Black Theology in Process?

"Didn't my Lord deliver Daniel

An' why not ev-e-ry man

He delivered Daniel from de lion's den

Jonah from de belly of de whale

An' de Hebrew chillun from de fiery furnace

An' why not ev-e-ry man"

--"Didn't my Lord Deliver Daniel" Negro Spiritual

This melody holds such a rich past. It has been sung in times of joy and times of grief, with glistening smiles shinning below hopeful eyes and tear stricken faces with heads hung low, through unbearable suffering and sweet victorious moments. It is so much more than just a song. It is a declaration of faith and hope for the future. It is a narrative with purpose, passion, and most of all power, deriving from the might of an omnipotent God. According to James Cone, the author of God of the Oppressed, Black Theology "is the story of black people's struggle for liberation in an extreme situation of oppression"(Cone 54).

In God of the Oppressed, Cone argues Black Theology and White Theology are simply fundamentally different. He affirms, "the difference in the form of black and white religious thought is, on one hand sociological", because blacks, being slaves, did not have the education or leisure time to pose deep theological questions that whites had. On the other hand, Cone says "the difference between black and white thought is also theological"(Cone 55). Black people did not formulate arguments questioning God's existence, and what all that entailed. "He was the God of history, the Liberator of the oppressed from bondage. Jesus was not an abstract word of God, but God's Word made flesh who came to set the prisoner free" (Cone 55).

Cone paints a rather accurate portrait of the Black Theology I have experienced in my life, with God being a concrete unchanging figure, and the Bible closer to a historical book than a product of theological arguments.

Similarly to Cone's description of Black Theology, before attending Rhodes College I had never questioned the biblical myths. I did, and partially still do, identify more with the absolute if I speak in the terms of Catherine Keller, author of On the Mystery: Discerning Divinity in Process. I feel that my first Life: Then and Now has, in a way, been a type of introduction to the third way process. It was beneficial, in some ways. I began to agree more and more with Catherine Keller, theology should not be set in stone, unchangeable. That is a dangerous situation. When reading the four gospels, discrepancies between them should be addressed, not avoided, merely because you always have, or easily justified and skirted over.

No, taking a closer look, and maybe altering your theological beliefs can be a beneficial process.

However, I had a major issue both Keller's idea of God's power and certain aspects of my first Life class. These problems derive from my background of Black Theology. We discovered in class that the likelihood of the Exodus' actual occurrence was slim to none, and Keller affirms that God is not omnipotent. These two almost seem to go hand in hand, because in Black Theology, God is all powerful, and will exercise his power to free the African slaves, as he did for the Israelites. If God is not all powerful, how can he free the captives? If there was actually no Exodus, what is Black Theology truly based on, fairy tales and hope? The third way seems to cripple black theology.

I am not sure how to answer these pressing questions. I am in the process of searching for the truth, not simply an answer, no longer avoiding the questions or just picking a response that skirts over the questions. I conclude my final blog admitting that I do not know how valid the theology I was raised believing is, but I am actively searching for the truth, but I guess that is what theology is, "a truth-process" (Keller 21).

Bibliography

Cone, James H. "The Social Context of Theology." God of the Oppressed. New York: Seabury, 1975. 54-55. Print.

Keller, Catherine. "Come My Way." On the Mystery: Discerning Divinity in Process. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 2008. 21. Print.