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WAS BLACK THEOLOGY AN-OTHER RELIGION:

WHAT DID BLACK CHRISTIANS THINK?

Kevin L. Smith, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

Presented at the Evangelical Theological Society

Meeting in Toronto, Canada

November 21, 2002

Was Black theology, in its infancy, another religion? This question is essential to a

Christian or Evangelical engagement with Black theology in the 21

century. The placement of

Black theology within or without the boundaries of orthodox Christianity during the late 1960s
and early 1970s is telling on the placement of its subsequent development. Incidentally, it
would be presumptuous to assume that all Black theologians wanted to be considered
Christian. Gayraud Wilmore said black experience may need "a unique religion, closely related
to, but not exclusively bound by, the Christian tradition."

This paper will seek to address historically two questions, "Was Black theology, in its

infancy, another religion as distinguished from Christianity?" or, "Was Black theology a
prophetic challenge to Christians in America, from within the bounds of Christianity, to
actualize biblical Christianity?"

Perhaps this historical survey of Black theologys infancy will

aid current analysis of this cultural, academic, and religious phenomenon. This paper will seek
to engage the early responses of black pastors within black denominations, black clergy within
white denominations, and black and white theologians. In order to avoid the hypothetical
charge that whites cannot, without prejudice, critique blacks due to their lack of experience
with slavery, racism, and segregation

, this paper will mainly interact with black preachers,

black theologians, and African theologians. This type of historical analysis is relevant as one
considers the 21

century because James Cone said the second generation of writers, while not

merely repeating the first, did build off of the earlier foundation.

While there has been

James Cone and Gayraud Wilmore, eds., Black Theology A Documentary History Volume One: 1966-

1979, (Maryknoll: Orbis Press, 1993), 132. This identity issue is not new. In 1971, J. Deotis Roberts highlighted the
distinction between the call for Black Power and its attendant religious expressions over against Christianity. He
says, "Many blacks who are not Christian are associated with ,,the religion of Black Power. A black theologian who
operates from the Christian faith has difficulty being heard in this company, however angry he may be. Vincent
Harding is the braintrust of this Black Power religion. James Cone is on the fence between the Christian faith and
the religion of Black Power. It will be necessary for Cone to decide presently where he will take his firm stand. The
present writer [Roberts] takes his stand within the Christian theological circle." J. Deotis Roberts, Liberation and
Reconciliation (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1971), 21.

The academic architect of Black theology felt that a legitimate gap or void in theology was being

addressed. James Cone says, "The appearance of Black theology on the scene is due to the failure of white
religionists to relate the gospel of Jesus to the pain of being black in a white racist society." James H. Cone, A Black
Theology of Liberation (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Company, 1970), 23. He finds fault in the north (which
ignored black suffering in its theology) and in the south (which justified black suffering in its theology). Ibem., 22.

Cone and Wilmore, Black Theology: 1966-1979, 112. Also, Cone "will not listen to anybody who

refuses to take racism seriously, especially when they themselves have not been victims of it." Idem, 273. However,
John H. Carey rightly notes that "When he [Cone] denies that white theology can criticize or inform black theology,
he is reinforcing the exclusivism that is characteristic of all sectarian and cultic groups." John H. Carey, "What Can
We Learn From Black Theology?" Theological Studies 35 (S 1974): 523.

James Cone and Gayraud Wilmore, eds., Black Theology: A Documentary History Volume II 1980-

1992 (Maryknoll: Orbis Press, 1993), 1-11.