2
expansion
5
and maturation in Black theology, there has been no reorientation or reformation to
shift it from its original moorings within or without the bounds of Christianity. Before engaging
the above questions, in order to provide vital existential context, this paper will survey three
historical realities that contributed to the environment from which Black theology emerged and
briefly gauge the pre-Black theology response of black Christians to these circumstances.
This type of historical analysis and critique of Black theology, in the midst of a still
racist society (and "Christian" church) must be done with the disclaimer that the racism that
provoked the circumstances that created Black theology was, and still is, a legitimate evil to be
addressed. Bruce Fields, an evangelical, rightly says, "Black theologians voice insensitivities,
inconsistencies, and blatant hypocrisy on the part of the dominant white traditions."
6
Legitimate pain, disappointment and disillusionment have characterized the African, Afro-
Virginian, slave, Negro, Nigger, and Black experience of Christianity in America.
Historical Realities
What was the "problem"
7
Black theology was seeking to address? What pain, despair,
or frustration led to the attempt to develop a unique theology that would give expression,
dignity, and humanity to the black experience of Christianity in America? At least three
historical realities (problems) contributed to the rise of Black theology.
Slavery, Segregation, etc.
First, blacks in America had the historical memory of chattel slavery and the
contemporary experience of segregation and racial prejudice. This had been, and was, a
historical reality both inside and outside of the "Christian" church. Particularly revealing of the
influence of slavery among Christians was the 1840s denominational splits that occurred
among Presbyterians, Methodists, and Baptists along sectional lines.
8
Regarding the issue of
race, many found Christianity, as practiced by white Americans to be complicit or indifferent to
issues of racism, both historically (regarding slavery) and in the midst of the Civil Rights
Movement.
9
Historically, blacks have always seen through the hypocrisy of the racist imposter of
Christianity practiced in America.
10
The ability to distinguish between genuine Christianity and
5
Expansion includes the acceptance, by many in the Black theology community of pluralism,
syncretism, radical feminism, anti-supernaturalism, and anti-heterosexism or heterophobia. Black Womanist
theology assaults the traditional understandings of suffering and substitutionary atonement.
6
Bruce L. Fields, Introducing Black Theology: Three Crucial Questions for the Evangelical Church
(Grand Rapids: Baker Academic Press, 2001), 48.
7
Roger Olson lists Black Theology among a number of "problem theologies" that sought to address
social, political, and economic problems including theologies developed by blacks, liberationists in South America,
and feminists. See The Story of Christian Theology: Twenty Centuries of Tradition and Reform (Downers Grove:
InterVarsity Press, 1999), 602-606. These theologies shift the emphasis of salvation from Gods problem with man,
and replace it with an emphasis on mans problem with man.
8
Edwin S. Gaustad, A Documentary History of Religion in America to the Civil War (Grand Rapids:
William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1993), 467-502.
9
The issue of race in Christianity is currently as potent as it was in the 1960s. Nearly thirty years later,
major denominations, such as the Southern Baptist Convention, were still seeking to address the issue. "Resolution
on Racial Reconciliation on the 150
th
Anniversary of the Southern Baptist Convention" in Timothy George and
Robert Smith, Jr., A Mighty Long Journey: Reflections on Racial Reconciliation (Nashville: Broadman and Holman
Publishers, 2000), 223-225.
10
Frederick Douglass, for example, distinguished between "the slaveholding religion of this land" and
Christianity proper. He also spoke of the "Christianity of this land" and the "Christianity of Christ." See
"Evangelical Flogging" in Jon Butler and Harry S. Stout, eds., Religion in American History: A Reader (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1998), 222-231.