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QUESTIONS FROM THE
MAILBAG |
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What is Black Liberation Theology?
By
ATRI Staff
Correspondent |
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Question:
I have been hearing many disturbing things on the news
regarding the content and agenda of Black Liberation
Theology that is the basis for Rev. Jeremiah Wrights
rants. Apparently this theology was popularized in the
60s Civil Rights Movements by a Dr. James Cones who
wrote a book Black Power and Black Theology.
Could your ministry do some critical research on the
theology and Dr. Cones take on it?
Answer:
Liberation Theology grew up out as a result of "efforts
to establish a just and fraternal society in which all
people may have dignity and determine their own
destiny."1 The particular branch known as
Black Liberation Theology began during the civil rights
movement in the 1950s and 1960.
Ronald J.
Sider explains that, "At the heart of liberation
theology is the attempt fundamentally to rethink
theology from the standpoint of the poor and oppressed.
The central theological foundation of this approach is
the thesis that God is on their side."2
But as you
can imagine, approaching Scripture from this direction
has resulted in some unbiblical conclusions. Dr. Robert
Morey points out that for Black Liberation Theology,
"their focus is always on skin and not sin; race and not
grace; gossip and not gospel. Racism is always focused
on the outward instead of the inward because it cannot
deal with the root problem of sin."3
Ron Rhodes
explains theres an ironic twist to the way Black
Liberation theologians, including James Cone, have
approached the Bible. Cone determined that the "black
experience" was the eyeglasses, or paradigm, through
which the Bible must be read and interpreted. But, as
Rhodes explains,
Theologians
who make black experience all-determinative have, in a
way, made the same mistake some white racists did
during the days of slavery - only in reverse. Just as
some whites imposed their "experience" as slavemasters
onto Scripture in order to justify slavery, so some
blacks have imposed the "black experience" onto
Scripture to justify their radical views on
liberation. Both positions have erred. For blacks to
use such an experience-oriented methodology is to
condone the very kind of method used by those who
enslaved them. In my thinking, this is self-defeating
at best.4
But perhaps
most frightening from an eternal standpoint, Wayne House
reveals,
In black
theology, salvation is physical liberation from white
oppression in this life rather than freedom from the
sinful nature and acts of each individual man. This
leaves little room for the personal introspection and
spiritual aspects of salvation and sin present in most
Christian theology. Appeal to heaven is viewed as an
attempt to dissuade the blacks from the goal of real
liberation of their whole persons. 5
On the other
hand, several of the articles listed below point out
that Black Liberation Theology does have some important
things to say to the church today, especially in the
area of how the church treats minorities and
disadvantaged persons.
If you are
interested in learning more about the potential
theological dangers in Black Liberation Theology, please
refer to the following articles.
For further
study:
H. Wayne
House, "An Investigation of Black Liberation
Theology," Bibliotheca Sacra, Vol. 139, No. 554
(April 82):159, http://www.hwhouse.com/aninvestigation.htm
Ronald J.
Sider, "An Evangelical Theology of Liberation," at
http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=1757
Ron Rhodes,
"Christian Revolution in Latin America: The Changing
Face of Liberation Theology," http://home.earthlink.net/~ronrhodes/Liberation.html
Ron Rhodes,
"Black Theology, Black Power, and the Black
Experience," http://home.earthlink.net/~ronrhodes/BlackTheology.html
Ron Rhodes,
"The Debate Over Feminist Theology:
Which View Is Biblical?" http://home.earthlink.net/~ronrhodes/Feminism.html
Dr. Robert
Morey, "The Truth About Black Liberation Theology,"
http://www.holysmoke.org/hs00/blackth.htm
Notes
1 H. Wayne
House, "An Investigation of Black Liberation
Theology," Bibliotheca Sacra, Vol. 139, No. 554
(April 82):159, http://www.hwhouse.com/aninvestigation.htm
2 Ronald J.
Sider, "An Evangelical Theology of Liberation," at
http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=1757
3 Dr.
Robert Morey, "The Truth About Black Liberation
Theology," http://www.holysmoke.org/hs00/blackth.htm
4 Ron
Rhodes, "Black Theology, Black Power, and the Black
Experience," http://home.earthlink.net/~ronrhodes/BlackTheology.html
5 H. Wayne
House, "An Investigation of Black Liberation
Theology," Bibliotheca Sacra, Vol. 139, No. 554
(April 82):159, http://www.hwhouse.com/aninvestigation.htm
Here we list
some key spokesmen regarding the beliefs of Black
Liberation Theology along with a partial list of their
books.
James H. Cone
Black Theology and Black
Power (1969)
A Black
Theology of Liberation (1970)
The
Spirituals and the Blues: An Interpretation (1972)
God of
the Oppressed (1975)
For My
People: Black Theology and the Black Church (Where
Have We Been and Where Are We Going?) (1984)
Martin &
Malcolm & America: A Dream or a Nightmare? (1992)
Speaking
the Truth: Ecumenism, Liberation, and Black Theology
(1999)
Risks of
Faith: The Emergence of a Black Theology of
Liberation, 1968-1998 (1999)
Dwight N.
Hopkins
Being
Human: Race, Culture, and Religion (2004)
Cut Loose
Your Stammering Tongue: Black Theology in the Slave
Narratives, revised and expanded (2003)
Heart and
Head: Black Theology Past, Present and Future (2002)
Down, Up
and Over: Slave Religion and Black Theology (1999)
Introducing Black Theology of Liberation (1999)
Liberation Theologies, Post-Modernity, and the
Americas (1997)
Shoes
That Fit our Feet: Sources for a Constructive Black
Theology (1993)
We Are
One Voice: Essays on Black Theology in South Africa
and the USA (1989)
Black
Theology in the U.S.A. and South Africa: Politics,
Culture, and Liberation (1989)
Anthony B.
Pinn
Why Lord?
Suffering and Evil in Black Theology (1999)
The Black
Church in the Post-Civil Rights Era (2002)
Terror
and Triumph: The Nature of Black Religion (2003)
Varieties
of African American Religious Experience (1998)
Loving
the Body: Black Religious Studies and the Erotic
(2004)
The
African American Religious Experience in America
(2005)
Social
Protest Thought in the African Methodist Episcopal
Church, 1862-1939 (2000)
By These
Hands: A Documentary History of African American
Humanism (2001)
African
American Religious Life and the Story of Nimrod (2007)
The Ties
that Bind: African American and Hispanic
American/Latino/a Theology in Dialogue (2001)
Fortress
Introduction to Black Church History (2001)
Noise and
Spirit: The Religious and Spiritual Sensibilities of
Rap Music (2003)
Other leaders
or spokesmen include: Jeremiah Wright, Cornel West, and
Albert Raboteau. The movement also claims Martin Luther
King, Jr. as a leader. |
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