Sublime

theology that must emerge out of the dialectic of black history and culture. Instinctively, I went to the Scriptures as the primary source for this new approach and asked, “What has the biblical message to do with the black power revolution?” My answer is found in my first book, Black Theology and Black Power (Seabury, 1969). My second book, A Blac

His concern was to state the primacy of faith in relation to reason on matters of theological discourse. We have another concern and thus must rephrase that question in the light of our cultural history, asking: “What has Africa to do with Jerusalem, and what difference does Jesus make for African people oppressed in North America?” As Gerard Bissa

the

black insurrection in Detroit in the summer of 1967. I had moved the year before to teach in Adrian, Michigan, just seventy miles from Detroit. I remember the feeling of dread and absurdity as I asked myself, What has all this to do with Jesus Christ—his birth in Bethlehem, his baptism with and life among the poor, and his death and resurrection? I

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

Turning to christology, I continue to focus on Jesus Christ as the starting point for Christian thinking about God. He defines Christian identity in faith and practice. Because I am a Christian, my theological reflections start with Jesus.

White people did everything within their power to define black reality, to tell us who we were—and their definition, of course, extended no further than their social, political, and economic interests. They tried to make us believe that God created black people to be white people's servants. We blacks, therefore, were expected to enjoy plowing thei

Throughout black history Scripture was used for a definition of God and Jesus that was consistent with the black struggle for liberation.

The black Church taught me how to deal with the contradictions of life and provided a way to create meaning in a society