, it's not explicitly mentioned, "I James Cone am using Marxist thought teamed with my Black Theology" and this never happened in an overt way, in any shape or form, but the hints of Marxist thought *was there* and less explicit.) But this is not surprising because Cone's "Black Theology & Black Power" was written in 1969 before Cone had even discovered Marxist thought as tool for liberation. But again, even in that book (which he has left untouched because of his embarrassment concerning his sexist language as a reminder to never forget it), it phenomenologically exemplifies Marxism in a similar way; a fundamental dynamic that looks like Marxist class/race struggle. Nevertheless, in this paper, I spend a lot of time qualifying the grounding of Cone's Black Liberation Theology as the "sources and norms" for doing Christian Theology (something that was heavily stressed in the seminar) and I show how the crux of this argument in this book applies to oppressive economic systems/Capitalism in America), and I also show how Marxist thought was implicit, to less explicit, to more explicit, (but not completely overt) in his basic argument structure found in "A Black Theology of Liberation (ABTOL)." Then, I try and introduce Cone's more explicit Black Liberation Theology teamed with Marxism as it comes from other sources [beyond (ABTOL) utilizing other books and scholarly material). And where Cone's argument permits (by structure or within the bounds of his own reasoning), I incorporate other Christian and non-Christian Black Marxist thinkers into the conversation or argument structure where Cone's argument permits by principle. I incorporate for example, alongside James Cone: Angela Davis, Cornel West, Malcolm X, and few others. However, they are there to buttress Cone, not significantly change the dialogue--which I would love to do but will have to relegate to another time for our purposes here. Thus, I exhibit how Cone's Black Liberation Theology can be teamed with Marxism as a means for liberation from oppressive economic forces (i.e. Capitalism) and this is my main purpose for this project. One may speculate how I can "construct" a Black Liberation Theology with non-Christian thinkers, and to this, I will not explain here, although it has been addressed below.

This paper will attempt to present the biblical and theological argument for reparation and will encourage Caribbean spiritual and religious leaders to be deliberate, intentional and reconciliatory in their support of  the Caricom Reparations Justice Program (CRJP), as established by the Caribbean Reparations Commission (CRC) of 2013.

In this paper, I interrogate Christian interpretations of punishment through atonement theories from the early church in the West and turn to the Eastern concept of theosis as a possible correction to retributive punitive philosophies. This larger discussion frames a narrower conversation on the continuities and discontinuities of systems of sacrifice from slavery to our modern prison industrial complex. More trenchantly, I examine the relationship between the cross and carcerality through Jesus' proximity to criminality. I argue that by entering into history through a criminalized body, Jesus' life, ministry and death demonstrates his proximity to and solidarity with those who are criminalized - including the first Christian community who had a 'criminal element,' Jesus' ministerial purpose to "set the captives free," his instructions for discipleship to visit the 'least of these' who are imprisoned, to extending reconciliation to a 'penitent thief' and being surveilled and persecuted by a State sanctioned execution. In the end, by tracing a kind of christological three-day event of criminality, I argue that Jesus died a criminal but did not wake up one. On the cross Jesus transcends criminality through the resurrection, which gives hope for liberation over and against carceral systems of sacrifice.

This essay examines the technological contexts of mission and introduces nine technology trends and their impact on the Black Church. Today's technology is not governed by neutral values; it is economically driven. This situation offers positive outcomes as well as dangerous problems. Complex decisions about technology cannot belong to private corporations alone; they require Christians to bear social responsibility as well.

During the twentieth century, industry growth and emerging technologies have propelled rapid innovation and social change. Manuel Castells, noted urban sociologist, University of California, Berkeley, prefers the phrase "network society," which he defines as "a society where the key social structures and activities are organized around electronically processed information networks." Network society is similar to the concepts the information society or post-industrial society, although they each have distinct theoretical frameworks.

The global transformation into a network society has profound implications for black people and the Black Church. The subtle impact of technology on society changes everything. We are now in the midst of three paradigm shifts affecting mission in the Black Church: changes the way we experience church, redesigns the global context for ministry, and challenges our spiritual beliefs.

Keywords: African Americans--Church history; Technology--Religious aspects; Globalization; Information Society; Cyberspace

Mediating Black religious studies, spirituality studies, and liberation theology, Philip Butler explores what might happen if Black people in the United States merged technology and spirituality in their fight towards materializing liberating realities.

The discussions shaping what it means for humans to exist with technology and as part of technology are already underway: transhumanism suggests that any use of technology to augment intellectual, psychological, or physical capability makes one transhuman. In an attempt to encourage Black people in the United States to become technological progenitors as a spiritual act, Butler asks whether anyone has ever been 'just' human? Butler then explores the implications of this question and its link to viewing the body as technology.

Re-imagining incarnation as a relationship between vitality, biochemistry, and genetics, the book also takes a critical scientific approach to understanding the biological embodiment of Black spiritual practices. It shows how current and emerging technologies might align with the generative biological states of Black spiritualities in order to concretely disrupt and dismantle oppressive societal structures.
Table of contents
List of Abbreviations
Acknowledgments

Introduction and Overview
1. Thinking of Black Transhumanism: Non-Humanity, Moving Away From Transhumanism's Roots
2. Foundations of a Black Transhumanism: Blackness as the Biotechnologically Mediated Experience of Black Vitality
3. The Neurophysiology of Spiritual Experience
4. Black Transhuman Liberation Theology
5. Black Transhumanism as Revolt Spirituality

Glossary of Terms
Notes
References
Index

The purpose of this qualitative life narrative study was to describe the themes and patterns in which religio-spirituality influences the leadership process for four Black American principals. The study explored how these women leaders navigated intersecting oppressions as they engaged in social justice in their schools and the role of religio-spirituality in that process. One such emerging theme in their narratives was their re/conceptualization of traditional notions of care in their schools in which large numbers of African American students are served. Although care is not always theological in nature, the type of care highlighted in their life narratives was termed pastoral as it resembled the care often exhibited by theological caretakers and in Black American churches, of which each participant was a member.

In his last short story collection, Langston Hughes created his first black queer protagonist (he actually uses the  "q" word), a high school senior on his way to college. Hughes sets the story in the theater of the black church where the pastor, the minister of music, and the protagonist's father all compete as models of black masculinity.

This paper analyzes African American abolitionist and women's rights activist Sojourner Truth in the context of two rhetorical paradigms—womanist theology and Black feminist standpoint epistemology—in order to highlight the ways that she used the podium and the pulpit to validate the black woman's experience and her particular embodied ways of knowing. Significantly, Truth asserted her authority in public spaces as a black woman whose life was rooted in Afro-centric thought and tradition. The paper enhances scholarship in the field of theological-based rhetoric and extends the work of rhetorical scholars who have focused on her famous speech, " Aren't I a Woman. " The paper highlights Truth as a maverick feminist theologian who was instrumental in the abolitionist and women's rights movements.

Insofar as public theology is one of several contextual theologies in the world that is focused on and limited to specific contexts, its raison d'être may be understandable. But we argue that if or since public theology has ambitions to become a totalizing and global theological methodology-a ready-made frame to be adapted to and adopted in various contexts-we shall, in this article, unmask and interrogate the unspoken imperial ambitions of global public theology. We will use Black and African theologies to evaluate it. In this article, we argue that the context in which Black and African theologies are done is too important for them to be buried under generalized and seemingly context-less notions of public theology. To this end, we will sketch a few issues that define the context in which Black and African theologies are being done today. These include doing theology not at the helm but in the shadow of the so-called Fourth Industrial Revolution, doing theology in the midst of violence, and doing theology in a manner that does not minimize the painful history of the continent of Africa. In closing, we will propose a theological agenda for Black and African theologies at this time.

As we find ourselves in a new moment of wearisome and violent racial recrimination, as the ghoul of whiteness and white supremacy returns again more intensely than ever, manifesting in the New Jim Crow, the scandalous murders of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, Sandra Bland, Philando Castile, and most recently, the mass violent march of white supremacists in Charlottesville, Virginia, the voices of Merton and Baldwin in concert on race are more important than ever for us to encounter, imbibe, and embody. This essay will return anew to the  dialogue between Merton and Baldwin on race, humanity, spiritual integrity and dignity, and the course of American and planetary history. While the dialogue between Merton and Baldwin was not one of personal, direct friendship, nevertheless their minds, hearts, and souls were very much in the same place. This essay will frame their dialogue, a dialogue that must extend to our own everyday consciousness, through a comparative and constructive examination of Baldwin’s 1963 book-length essay The Fire Next Time with Merton’s 1964 essay “Letters to a White Liberal” which opens his anthology Seeds of Destruction. Using an adaptation of the medical model for addressing deeply embedded and embodied illnesses of the social body, I will explore the common language Merton and Baldwin use to diagnose the infection of whiteness in the American commons, in American history, culture, and theology. I will then engage in a similar examination of their mutual call for a therapeutic regimen of healing from whiteness through radical, uncompromising love rooted in the prophetic moment of kairos and the conversion pathways of metanoia. This regimen of healing transcends retributive remodeling of racial hierarchy, the subsequent reinscribing and deepening of racial alienation, and the shallow waters of paradigms of reconciliation and integration towards radical repair and re-discovery of our common existence.

The contributions of theologians like James Hal Cone and Katie Geneva Canon to the broader theological project of Black liberational theology allows for a rich discourse on what it means to be Black in the world, In doing this, memories of trauma must be engaged head on in ways that they become anamnetic moments for reimagining a new way of being human that is inclusive of all persons, Consequently, this work argues for the reimagination of the Black Church and its theologies that speak to Black experiences in ways that do not reinstate the hegemonic power of Whiteness as a mode of being in the world. Furthermore, the content and hermeneutic spaces shaping Black theology is critiqued with the intent to create a healthy space for the experiences of Black members of the LGBTQ+ community.

Toni Morrison’s Beloved can be read as a decidedly theological work, particularly in its expression of redemptive communal unity through narrative re-telling. Morrison’s imagined community in Beloved moves from fragmented isolation to liberative solidarity with each other, dramatically exemplifying a postcolonial theological vision, which draws from African traditional cultures. Although often rejected by some theological interpreters as ‘pop-gnostic’, Toni Morrison’s Beloved rejects a theological worldview of coloniality and offers instead a hybridised approach to theological meaning. In dispelling the racial ‘othering’ that frequently occurs in both literature and theology, Morrison crafts a theological narrative that retells the sinful past in the hope of transcending guilt for the sake of a harmonious future. Thus, the theological insight of Beloved is found in a syncretic cosmology that does not perpetuate colonial ontological categories but forges a communal narrative that is non-possessive and open to a future free from the shackles of the past. Morrison’s Beloved equips the theologian with pertinent questions, ones that wrestle with the presence of God within a suffering and oppressed community; these are timely questions that must be posed to the Christian tradition in order to transcend the lies of white theology.

Contextual Black Liberation Theology: 
A South African perspective, by Seth Naicker, is a guest lecture delivered in 2008 at Bethel University for professor Samuel Zalanga, within a sociology class focused on sociology of development.

This is a perspective presentation and lecture, where Seth Naicker as a practitioner, emerging theologian, and consultant in the field of diversity, inclusion, reconciliation, social justice and transformation, draws out from his broader focus on black contextual liberation,  reconciliation theology, and leadership to explore learning that can be applied in the broader terrain of public theology.

This essay studies the moral values and practical relevance of the South African concept of Ubuntu in the process of rethinking Black African theological ethics and Black African theological anthropology. Toward this goal, we examine the works of three prominent African theologians: LaurentiMagesa, a diocesan priest from Tanzania, John S. Mbiti, an Anglican priest from Kenya, and BénézetBujo, a Catholic priest from the Democratic Republic of the Congo.1 The aim of this comparative analysis is to highlight the importance and implications of Black theological anthropology and ethics to the social and moral life of the individual and the community.

This study also aims at articulating a model that is theologically sound, human- sensitive and enriching, and emancipatory. We shall investigate in their ethico-theological writings the intersection of theism, personhood, community, and Ubuntu as an African humanism. The selected African thinkers give the impression that the African perspective on humanity, the social life, and the moral life is more promising, liberating, and dignifying than the Western vision on these issues. The theological anthropology and ethics of Magesa, Mbiti, and Bujostrongly promote interconnected human relations and interactional social dynamics that are based on the Ubuntu moral ethics.This essay suggests that Black African theological anthropology and theological ethics have a strong foundation on the Ubuntu moral virtues and ethical principles that promotes human flourishing and a life in solidarity within the framework of the community and a symbiotic relationship between God, the community, and the individual.

Keywords: African theological anthropology, African theological ethics, Ubuntu ethics, Black theology, African traditional religion.

Many Americans in the nineteenth century argued for limited education for blacks –or no education at all for African Americans in the south. As a result, black churches took up the role and pushed for education as a means to liberate African Americans.1 The African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church stands as a good exemplar for a black denomination that explicitly expressed in their policies that they understood the connection of education to African American liberation. This study is a historical analysis of the AME Church’s advocacy of African American empowerment through education from 1816 to 1893.

In the AME Church’s nineteenth century doctrinal statements and publications the leaders explicitly stated that education was a necessary component for black liberation. In this dissertation I argue that, although there were other organizations that pushed for African American education in the nineteenth century, the African Methodist Episcopal Church stood at the fore in advocating for education and connecting it to African American liberation. My primary question is: How did the AME Church connect their advocacy for black education to liberation for African Americans in the nineteenth century?
The dissertation will explore two aspects of liberation in the nineteenth century. During the first half of the nineteenth century–from the AME Church’s founding in 1816 through the end of the Civil war in 18652–the Church worked toward a liberation that
1 Elliot, G.M. “We Must Educate”. AME Church Review. (April 1885): 330-34.
2 Chapter Three begins in 1816 with the founding of the AME Church and ends in 1865 the end of the Civil War. 1865 is also significant because slavery was officially abolished in December of the same year with the passing of the 13th Amendment focused on the abolition of slavery and overcoming racial oppression. In the latter half of the nineteenth century from 1865 to 1893 –with the death of Bishop Payne– the AME Church focused on a liberation that was geared toward the notions of uplift and self-agency within the black community, namely black social, economic, and political advancement.
The last chapter will examine how this historical analysis has implications for transforming African American education in present times. The text will examine the black church and its ability to empower the African American community through education, focusing on research that has been done on the role of the contemporary black church in African American education.

Martin Luther King believed that the civil rights struggles of Blacks were in one sense importantly American but also part of a worldwide movement against colonialism. As King once noted, Black Power is “the cry of the unheard.” Such expressions of angst extend themselves beyond U.S. borders and thus characterize the existential crises of all oppressed communities. Through this observation, King argues that this international perspective is the definition of Black Power and is a universal call for justice, which he engages as the transition from “thingification” to personhood. #BlackLivesMatter is the theopolitical demand for Black personhood, which we believe to be housed in King’s philosophy of Black Power. Using interpretations of oppression from Black and womanist theologies, this article provides a reconfiguration of King’s expansion of Black Power into global terrain and considers how this approach is timely, given the desensitization toward the killing of Black female and male bodies.

The African Diaspora and the Study of Religion engages a variety of conversations at the forefront of contemporary scholarship in the study of religion and in African diaspora studies. These conversations include: the construction of racial identity in diverse national settings (Brazil, Mexico, Britain, North America); new religious movements and nationalism; alternative religious narratives in the diaspora; literature read through the lens of diaspora; trans-Atlantic culture (the role of Denmark in Nella Larson's novel Quicksand, for example, or Ethiopia in Rastafarianism); and the role of the scholar and scholarship in the construction of religious and political meaning.

Critical Black Futures imagines worlds, afrofutures, cities, bodies, art and eras that are simultaneously distant, parallel, present, counter, and perpetually materializing. From an exploration of W. E. B. Du Bois’ own afrofuturistic short stories, to trans* super fluid blackness, this volume challenges readers—community leaders, academics, communities, and creatives—to push further into surreal imaginations. Beyond what some might question as the absurd, this book is presented as a speculative space that looks deeply into the foundations of human belief. Diving deep into this notional rabbit hole, each contributor offers a thorough excursion into the imagination to discover ‘what was’, while also providing tools to push further into the ‘not yet’.

This paper explores black liberation theology as a contextual theology, reflective of the lived realities of marginalized and oppressed people within the context of community. The major assumption of this paper is that black liberation theology as a contextual theology is an expression of African-American communal spirituality. The inhumane treatment of the black community stimulated their embrace of the Divine and thus enhanced the black construction of spirituality. Black liberation theology is in response to the historical experiences of oppressed and marginalized peopled descended from the African Diaspora. This paper intends to clearly express how oppressive experiences in history, particularly for African-Americans, gave birth to black liberation theology as an expression of African-American communal spirituality.

Abstract: This article presents Paul Ricœur’s hermeneutic of the productive imagination as a methodological tool for understanding the innovative social function of texts that in exceeding their semantic meaning, iconically augment reality. Through the reasoning of Rastafari elder Mortimo Planno’s unpublished text, Rastafarian: The Earth’s Most Strangest Man, and the religious and biblical signification from the music of his most famous postulate, Bob Marley, this article applies Paul Ricœur’s schema of the religious productive imagination to conceptualize the metaphoric transfer from text to life of verbal and iconic images of Rastafari’s hermeneutic of word, sound and power. This transformation is accomplished through what Ricœur terms the phenomenology of the iconic augmentation of reality. Understanding this semantic innovation is critical to understanding the capacity of the religious imagination to transform reality as a proclamation of hope in the midst of despair.

The Paper discusses South African kind of liberation theology called South African Black Theology showing that it is a unique liberation approach which has crucial lessons to other African Christian liberation theologians just as it too learns from them in mutual enrichment. It will explicate that liberation theology in this region of Africa concerns itself with the struggle and reaction against apartheid and the after effects of it together with other oppressive factors with the finality of emancipation towards freedom and re-establishment of life in Christ as the Liberator par excellence. This will mainly be done using secondary sources in libraries to get insights from renowned South African Black theology scholars like Boesak, Moore, Buthelezi, Tutu, Sebidi, Motlhabi, Mosala, Tlhagale, Goba and Mofokeng and a few others from North America like Conn and Wilmore. The term “black consciousness” will be accentuated as the key concept in their theologizing illumined by North American related slogans like “Black is Black,” “Black is Beautiful” and “Black Power.” It will be pointed out that the concept is further triggered by blacks’ “ontological” music with exponents like the legendary James Brown’s soul music of “I am Black and I am Proud”, Martin Luther King Jr of “I have a dream” and Marcom X- among others. It will further be elaborated as founded on socio-religio-cultural belief that Jesus is the “Black Messiah,” a title they attribute to Him functionally not ideologically hence its specificity. In this regard, a brief exposition of Mofokeng’s Black Christology will come in handy. The Paper will then end by drawing out SABT lessons to other African Christian liberation theologians. The Paper has two fundamental objectives. The first one is to explore and verify that South Africa has a unique mode of liberation theology which when properly perused has significant teaching to other African Christian liberation theologians. The second objective is to discuss South African Black Christology, with Mofokeng’s Black Christology as a model, to find out whether there are useful lessons to other African scholars. The main hypothesis is that South Africa has a unique mode of liberation theology which when properly perused has significant teaching to other African Christian liberation theologians. The second assumption is that South African Black Christology whereby Jesus is viewed as the “Black Messiah,” as exemplified by proponent Mofokeng, provides both positive aspects and shortcomings to learn from. The procedure the paper will follow to realize the above is: introductory remarks; distinctiveness of SABT; operationalizing key concepts in SABT; brief historical setting of SABT; black consciousness as the key concept and its meaning; six main sources of SABT; Jesus the “Black Messiah”; Mofokeng’s liberation black Christology within the context of SABT; SABT lessons to other African Christian liberation theologians; concluding remarks followed by references. Among the findings is that of intrinsic employment of an African title “Black Messiah” analogically attributed to Jesus in specifically liberational orientation since the other African titles analogically attributed to Jesus are fundamentally in Inculturation approach.
Keywords: Black Theology, Black Consciousness, Black Power, Black Messiah, Conscientization, Liberation Theology, Feminism/Women Liberation Theology.

In this thesis I analyze in depth Kendrick Lamar's albums good kid, m.A.A.d city, To Pimp a Butterfly, and DAMN. Through a close reading of these albums, I examine the ways in which Lamar uses his music as a platform for prophetic music making. Lamar's prophetic music making comes to bear three general points, corresponding to each album: first, that vices are inadequate to deal with death-anxieties and it is only Jesus Christ that gives meaning to death and life. Second, that capitalism is a tool of American Anti-Blackness and this relationship is undergirded by satanic forces. Third, that God is both a God of salvation and of damnation, so it is important to relate to God with due humility. Through these three points, I argue that Lamar's prophetic music making can teach us something about the nature of the prophetic, that the prophet is a Divine-World discloser.

This Essay proposes an approach of the Theologies of Marcella Althaus-Reid and Victor Westhelle towards an understanding of the Theology of Cross and the Queer Theology, looking at aspects of the same multiform God in Multiform Suffering in Both, it also brings the Contributions of Professor Traci C. West as a Study case of where this both Theologies can be found working together.

Neither African Religion nor African Christianity owe their origins to the interventions of Europeans. Certainly not African Religion which predates the existence of Christianity by several centuries.  Both are products of African theological and spiritual ingenuity. In this essay we redefine postcolonial theology in Africa in ways that incorporate and factor in the pre-eminence of African theological thought before, during and after the arrival of European Christianity.

Dalit theology, an Indian version of liberation theology, since 70s attempts to gives theological expression to the life-worlds of the Ex-Untouchables of the caste system. This work engages the thoughts of American liberation theologian Joerg  Rieger who critiques three mainstream theological models, mainly protestant, from the liberation perspective. The critical and constructive role of the economically poor and socio-culturally excluded peoples like dalits, in the global and postmodern contexts, are the aims of this work.