8
the major denominations
46
, they were able to articulate their protest within the bounds of
Christianity. In 1976, black denominations such as Richard Allens African Methodist
Episcopal Churchs position paper employed the term "liberation" rather than "Black theology."
Also, interestingly, the A.M.E. paper acknowledged the worth and need of non-church
organizations like the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP),
Urban League, SCLC, CORE, SNCC, and People United to Save Humanity (PUSH). In language
of discernment and distinction, they pledged to "make recommendations to the...bishops as to
which movements would most appropriately correspond with our position on liberation...and
which characterize the life and teachings of the AME church" (emphasis mine).
47
The Negro churchs rejection of Black Power and, later, Black theology was
personified in the president of the National Baptist Convention, Joseph H. Jackson. After
Stokely Carmichaels call for Black Power in the summer of 1966, Jackson denounced Black
Power during that years Chicago meeting of the denomination.
48
Even more politically
progressive Baptists, like New York pulpiteer Gardner Taylor, in 1968 denounced Black Powers
"excessive rhetoric of violence."
49
Even radically political Baptists, like New York pastor and
congressman, Adam Clayton Powell, who coined the term "Black Power" in 1965 said,
"demonstrations and all continuing protest activity must be non-violent."
50
In 1971, after Black
theology had church and academic expressions, Jackson rejected James Cone (Black theologys
theologian) and Black theology as polarizing and confrontational rather than seeking
reconciliation, and failing to acknowledge that "all Negroes arent full of bitterness and
hatred."
51
Therefore major black Baptists rejected the underlying assumptions and goals of the
Black Power/theology project.
This is significant because, historically, Baptists have constituted the largest
percentage of black Christians.
52
In 1972, for example, there were roughly 8 million black
Baptists compared to 2 million Methodists.
53
If prominent black Baptists had enthusiastically
embraced Black Power/theology, in a manner similar to Cleage, black Christianity would have
been thrust in a radically different direction. However, when they were confronted with the
choice between the call of Stokely Carmichael and Malcolm X, Joseph Jackson, Gardner
Taylor, Martin Luther King, and Adam Clayton Powell chose to heed the call of Jesus, the
Prince of Peace.
Had the Negro church (which was being challenged to fully evolve into the Black
church
54
) not been so steeped in the Bible, one cannot be sure whether the development of a
46
Wilmore cites ten in Cone and Wilmore, Black Theology: 1966-1979, note #7, 223.
47
Ibid., 256.
48
Chapman, Christianity on Trial, 74.
49
Cone and Wilmore, Black Theology: 1966-1979, 1
st
Edition, 265.
50
Floyd Barbour, The Black Power Revolt (Boston: Extending Horizons Books, 1968), 259. For
Powells use of Black Power terminology see Noel Erskine, King Among The Theologians, 84.
51
Cone and Wilmore, Black Theology: 1966-1979, 220. "What we say against white segregationists by
the gospel of Christ we must also say against members of our own race who insist on interpreting the gospel of
Christ on a strictly anti-white and pro-black foundation." Ibid., 247. It is appropriate to mention that J. Deotis
Roberts suspects that "it is doubtful that Jackson attempted to understand Cones book", although he does not give
reason for this suspicion. Ibid., 117.
52
Albert Raboteau, Slave Religion. Blacks were attracted to the Baptist preaching of conversion, the
freedom that local autonomous churches allowed, and the lack of educational requirements for clergy. Baptists were
the first to license slaves to preach.
53
1972 Yearbook of American Churches as cited in John H. Carey, "Black Theology: An Appraisal of
the Internal and External Issues," Theological Studies 33 (D 1972): 687.
54
Wilmore using C. Eric Lincolns distinction of the Negro/Black church says, "it is certain that the
ghost of the politically irrelevant, culturally obtuse, and religiously fundamentalistic ,,Negro church of the early
twentieth century still haunts the leadership of the Black Church today [1979]." Cone and Wilmore, Black