African American Theology: An Introduction

© 2016 Frederick L. Ware

Published by Westminster John Knox Press

Louisville, Kentucky

16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25—10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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The publisher and the author gratefully acknowledge reuse of the author’s following essays:

Black Theology, taken from Global Dictionary of Theology: A Resource for the Worldwide Church, edited by William A. Dyrness and Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen. Copyright © 2008 by InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA. Used by permission of InterVarsity Press, P.O. Box 1400, Downers Grove, IL 60515, USA. www.ivpress.com.

Methodologies of African American Theology, taken from The Oxford Handbook of African American Theology, edited by Anthony Pinn and Katie Cannon. Copyright © 2014 by Oxford University Press. Used by permission of Oxford University Press, USA (www.oup.com).

Toward an Alternative Engagement of Black Theology with Modern Science, taken from Black Theology: An International Journal. Copyright © 2011.

Book design by Drew Stevens

Cover design by Allison Taylor

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Ware, Frederick L., 1961–

African American theology : an introduction / Frederick L. Ware.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-664-23950-3 (alk. paper)

 1. Black theology. I. Title.

BT82.7.W36 2016

230.089′96073—dc23

2015034507

Ware The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992.

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In memory of

my mother,

Dannie Vee Benson (1926–2009)

Contents

Preface

Introduction

Defining African American Theology

Loci Theologici as Modern Genre of Systematic Theology

Configuration of Loci for African American Theology

Freedom as an Overarching Theme

Design of the Book’s Parts and Chapters

PART 1  HISTORY

1.History and Historical Study

The Importance of History and Historical Studies in Theology

The Origins of African American Theology

Contemporary Black Theology and Womanist Theology

Contrasting Histories and Characterizations of African American Theology

Black History and Critical Historiography

PART 2 METHODOLOGY

2.Sources

Customary Sources of Theology

Black Religion as Principal Subject Matter

Black Religion and the Depth of Black Culture

Criteria for the Selection of Sources

Mining for Black Religion in Ethnographic Study, Libraries, and Archives

3.Methods

The Method of Correlation

Deep Symbols and Recurring Themes

Sources and Resources

Paradigms in Contemporary Black and Womanist Theologies

Black Experience and the Norm of Freedom

4.Epistemology

Faith, Revelation, and Reason

Philosophical Traditions in African American Theology

The Sociology and Production of Knowledge

Stages of Disciplinary Development

PART 3 THEMES AND ISSUES

5.God

The Negro’s God

Origins of African American Monotheism

The Existence and Attributes of God

Trinitarianism and Oneness

God’s Work in the World and Solidarity with the Oppressed

The Quest for God beyond God

The Gift of God’s Revelation in the Black Experience

6.Human Being

Body-Soul Dualism in the Black Experience

Blackness and the Image of God

Blackness as a Deep Symbol

Human Being and Freedom

Conversion and Personhood

7.Religious Experience

The Birth of Soul-Stuff

Conversion, Catharsis, and Transformation

The Spirit and the Shout

Emotion and Intellect

8.Suffering

Critique and Defense of Redemptive Suffering

Theodicy and Black Suffering

Faith that Emerges alongside Suffering

9.Salvation

Personal and Social Manifestations of Sin

Jesus Christ and Salvation

Metaphors and Models of Salvation

Salvation and Community

10.Moral Life and Community

Black Solidarity and Community

The Church as Community and Moral Conscience

The Ethics of Freedom in Church and Society

Violence in the Struggle for Liberation

11.Hope

Hope as Object and Longing

Utopian and Eschatological Vision

Traditions of Black Millennialism

Heaven and the Afterlife

Eschatology and Verification of Religious Beliefs

12.Nature and Science

People of Color and the Dialogue on Science and Religion

Ways of Relating Science and Religion

Science in Theological Education

Science and the Humanity of Black People

African American Theologies of Nature

African American Theology’s Engagement with Modern Science

13.Christian Diversity and Religious Pluralism

Black Christian Ecumenism

The Black Church Impacted by Migration and Immigration

Religious Pluralism and Interreligious Dialogue

The Commencement of Dialogue

Notes

Select Bibliography

Name Index

Subject Index

Preface

My experience as a student and now as a teacher parallels shifting perceptions of African American theology in the last thirty-two years. In the spring semester of 1984, while I was an undergraduate student in philosophy at Memphis State University (now the University of Memphis), I was introduced to black theology by Otis Clayton. Otis, a recent seminary graduate, was enrolled in the master’s program in philosophy. We talked often and at length before and after our course in the philosophy of religion. Otis’s command of the literature and coherent summaries of the debates in black theology convinced me that black theology was a field of study that I needed to know. At this same time, I was learning about black philosophy but was more intrigued with black theology because I was undertaking studies in philosophy in preparation for my later theological studies. For me, black theology seemed to deal with the economic, social, and political situation of black people in a sustained way that I had not earlier witnessed in the church. Though leaders in the church expressed deep concern and were involved in various types of ministries to address the condition of black people, they had not developed a level and intensity of theological reflection comparable to their passionate activism. While preparing this book, as fate would have it, I had the privilege, after nearly ten years since our last conversation, to speak again with Otis. By his present questions and tone, I sense his unease with recent works in black theology, especially those that purport to do theology without a professed commitment to fundamental Christian beliefs.

In spite of several notable figures leading in contemporary black and womanist theology, no one today actually masters the field. In the 1980s, when I was in college and a divinity student, I read and compiled notes on every book available on black theology and womanist theology. At that time, there was a small, manageable corpus of literature. For a while, it was possible to stay current. Now it is questionable as to whether anyone is able to read every book and article at the rate they are being published today. Some books and articles may fall into similar patterns of methodology. Still other books and articles seem to be aimed toward new trajectories. Further complicating the matter is the fact there is not always an obvious connection between the publications.

Consequently, this book in no way purports to be a comprehensive study covering every publication in African American theology. More to the truth, the book represents my reading over the last thirty years and my teaching for the past sixteen years. Though my reading is extensive, I have been selective about which publications in black and womanist theology to include for this book. This is not an admission of personal failure or professional neglect but rather a recognition of the abundant corpus of literature now available to persons who wish to explore the field of African American theology as well as a word of caution for any persons who claim immodestly to have mastery of the entire field. As the subtitle of the book implies, and the best that I am able to do, the book provides a manageable source for persons unfamiliar with the field to begin their study and a stimulus for further conversation among persons who have experimented, as I have, in the field for a considerable length of time.

Over the years the types of questions and concerns voiced by my students have motivated me to think very deeply about the structure of African American theology. Throughout my teaching African American theology, the questions and concerns by students in various settings and at various offerings of the course seem always to be the same. Their questions are rarely about content, about the literature. Their questions have been mostly about the connection of African American theology, in its forms of black theology or womanist theology, to mainstream traditions of Christian theology and the broad range of issues, in addition to liberation, that concern black Christians.

In the past sixteen years, I have offered the course in African American theology a total of eight times, half of them under the title Black Theology and the other half under the title African American Theology. During the 2012–13 academic year, I had the privilege to offer the course to students in two different settings, one at Howard University School of Divinity (HUSD) and the other at the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Philadelphia (LTSP). Here I list the names of the students enrolled in my African American theology courses offered during the 2012–13 academic year: Agnes Smith Brown, Kyra Brown, Constance Cotton, Patricia El, Dedra Florence-Johnson, Timothy Gavin, Phillip Harris, Timothy Hearn, Gail Hicks, Yvonne Lembo, Linda Manson, Meagan McLeod, Wanda Pate, Michelle Pinkney, Marcia Price, Diane Pryor, Barbara Satchell, Edmond Sewoul, Candace Strand, Robin Thornhill, Stephanie Wooten, and Lisa Younger. Though students in each course that I have offered have always been engaging, this group of scholars named above were most instrumental in thinking through with me several of the topics covered in this introduction to African American theology.

I interpret my experience and the general shifts in the perceptions of African American theology—most certainly as I have observed them in my students’ quest for a conception of blackness and sense of community beyond existing polarized classifications in American society—as a movement from the politics of identity to the politics of truth. On the one hand, the politics of identity is a trend in the humanities, inclusive of religious and theological studies, that focuses on the social locations and political leanings of scholars and the populations they study. The politics of identity indicates the academy’s poor adaptation to the social protests of minorities and women and the slow increase of these underrepresented groups in the student bodies and faculties of American colleges and universities. The focus on the various social locations for theological reflection has enriched religious and theological studies; yet with the increasing fixation on social identity, scholars rarely engage in conversations about the principal nature of their disciplines and the meaning of life for all humankind. On the other hand, the politics of truth is a quest for the best possible experience of life in universal community. It is a quest that more scholars are willing to take, desiring to gain a view of human identity and issues of social justice in the widest possible context, global or cosmic, where efforts to understand who we are as human beings and to find solutions to our social problems are linked to the question of humanity’s place in the universe. As a scholar leaning toward a politics of truth, my blackness as well as other aspects of my identity contributes to my awareness of self. This sense of self is not, for me, an end in itself but rather a window to peer into a deeper sense of my life, where the various disparate parts of my personhood are united and my internal wholeness is paired with the harmony of all that is. There is no part of me that I wish to deny. And yet there is no single part of me that alone defines me. My aim is to be human, to live and to live well as the creature that I am.

Discussion about the big questions and perennial issues always begins from some location. Howard Thurman said that in order for a person to be everywhere, they must first be somewhere. African American theology represents one among several starting points for this large and important conversation among human beings. My study of theology is ethnic-specific, but not in an exclusive way. I intend that my study of African American theology will contribute to reflection about the discipline of theology and the religious dimensions of human existence.

In addition to the stimulus to my thinking provided by my students, other persons have been supportive of my work. To them I am thankful. In 2009, I began conversations with Donald McKim, at Westminster John Knox Press, about writing a book on African American theology. Before moving into another position with the press, Don had arranged anonymous reviews of my book proposal. These reviews helped me gain better clarity on the contribution that my project may make to the discipline of African American theology. Robert Ratcliff, who assumed the role of editor, has been very supportive and patient as I worked, sometimes at snail’s pace, on the book project. My research assistants Linwood Blizzard and Rhonda Rhea were very thorough in their research. Any omissions of materials from the book are attributable to my choices. I am thankful to the Howard University librarians Carrie Hackney and Ida Jones for working closely with Linwood and Rhonda. Quintin Robertson, Director of the Urban Theological Institute, and Dean Jayakiran Sebastian extended to me the invitation to engage a wonderful group of students at the Lutheran Theological Seminary. A sabbatical leave provided by the Office of the Provost of Howard University provided the financial support I needed in order to give sustained and uninterrupted attention to the book project. I benefited greatly from many conversations with my Howard colleagues Kenyatta Gilbert and Renee Harrison about my project, from start to finish, as well as our shared concerns on various matters.

My family has always affirmed me in every project that I have undertaken. My daughter Kayla, a senior in college, often reminded me about the need for textbooks to be interesting for students like her who for the first time would be learning about African American theology. My daughter Megan, a sophomore in college and a promising researcher, devoted many hours to reviewing with me the numerous primary sources unearthed in my research. My wife, Sheila, has always been a patient listener and thoughtful interlocutor, accompanying me along my musings and asking questions of the kind to encourage me to think seriously and deeply about how to express my ideas in words understandable to nonexperts. My mother, Dannie Vee Benson, even several years after passing, remains with me in spirit, along with other members of our family, providing inspiration for many of our personal and professional accomplishments.

Reverend Arnor S. Davis, an alumnus of HUSD, passed away in August 2013. I seem now to hear his words more than ever before. He would often say, Tell me something that I do not know. Explain to me why I should be interested and how it matters for the church. I hope that a book of this kind answers his and other readers’ queries.

Introduction

In the United States, religion and ethnicity represent spaces for creativity and opportunity in the development of American culture by virtue of the unique political structure of the United States. In the language of economics, religion in the United States is an unregulated, free market.¹ The constitutional separation of church and state has allowed individuals and groups freedom in the area of religion to develop numerous belief systems and organizations for furthering their shared aims and convictions. Over the course of American history, certain religious traditions have become mainstream, that is, widely regarded as acceptable expressions of religion. Still other religious traditions run counter to or, in some instances, complement the mainstream traditions. In either case, religion thrives through emphasis on personal religious experience and voluntary association between persons who share similar experiences and convictions.

Before the U.S. Constitution was drafted, this form of religion, emphasizing personal experience and initiative, took shape in what has been termed the Great Awakening, an important event not only in American history but also in African American history. In the fervor of revival, anyone could take the title of minister on the basis of one’s inner sense of calling, which may or may not be affirmed by an existing religious organization. All persons were believed to be equal before God and granted the same privilege by the Holy Spirit to participate in religious life and ministry. The revivalism of the Great Awakening, spread over time and space by evangelical preachers, created the conditions for large-scale conversion of [African American] slaves.² Jonathan Edwards and other revival preachers described the Awakening as the dawning of a new day and the conversion of African Americans as showers of grace preceding the glorious times of the millennium.³ For Edwards, the revivals were a sign of the millennium, which was starting in America and would spread to other parts of the world. Revival preaching, during and after the Revolutionary War, blended with the rhetoric of patriotism to produce an association of God’s work in history with politics and government. In the zeal of evangelical churches (i.e., Presbyterian, Baptist, and Methodist) to spread the gospel, strong positions were taken against slavery and visions were cast for the reform of society. The evangelical churches’ challenge of the existing social order and African Americans’ own adverse experience of racism and oppression provoked African Americans to propose alternative interpretations of the American nation and its mission. For African Americans, slave and free, and even many white Americans, slavery violated the fundamental principle of the American Revolution, as stated in the Declaration of Independence, that all persons are created equal by God and have God-given inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Like religion, ethnicity in the United States is a form of voluntary association between individuals that flourishes without government regulation. The United States is a pluralistic society. This pluralism is not unique to the present. From its beginning, the United States has been made up of many peoples, with some groups having more or less power than other groups. In American history, not all groups of persons have equally enjoyed the rights of citizenship.

In African Americans’ efforts to move from mere relationship by common racial designation based on physical appearances, their conceptions of black racial identity and black solidarity have functioned much like ethnicity, particularly with an emphasis on ancestry, heritage, religious beliefs, and moral values. In religious and secular institutions and even through government structures, African Americans have voiced their concerns and acted to address matters affecting their existence and quality of life. This inspired protest and activism is a sign of the grave spiritual crisis of the American nation, where the high moral ideals of freedom and democracy are often diminished by deep-seated injustice. Thus the black experience in the United States reflects some of the richest dimensions of the human experience and human existence and also some of its most oppressive and wretched realities.⁴ African American experience, which may also be true of other ethnic groups in the United States, exposes the beauty and cruelty of human life in America.

DEFINING AFRICAN AMERICAN THEOLOGY

African American theology is a study and interpretation of religious beliefs and practices regarded by African Americans as significant, having either positive or negative consequences for their existence and quality of life. When focused on Christian beliefs, African American theology represents an understanding of God’s freedom and the good news of God’s call for all humankind to enter life in genuine community, with true human identity and moral responsibility. Defined in this way, African American theology crafts meanings of freedom, a central concept in both Christianity and American culture. In the American context, African American theology shows that racism, among other forms of injustice, complicates the human predicament, and its eradication requires nothing less than an enlargement of salvation to include the liberation of persons who lack full participation in society.

The term African American theology is coming into more use for two reasons. First, the phrase is meant as a covering term for various theological studies dealing with the religious traditions of persons comprising the African American population. African Americans are not monolithic. Even with common ancestry, the connections with black sub-Saharan peoples, African Americans have religious, political, economic, and cultural differences. The largest percentage of African Americans are the descendants of Africans, mostly from West and Central Africa, who were enslaved in the United States. The suppression of the Atlantic Slave Trade coupled with the Domestic Slave Trade of the South had profound consequences for the growth of the native-born slave population.⁵ At the time of the Civil War, with few Africans then being imported directly to the United States, the four million persons forming a majority of the American slave population were born in the United States and generations removed from their African ancestors, though condemned by law to follow their condition of servitude. Since the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, a substantial and rising number of Africans, with the largest contingency from Kenya, Nigeria, Ethiopia, and Ghana, have settled in the United States. Another significant wave of immigration has come from blacks in the Caribbean, mainly from Jamaica, Haiti, Trinidad and Tobago, Dominican Republic, and Barbados. Recent African and Afro-Caribbean immigrants have not assimilated into the native-born African American population, as happened when their numbers were smaller, but have instead formed communities to continue their unique religious and cultural traditions. African American theology is a phrase meant to encompass theological studies of the varieties of traditions among the numerous black peoples who make up the African American population.

Second, the phrase is used to avoid generalization and reductionism. The phrase African American theology allows an important distinction for black theology and womanist theology as specialized studies in contemporary systematic theology. Black theology and womanist theology are African American theology. However, not all African American theology is black theology or womanist theology. Black theology and womanist theology may be regarded as forms of liberation theology. Emerging in the 1960s and aligned with the black power movement, black theology addresses, often but not always from a Christian perspective, the oppressions rooted in racism. Beginning in the 1980s and endeavoring to be holistic, womanist theology addressed the oppressions rooted in the triad of sexism, racism, and classism. Because not all African American theologians are doing liberation theology but still attempt to bring African American contexts, interests, and sources to bear on the theological topics they study, the phrase African American theology aims to encompass their theological studies as well as those studies of African Americans who are intentional about doing black theology and womanist theology.

If theology may be regarded simply as the study and interpretation of religion or religious beliefs, then it is not limited to Christian beliefs.⁶ Theology could involve the study of beliefs of non-Christian religions. For example, black religious humanism, which will be discussed in chapters 4 and 5, is an intellectual tradition that interfaces with Christian beliefs. Often expressed as reflection on the adequacy of Christian beliefs for black liberation, black religious humanism is an important source for critique of Christian beliefs. Also, African and African-derived religions are practiced among black peoples in the African American population. The African American emphasis on African heritage warrants examination of past and current African religions for an understanding of how these religions illuminate the history as well as the current expressions of African American thought.

In this book, the study of religion and religious beliefs is limited to Christianity, particularly to the beliefs of African American Protestant Christians who share the narrative of the experience of and struggles against chattel slavery and its impact on subsequent law, policy, and custom in the United States. Over the course of United States history, the membership of African American Christians has remained consistent, ranging from 80 to 90 percent in Christian denominations and congregations that are predominately black and Protestant. However, common Christian affirmations are not treated in this book in order to avoid unnecessary repetition of basic aspects of Christianity and, what is more important, the caricature of African American churches as a rival sect in Christianity or a separate branch of the same. It would be a flagrant error in judgment to portray African Americans as having a black version of each major doctrine of Christianity such as a black Trinity, black Christology, black Pneumatology, black soteriology, or black eschatology, although there is casual and random use of these terms in some publications of black and womanist theologies. The book will not discuss an African American perspective on original sin unless there is some argument and special nuance to the concept by African Americans. The book is not a reiteration, in the whole or in part, of Christian dogma or a juxtaposition of African American theology over against Christian theology, as if African American theology represents an invention of a competing worldview. In view of the division of mainstream Christian churches and their inaction against the injustices in American society, African American churches have perceived their existence and mission as crucial to the authentic expression of Christianity, involving belief and practice. African American Christians are not representing an alternative Christianity: they are seeking to practice genuine Christianity. The book looks selectively at topics of religious significance that emphasize African Americans’ contributions to Christian faith by virtue of their historical and social experiences.

LOCI THEOLOGICI AS MODERN GENRE OF SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY

Since the Reformation of the sixteenth century, the style of systematic theology in Western Christianity has focused primarily on the identification and exposition of loci, which literally means locations. Loci are regarded as the main branches or subject areas of theology or, at minimum, basic topics for discussions in theology. With each locus, there are smaller component doctrines. For example, under the locus of soteriology (salvation), there are the doctrines of justification and election.

The notion and literary genre of loci theologici (topics of theology) began in 1521 with the publication of Philipp Melanchthon’s Loci communes rerum theologicarum, seu hypotyposes theologicae (Theological commonplaces, or