African American Theology

An Introduction

Frederick L. Ware

• Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781611646498
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Theology

This book presents a substantial introduction to the major methodologies, figures, and themes within African American theology. Frederick L. Ware explores African American theology from its inception and places it within dual contexts: first, the African American struggle for dignity and full humanity; and second, the broader scope of Christian belief. Readers will appreciate Ware's demonstration of how black theology is expressed in a wide range of sources that includes not only scholarly publications but also African American sermons, music, news and editorials, biography, literature, popular periodicals, folklore, and philosophy. Each chapter concludes with questions for discussion and suggested resources for further study. Ware provides a seasoned perspective on where African American theology has been and where it is going, and he demonstrates its creativity within the chorus of Christian theology.

PART 1

History

1

History and Historical Study

History may be regarded as an established or common narrative representing knowledge of something that has happened and is therefore a matter without controversy. However, history is always told from a certain perspective, which makes for disagreement and contention. Human societies are characterized by internal differences. For the persons in a society who do not have the benefit of cultural dominance, their story rarely, maybe never, gets told. For the persons in a society who possess more power, that is, greater advantages than normal, a narrative is created that supports and furthers their interests. Privileged groups interpret as they will the events of the past, or they may even choose certain events to suppress and rid from cultural memory. Even groups that lack or have less privilege may seek to support their own interests through the creation of alternative accounts of the past that may also involve selective memory of events. As people from various quarters of society engage in the practice of creating history, differing stories will be told that sometimes conflict and at other times harmonize but are always indicative of contrasting perspectives on the substance and meaning of the past. Nonetheless, history remains important. This chapter addresses the matter of history’s relevance in African American theology through reflection on the questions of why history is important for theology generally, what is the history (the origin and development) of African American theology, and what kinds of methods of historical interpretation are used in African American theology.

THE IMPORTANCE OF HISTORY AND HISTORICAL STUDIES IN THEOLOGY

History and historical studies are important in theology for three reasons. First, historical study shows the origins of beliefs and practices and their development over time. Historical study is most advantageous because it enables one to see roughly when a belief or practice began, how that belief or practice has changed over a given period of time, and how that belief or practice compares or contrasts with other beliefs and practices from different periods. Gaining a historical understanding of religious belief and practice may be liberating. Through historical study, people are no longer tied and restricted to a belief or practice when it can be shown clearly that a belief or practice is temporal, that is, situated in time and probably not intended for or capable of perpetuity. If the beginning of the belief or practice is identified, then very likely suggestions may be made for its possible end. Historical study has the potential of endowing persons with greater control over their beliefs and practices and enabling them to decide how or whether they will continue believing or acting in a particular manner.

Have you ever noticed persons in a church or religious setting behaving in a certain way either without any explanation or maybe with an explanation that is not convincing? Maybe the practice is something that they do not want to do but feel obligated to continue. If they can be shown how the practice began and persuaded thereof, then they may take the liberty of either modifying or rejecting the practice. Many Christian congregations in the United States meet for worship at eleven o’clock on Sunday morning. There is no clear Scriptural mandate for worship at that hour on Sunday. From the earliest period of Christianity, there have been differences of opinion on which day, Saturday or Sunday, is the principal day for worship. What would happen if persons were shown and persuaded of how this time-specific worship began and how earlier generations of Christians associated worship with either the Sabbath or the Lord’s Day? They probably would not be wedded to the eleven o’clock hour anymore. They may decide to worship instead at eight o’clock on Sunday morning. They may even go further to ask, “Why worship on Sunday?” They may choose to worship, as many American Christians do, on Saturday and other days of the week.

Second, history and historical study is important for theology in light of the prominent role of tradition in theology and the church. Tradition is a principal source for theological reflection. The sources used by theologians for theological interpretation are Scripture, tradition, experience, reason, and culture. More will be said about these sources in chapter 2. For now, our focus is on tradition.

Tradition is something that is passed from one generation to the next. Christian communities aware of their possession of heritage utilize tradition for maintaining connection and continuity between themselves and previous groups in the history of Christianity. These communities may also be intentional about preserving and passing on their beliefs and stories to future generations.

Tradition is the content as well as the process by which something is handed down from one generation to the next (or from some persons to other persons). As process, tradition is the practice of and the mediums used for handing something over from one generation to another. As content, tradition is the very thing that is handed down. Tradition includes historic creeds; confessions; catechisms; denominational beliefs and practices; rituals; customary ways of speaking, acting, believing, thinking, and worshiping; and “classic” theological texts. Though all forms of tradition are vital for theology, in academic study greater emphasis seems to be on the writings of theologians. The works of past theologians are records of their thought and reflection. The existence of their works reminds us that the matters that concern us at present were addressed during earlier times in Christianity. In our contemporary theological work, we do not need to produce from thin air or reinvent the Christian faith every time we are beset with an issue or problem. Tradition provides us with a resource from which to begin our thinking. If we look to the past, search in the tradition, we may find insights made by others who wrestled with the same or similar issues or problems that we face today. Their insights may be a stimulus for our coming to deeper understandings and better expressions of the Christian faith.

In addition to the appreciation of tradition itself as history, historical study may be made of tradition. Historical study of tradition may involve the construction and preservation of the church’s narrative. In addition, historical study may involve examination of forces at play in the creation of what Christians regard as tradition.

Third, history is important because it functions as a grand narrative. The term grand narrative refers to the story that integrates various events, movements, and ideas to the degree that the mass of data they represent is in a manageable and accessible format. A grand narrative makes it possible to think about phenomena that, without succinct summary, cannot be comprehended. Imagine, for example, your review of one thousand years. Over this thousand-year period, many events have transpired. Many things would have happened in human life. There have been big events and small events. Some events may be primarily of a social or political nature. Other events may be occurrences in our physical environment on and beyond Earth. How do you make sense of all that has happened? You tell a story. The story ties these events together, though not always perfectly. Still, the past is no longer murky or overwhelming. The story, this grand narrative, has now made all of this data a single object in our consciousness. The story makes us aware of something that has happened and the many things connected with this phenomenon.

THE ORIGINS OF AFRICAN AMERICAN THEOLOGY

Since history lacks seamlessness and is therefore characterized by both continuity and discontinuity, the origin of African American theology may be explained in terms of four phenomena, any of which may account for the rise of this form of theology as well as current undertakings in it: (1) resistance to discrimination and oppression; (2) the body-soul problem, (3) religious humanism, and (4) black ethnic identity. Neither phenomenon needs to be identified or restricted to a particular year or period, although we may study the phenomena for its development over a specified period of time. Singularly or in combination, these phenomena provide sufficient explanation of African American theology.

When persons are responding to discrimination and oppression singularly or in its plurality as it impacts African Americans and frames their response, positively or negatively, in relation to religion, they are doing African American theology. Discrimination refers to prejudice and unfair treatment on account of one’s race alone or one’s race in combination with gender, sexual orientation, and class. Oppression refers to cruel, harsh treatment by the hand of the persons who benefit from inequality and injustice. Slavery and segregation characterize periods and well-known forms of oppression in American history. However, the phenomena of oppression are not limited to slavery and segregation. Oppression exists in other forms such as sexism, classism, ethnocentrism, and heterosexism.

The body-soul problem is a concept clarified by Riggins Earl.¹ He says that African American theology emerges from an effort to resolve this body-soul problem. Earl uses the period of slavery to show how the problem is posed; however, the problem may and has arisen in later periods. The body is identified with that which is physical and belongs to the material world. The soul is identified with that which is spiritual and mental and belongs to or points to another realm. Body and soul are separate aspects of the persons. When soul and body are brought together, the soul is valued over the body. The Western dualism of body and soul has tragic consequences when applied to oppressed people. For the oppressed, body and soul are related in the bizarre combination of either soulless body or bodiless soul. As soulless bodies, the oppressed are regarded as inferior persons, not human or less than human, whose only value is in the commodification of their bodies, for example, in the goods produced by their labor or the uses of their bodies from which other persons derive the greater benefit. Thus they have no value in their souls but only in whatever can be gained or taken from their body. As bodiless souls, the oppressed are treated humanely but not justly. They are regarded as human in their souls, but the injustices to which their bodies are exposed remain in force. For example, kindhearted Christian masters wanted their slaves to hear the Word of God and convert to Christianity so that their souls would be saved, but these Christian masters would not free their slaves from bondage. According to Earl, African American theology emerges from the desire of the oppressed to be whole. The oppressed do not want to live as fragmented human persons. The wonderful aspects of their souls must be reconciled with the beauty in their bodies. The affirmation expressive of this desire of wholeness is “I am my body.” By this affirmation, the oppressed are saying that all of the good and splendor in the human soul is located in the physical body. Both the soul and the body must be equally valued.

Religious humanism challenges the compatibility of Christianity, mainly the belief in all-powerful and morally perfect God, with the continued suffering of African American people. Black religious humanists are responding “philosophically” to the situation of African Americans by raising doubts and proposing alternatives to Christian theological explanations of human suffering. These religious humanists may or may not be Christian but, in either case, are critically assessing Christian beliefs in terms of the capacity of these beliefs to square with the realities of African American experience.

Black racial identity, a construction of ethnicity, reveals beliefs about human existence that are “religious” in substance. Though race has been discredited as a scientific classification of human beings and descriptor of human ability and behavior, it remains one among several markers of personal and group identity, albeit a mode of self- and group identity that greatly impacts human relationships and self-awareness. The fact that we are conscious is taken for granted and relatively unexplored in religious studies and theology. Being conscious means awareness of being a self, remembering experiences and thoughts occurring in oneself, constructing identities of self, and situating the self in time—past, present, and future. Though race neither encompasses fully nor exhausts totally the meaning of human life, the religious significance of racial consciousness (i.e., awareness of the self as having a particular -ethnic identity or belonging to a particular social group) is to be found in its contribution to the saga, the long and ongoing story, of the human quest for a fulfilled existence. Racial identity or racial consciousness is a primary symbol for understanding one’s place in the world and apprehension and discovery of the sacredness (ultimacy or “depth”) of the forms through which one’s culture is manifest. By providing grounding and integration of one’s consciousness (awareness) of and as a self, race is a medium for understanding one’s place in and connections to the world and gaining insight into the nature of the physical, social, and cultural environment where one lives.

Racial consciousness gives rise to not one but multiple conceptions of identity. There is not a singular African American identity. Among African Americans presently and in the past, there are several conceptions of ethnic identity. Change in the use of racial designations, for example, from “African,” “Negro,” “Colored,” and “Black” to “African American,” is indicative of shifts in ethnic identity in response to fluctuating social and political realities. Common to these racial designations is the sense of race, not as a biological classification of human persons but as a social construct that influences notions of belonging and that traces relations, for better or worse, between groups. While race has been shown to be invalid as a scientific concept for human biological classification, race persists as a social reality that structures past and present social relationships and forms a context of meanings in the struggle and quest to be human.

That race is utilized for discerning one’s place and the processes going into the formation of one’s world gives to it a religious quality. Racial consciousness holds implications for the conduct and structure of religious life. Key to defining and practicing ...