Theologizing in Black

On Africana Theological Ethics and Anthropology

Celucien L. Joseph

• Publisher: Pickwick Publications
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781532699955, 9781532699962
• eBook ISBN: 9781532699979
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Theology

Theologizing in Black is a creative and rigorous comparative study on black theological musings and liberative intellectual contemplations engaging the theological ethics and anthropology of both continental African theologians (Tanzania, Kenya, Democratic Republic of the Congo) and black theologians in the African Diaspora (Haiti, Trinidad, Jamaica, Antigua and Barbuda, United States). Using the pluralist approach to religion promoted by the philosopher of religion and theologian John Hick, the book is also an attempt to bridge an important gap in the comparative study of religion, Africana Studies, and Liberation theology, both in Africa and its diaspora. The book provides an analytical framework and intellectual critique of white Christian theologians who deliberately disengage with and exclude black and Africana theologians in their theological writings and conversations. From this vantage point, Africana critical theology is said to be a theology of contestation as it seeks to deconstruct white supremacy in the theological enterprise. This book not only articulates a rhetoric of protest about the misrepresentation and underrepresentation of the humanity of African and black people in white theological imagination; it also enunciates a positive image of black humanity and congruently promulgates a constructive representation of blackness. The paramount goal of Africana theological anthropology and ethics is the preservation of life and promotion of human dignity and the sheer acknowledgement that the African people and people of African descent are bearers of the image of God.

Introduction

Bearing Witness: On Black Theological Musings and Liberative Theological Contemplation

Theologizing in Black is a rigorous comparative study of black theological musings and liberative theological contemplation engaging the theological ethics and anthropology of both continental African theologians (Tanzania, Kenya, Democratic Republic of the Congo) and Black theologians in the African Diaspora (Haiti, Trinidad, Jamaica, Antigua and Barbuda, the United States). Using the pluralist approach to religion promoted by the philosopher of religion John Hick, the book is also an attempt to bridge an important gap in the comparative study of religion, Africana Studies, and (Black) Liberation theology, both in Africa and its Diaspora. Few current studies have attempted to undertake this intellectual challenge of comparative study of both continental and diasporic Black theologians and thinkers and their thought on Africana theological anthropology and ethics. Contemporary scholarship in African American Studies and Black Diaspora Studies either focus on Black theological ethics in the United States or Black theological anthropology in Western Africa. It is very rare in Black Studies to find theological studies that transcend geographical boundary, national theological thinking, and the American-centric theological narrative.

Theological works produced in the United States emphasize the American-based theological enterprise, whether they are written by Black theologians, Asian theologians, White theologians, what have you? Another important issue in contemporary theological studies in the United States is the language barrier which prevents American theologians to engage theological writings in other languages than English. The problem is prevalent in Black theological writing and education. A complementary problem is the seemingly American theological hegemony as well as theological arrogance in American theological landscape; many American theologians and biblical scholars, whether Black, White, Hispanic, or Asian do not explicitly engage other theologians writing from another side of the world—especially those from the developing nations. Unfortunately, these American thinkers do not even cite non-American theological thinkers who are writing in the same English language. Race-based theological writing has also influenced this lack of intellectual engagement and interaction among theologians and biblical scholars of the same theological discipline or cognate areas. For example, rarely do white theologians engage or cite black or brown biblical scholars and theologians in their theological writings.

This phenomenon of theological distance is creating further division in intercontinental, cross-cultural, and interracial theological discourse or conversations. This book offers another route by providing an alternative way to do theological engagement and theological confrontation, in a creative and relational way. Toward this goal, it will require that we practice an interdisciplinary methodological approach to study our subject matter.

The Nature of Religion and the Comparative Method

Caribbean Liberation theologian Idris Hamid in his seminal essay on the logic of Caribbean theology and to connect it to the development of the Caribbean people notes that everything in life is theological and that theology pervades every area of human existence. He writes, “Life’s meaning, destiny, and relationships, are all governed or informed by our theologies. Furthermore, man’s perpetual yearning and search after the meaning and truth lead him to examine his faith continually, to interpret it anew for life, and to ‘search the scriptures’ to test the validity and authenticity of it all.”1 In his important book, Dogmatics After Babel, Rodriguez argues with intellectual rigor and clarity that “The discipline of systematic (or constructive) theology needs to adapt to the increasing diversity within Christian religious thought while simultaneously contending with the realities of religious pluralism in global context and the prevailing secularism with the academy.”2 In his tour-de-force Ainsi Parla L’Oncle, published in 1928, Jean Price-Mars of Haiti identifies the basic elements of all religion: the reverence for the Sacred or God, priesthood, dance, sacrifice, trance, a system of ethics, and faithful adherents, which he insists form “the most preserving parts of religious rites and that we experience them, either joined together or separately, in the most exalted religions.”3 Price-Mars concurs that these elementary forms of the religious life result in cases of mysticism, such as in the case of spirit possession; what remains a high possibility is that the religious phenomenon is transfigured universally.4 This book considers various theological voices and religious perspectives in the Africana intellectual communities to sing a song of Black freedom and a polyphonic hymn that sustains black dignity, agency, and worth.

Philosopher of religion John Hick advances the idea that we live in a religious universe. Religion is a human phenomenon; however, the concept of religion as interpreted in modern scholarship is an academic invention. Some thinkers have argued that there was never a time in human history in which people have not been religious or committed to a religious faith. Even those who are deemed irreligious or anti-religious have somewhat had a religious encounter or possibly once committed to a religious tradition. This same Hick explains the ambivalence of religion and irreligion in this language:

It is also true that we have to speak today of post-Buddhists, post-Muslims, post-Christians . . . However the post-religious are still deeply influenced by their religio-cultural past and it remains true that much of the life of humanity flows through the channels of thought and imagination formed by the ancient traditions that we know, in rough order of antiquity, as Hinduism, Judaism, Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, Christianity and Islam.5

Nonetheless, the religious experience is as complex and ambivalent as the human experience in the modern world. Hick identifies two major responses to the religious life explaining the human experience in the cosmos: religious and naturalistic definitions.

According to the form, religion (or a particular religious tradition) centres upon an awareness of and response to a reality that transcends ourselves and our world, whether the “direction” of transcendence be beyond or within or both. Such definitions presu...

Table of contents

• Theologizing in Black
• Preface
• Introduction
• Chapter 2: Can the African People Worship?
• Chapter 3: The Logic of Black African Theological Anthropology and Ubuntu Ethics
• Chapter 4: The Relevance of James Cone for Africana Critical Theology
• Chapter 5: Black Theodicy and Liberation
• Chapter 6: Democracy in Black
• Bibliography