Introduction
The Reader honors the contribution of the late Dale Andrews by putting his essay in a prime position. Distinguished Professor of Homiletics, Social Justice, and Practical Theology at Vanderbilt University, he died in his midâfifties as the Reader was coming to fruition, leaving a rich legacy of research on prophetic and pastoral preaching and apprenticeship pedagogy for others to cultivate.
If the Reader were organized chronologically, this entry would appear in the middle on the heels of âclassicsâ from the twentieth century that contributed to the disciplineâs rebirth. In some ways, this excerpt from the penultimate chapter of Andrewsâs 2002 book, Practical Theology for Black Churches: Bridging Black Theology and African American Folk Religion, fits well in that context. He is one of the first African Americans to locate his work squarely within the discipline. Practical theology defined the nature of his work as a churchman in the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church and a scholar with a unique interdisciplinary doctorate in homiletics and pastoral theology with David Buttrick and Liston Mills at Vanderbilt University. He found in practical theology the ideal means by which to explain the wider telos of his scholarship, which reached across several practically oriented disciplines. His monograph grew out of his dissertation, completed in the late 1990s, and Don Browning is one of the sources in practical theology that he cites in a chapter otherwise devoted to Old Testament scholarship on covenant and prophecy. A few years later, however, during a panel at the American Academy of Religion, Andrews observes that Browning is too ensconced in the âWestern cultural mainstreamâ to fit Andrewsâs orientation. Indeed, Andrewsâs demand that practical theology attend to âblack religious folk lifeâ marks this entry as definitive.
Hence, even as Andrewsâs essay belongs with twentiethâcentury classics, it also has an essential place in Part I. Encouraged by a third Vanderbilt faculty, black studies scholar and ethicist Victor Anderson, who questioned the monolithic characterization of âthe black churchâ by theologians such as James Cone, Andrews offers his own incisive critique of black academic theology from a practical theological perspective. He negotiates this challenge with characteristic wisdom and finesse marked by his notorious humor. While pointing out the perverted ideology of white racism, he also laments colleagues who denigrate black spirituality as provincial, otherworldly, and too focused on internal needs. He wants to âregroundâ black liberation theology, done primarily in academic settings, in a prophetic framework that is âmore convergent with religious folk life in African American churches.â In contrast to those who use the term folk life pejoratively, he reclaims it as a crucial way to get at âways of knowingâ ignored by black scholars. The full nature of liberation cannot be comprehended outside its covenantal place within the spiritual setting of the church. In fact, liberation and social justice are âacts of worshipâ that only reach their full potential alongside ecclesiastical practices like confession, repentance, and forgiveness. In short, Andrews demands an âalternative consciousnessâ that refuses to separate worship from intellectual debates.
In this essay and throughout his work, Andrews is an inveterate model of integrative thinking and action, standing passionately at the juncture of preaching and pastoral care, prophetic and pastoral ministry, personal faith and social justice, and even between black and white communities in his own orientation and relationships. In all these spaces and places, he strove to serve as the ultimate mediator and bridge across difference, debate, and discrimination and, in doing so, met his vocation.
Suggested Further Reading
- Dale P. Andrews and Robert London Smith, Jr, eds., Black Practical Theology (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2015).
- Edward P. Wimberly and Anne Streaty Wimberly, Liberation and Human Wholeness: The Conversion Experiences of Black People in Slavery and Freedom (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1986).
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Black theology stands in the biblical prophetic traditions. The accent on liberation characterizes its prophetic voice. Black theologians contend that black churches have forgotten this historical interpretation of the gospel message. Rejecting the predominance of the refuge function of black churches, black theologians appeal to the immediate responsibility of socioeconomic and political freedom for African Americans. They contend that the refuge function has become antithetical to the practical drive for liberation. In the revolutionary language of the Black Power Movement, black theology makes liberation the principal agenda for black church ministry. The central ideas behind the campaign of black theology have been black identity and sociopolitical liberation by any means deemed necessary. Black churches have embraced these principles but largely remain opposed to the conditions or means set by black theology. This rift between black churches and black theology has grown due to the pervasive disparagement of the refuge image of the Church. Black theology pitches its prophetic voice in this derision of black religious life and the ideal of liberation ethics.
Both black theologians and black church leaders profess to fill the prophetic office. Yet they find little common ground beyond shared visions of wholeness and freedom. What follows is a review of just how black theology and black churches respectively operate within the prophetic traditions. The first task is to understand and evaluate black theologyâs appeal to the classical use of prophetic consciousness. The second task is to review black churchesâ appeals to a covenantal theology of prophetic inspiration. Each appeal appears to suffer from myopic and polarized attention to the functional relationship between religious life and social justice. Though each critique offers redress of the respective prophetic traditions utilized by black theology and black churches, a third task is to build a bridge for developing a common prophetic office between them. Readerâresponse criticism offers a method for developing the prophetic office, which accents the experiences of religious life in encountering and interpreting biblical traditions. My ultimate goal is to reground the liberation ethics of black theology in a prophetic role more convergent with religious folk life in African American churches.
Prophetic Consciousness and Black Theology
When speaking of prophetic consciousness, a person may easily assume that one is dealing with a special mindâset that originated with the Hebrew prophets. Such an argument, however, risks too many generalities. Instead, prophetic consciousness places particular emphasis on the guiding images and sacred mission of the classical prophets within the religious folk traditions. The biblical prophets did not receive their call to prophetic ministry outside of a religious culture. In fact, the religious culture among the Israelites was central to the prophetic ministry. Therefore, it seems necessary to begin with the prophetsâ own orientation toward the religious life of the Israelites.
Walter Brueggemann suggests that the task of prophetic ministry was to proclaim and nurture an âalternative consciousnessâ oriented toward a ânewnessâ in relating to God, the religious community, and humanity.1 This ânewnessâ was usually seen as a corrective to the consciousness of the dominant culture. Immediately, however, questions should arise regarding how one identifies the dominant culture. Certainly, prophetic communities had been part of the dominant culture as well as marginalized by the dominant culture. The relationship between the prophetic community and the dominant culture throughout the history of the Israelites was a complex one. The classical prophets of the Hebrew Bible extended across the preexilic, exilic, and postexilic periods of Hebrew history.2 Each age was characterized by a distinctive social consciousness balanced between identification with the dominant culture and subjugation under another dominant culture. Even in the ages of ...
