Black theology
For many, religion provides an outlet for everyday life problems. The church served as the foundation for the whites to ‘stand out’ from other races. The black theology rose to help the African Americans overcome the oppression. It seeks to fight against the many forms of political, economic, social, and religious injustices against blacks. Black theology mixes Christianity with the question of civil rights, which has been the main fight of many blacks for many years.
It is no secret that slavery was practiced in America. The white Christians showed interest in the practice of slavery and racism as well. They questioned such practices because of the implication of inequality in the bible. They were also afraid that providing education to the slaves could lead to them fighting against them. Church elders assured the whites that no relationship existed between Christianity and freedom in civil matters. Some even argued that Christianity made black slaves even better.
Christianity began with the white people, and they took the initiative of slavery as an institution and segregation as a pattern in the society by sanctioning all-white congregations. Whiteness is the enemy of Christianity. Its existence as an institution is a symbol of the philosophy of white supremacy. The segregation of whites and blacks in public institutions began in the church long before it started in other places. The church made racism an acceptable attitude by having an all-white congregation. The church by word or example preaches that the whites are superior to other races, and by remaining silent, they created an ethos that dehumanizes the blacks.
The church preached that slavery as an acceptable practice and a divine decree and used the bible as a foundation for its authority. Christianity failed to offer blacks the hope of freedom. The way Christianity was communicated to them meant to degrade them. The teachings taught them that they were the descendants of a cursed Ham and that his color was a sign of the curse. Parts of the bible were selected to prove that they indeed were slaves. The whites altered the bibles to prevent any ideas of rebellion from coming up. It is for these reasons that Cone insisted that Christianity must reject whiteness.
The black people used the bible to liberate themselves from the hands of their masters. They took experiences from the bible, such as the Israelites liberation from Egypt. God freed the people of Israel even after years of slavery. Furthermore, the gospel of Jesus. He preached and interacted with the lowest in society and healed the sick as well. He got into altercations with the religious elders who thought his way of teaching was unacceptable. Jesus’ identity as a Jew further cemented their belief. He was a Jew who later brought even the gentiles to get baptized in his name. All these gave the blacks hope that they, too, could be liberated from their struggle.
The idea of Black Christ is a reference to the political and subjective state of black people in history. White theologians rejected the idea of a black Jesus for a long time, mainly because of their ‘whiteness’ and their inability to relate to black experiences. Cone describes Jesus’ blackness as both literal and symbolic. It is literal in the sense that he identifies with the oppressed, taking in their struggle and suffering as his own. In the gospel, Christ encourages people to treat others as they would Him as anything is done to those least in society is also done unto Him. In this context, the least in the community are the oppressed black people to identify Christ as black therefore means that the black people are God’s poor people who He has come to liberate. Christ’s mission was to save the world and attended to the sick, the poor, and the oppressed. Cone points out that God continues to come for the poor and oppressed to set them free just as he did for the Israelites in Egypt. Christ, therefore, is black not because of his physical appearance or culture but because he comes into our world where the poor, sick, and the oppressed and the blacks are.
Today the church sets the tone for present-day inhumanity to blacks and other races by remaining silent as they are wrongfully killed on the streets or separated from families due to deportation. Like the rest of the society, the church insists on obedience to the law without asking whether it inflicts harm on others or violating their rights. They are quick to comment on the violence in their ghettos and Black Power as a concept and yet remain silent on the White Power and their constant violence against the black. The whites believe that God is on their side, and as long as this goes on, they have no limit to their violence against others.