BASR: Discourse Journal

Teaching and Learning > DISCOURSE

Understanding and Teaching Black Theology

Author: Dr Anthony Reddie

Journal Title: Discourse

ISSN: 2040-3674

ISSN-L: 1741-4164

Volume: 8

Number: 2

Start page: 49

End page: 79

Return to vol. 8 no. 2 index page

This work is offered as a means of both understanding and ultimately, communicating the basic intent of Black theology. This paper provides an outline to the broad parameters of the meaning, methodological perspectives and major themes of Black theology. Whilst this work attempts to offer a broad, inclusive and representative understanding of Black theology, it is influenced also by the perspectives, bias and subjective views of the author of this paper. The author of this paper is a 44 year old Participative Black theologian in Britain. I was born in Bradford, West Yorkshire of Jamaican parents and was socialised into and remain within the British Methodist church. I work in Birmingham at the Queen's Foundation for Ecumenical Theological Education and the Methodist.¹

What is Black theology?

Black theology can be broadly understood as the self conscious attempt to undertake rational and disciplined conversation about God and God's relationship to Black people in the world, across space and time.² The God that is at the centre of Black theology is the one who is largely, although not exclusively, understood in terms of God's revelation in 'Jesus who is the Christ' in light of the historical and contemporary reality of being 'Black'. Black theology is most often, although not exclusively, understood as a branch of the wider family of 'theologies of Liberation'—i.e. part of a wider family of theologies that seek to reinterpret the central meaning of the God event within history, particularly, in terms of in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus the Christ; seeking to offer a politicised, radical and socially transformative understanding of the Christian faith in light of the existential experiences of the poor, the marginalised and the oppressed.³

This enterprise named 'Black Theology' has branches across the world. The most obvious and perhaps significant examples can be found in such diverse places as North America⁴, the Caribbean⁵, South America (particularly, Brazil)⁶, Southern Africa⁷, in mainland Europe, particularly, in the Netherlands⁸, and of course, in Britain, especially through the prism of the Black theology journals.⁹ In these differing Anthony Reddie—Understanding and Teaching Black Theology contexts, the point of departure for Black theology is the reality of being 'Black' in the world and the experience that grows out of this lived actuality of how the world treats you as a person of darker skin. This reality is then explored in dialogue within the overall framework of the Christian faith. This relationship between Black experience and Christianity continues, for the most part, to be the effective conduit that constitutes the ongoing development of Black theology across the world.

Black theology has grown out of the ongoing struggles of Black peoples to affirm their identity and very humanity in the face of seemingly insuperable odds.¹⁰ African American scholars, such as Asante, estimate that upwards of 50 million African people were transported between Africa and the Americas over a four hundred year period.¹¹ Inherent within that Black, transatlantic movement of forced migration and labour, was a form of biased, racialised teaching that asserted the inferiority and sub-human nature of the Black self.¹² The continued struggles of Black people that arise from the era of slavery can be seen in the overarching material poverty and marginalisation of Black people across the world.¹³

In addition to the structural and disproportionate material poverty of Black people, is the more ephemeral phenomenon that is the continuing tendency of Black people to internalise the damaging effects of such racialised demagoguery within the confines of the fragile human psyche.¹⁴ The internalisation of this demonised instruction has led to Black people directing the fire of their repressed and disparaged selves onto their own psyche and that of their peers with whom they share a common ancestry and ethnic identity.¹⁵

Black theology as an academic discipline and as a form of concrete faith based practice takes as its point of departure the reality of Black suffering in history. For many Black theologians, the brutal realities of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade provide the essential backdrop against which the ongoing drama of Black suffering in history is played out.¹⁶

Black theology is, then, the deliberate attempt to connect the reality and substance of being Black and the development of ideas surrounding Blackness with one's sacred talk of God and God's relation- ship with the mass suffering of humanity who might be described as being Black people. It is important to note that the 'invention' of Blackness, as opposed being 'African' is part of ongoing development of human re-construction that is a post enlightenment-modernist conceit.¹⁷

Black theology, then, is an action based form of conversation about God that seeks to respond to the deep-seated racialised depictions of people of darker skin within the cultural imagination of Euro- Americans.¹⁸ One may argue as to the appropriateness of using the term 'Black' as opposed to 'African' and, therefore, pose the concomitant question as to why slavery and suffering should feature so starkly within the framework of Black theology? What about the African presence that existed long before the horrors of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade?¹⁹ These questions, of course, are very valid ones and aspects of this intricate debate and conversation were undertaken in some of the other presentations given at the conference where this paper was originally presented.

In a previous piece of work I have argued that whilst the terms 'Black' and 'African' have much in common and often work as synonyms, there are, nonetheless, some significant differences between the two.²⁰ Whilst 'African' may automatically translate into 'Black', not everything that is 'Black' necessarily translates into African. Let me explain what I mean by this statement.

This lecture in understanding and teaching Black theology emerges from within the British context. Whilst this work seeks to provide a comprehensive and representative overview of Black theology, it is influenced also, by the very distinctive context of the UK, in which this author resides. As I will detail shortly, the term 'Black' can be used in a two specific ways within the British context. For many people who use the term 'African' with which to name themselves and would indeed describe themselves as being 'African' or being of 'African descent', these descriptors could also echo to the term 'Black'. That in effect, one could easily (if one so chose) substitute the term 'Black' for 'African' without any substantive loss of meaning to the person or persons being described. To articulate a position that uses the term 'African' is to connect oneself to a geographical area, a political and philosophical idea (as in the case of Afrocentricity)²¹ or the historical phenomenon of a land mass and the peoples associated with it.²²

But to use the term 'Black' in a theological sense is to argue for a specific and intentional commitment to the cause of human liberation and transformation from all elements that might be considered oppressive irrespective of the source from which that oppression has emerged. I have put part of the last sentence in italics for this is of crucial import in understanding the central force of Black theology. Black theology is the attempt to reflect upon the presence and agency of God in connection with the suffering and oppression of people of largely African descent, who see in this God, the basis for their fight against all the structured and systemic elements that oppress them and cause them to suffer.

The cause of their suffering might well be elements or activities that have their basis in African cultures, such as female genital mutilation, for example. The 'Black' in Black theology is committed to challenging all forms of oppression, even that which may have a cultural African basis to it. Black theology is more than simply African-cultural retention, or the reification of African cultural tropes; nor is it reducible to notions of African inculturation.²³ That is not to say that none of the aforementioned cannot be understood as Black theology or that they do not contribute to the development of Black theology, but they are not necessarily understood as Black theology either. This is the case, particularly, if such cultural factors are the cause of patriarchy, sexism, hetero-normativity and essentialised discourses that eschew the reality of cultural diversity and heterogeneity.

Using the term 'Black' as opposed to 'African' is also to take seriously the Diasporan routes or migratory journeys (most accurately to be seen as physical and economic forced migration) of people of African descent. The term 'Black' was a deliberate and intentional naming strategy for people primarily of African descent living away from the continent of Africa, who were struggling under the yoke of racism and other forms of structural injustice at the hands of White people with power in the west.

The Black Power Movements²⁴ in the US, the Caribbean and in Britain²⁵, for example, sought to draw on the African roots of Black life, whilst seeking to respond to the reality of being Black in an era when slavery and colonialism had drastically changed the very nature of what it meant to be a Black person in the world. Black Power drew on the nature of African cultures as part of its rationale, but did not limit itself solely to the provision of describing oneself as African in any strict historical sense.

It is important to note that Black Power as a concept pre-dates the formal development of the Black Power Movement in the 1960s. The development of Black Theology as an academic discipline emerges largely from the work of James H. Cone who sought to combine the Christian inspired activism of Martin Luther King Jnr with the militant Black Nationalism and Black Power protests of Malcolm X in order to create a Black Theology of Liberation.²⁶ Cone uses the term 'Black' as opposed to the terms 'Afro' or 'African' in order to denote the explicit ideological and liberationist perspective to this theological formulation.

In the context of this work, in the UK, the term 'Black' is used in a dual sense. The more obvious use of the term refers to Black people of African descent who have experienced oppression, suffering and poverty in a world run by and organised for the benefit of White people with power. The other, alternative understanding of the term 'Black' that sits alongside the first is one that draws upon the sense of a shared experience of marginalisation, oppression and hardship; in which other peoples, who might also be described as being marginalised, share a common experience of struggle. The term 'Black' within this paper does not refer simply to one's epidermis, but is also a political statement relating to one's sense of a lived experience within the world that often overlooks the needs and concerns of darker skinned peoples. In this second understanding, 'Black' has come to represent the common struggle of all persons from minority ethnic groupings seeking to reflect on and challenge White hegemony.²⁷

In a previous piece of work, Michael Jagessar and I describe 'Black' in the context of 'Postcolonial Britain' as to being a socially constructed marginalised 'other' in the body politic of this nation.²⁸ That in effect, in a nation whose indices for belonging and acceptance are still predicated on assumptions around normative 'Whiteness', to be 'Black' and or to organise oneself around the conceptual realities of 'Blackness' is to adopt the positionality of the 'other' or, to quote the former British Prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, to be 'The Enemy within'.

So the 'Black' in Black theology in Britain, for example, becomes a symbolic totem that unifies all minority ethnic peoples who have been oppressed and marginalised in economic, political, cultural and gendered ways and who desire, in and through their belief in God, to change and transform the world.

This transformation that Black people seek is one that better represents and reflects the 'Kingdom of God' or 'God's rule' or 'Reign' or the 'Economy of God'—different terms for a specific time within history and beyond it, when justice, freedom and liberation will be available for all people and not just some. The motif of the coming Kingdom or 'Reign' of God' and the need for oppressed Black peoples to work in solidarity with God in anticipation of this moment in history, is one that resonates throughout the entire literature of Black theology.

In a very real sense one can say that the underlying rationale for Black theology as an academic discipline in addition to its attempt to convert its ideas into concrete practice rests and falls on the belief in the possibilities of transformation—in the possibilities of individual and collective change for justice and equity for all poor people across the world. If God is not one of justice then Black theology ceases to have any intellectual meaning or any practical application to the lives of Black peoples across the globe.²⁹

Black Theology and the Christian faith

This lecture in understanding and teaching Black theology seeks to outline the main features and definition of this intellectual movement. It should be noted, from the outset, that Black theology is a broad movement that encompasses a variety of perspectives and methods. For example, not all scholars who seek to work within the framework of Black theology would necessarily describe themselves as people of Christian faith.

Indeed, it should be noted that Black theologians have attempted to write within a variety of religious frameworks and none. In seeking to outline the definitional dimensions of Black theology, we need to acknowledge that there is a growing wealth of literature that has explored Black theology from within other religious paradigms, including Rastafari³⁰, Hinduism³¹ and traditional African religions.³² In the U.S., Anthony Pinn has sought to use humanism as a vehicle for exploring notions of Black theology that reject the traditional theism of Christian inspired theology.³³

Whilst noting these significant alternative versions of Black theology, it is equally important to remember that the bulk of writing and reflection in the area of Black theology in Britain, however, has been dominated by a Christian purview. At the heart of Black theology within the Christian framework is the concept of 'Liberation'. In using this term, what I mean to suggest is that the word 'Black' comes to represent God's symbolic and actual solidarity with oppressed people; the majority of whom have been consigned to the marginal spaces of the world solely on the grounds of their very Blackness.³⁴

Black theology is committed to challenging the systemic frameworks that assert particular practices and ideas as being as they should be (i.e. normative—usually governed by the powerful) whilst ignoring the claims of those who are marginalised and are powerless; often demonising the perspectives of the latter as being aberrant or even heretical.³⁵ This process of seeking to change the actual workings of the world and to assist the oppressed and the marginalised to be free 'in this world' and in the world to come is one that is understood as 'liberation'.

The methodological point of departure in my understanding of

Black theology aligns itself with the most well known and representative of the different traditions of Black theology, namely the 'Hermeneutical School'.³⁶ The term 'hermeneutics' is one that is drawn from the world of Biblical studies and can be understood as the art or the science of interpretation; particularly what one might term as 'sacred texts'. This school of thought is one that seeks to locate Black theology from within the Christian tradition. Scholars in the 'Hermeneutical school' seek to re-think and re-interpret the meaning of Christian faith and the work of the Church in light of the liberating ministry of Jesus the Christ, which in turn is correlated with the very real existential struggles of Black people. This non-foundational model of Black theology seeks utilise the tools within Christian tradition in order to create a liberative framework for articulating the quest for Black existential freedom.

I would argue that this branch of Black theology is the most representative of the bulk of scholars who would identify themselves with the cause of Black theology. It is also worth noting the comparative schemas developed by many Caribbean theologians such as Kortright Davis³⁷, Noel Erskine³⁸, and Lewin Williams.³⁹ South African Perspectives include Allan Boesak⁴⁰, Itumeleng Mosala⁴¹, and Itumeleng J. Mosala & Buti Tlhagale.⁴²

Central to the Christian perspective on Black theology is the position and role of Jesus. Black theology has always been an essentially a Christocentric movement. What I mean by this term is that Black theology has taken as its definitive central point, the person and the work of Jesus and his relationship with the suffering and struggles of the grassroots proletariat in the 1st century epoch of Judea.⁴³ The relationship of the 'Jesus of history' in his context is then juxtaposed with the 'Christ of faith's' continued involvement in the lives of the economically marginalised, and the socio-political and cultural oppression of Black people in the epoch of modernity.

The concentration on Christology in Black theology is not to suggest that Black theology does not believe in the Doctrine of God as Supreme Creator or in the Holy Spirit as Sustainer; but there is a definite sense that Jesus is the central gaze and focus of theological reflection within Black theology across the world. For many, the most important person in the Christocentric development of Black theology has been the African American Black theologian, James H. Cone. Cone's landmark trilogy of books in the late 1960s and early 70s, Black Theology and Black Power⁴⁴, A Black Theology of Liberation⁴⁵ and God Of The Oppressed⁴⁶ remain the dominant texts in outlining the importance of conceiving Christology from the perspective of disenfranchised and oppressed Black peoples across the world.

Despite the central importance of James Cone to the development of Black theology, it should be noted that Black theology did not begin with his writings in the late 1960s and 70s. Instead, we have to look to the era of slavery and the mass incarceration of enslaved Africans for the birth of Black theology. When enslaved Africans began to reimagine their existence and their destiny, and sought to fight for their freedom, using the frameworks of a re-interpreted Christian faith as they did so, these people were engaging in the very first documented examples of Black theology.

When such luminaries as Sam Sharpe, a Baptist Deacon who initiated one of the largest rebellions against slavery in the Caribbean, in Jamaica, in the Christmas period of 1831—when he and other enslaved Africans were working with a concept as 'Jesus, as the Liberator'—the who came to bring freedom to the captives—in proclaiming Jesus as a liberator, they were outlining a nascent model of Black theology.⁴⁷ Texts like Luke 4: 16-19 or Matthew 25: 31-46 from the Synoptic Gospels became 'proof texts' that God as reflected in the life and teachings of Jesus was on the side of the oppressed and the suffering, and against the perpetrators of the slave trade. So long before the great Latin American Liberation theologian Jon Sobrino wrote his landmark text, Jesus The Liberator⁴⁸, enslaved Africans were already working with an acute, practical, experiential theological framework attuned to their existential realities—albeit, not written down in the form of a systematic theology!

This Black radical tradition in Christianity—Black Theology —continues in the present day. Black people have continued to reinterpret the meaning of the Christian faith in order to challenge illegitimate White power (and Black power, also, when it should be called to account) and to proclaim freedom for all people.

So how can we help people to understand Black theology then?

As I have illustrated, Black theology did not begin with the intellectual musings of a people who had the luxury of being able to reflect benignly on their comfortable existence, imagining what God might be like. Conversely, Black theology emerged from the fiery furnace of oppression and hardship. In the midst of the tumultuous struggles, pains and sufferings, Black people began to imagine and then struggle for a better world; a new existence in which there will be justice, dignity and freedom for all people, including themselves.

To understand Black theology one needs to understand the reality of what it means to be exploited, oppressed, overlooked, ignored and consigned to death, mainly on the grounds of the colour of one's skin, which in turn, is informed by the prejudices of others! What does it mean to be considered a 'nobody' in the world?⁴⁹

In order to understand and teach Black theology one has to engage with one's emotions. It is essential to engage with one's affective domain. In using the term 'affective domain', what I mean to suggest is that one has to find ways in which one engages with the emotional and feeling centres of the self, as opposed to relying purely on our intellectual and thinking processes—i.e. cognition.

Much of my own work over the last several years has been concerned with helping predominantly Black and White students to understand the central ideas of Black theology. In undertaking this work, I have often relied on a participative approach to doing Black theology, which has been drawn from the arena of Christian education, as a branch of practical theology.⁵⁰

This approach to undertaking Black theology has been used in order to help others to 'get it', i.e. to see and to feel the necessity for Black theology. This work has largely been undertaken in theological education, where my pedagogical and polemical charge for Black theology has been an inductive rationale that seeks to change hearts and minds, rather than the mere deductive raison d'etre of simply seeking to provide more and better information. My individual approach to undertaking Black theology is one that seeks to use models of transformative learning and participative group reflection (what I call a 'participative process' or method)⁵¹ as a way of explaining and developing new ways of understanding Black theology and the concomitant practice of engaging in radical and liberative God talk in light of Black suffering, struggle, marginalisation and oppression. In effect, my approach to teaching Black theology rests upon the dialectical challenge of re-framing epistemology.

One of my favourite exercises for enabling adult learners to understand something of the central force of and the necessity for Black theology is entitled What Do You See?⁵² The aim of the exercise is to assist adult learners in seeing how one's position and reality in the world leads inevitably to particular ways of imagining the Divine, and the resultant relationship of the Divine to the situation and the context in which the individual or any group of peoples live.

As a way of assisting the learner to come to terms with the most foundational of ideas and concerns that are central to Black theology I am going to introduce this exercise, and describe has how it has been used as a means of teaching Black theology—i.e. enabling others to 'get it'.⁵³

'What do you see?'

For the exercise to work, I have sometimes used a large circular item like a laundry basket, or more recently, a more portable item like a series of A2 boards that can be pinned together to make a 3-sided freestanding object that stands on top of a coffee table.

On the board or on the laundry basket (or something similar) you should place a series of A4 sized pieces of paper that are comprised of different colours. Most times, there are five pieces of paper. Each piece of paper has a letter written on the top of it. Most times, the letters simply read 'A', 'B', 'C', 'D', 'E' and are written across the top of each sheet. I then place the sheets on which the letters are placed at regular intervals around the central/circular object.

On each piece of paper, underneath the letter, I usually write a short pithy statement. Examples of statements I have used include, (1) 'A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle', (2) 'God has no hands except our hands', (3) 'If wishes were horses, then beggars would ride', (4) 'To educate a man is to educate an individual. To educate a woman is to educate and liberate a nation', (5) 'To Overcome is to Undertake'. There is one statement for each piece of paper and the statement is written beneath the letter.

As the facilitator of the group, I stand next to the central object on which the letters are situated. I then ask all the other participants to form a circle around the central object. The central object on which the pieces of paper and the letters are placed is covered so that the individuals cannot see what is written.

When all the individuals are seated in a circle around the central object, I uncover the central object and then ask the various participants seated in their various places around the circle, 'What do you see?' Each person, depending upon his or her particular vantage-point, position or perspective, will see something slightly different from the person sitting next to them or close by. None of us sees things the same way. This central fact is a result of how the various participants are seated, namely in a circle around an object that has different pieces of paper placed at different points on the object itself.

The exercise continues with me asking selected individuals how many A4 sheets of paper exist on the central object? In most cases, I have placed five such pieces of paper (but it could be more or less depending on the size of the group) on the central object. Depending upon where individuals are sitting, they may be able to see 1, 2, 3 or in some exceptional cases even 4 of the A4 pieces of paper. One of the most basic learning points that emerge in the early proceedings of the exercise is that no one person or group of people can see everything that exists on the central object. Some individuals can see letters A, B C, others can see only the E, other, C and D, or whatever combination, depending upon their particular vantage point in the circle. Whilst most people can only see particular letters, if they are even remotely observant, they will be aware that there are more letters/pieces of paper in existence than what they can necessarily see for themselves. Why is that the case? Well, simply put, if each person listens to what the others on the opposite side of the circle, for example, are saying, then they will be aware that others can testify to the existence of other letters/pieces of A4 paper that they themselves cannot see.⁵⁴

So many, if not most of the group participants will know that more letters/pieces of paper exist than they can see, simply because they will learn from other people. The first obvious point of learning from the exercise is that no one position has the monopoly on knowledge. The sum of what the group 'knows' derives from the sharing or pooling of knowledge between the different participants. This simple 'fact' may seen a benign or even an axiomatic truth, but when one considers the various ideologies or religious traditions that assert that their one perspective or position has the monopoly on truth⁵⁵, often asserted through the prism of 'revelation' and notions of election, it does not take much imagination, therefore, to see the radicality of this seemingly innocent assertion.⁵⁶

The exercise now becomes a more ideological one when the facilitator, me, then arbitrarily decides that only one letter is of any importance from this point onwards in the game. From this point forward, I usually decide that those who can see the letter 'E' (I have tended to choose the letter 'E' in order that it can stand for Europe or 'E' for Enlightenment) are charged with the task of describing the letter on the piece of paper facing them, and to interpret it for those who cannot see it. This is 'their burden', to evangelise and civilise those who are less enlightened, having not received the revelation of being able to witness to the 'E' for themselves. The slogan that accompanies the 'E' usually states 'If wishes were gorses then beggars would ride'. As the exercise now develops, I charge those who cannot see the 'E' to remember that the only letter that matters is the one they cannot see. They are told repeatedly that the letters they can see are worthless and without any merit, and they are forbidden to speak about or mention them again for the remainder of the exercise.

As the exercise develops, it soon becomes obvious that particular members of the group that cannot see the 'E' will not acquiesce and accept the superiority of a letter, which they cannot grasp the truth of in any empirical sense. What I mean by this statement is that those who cannot see the 'E' can only take the accounts of those who can see it on trust. Those who cannot see the 'E' (which is the majority of the people in the exercise) are forced to accept the superiority of something of which they cannot be a part, whilst being instructed or even forced to deny that which is a direct part of their own immediate experience—i.e. the letters that are immediately before them.⁵⁷

When I have used the exercise with a variety of people in many workshops, across the length and breadth of the UK and in other countries also, it soon becomes patently obvious that there is an inherent unfairness and irrationality in the set-up of the game itself. Those participants who cannot see the 'E' begin to question the inherent unfairness and illogical premise of the exercise. Why should only one letter and those who can see it be deemed superior to all the others? Why is there this kind of arbitrary division between 'some' who are given great privileges in the game, simply because of an accident of where they are seated, versus those who are not so blessed? Hopefully, many of you can see the direct parallel between the set up in the game and White, ethnocentric, Evangelical mission theology?

Often times, when I have enacted this exercise, I have 'upped the anti' in colloquial terms, by asserting that not only are the non 'E' symbols of no value, but those who follow them are savage and demonic.⁵⁸ I have then given permission to those who can see the 'E' resort to punitive measures in order to convince those that cannot see it to acquiesce to the power of the former. Those that can see the 'E' often invoke a variety of coercive measures in order to 'persuade' their fellow participants in the exercise to 'see' the superiority of that letter. On occasions, some have resorted to powerful forms of evangelical preaching, seeking to exhort their fellow game players to resist the claims of the false untruths that confront them, namely the other letters in the exercise, in order to convert these 'heathens' to the one true 'enlightenment'⁵⁹—namely, that of the 'E'. Yet on other occasions, those trying to exhort their fellow participants to change their minds have simply used the threat of violence, plus various forms of intellectual coercion, such as the questionable theories of election, with which to 'win over their converts' to their way of thinking.

Hopefully, as I have described the workings of the exercise, you will begin to see the metaphorical basis of this participative activity. As the exercise develops, many of the participants begin to experience and feel some of the dynamics of oppressive structures and frameworks and how these elements impact upon those caught up within them.

For those who can see the 'E', their actions often vary from easy compliance⁶⁰ to subtle forms of resistance to the notion that they are superior to others. What has always fascinated me when using this exercise is the extent to which it has proved all too easy for those given power in the exercise arising from an arbitrary accident of seating to begin to believe the myths of their superiority! Most of the participants who can see the 'E' soon learn not to question their alleged and spurious superiority.⁶¹ Others, in the context of the game, grow to enjoy and even love their status as the superior beings. Of course, one should add that there are many who can see 'E' but resist the temptation to exploit their supposedly exalted position.⁶²

In terms of the majority of participants who cannot see the 'E' their actions are also quite varied. Most, if not all of them, will try to resist the imposition of those who can see the 'E'. Some resist by means of simply asserting their right to self-determination and the fact that they can see other letters aside from the 'E' that is being imposed upon them. Scholars such as Valentina Alexander⁶³ and Robert Beckford⁶⁴ have termed this form of resistance 'Passive Resistance'. This mode of anti-oppressive struggle is one that is based on a form of a pneumatologically-inspired connection with the Divine, whom the oppressed come to believe has created them to be free, through the power of the spirit and spirit-filled forms of religio-cultural practices. This form of assertion is an expression of an innate belief that it is a fundamental right on behalf of those who are being oppressed to seek to claim their freedom with God in and through the power of their religious association with the Supreme Being.

The freedom they claim is one that asserts their innate connection with a deity whose love and concern for them might not give rise to any concrete or material change in their existential realities, but nonetheless, it bolsters their thinking and imagination to resist the imposition of others. In effect, this is an internalised form of resistance, where the ontological basis of Black humanity is preserved from the contaminating stain of the oppressor. Passive radicalism has tended to be most visible and operative within the Black Pentecostal movement within Britain.

Active radicalism, where those who are marginalised and oppressed seek to confront the oppressive and dehumanising structures in a more deliberate and explicit manner, can also be witnessed in the exercise. This occurs when those who cannot see the 'E' seek to adopt more confrontational measures for seeking to challenge the unfair and biased system of the game. Active radicalism is the form of resistance fiercely advocated by James Cone, in the very first self-articulated book on Black theology.⁶⁵ Cone seeks to provide a theological rationale for the militant activism of the 'Black Power Movement' that was a powerful resource for Black self-determination and Black pride in the second half of the 1960s in North America.⁶⁶ One can witness aspects of active radicalism in Walter Rodney's groundbreaking 'Rasta inspired text' The Groundings with My Brothers⁶⁷, also published in 1969.

In using this exercise, I am not suggesting that the participants who engage within it are suddenly and miraculously enabled to 'get' Black theology in all its terms. Clearly, that would be a nonsensical and risible contention. I am also at pains to stress that the exercise is, essentially, 'only a game' and can, at best, only seek to reflect in an approximate manner, the broader realities of White hegemony and Black suffering. It cannot mirror the true complexities, horrors and sheer absurdity of racism, racialised oppression, sexism, patriarchy and heterosexism. What it can and has done is to begin to sensitise and make partic- ipants politically aware of the ways in which mainstream, White Euro- American theology has been used to restrict and oppress Black people and other peoples from the global south.

Secondly, the exercise seeks to work as an active form of metaphor, in that it invites participants to make connections between the game, their experiences and emotions that have arisen from taking part in this activity and the theological reflections that follow. It is in this nexus of reflections on the exercise, and the further thoughts around the development of Black theology, that the central truths of this theological movement begin to emerge for the learner.

Black theology reflections from past workshops

The importance of this exercise is that it assists in making us aware of the many differing epistemological frameworks that exist in our world. The exercise, 'What Do You See?' challenges participants to see how particular standpoints and perspectives govern how we understand and accept what is truth! Essentially, what one learns from the exercise, which is itself a central tenet of Black theology, is that all philosophical claims for truth (epistemology) are invariably linked to the realities of power, i.e. that truth is not only some kind of objective and tangible reality, but it is also subjective and intangible! What one believes and claims to be true is very much dependent on how much power and influence one has to insist that one's claims are legitimised.⁶⁸ The exercise enables those who experience marginalisation and any resultant oppression to ask whether truth resides solely with those with power who can see the 'E'? The understanding of Black theology that arises from this exercise is one that reminds us all of the continued erroneous belief at the heart of the globalized world order that only one set of people essentially matter in the world.⁶⁹

Very often as Black people in marginalised contexts, we have had to continue to argue, speak out, raise our voices and construct militant forms of protest in order to challenge the systemic workings of the world; simply in order to be heard.⁷⁰ This struggle is often a debilitating one. It requires Black people to challenge the systemic workings of White hegemony in order that our marginalised presence is realised. Black people, seeking faithful change, have had to learn the hard lessons of keeping faith and maintaining dignity, integrity and self worth against all the odds. This can be a hugely difficult and thankless task, and probably explains why some Black people decide to opt out of White, western inspired epistemologies, as they will claim that the knowledge base inherent in these systems is one that is arbitrary and outside of their own experiences.⁷¹ This can be seen in various forms of religious Black Nationalism. At the opposite end of the religious continuum, one can see the attraction of pietistic modes of spiritual resistance to White hegemony and globalized and indeed localized oppressions.⁷² This becomes all the more operative when one witness- es the entrenched nature of the interlocking power systems that incarcerate the Black self and make any semblance or even notion of change appear to be a seemingly impossible one.⁷³

These existing reflections have since been supplemented by an extensive knowledge base accrued from the countless 'performances' of this exercise. The exercise has been used to raise questions of epistemology. How do we know what is true when widely divergent truth claims exist? This exercise also demonstrates the ideological nature of knowledge and truth.⁷⁴ As many Black people have always stated, "It's not what you know, it's who you know and who knows you that counts".⁷⁵ The exercise has been used to demonstrate how arbitrary claims for the superiority of one position over and against others, inevitably leads to tyranny and oppression.⁷⁶ This exercise enables participants to experience the 'abject nothingness' of non-being, which arrived through the pernicious epoch of the Transatlantic slave trade.

In the context of the exercise, those who have been disenfranchised through their position of not being able to see the 'E' have naturally rebelled at the sheer absurdity of the premise at the heart of the game. How can it be that some people should be deemed superior to others on the basis of the accident of an arbitrary position? From experience, the more powerful, erudite or socially advantaged the participant in 'real life', the more they have reacted with anger and frustration at their position of marginalisation and exclusion in the game. I have witnessed very well connected and educated White people react in a kind of repressed-pent-up fury at the privations heaped upon them as they have been deprived autonomy, respect or perceived intelligence, within what is a simple exercise or game lasting no more than an hour! When one cannot see the 'E', nothing in your reality, including the letters you can see are afforded any value or merit whatsoever! Suddenly, one is reduced to being an object.⁷⁷

The sharp sense of learning for many White participants in this exercise has arisen from the realisation that this seemingly 'innocent game' suddenly maps onto a larger set of realities and experiences for Black and Asian people in Britain and across the world, which are anything but a game. The brutal realities of slavery, colonialism, racism, neo-colonialism, globalisation, patriarchy, sexism and homophobia that have affected millions of Black people the world over are not trivial incidences that can be over come by stating 'I don't like this game, I'm not playing anymore!'

On only one occasion when using this exercise have I encountered the phrase written in the previous sentence! On that occasion, a very conservative and repressed White woman training for the Anglican ministry got up and proceeded to walk out of the room. In response to her retort that 'she wasn't playing anymore' I said 'And your actions show the necessary empathetic skills for ministry how again?'

Conversely, when Black and Asian people have taken part in the game and found themselves on the side of the oppressed unable to see the 'E', they have often revelled in the exercise. For many of them, this exercise is simply a faint echo of the continued reality of oppression and hardship many of them face on a daily basis. When responding to the de-briefing⁷⁸ that follows the 'action' part of the exercise one Black participant said 'Sitting on the other side of the circle and finding that what I can see and know to be true is completely disbelieved and ridiculed; this simply reminds me of the many times I've been stopped by the police whilst driving my BMW. It doesn't matter how much I try to explain what I know to be true about me and this car, the copper still looks at me like I am an idiot who is incapable of telling the truth'.⁷⁹ The inescapable connection between a seemingly simple and innocent game and the larger experiential truths of Black life is one that lies at the heart of this exercise and my use of it as a way of explaining the central meaning of and indeed teaching Black theology.

Black theology seeks to respond to the question of how and in what ways does God care about and is in solidarity with peoples who are oppressed and marginalized on the basis of their God-given, God created Blackness? How can faith in God and the attempt to live in harmony and relationship with that God become the basis for oppressed peoples to imagine, to have hope and indeed live with the consciousness of history in light of this new reality, as the basis for life?⁸⁰

This experiential practical-activity based approach to Black theology is one that attempts to engage learners in an embodied, emotional and literal fashion into the central dynamics of issues concerning power, 'race' and knowledge claims for truth, especially if the latter asserts that its truths emanate from some process of revelation from a divine being. In the salient words of words of great African American religious historian, Robert Hood, 'Must God Remain Greek?'⁸¹ Why is it that the bulk of revelation in Christianity has been safely ensconced from within Hellenistic derived thought forms, often at the expense of African derived epistemologies?

The questions posed by Black theology on these important questions are of vital importance because this model of Christian-inspired theological reflection represents the sacred faith inspired thinking and action on the life of Black people, detailing their hopes, aspirations and beliefs for another world, within and beyond the present reality, in which their existence is one largely of struggle, oppression and sheer hardship.⁸²

It is my belief that one should approach Black theology as a very different entity from the mainstream of White Euro-American God talk. What I mean by this is that when James H. Cone or Womanists like Jacquelyn Grant helped to give voice to a radical Black focus on re-thinking the basic tenets of Christianity, they did so in order to provide resources for the mass of suffering and oppressed Black humanity. Their scholarship and the activism of those that followed them was a plea to create a model of Christian inspired thinking and action that would give voice to the cries of pain, frustration, hardship, sorrow, joys and the sheer unquenchable life force of Black people to survive and thrive in a world in which they are often treated as mere objects and not subjects.⁸³ Black theology represents a committed and rational response to the challenges of being a Black human being in a world run by White people with power for the benefit of others like themselves.⁸⁴

The experiential dimension of Black theology is summarised in one of my favourite sayings, first expressed to me by my Mother—namely 'Who feels it knows it'.⁸⁵ Black theology seeks to pose the critical question regarding Black existence—'what have we felt?' This question is followed by the corollary, namely, 'What have we known to be true?' The second question naturally grows out of the implications of the first. In light of what have we felt, in what way does that basic foundational question give rise to the challenge to seek meaning and truth from ones continued existence of struggle in the world? And let us not be persuaded by neo-conservative apologists who will point to the disproportionately small number of Black successes as the basis for arguing that the unremitting reality of marginalisation, economic poverty, societal indifference, disproportionate levels of ill health, poor provisions for education and psycho-psychotic nihilism are not the lot of the bulk of Black peoples the world over. The election of a Black president in the USA is indeed a moment of celebration but let us not forget that he largely had to disavow his very Blackness in order to do so.⁸⁶

Black theology has not died, as some recent doom sayers have predicted⁸⁷, but it is definitely in need of re-energising.⁸⁸ Black theology must re-affirm its commitment to the massed ranks of ordinary Black people consigned to the margins of the so-called New World Order.⁸⁹ The vision for the ongoing protesting and iconoclastic presence of Black theology in the world remains undimmed. The systemic and systematic workings of the present globalized world order that leaves the few able to see 'the E' in a position to control of the world's resources whilst the many who cannot see the 'E' are consigned to lesser status, has not abated. Black theology, to my mind, remains the most potent of faithful frameworks of re-imagining a world that has peace, justice and equity at the centre of its daily operations for all people, regardless of the colour of one's skin! Long may that struggle continue! Long live Black theology!

Endnotes

Professionally and academically, at the time of writing, I have written 11 books on Christian education and Black theology in Britain. My most recent text is entitled Working Against The Grain: Reimaging Black Theology in the 21st century. In addition to the books, I have written 25 articles in peer review journals and 19 essays or chapters in books, again looking at the interface between the Christian formation of Black people and the educative approaches connected to this task, which, in turn, is linked to the conceptual analysis of Black theology as a means of doing the former. I am also the editor of the only Black theology journal in the world: Black Theology: An International Journal.
An important aspect of Black theology is the extent to which is attends to existential realities of lived experience of Black people within history, both in the past and present epochs. This emphasis upon the lived realities of Black people is one that seeks to displace notions of theology being 'distant' and unresponsive to the needs of ordinary people in this world and is less concerned with metaphysical speculations about salvation in the next. For a helpful discussion on this issue see Hopkins, Dwight N., Introducing Black Theology of Liberation (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis, 1999), pp.1-14.
For an important recent text that delineates the comparative develops in 'theologies of Liberation' see Althaus-Reid, Marcella, Patrella, Ivan and Susin, Luis Carlos (eds.), Another Possible World (London: SCM, 2007).
For the best overview on the historical development of Black theology in North America see Wilmore, Gayraud S. and Cone, James H. (eds.), Black Theology: A Documentary History, 1966-1979 (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis, 1979) and Cone, James H. and Wilmore, Gayraud S. (eds.), Black Theology: A Documentary History Vol. 2, 1980-1992 (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis, 1993).
It could be argued that there is a semantic problem with naming the theory and practice of contextualised, liberative-praxis based approaches to theology that emerge from within the Caribbean context as 'Black Theology' as the term 'Black' was eschewed in favour of the alternative naming strategy of 'Caribbean Theology'. Given the plural realities of the Caribbean, where the term 'Black' might be understood to pertain to only one section (albeit the numerical majority) of the population has meant that its usage has proved problematic in this context. Nonetheless, one can point to a number of texts that include work that clearly engages with the overarching, substantive and thematic ideas that are replete within Black theology. See Erskine, Noel Leo, Decolonizing Theology: A Caribbean Perspective (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis, 1981), Davis, Kortright, Emancipation Still Comin': Explorations in Caribbean Emancipatory Theology (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis, 1990), Williams, Lewin L., Caribbean Theology (New York: Peter Lang, 1994), Gonzalez, Michelle A., Afro-Cuban Theology: Religion, Race, Culture and Identity, (Gainesville: University of Florida, 2006) and Reid-Salmon, Delroy A., Home Away From Home: The Caribbean Diasporan Church in the Black Atlantic Tradition (London: Equinox, 2008).
See Sant'Ana, Antonio, (National Ecumenical Commission to Combat Racism, Brazil), 'Black Spirituality: The Anchor of Black Lives' and Fernandes dos Santos, Diana, (Youth of the Methodist Church, Brazil) 'Black Heritage in Brazil' in Hopkins, Dwight N. and Lewis, Marjorie (eds.) Another World Is Possible: Spiritualities and Religions of Global Darker Peoples (London: Equinox, 2009).
Mosala, Itumeleng J., Biblical Hermeneutics and Black Theology in South Africa (Grand Rapids: WM.B. Eerdmans, 1989), Mosala, Itumeleng J.and Tlhagale, Buti (eds.) The Unquestionable Right to be Free: Black Theology From South Africa (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis, 1986).
See Witvliet, Theo, A Place in the Sun: an Introduction to Liberation Theology in the Third World (London: SCM press, 1985) and The Womanist Theology Group, 'AWomanist Bibliodrama', in Grant, Paul and Patel, Raj, (eds.) A Time To Act: Kairos 1992 (Birmingham: A Joint Publication of Racial Justice and the Black and Third World Theological Working Group', 1992), pp. 25-32.
Black Theology in Britain: A Journal of Contextual Praxis began in October 1998 and ran for 7 issues, ending in 2001. The journal was re-launched in 2002 as Black Theology: An International Journal. Both journals were founded by the overarching movement that is 'Black Theology in Britain' and have remained the main conduits for the dissemination of Black theology in Britain and across the world. Important Black scholars based in Britain who have written for the journal include Valentina Alexander, (see Alexander, Valentina, 'Afrocentric and Black Christian Consciousness: Towards an Honest Intersection', Black Theology in Britain, Issue 1, (1998) pp. 11-18), Joe Aldred (see Aldred, Joe, 'Paradigms for a Black Theology in Britain', Black Theology in Britain, Issue 2, (1999) pp.9-32), Mukti Barton, (see Barton, Mukti, 'I am Black and Beautiful', Black Theology: An International Journal, Vol.2, No.2, (July 2004) pp. 167-187), Robert Beckford (see Beckford, Robert, 'Doing Black Theology in the UKKK', Black Theology in Britain Vol. 4, (2000) pp. 38-60), Kate Coleman (See Coleman, Kate, 'Black Theology and Black Liberation: AWomanist Perspective', Black Theology in Britain Issue 1, (1998) pp. 59-69), Lorraine Dixon (See Dixon, Lorraine, '"Teach It Sister!": Mahalia Jackson as Theologian in Song', Black Theology in Britain Issue 2, (1999) pp. 72-89), Ron Nathan (See Nathan, Ron, 'The Spirituality of Garveyism', Black Theology in Britain, Issue 3, (1999) pp.33-50), Michael Jagessar (see Jagessar, Michael N., 'Cultures in Dialogue: The Contribution of a Caribbean Theologian', Black Theology: An International Journal, Vol.1, No.1, (May 2003) pp. 139-160), Emmanuel Lartey (See Lartey, Emmanuel Y., 'After Stephen Lawrence: Characteristics and Agenda for Black Theology in Britain', Black Theology in Britain, Issue 3, (1999) pp.79-91) and Anthony Reddie (see Reddie, Anthony G., 'Towards a Black Christian Education of Liberation: The Christian Education of Black Children in Britain', Black Theology in Britain, Issue 1, (1998) pp. 46-58).
See Hopkins, Dwight N., Down, Up and Over: Slave Religion and Black Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000), pp.11-36
See Asante, Molefi Kete, 'Afrocentricity and Culture' in Asante, Molefi Kete and Asante, Kariamu Welsh (eds.), African Culture: The Rhythms of Unity (New Jersey: First Africa World Press, 1990).
See Williams, Eric, Capitalism and Slavery (London: Andre Deutsch, 1983).
See Hopkins, Dwight N., Heart and Head: Black Theology, Past, Present and Future (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002) pp.127-154.
The issues of Black self-negation have been explored by a number of Black pastoral and practical theologians. See Harris, James H., Pastoral Theology: A Black Church Perspective (Minneapolis: Fortress press, 1991), Watkins Ali, Carroll A., Survival and Liberation: Pastoral Theology in African American Context (St. Louis: Chalice Press, 1999), Ashby, JR, Homer U., Our Home Is Over Jordan: A Black Pastoral Theology (St. Louis: Chalice Press, 2003), Smith Jr., Archie, Navigating The Deep Waters: Spirituality in African American Families (Cleveland: United Church Press, 1997). In the British context see Lartey, Emmanuel Y., In Living Colour: Intercultural Approaches to Pastoral Care and Counselling (London and Philadelphia: Jessica Kingsley, 2003) and Reddie, Anthony G., Nobodies to Somebodies: A Practical Theology for Education and Liberation (Peterborough: Epworth Press, 2003).
West, Cornel, Race Matters (Boston: Beacon Press, 1993) pp.11-15.
See Hopkins, Dwight N., Down, Up and Over: Slave Religion and Black Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000).
See Eze, Emmanuel C., Race and the Enlightenment (Massachusetts: Blackwell, 1997).
For an excellent treatment of the phenomenological features of 'race' and the attempts of Black theology to respond to it, see Hopkins, Dwight N., Being Human: Race, Culture and Religion (Minneapolis: Fortress press, 2005).
See Walker, Robin, When We Ruled (London: Every Generation Media, 2006)
See 'The Prologue' in Reddie, Anthony G., Working Against The Grain: Reimaging Black in the 21st Century (London: Equinox, 2008), pp.1-8.
Afrocentricity is an overarching religio-philosophical framework adopted, primarily by Diasporan Africans, to construct in order to outline an approach to Black existence that is informed by a corporate, collective and consistent unitary set of ideas and cultural norms that define what it means to be a Black African human being. The founder of Afrocentricity is Molefi Kete Asante. For further details see Asante, Molefi Kete, Afrocentricity Trenton (New Jersey: Africa World Press, 1980).
For further details see Asante, Molefi Kete and Asante, Kariamu Welsh (eds.), African Culture: The Rhythms of Unity (Trenton, New Jersey: Africa World Press, 1990).
In order to see the difference between Black Theology and African Inculturated Theologies see Martey, Emmanuel, 'Theology and Liberation: The African Agenda' and Hopkins, Dwight N., 'Theologies in the USA' in Althaus-Reid, Marcella, Patrella, Ivan and Susin, Luis Carlos (eds.), Another Possible World (London: SCM, 2007), pp.80-93 and 94-101 respectively.
The 'Black Power Movement ' came into full fruition in the 1960s, across the world, particularly in the US and the Caribbean. The central ideas of the Black Power Movement included the attempt of Black peoples of African descent to develop a framework and a form of practice in which there was a marked sense of 'African pride', a commitment to 'Self determination', and a desire to challenge the racism, paternalism, and arrogance of White authority and control that had exploited and oppressed Black peoples for centuries. Important antecedents of Black Power Movement can be found in the life and work of figures such as Marcus Garvey and Franz Fannon. For further information on these figures see The Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey, edited by Amy Jacques Garvey, and vol.3, More Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey, selected and edited from previously unpublished material by E.U. Essien-Udom and Amy Jacques Garvey (London: Cassell, 1977). See also, Martin, Tony (ed.) Message to the people: the Course of African Philosophy (Dover, Mass: Majority Press, 1986), Vincent, Theodore G. Black Power and the Garvey Movement (San Francisco: Rampart Press, 1972), Moses, Wilson Jeremiah (ed.), Classical Black Nationalism: from the American Revolution to Marcus Garvey (New York, London: New York University press, 1996), Fanon, Frantz, Black Skin, White Masks, translated from the French by Charles Lam Markman (London : MacGibbon & Kee, 1968), Stubbs, Aelred (ed.), I Write What I Like: a Selection of his Writings, Steve Biko (London: Heinemann Educational, 1979).
For an excellent overview of the movement of Black Power and anti-colonial struggle see Adi, Hakim and Sherwood, Marika (eds.), Pan-African History: Political Figures from Africa and Diaspora since 1787 (London: Routledge, 2003).
See James H. Cone Black Theology and Black Power (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis, 1997). See also James H. Cone A Black Theology of Liberation (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis, 1990)
See A. Sivanandan Communities of resistance: writings on Black struggles for socialism (London: Verso, 1990) for an excellent treatment of the rise of coalition politics in post war Britain.
See Jagessar, Michael N. and Reddie, Anthony G. (eds.), Postcolonial Black British Theology (Peterborough: Epworth press, 2006), pp.xiii-xv.
This central theological question pertaining to whether God can be best (if ever) understood as one of liberation whose predisposition is to be in actual solidarity with poor, marginalised and oppressed Black peoples, has been challenged most vociferously by William R. Jones, in Is God A White Racist?: A Preamble to Black Theology (Boston, Mass.: Beacon press, 1973) and Anthony B. Pinn, in Why Lord?: Suffering and Evil in Black Theology (New York: Continuum, 1995).
See Spencer, William David, Dread Jesus (London: SPCK, 1999).
Jagessar, Michael N., 'Liberating Cricket: Through the Optic of Ashutosh Gowariker's Lagaan', Black Theology: An International Journal, Vol.2, No.2, (July 2004), pp.239-249.
See Harvey, Marcus Louis, 'Engaging The Orisa: An Exploration of the Yoruba Cocnepts of Ibeji and Olokun as Theoretical Principles in Black Theology', Black Theology: An International Journal Vol.6, No.1, (2008), pp. 61-82.
See Pinn, Anthony B., Why Lord? (New York: Continuum, 1995). See also Pinn, Anthony B., African American Humanist Principles (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004).
See Cone, James H., A Black Theology of Liberation (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis, 1986)
See Kwok Pui-Lan's excellent text in this regard: Pui-Lan, Kwok, Postcolonial Imagination and Feminist Theology (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox, 2005).
See Ware, Frederick L., Methodologies of Black Theology, (Cleveland, Ohio: The Pilgrim Press, 2002), pp. 28-65.
Davis, Kortright, Emancipation Still Comin' (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis, 1990).
Erskine, Noel L., Decolonizing Theology (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis, 1983).
Williams, Lewin L., Caribbean Theology (Frankfurt: Peter Laing, 1994).
Boesak, Allan, Farewell to Innocence : a Socio-ethical Study on Black Theology and Black Power (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis, 1977).
Mosala, Itumeleng J., Biblical Hermeneutics and Black Theology in South Africa (Grand Rapids: W.M.B. Eerdmans, 1989).
Mosala, Itumeleng J. and Tlhagale, Buti, (eds.) The Unquestionable Right to be Free: Black Theology From South Africa (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis, 1986).
See Hertzog II, William R., Parables as Subversive Speech: Jesus as Pedagogue of the Oppressed (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox press, 1994).
See Cone, James H., Black Theology and Black Power (20th Anniversary Edition New York: Harper SanFrancisco, 1989).
See Cone, James H., A Black Theology of Liberation (20th Anniversary Edition New York: Orbis, 1990).
See Cone, James H., God Of The Oppressed (New York: Harper SanFrancisco, 1986).
See Reddie, Anthony G., Black Theology in Transatlantic Dialogue (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006).
See Sobrino, Jon, Jesus The Liberator: A Historical-Theological View (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis, 1993).
The theme of being considered a 'nobody' is addressed by me in one of my previous books. See Reddie, Anthony G., Nobodies to Somebodies: A Practical Theology for Education and Liberation (Peterborough: Epworth press, 2003).
The development of this approach to undertaking Black theology can be seen in the following texts: Reddie, Anthony G., Dramatizing Theologies: A Participative Approach to Black God-talk (London: Equinox, 2006), Reddie, Anthony G., Black Theology in Transatlantic Dialogue (New York and Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006) and Reddie, Anthony G., Working Against The Grain (London: Equinox, 2008).
This work is best expressed in two of my published texts. See Reddie, Anthony G., Dramatizing Theologies: A Participative Approach to Black God-talk (London: Equinox, 2006), Reddie, Anthony G., Working Against The Grain (London: Equinox, 2008).
This exercise was first developed and published in my first book. See Reddie, Anthony, Growing into Hope: Christian Education in Multi-ethnic Churches – Vol.1 Believing and Expecting (Peterborough: Methodist Publishing House, 1998), pp. 5- 6.
A major thematic thrust of this work is the Irish-American Practical Liberation theologian and religious educator, Thomas H. Groome. See Christian Religious Education: Sharing Our Story and Vision, (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1980) and Sharing Faith: A Comprehensive Approach to Religious Education and Pastoral Ministry (San Francisco: Harper, 1991).
This initial learning point in the exercise demonstrates the limitations of empiricist forms of epistemology. Namely, that rational, materialist objective knowledge construction, often the favoured method since the enlightenment, is of great import, but has its limitations when one seeks to make sense of so-called truths such as beauty, love and the aesthetic appreciation of the other. This is of particular import when one considers the role and importance of revelation to our ways of knowing and the construction of religious and theologically derived epistemology. This issue is addressed very well in Willows, David, Divine Knowledge: A Kierkegaardian Perspective on Christian Education (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2001).
The African American Womanist theologian, Kelly Brown Douglas argues that embedded within Evangelical Christianity is the concept of a 'Closed Monotheism' in which the rubric of salvation is reserved for those who claim allegiance to the saving work of Jesus Christ. The truth claims of other religious traditions are rejected as being of a lesser substance or altogether false, depending upon the branch of this tradition to which one adheres. See Brown Douglas, Kelly, What's Faith Got To Do With it?: Black Bodies/Christian Souls (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis, 2005), pp.42-49.
One of the crucial elements of learning that emerges from this, the first part of the exercise, is the sense that there is an inherent form of ethnocentrism to many forms of religious faith in that the construction of knowledge within the prism of revealed truth, leads almost inexorably to notions of preference for some and exclusion for others. Religious scholars such as John Hull have argued that only a form of critical openness to the 'other', formed from within the orbit of an inclusive liberal theological ethic, can safeguard against the worst excesses of religiously derived models of superiority, which as a corollary, leads to the negation of the other. See Hull, John M., 'Critical Openness in Christian Nurture', in Astley, Jeff and Francis, Leslie J., (eds.) Critical Perspectives On Christian Education (Leominster: Gracewings, 1994) pp. 251-275.
This exercise has been used as a means of highlighting the ethnocentric compliance of Christianity in its decision within the formative years of this religious tradition to work primarily within the framework of Greek Hellenistic thought, at the expense of other religio-cultural frameworks. In the salient words of Robert Hood 'Must God Remain Greek?'. See Hood, Robert E., Must God Remain Greek?: Afro- Cultures and God Talk (Minneapolis: Fortress press, 1990). In the exercise many of the participants who cannot see the 'E' have remarked on the naturally polarising tendencies of existing within a religious/ideological set up where one group is deemed to be the possessor of truth. It is this form of missionary based Evangelical theology that Black theology seeks to displace.
Robert Warrior, a Native American scholar, has argued that it was precisely this form of closed monotheistic notion of 'Manifest Destiny' and election that enabled White Euro-American Protestants to commandeer the land from native peoples on the basis that the gods/God followed by the latter were aberrant and therefore, as a corollary, the people who followed such deities were themselves dangerous and not deserving of liberty or respect. See Warrior, Robert Allen, 'A Native American Perspective: Canaanites, Cowboys, and Indians', in Sugirtharajah, R.S. (ed.), Voices From The Margin (New York: Orbis, (pp.277-285).
It has been interesting to witness the different forms of interpretation those who can 'see' the 'E' invoke when trying to convince their fellow participants who cannot see that letter. Some will state that 'E' stands for 'Enlightenment' , or 'Europe', or 'Education'. Of course it needs to be said that the favoured letter does not have to be an 'E' but for the sake of argument and tradition, I have usually resorted to the 'E' when playing this particular game/exercise.
I once used this exercise in a theological college setting with a former police officer who was then training for ordained ministry. This individual could see the 'E' and most expertly, showed great skill and subtlety in coercing, cajoling and using terrorizing tactics to get others into accepting his will regarding the superiority of the 'E'. In the debrief following the exercise he was of the view that his former career as a police officer had fitted him well for the supposed 'game playing' in this exercise.
James H. Cone argues that the greatest sin in Christian theology has been the silence of most White people to the vicious lie and unpalatable untruths of White supremacy. See Cone, James H., 'Theology's Great Sin: Silence in the Face of White Supremacy', Black Theology: An International Journal (Vol.2, No.2, July 2004), pp.139-152.
It can be argued that in the context of the game, the minority who can see the 'E' and yet refuse to collude with the oppressive and exploitative structure of the game and the spurious superiority of their position are the ones who can be seen as exemplifying the radical change agents advocated by James Perkinson. Perkinson challenges White people to exercise a form of group traitor-like existence in the desire to stand against White supremacy and in solidarity with oppressed Black peoples. See Perkinson, James W., White Theology: Outing Supremacy in Modernity (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004).
See Alexander, Valentina, 'Passive and Active Radicalism in Black Led Churches', in Jagessar, Michael N. and Reddie, Anthony G. (eds.) Black Theology in Britain: A Reader (London: Equinox, 2007), pp. 52-69.
See Beckford, Robert, Dread and Pentecostalism (London: SPCK, 2000), pp.46-48.
See Cone,James H., Black Theology and Black Power (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis, 1989).
Cone,James H., Black Theology and Black Power (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis, 1989) pp.5-61.
See Rodney, Walter, The Groundings with my Brothers (London: Bogle- L'Ouverture Publications, 1969).
This exercise has been used as a means of showing the relationship between theology and ideology. I have often linked this exercise to a later experiential, participative form of embodied theological game playing entitled 'Re-defining the Norm'. In the latter exercise participants are challenged to reconstruct a narrative using partial pieces of the story that are available to them, whilst another group has all the pieces of the stories at their disposal. The exercise demonstrates how knowledge and truth claims are often policed and controlled by those with power. See Reddie, Anthony G., Nobodies to Somebodies: A Practical Theology for Education and Liberation (Peterborough: Epworth Press, 2003), pp.132-140.
The notable Sri Lankan theologian Tissa Balasuriya has commented on the economic capitalistic Euro-American world (although since he wrote his article, China and India have become members of this elite world financial undertaking) and claims that it is constructured in order to benefit a few at the expense of the many across the globe. See Balasuriya, Tissa, 'The Liberation of the Affluent', Black Theology: An International Journal Vol.1, No.1, (November 2002), pp.83- 113.
See Grant, Paul and Patel, Raj, (eds.) A Time To Speak: Perspectives of Black Christians in Britain (Birmingham: A Joint Publication of 'Racial Justice' and the 'Black Theology Working Group', 1990). See also Grant, Paul and Patel, Raj, (eds.) A Time to Act: Kairos 1992 (Birmingham: A Joint Publication of 'Racial Justice' and the 'Black Theology Working Group', 1992).
This can be witnessed in varying forms of Black religious nationalism that will eschew any contact or accommodation with White Euro-American thought forms. For an excellent scholarly work that outlines these various developments, see Austin, Algernon, Achieving Blackness: Race, Black Nationalism and Afrocentrism in the Twentieth Century (New York and London: New York University Press, 2006). See also Murrell, Nathaniel Samuel, Spencer, William David and McFarlane, Adrian Anthony, (eds.) Chanting Down Babylon: The Rastafari Reader (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1998).
Some of these concerns are addressed in Beckford, Robert, Dread and Pentecostal (London: SPCK, 2000) pp.178-182.
The notable African American Womanist ethicist, Emilie Townes provides a penetrating analysis of the interlocking , systemic and embedded nature of evil within the workings of the globalized White Euro-American world order, where what passes for truth and justice is constantly being disguised and distorted; for the benefits of White hegemony. See Townes, Emilie M., Womanist Ethics and the Cultural Production of Evil (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006).
Harry Singleton constructs a comparative analysis of the differing and yet complimentary theological methods of Juan Luis Segundo and James H. Cone, in order to demonstrate how their respective work constructs robust theological models that expose the death-dealing religio-political ideologies of the rich and powerful. See Singleton III, Harry H., Black Theology and Ideology: Deideological Dimensions in the Theology of James H. Cone (Collegeville, Minnesota: The Liturgical Press, 2002).
I first encountered this salient truth when I was undertaking earlier research looking at the means by which Black theology when used within a Christian education framework (to create a Black Christian education of liberation) could become a vehicle for conscientization and empowerment of Black youth in Britain. This can be seen in the development of an experiential learning exercise entitled 'Redefining the norm', which became the central enacted metaphor for framing the essential truth in the contention that it is 'who you know and who knows you' that helps to shape what we come to understand as truth. See Reddie, Anthony G., Nobodies to Somebodies: A Practical Theology for Education and Liberation (Peterborough: Epworth press, 2003) pp. 134-140.
See Hood, Robert E., Must God Remain Greek: God Talk and Afro-cultures (Minneapolis: Fortress press, 1993).
See Pinn, Anthony B., Terror and Triumph (Minneapolis: Fortress press, 2003) for an excellent treatment on the absurdities of racialised forms of oppression in which the Black self is reduced to 'absurd nothingness' and the Black body becomes a mere object on which notions of inferiority and primitivism are projected.
It is essential that participants are enabled to 'de-brief' and come out of role when the active part of the exercise is completed. I have always sought to give participants opportunities to explore their feelings and reflect upon their thoughts as they attempt to make sense of the exercise in which they have been immersed. This and the many other exercises and dramas I have written attempt to connect the resultant emotions and thoughts that have emerged in the 'game playing' with a larger set of realities and experiences that have impacted upon Black people in the world, in both contemporary and historical periods in history. This method for undertaking Black theology lies at the heart of my 'participative' approach to this subject. Reference is made to 'de-briefing' or 'coming out of role' in the introduction to Reddie, Anthony G., Acting In Solidarity: Reflections in Critical Christianity (London: DLT, 2005), pp. xvii-xxii.
This statement was made during a performance of this exercise in a community church setting in North London in 2000.
My earlier attempts at creating an accessible and participatory based approach to assisting people to understand the importance and relevance for Black theology can be found in Reddie, Anthony, Growing into Hope (vol.1): Christian Education in Multi-ethnic churches – Believing and Expecting (Peterborough: The Methodist Publishing House, 1998) and Growing into Hope (vol.2): Christian Education in Multi-ethnic churches – Liberation and Change (Peterborough: The Methodist Publishing House, 1998).
See Hood, Robert E., Must God Remain Greek?: Afro-cultures and God-talk (Minneapolis: Fortress press 1990)
This notion of 'another world' being possible is addressed with great eloquence by a number of Black (in the wider political sense) scholars from across the world. See Hopkins,Dwight N. and Lewis, Marjorie, (eds.) Another World is Possible: Spiritualities and Religions of Global Darker Skinned People (London: Equinox, 2009).
I am indebted to my friend and colleague The Revd Inderjit Bhogal for his insights on the developmental process of oppressed and marginalised people moving from a reactive mode of survival to a more proactive sense of seeking to thrive and indeed thriving within the present world order. For an example of Bhogal's work in Black theology in Britain, see Bhogal, Inderjit S., 'A Table In The Wilderness (Psalm 78/9)', Black Theology in Britain: A Reader (London: Equinox, 2007), pp.242-246.
See Hopkins, Dwight N., Head and Heart: Black Theology, Past, Present and Future (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002), pp. 127-154.
See Reddie, Anthony G., Dramatizing Theologies (London: Equinox, 2006), pp. 22-24.
It is worth noting that Barack Obama, in his Democratic Nomination Acceptance speech of 28th August 2008, did not once make reference to or mention that he was 'Black' or 'African American'. In his reference to Martin Luther King Jnr's famous 'I Have A Dream Speech', no reference was made to the fact that King's speech was in the context of the fight for Civil Rights and anti-racist struggle or the speaker of those eloquent words was also a Black man or 'African American' like the person invoking the speech in the first place. See http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=dtL-1V3OZ0c.
See Kee, Alistair, The Rise and Demise of Black Theology (Aldershot, Kent: Ashgate, 2006).
This form of re-energising and challenge can be seen in a number of comparatively recent texts, such as Thomas, Linda E., (ed.) Living Stones in the Household of God: The Legacy and Future of Black Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2004), Carruther, Iva E., Haynes III, Frederick D. and Wright Jr, Jeremiah A., (eds.) Blow the Trumpet in Zion: Global Vision and Action for the 21st century Black Church (Minneapolis: Fortress press, 2005), Reddie, Anthony G., Black Theology in Transatlantic Dialogue (New York and Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006) and Reddie, Anthony G., Working Against The Grain: Re-imaging Black Theology in the 21st Century (London: Equinox, 2008).
Although the term has a long derivation going back to the end of the first World War and the foundation of the League of Nations, I am using this term in light of the more recent usage by George Bush Snr. as reported in the Time Magazine cover story of the 11th December 1989. The notion of the new world order of western globalized power has been addressed from within the context of religion and theology by Dwight Hopkins et al. See Hopkins, Dwight N., Lorentzen, Lois Ann, Mendieta, Eduardo and Batstone, David, (eds.) Religions/Globalizations: Theories and Cases (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2001).

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