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As the influence of the church on American society has waned, there have been those
who have sought to make it more relevant to the real life concerns of individuals. This
has been particularly true in the African-American community, where Martin Luther
King, Jr. gave fresh meaning and relevance to the church during the period 1955-
1968. Yet another effort to make the church relevant was that of liberation theology.
Black Theology
There are many reasons why Christianity has not been real for blacks. To begin with,
white Christianity emphasizes individualism, and divides the world into separate
realms of the sacred and secular, public and private. Such a view of the world is alien
to African-American spirituality. The Christianity that was communicated to blacks
had as its primary focus life in world to come. This was at odds with traditional
African spirituality which was focused on life in the present world. And if that were
not enough, Christianity is hopelessly associated with slavery and segregation in the
minds of many African-Americans.
More importantly, there are reasons to believe that many African-Americans are
beginning to reject Christianity. The growing presence of Islam in the African-
American community is nurtured by a variety of forces, but one of its principle
sources of strength is the sense within many blacks of a tremendous gap that exists
between what takes place in the Church on Sunday, and how church people live the
rest of the week. Many of the new converts to Islam were Christian, but they testify to
seeing little coherence between the worship of the church, and the rough and tumble
world of the streets the rest of the week.
One element of Islam that has attracted many African-Americans is the fact that
Muslims have a strong reputation for living what they preach. Whereas church
members might spend much of their week hanging out and drinking, Muslims
demonstrate discipline, respect, and personal integrity that many in the black
community feel is lacking among many members of the church. In a similar fashion,
the Muslim claim that Christianity was imposed on blacks by the slaveholders has
struck a sensitive nerve in the black community, and has aided them in the effort to
win new converts. Growing numbers of blacks have accepted the proposition that
Islam was the original faith of African-Americans. As a result, the same forces driving
Afro-centrism are also prompting many blacks to explore their roots in Islam.
In the face of all this, the question that confronts the advocates of a black theology of
liberation is somewhat intimidating. "Can one still be black, and believe in the biblical
tradition as expressed in the Old and New Testaments?" Can the Christian faith be
stripped of the interpretations given these sacred texts by whites, and be made real for
black men and women?
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach the good
news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovering
of sight to the blind, To set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the
acceptable year of the Lord. (Luke 4:18-19)
From this text, Cone draws a fundamental lesson about Jesus: his "work is essentially
one of liberation." Jesus inaugurates "an age of liberation in which 'the blind receive
their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised
up, and the poor have the good news preached to them.'" (Luke 7:22) "In Christ,"
Cone argues, "God enters human affairs and takes sides with the oppressed. Their
suffering becomes his; their despair, divine despair."
Cone continues his line of argument with a force that cuts to the marrow of
contemporary American Christianity: "Jesus had little toleration for the middle- or
upper-class religious snob whose attitude attempted to usurp the sovereignty of God
and destroy the dignity of the poor," Cone writes, "The Kingdom is not for the poor
and not the rich because the former has nothing to expect from the world while the
latter's entire existence is grounded in his commitment to worldly things. The poor
man may expect everything from God, while the rich man may expect nothing
because he refuses to free himself from his own pride. It is not that poverty is a pre-
condition for entrance into the Kingdom. But those who recognize their utter
dependence on God, and wait on him despite the miserable absurdity of life are
typically the poor, according to Jesus."
When black people hear this message, Cone insists, they discover a message that
resonates with their experience of life. Their experience of struggling for liberation is
the same as the struggle of Christ himself. And if Jesus was resurrected, and is now
alive, then he is now fighting for the very same things, working against the structures
of injustice.
In the New Testament, Jesus comes into the world to destroy the works of Satan. If
the preceding identification of the struggle of Jesus and that of African-Americans
seeking liberation is true, then there must also be a Satan in the contemporary picture.
Black Theology does not get bogged down in quaint personifications of Satan (the
current issue of Newsweek has a wonderful article on Satan, by the way), but sees him
at work in the powers and principalities of this world that would enslave and demean
human beings. And the most demonic of these powers in the black experience is that
of racism.
Cone writes: "Theologically, Malcolm X was not far wrong when he called the white
man 'the devil.' The white structure of this American society, personified in every
racist, must be at least part of what the New Testament meant by demonic
forces...Ironically, the man who enslaves another enslaves himself...To be free to do
what I will in relation to another is to be in bondage to the law of least resistance. This
is the bondage of racism. Racism is that bondage in which whites are free to beat,
rape, or kill blacks. About thirty years ago it was acceptable to lynch a black man by
hanging him from a tree; but today whites destroy him by crowding him into a ghetto
and letting filth and despair put the final touches on death."
James Cone wrote those words in 1968, and while they are dated, they still convey a
powerful truth. What happened to Rodney King at the hands of the Los Angeles
police continues to happen to black men with disturbing frequency. The jails and
prisons are filling with black men. One third of all black men are now under the
jurisdiction of the courts or prison system. And one of the principle reasons are drug
laws designed to punish with mandatory prison terms those who use "rock cocaine"
(the principle form of cocaine used in the black community because it is relatively
inexpensive), while penalties for possession of the powder form (the form used by
wealthy whites) are largely financial, and do not require one to serve time. Why
would society design a criminal justice system with such disparate impact? Cone and
many blacks would lay the blame at the feet of the demonic force of racism.
What is the goal of a black theology of liberation? Is it a society in which blacks are
given special treatment and rights? No. All Black theologians are asking for is for
freedom and justice. No more, and no less. In asking for this, the Black theologians,
turn to scripture as the sanction for their demand. The Psalmist writes for instance, "If
God is going to see righteousness established in the land, he himself must be
particularly active as 'the helper of the fatherless' (Psalm 10:14) to 'deliver the needy
when he crieth; and the poor that hath no helper' (Psalm 72:12).
Karl Barth--who was not black--recognized the legitimacy of this demand. "For this
reason, Barth wrote, "in the relations and events in the life of his people, God always
takes his stand unconditionally and passionately on this side alone: against the lofty
and on behalf of the lowly; against those who already enjoy right and privilege and on
behalf of those who are denied it and deprived of it."
Precisely what this entails is not always clear to whites. For them, loving one's
neighbor "becomes emotional and sentimental. This sentimental, condescending love
accounts for their desire to "help" by relieving the physical pains of the suffering
blacks so they can satisfy their own religious piety and keep the poor powerless." But
advocates of a black theology of liberation will not allow whites to get off so easy.
"Authentic love is not 'help,'" Cone writes, "not giving Christmas baskets, but working
for political, social, and economic justice, which always means a redistribution of
power. It is the kind of power which enables blacks to fight their own battles and thus
keep their dignity."
But I would be willing to contend that if the great chasm that separates the races in
this nation is to ever be bridged, it will require that we bring to the discussion
something more than good intentions, or pious words about making sure everyone is
treated with equity. Not only will we have to bring to the conversation a willingness to
try to understand the pain African-Americans feel, but we will also have to recognize
that we are so intimately involved in a racist system, that we are often oblivious to the
degree that we have caused or continue to cause that pain.
Perhaps the real test of whether whites can communicate with blacks as human beings
is not what we might say to a Colin Powell, who--like King--does not challenge
whites to confront their racism, but rather how we choose to respond to a Louis
Farrakhan who challenges us in ways we would prefer not to be challenged.