Liberation theology arose in the third world--specifically Latin America--where it was recognized that one's view of God and his action in the world can be profoundly altered by one's praxis or experience of life. The God of the wealthy is rather different from the God worshipped in the barrios or slums of the major cities in such countries as Peru or Brazil. This idea that one's view of the gospel is shaped by one's location in life has taken firm root in certain groups in the United States, and specifically among blacks and women.

Black Theology

Liberation theology as it has expressed itself in the African-American community seeks to find a way to make the gospel relevant to black people who must struggle daily under the burden of white oppression. The question that confronts these black theologians is not one that is easily answered. "What if anything does the Christian gospel have to say to powerless black men," to use James Cone's words, whose existence is "threatened on a daily basis by the insidious tentacles of white power?" If the gospel has nothing to say to people as they confront the daily realities of life, it is a lifeless message. If Christianity is not real for blacks, then they will reject it.

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 Starting Point for a Black Theology of Liberation

To develop a theology that speaks to African-Americans, black liberation theologians such as James Cone begin with the person of Jesus, and specifically the Jesus revealed in the Gospel of Luke. In Luke's gospel, Jesus has a concern for the oppressed that does not always come through in the other gospels. Luke's Jesus begins his ministry with this announcement:

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.

The Great Satan

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.

The Goal of a Black Theology of Liberation

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."

Black liberation theologians do not intend to allow the church--whether it be white or black--to evade this responsibility. It "cannot say that the poor are in poverty because they will not work, or that they suffer because they are lazy. Having come before God as nothing and being received by him into his Kingdom through grace, the Christian should know that he has been made righteous (justified) so that he (or she) can join God in the fight for justice. Therefore, whoever fights for the poor, fights for God; whoever risks his life for the helpless and unwanted, risks his life for God."

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."

Some Closing Comments

Many whites, myself included, can be put off by advocates of a black theology of liberation. We would much prefer the approach of Martin Luther King, Jr. because his approach was the least threatening to the white power structure, and to our own understanding of ourselves. Many whites identified with him precisely because he did not challenge their own racism directly, and allowed them to assuage their own sense of guilt with little or no risk.

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.