The Black Liberation Theology, which originated in black churches of the United States, contexualizes Christianity in such a way that it manages to give religious, political, and economic freedom to people of color. Black people are subjected to multiple injustices as a result of segregation. It interconnects the power of liberation to the essence of the Gospel. Thus, the principles of Christianity overlap with human and civil rights. The idea of equality in the face of God is the major point of connection between the Black Theology and the Black Power Movement. Nothing could be more important for Black Liberation Theology.
Thus, I will argue throughout this newsletter, despite the fact that the text of the Holy Scriptures was often misused by advocates of racism and segregation to justify slavery, it was the indubitable power of the Gospel that inspired millions of black slaves to struggle for freedom. This is the ultimate goal of the Black Church. The way it chooses to achieve it is non-violent and is connected only with inspiring people to obtain what they deserve as Christians regardless of their background.
The Black Church did not directly initiate the Black Power Movement. Yet, saw the victims of the oppression as catalysts for the change that was inspired by the theological perspective of liberation. According to Warnock, the theological meaning of the Black Power Movement and the Black Theology was integrated gradually, in four steps, into which the history of the Black Church can be subdivided. These are:
- Christianization – “the formation of a liberationist faith”, which “endeavored to work out an antiracist and holistically salvific appropriation of Christian faith.”
- Institutionalization – “the founding of a liberationist church.”
- Conscientization – a church-led liberationist movement (the civil rights movement).
- Systematization – the development of “a liberationist theology” or Black Theology addressing the mission of the Black Church.
The divided mind and mission of the Black Church is explained not by the attempt to find equality where there is none. Rather, the division is due to the difficulty to hold together the holy and civil sides. The problem is that any struggle for rights has a strong potential to be aggravated to the point of an armed conflict, which is contrary to the ideas of tolerance and peace promoted by the church. There is no ambiguity to be found in the Bible concerning the issue of freedom and equal status of people regardless of their race – it clearly states that “there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28). To this point, as Christians, we have a human responsibility to fight for the rights that are granted by God and evidenced in the Holy Scriptures.
Therefore, the Holy Scriptures fully reflect the idea of standing behind the Black Church but do not specify its exact mission. There arises a question formulated by Raphael Warnock in his book The Divided Mind of the Black Church: As a community formed in memory of Jesus Christ and informed by the gospels, what is it that makes it a faithful and authentic witness, and what exactly is it called to do?” To answer this question, we should place it in the context of the killings experienced by the African-American population. This leads us to the notion of “the memory of Jesus”, which is “the distinctive resonance that occurs when the church is one built by slaves and formed, from its beginning, at the center of an oppressed community’s fight for personhood and freedom.”
Jesus, in his turn, sacrificed his life in order to redeem people’s sins making it possible to create the world free of oppression and inequality as all people are equal in the face of God. Thus, the Black Church not only reflects the mission of Jesus that consists of saving souls and spreading the word of God but also expands it to the idea of comprehensive liberation including liberation from sin, political oppression, and even sexual restrictions. All the enumerated aspects of freedom constitute the overall liberation that makes the soul and body free. To sum it up, the Black Church with its “double-consciousness” strives to integrate the notion of slavery and sociopolitical freedom into the idea of individual salvation achieved through piety and faith. Its mission is both the liberation of souls and the elimination of social injustices that the black community has to experience despite being granted equal rights by God.
Both the slavery of sin and the sin of slavery are addressed in the Biblical text, either directly or indirectly, as diminishing the soul regardless of the fact that the Scriptures were often accused of promoting the idea of inequality of races in the face of Jesus Christ. Principally, we can be either slave of sin as our natural state of body and mind or slaves of Christ.
The analogy with the slave, which is translated as “servant” in many versions of the Bible is based on the idea of submission to the master because of the inability to control your destiny. When the sin is our master, we cannot resist it and allow it to ruin our soul. Only the power of Christ can help overcome the power of sin. In contrast, the sin of slavery is not directly explained in the text of the Bible. The major difference in understanding of the notion is that slavery of the Biblical times was purely economic as people sold themselves when they could not pay their debts. This had nothing to do with their skin color. The Bible condemns race-based slavery indirectly, by teaching that all men and women were created equal in the image of God.
Thus, the two viewpoints are connected by the idea of sin as an obstacle to soul salvation. The difference is that the slavery of sin is a more general notion that covers all possible sins. Whereas, the sin of slavery is mostly connected with the deadly sin of arrogance that makes people find others inferior on the basis of their racial identity. Thus, the double-consciousness allowing us to have double standards for us and people of different backgrounds actually lead us to the sin of slavery.
This view regarding the Black Church’s motivation for the struggle is supported by James Cone in his book The Cross and the Lynching Tree. In chapter three, he gives the story of Emit Till and his mother, Mamie Till, who was encouraged by her faith to put an end to injustice by the power of the Gospel. Cone demonstrates an irony of the great power of the cross that is alleviated by the disappointment in the face of the tragedy of the lynching tree. Cone compares the experience of Till’s mother to Job’s suffering. Mamie Till came to the conclusion that the death of her son was not in vain as it triggered the liberation movement. Cone also touches upon the life of Martin Luther King as another person who endured a lot of hardships in order to reconcile the message of Christ with the lynching tree injustice. For instance, when he had to go to prison for his views.
Therefore, Black Theology was far from violence that was sometimes practiced by the Black Power Movement to achieve empowerment. It inspired people to reconcile themselves with their position promoting the idea of peaceful liberation. I firmly believe that the Black Church will stay committed to its mission and will continue to promote justice and equality. The Black Theology placed in the context of modernity will not necessarily become relativistic, which means that it would promote double standards trying to stay afloat. It will rather modify its methods and objectives but its ultimate goal will remain the same. As soon as it reaches profound self-understanding, it will contribute to intercultural theological comprehension. Is experience may be used by representatives of other confessions seeking the ways of liberation.
References
- Raphael G. Warnock, The Divided Mind of The Black Church (New York: NYU Press, 2013), 1.
- Holy Bible, 1. Provide Biblical reference in parentheses in text to stay consistent.
- James H. Cone, “Bearing the Cross and Staring down the Lynching Tree,” in The Cross and the Lynching Tree (Maryknoll: Orbis, 2013), 66-92.