God of the Oppressed

evaluate past interpreters of the faith. Since oppression of the weak by the powerful is one of those elements, we can put the critical question to Athanasius, Augustine, or Luther: What has the gospel of Jesus, as witnessed in Scripture, to do with the humiliated and the abused? If they failed to ask that question or only made it secondary in thei

context decides not only the questions we address to God but also the mode or form of the answers given to the questions. That is the central thesis of this book. And I intend to illustrate it through selected theological themes, with particular reference to the contrasting ways that black and white people think about God.

Who helped me to bear my heavy cross? Who fixed me up, turned me ’round, Left my feet on solid ground? I know it was Jesus! I know it was the Lord! Who do you think gave sight to the blind? Made the lame to walk And dead men rise? Who took the fishes and the loaves of bread And made five hundred so all could be fed? Oh, Jesus, Oh Lord, Jesus! My Lo

was at the Lord's Table but whether he was really present at the slave's cabin, whether slaves could expect Jesus to be with them as they tried to survive the cotton field, the whip, and the pistol.

Americans in their fight against white supremacy, I cannot limit God's revelation to Jesus or to the fight against white racism. God's reality is much bigger than the black experience and the concepts black theologians create from it. No one people's language and experience are capable of capturing the full reality and presence of God.

the death of the man on the tree has radical implications for those who are enslaved, lynched, and ghettoized in the name of God and country. In order to do theology from that standpoint, they must ask the right questions and then go to the right sources for the answers. The right questions are always related to the basic question: What has the gos

In all roles theologians are committed to that form of existence arising from Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. They know that

There are many ordinary blacks who point to Jesus’ suffering as a source of empowerment in their struggle to survive with dignity in a world they did not create.

Who found me when I was lost?