Black liberation theology
Black liberation theology is a theological perspective, found in some Afro-American churches in the United States, which interprets Christianity from a pro-black perspective.
History
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Controversial aspects include claims that Whites have corrupted Christianity, that God would favor blacks for reasons such as the blacks being the oppressed, and comparing the United States to Ancient Egypt and predicting that oppressed people will soon be led to a promised land. Some aspects have been seen as a form of black supremacism.
Many critics have interpreted the language of "economic parity" and references to "mal-distribution" as being influenced by Marxism and creating an ideological system of oppressor class versus a victim class much like Marxism. Similar statements have been made for Latin American liberation theology although without the racial aspect. The National Review has criticized Black liberation theology and in particular some more radical views such as those advocated in the 1969 book Black Theology and Black Power:
- A scarcely concealed, Marxist-inspired indictment of American capitalism pervades contemporary “black-liberation theology.” Far from the mainstream, Trinity (and the relatively small band of other churches that share its worldview) sees itself as marginalized and radical, struggling in the face of an overwhelming rejection of its political theology by mainstream black churches. [...] James H. Cone, founder and leading light of black-liberation theology, is the Charles A. Briggs Distinguished Professor of Systematic Theology at Union Theological Seminary, New York. [...] Cone’s 1969 book Black Theology and Black Power is the founding text of black-liberation theology, predating even much of the influential, Marxist-inspired liberation theology that swept Latin America in the 1970s. Cone’s work is repeatedly echoed in Wright’s sermons and statements. While Wright and Cone differ on some minor issues, Cone’s theology is the first and best place to look for the intellectual context within which Wright’s views took shape. Cone credits Malcolm X — particularly his famous dismissal of Christianity as the white man’s religion — with shaking him out of his theological complacency. In Malcolm’s words: The white man has brainwashed us black people to fasten our gaze upon a blond-haired, blue-eyed Jesus! We’re worshiping a Jesus that doesn’t even look like us! Oh, yes! . . . The blond-haired, blue-eyed white man has taught you and me to worship a white Jesus, and to shout and sing and pray to this God that’s his God, the white man’s God. The white man has taught us to shout and sing and pray until we die, to wait until death, for some dreamy heaven-in-the-hereafter . . . while this white man has his milk and honey in the streets paved with golden dollars here on this earth!?? [...] The black intellectual’s goal, says Cone, is to “aid in the destruction of America as he knows it.” Such destruction requires both black anger and white guilt. The black-power theologian’s goal is to tell the story of American oppression so powerfully and precisely that white men will “tremble, curse, and go mad, because they will be drenched with the filth of their evil.” In the preface to his 1970 book, A Black Theology of Liberation, Jeremiah Wright wrote: “There will be no peace in America until whites begin to hate their whiteness, asking from the depths of their being: ‘How can we become black?'” So what exactly is “black power”? Echoing Malcolm X, Cone defines it as “complete emancipation of black people from white oppression by whatever means black people deem necessary.” Open, violent rebellion is very much included in “whatever means.[1]
Church propaganda
The "Trinity United Church of Christ" in Chicago is a frequently cited as one example of a church formally founded on the vision of black liberation theology. The 2008 controversy concerning Jeremiah "Jerry" Alvesta Wright Jr. (born 22 September 1941 in Germantown), who is of mixed race,[2] over alleged racism and anti-Americanism in Wright's sermons and statements, caused then-Senator Barack Obama to distance himself from his former pastor.[3]
See Also
External links
- ‘Context,’ You Say?
- The Marxist roots of black liberation theology
- Obama’s Theological Roots Behind Black Lives Matter
References
- ↑ ‘Context,’ You Say?
- ↑ His mother, Mary Elizabeth Henderson Wright, was more white than black, but was categorized "African American" due to the one-drop rule.
- ↑ Jeremiah Wright, white births: Time to talk race with kids