[blackwatch06]

I was just about to start a thread on the State of the Black family when I came across the new replies to this thread. First I would like to say it's good to be home. I have ben very busy lately with work and church stuff, now is a time of release......


In Sunday School we have been talking about black theology and I have been reading a book by James Cone entitled For My People, Black Theology and the Black Church in which he talks about the history of the development of black theology and its relationship to the black church. Anyway, one of the strongest points he makes is that in order for the church as an institution to reclaim its status as the essence of the black community, it has to speak to the oppression of black people. Many people have replied that the black church has lost its focus by not focusing on saving souls and focusing more on health, wealth, prosperity and faith in faith teachings that popularize televangelism (check BET in the Mornings). My question is, what does it mean existentially or pragmatically when the church "saves a soul"? Does it mean that people openly profess Christ? Does it mean that people learn to Love? Does it mean that people live peaceably among others? Can it mean that people openly advocate for the relief of those who are oppressed politically, economically, and socially, which in turn characterises the "spiritual" oppression of self hate and self-destruction?

One of the basic premises of black theology is that Jesus' Gospel is about liberating the oppressed (cf. Luke 4:18). Black theologians believed that the aim of the black church, especially during the 18th and 19th centuries was to live out the gospel of Jesus as Liberator (look at people like David Walker, Denmark Vessey, Nat Turner, Henry Garnett). The Church was at its most powerful when it galvanized a population of oppressed people and armed them with spiritual weapons to truly fight the spiritual wickedness (Ephesians 6:12) of racism and white supremacy in society.


One of the chief critques that many black theologians had of the black church in the 20th (and I guess even now in the 21st) century was that it was becoming too "other wordly" in its message of salvation and left the oppressed black folk that it built a legacy on trying to liberate out in the cold as the church leaders rushed to make the black church into a black version of a white church (with appeals to morality of whites in the questions about racism and discrimination by using "moralist rhetoric" rather than economic, social, and political critiques that lead to pragmatic analysis and purposeful plans of action change i.e. liberation).


As we talk about the true purpose of the church, I would like to ask this question:
In light of the idea that the church's mission is to go out and "make disciples of men" (Mat. 28:19) what does this look like practically ? Is it people professing Christ? Praising God? Is it just people living by a higher moral code?


With some of the apprehensions expressed in this thread about the church becoming involved with politics, I wonder how then, if you are opposed to the social and political activism of the church, do you propose that the church maintain its relavence with the oppressed black people it comes into contact with everyday, if our main purpose in interacting in their lives is to "get them saved" so that they won't burn in hell when the die? What about the burning hell of oppression, suffering, and self hatred that is brought upon them by injustice in our society? When God tells Moses in Exodus 2 to go to Pharoah to "let my people go", Moses doesn't appeal to the moral conscience of pharaoh and says "You know pharaoh, you shouldn't oppress the Hebrews, it just ain't right" He comes to Pharaoh with the prophetic ( Truth from God) word of "let my people go". Then he went to the Hebrews(the oppressed) not with a plan of religious salvation, but with a revolutionary plan of action to allow their liberation from the oppression of the pharoah (which was political, social, and economic, but it wasn't religious in the since that the Hebews were allowed to worship or fear Jehovah). This in turn allows the hebrews the psychological and social space to come to God. God liberates the Hebrews not because pharoah wouldn't allow for his worship, because pharaoh cannot stop the worship of Jehovah (Do you know how many oppressed "saved" black folk there are?). God sees the injustice of enslaving the Hebrews and calls for their liberation, for this is the essence of slavation-liberation from oppression of all kinds.


This does not mean that the church should just have homeless shelters and drug intervention programs, those things are great and are needed, but this alone isn't the mark of a liberation church. A liberation church, as mentioned by Dr. Jawanza Kunjufu during the State of the black family forum, is a church that fights against not just the symptoms of oppression (drug abuse, homelesness, teen pregnancy, juvenile delinquency and the such) but also fights against the causes of those symptoms (economic inequality, self hatred, and hopelessness that inevitably comes about after experiencing oppression over a prolonged period of time). Conservative black churches see these things as symptoms of humanity's falleness, and should be attacked on an individual basis (akin to blaming the victim). They arrive at this conclusion , according to Cone, out of an inadequate analysis of the social, economic, and political context in which oppressed blacks live. If we only look at individual blacks as the sources of these symptoms, then we have to admit that, on a certain level, blacks are just ill equiped to function in our society (which smacks of internalized white supremacy) if we look at the disproportionate numbers of impoverished, incarcerated, and socially dibilitated blacks. If the church acquiesces to this notion, it becomes another tool in the oppression of blacks (Look at E. Franklin Frazier's Black Bougeousie for a critique of class divsions in the black community).

So, how can the church say that it is in the business of "saving souls" and not be activly advocating for economic, social, and political liberation for black people and the self-determination of black people? How do we deal with the "saved" person who is under economic, social, and political oppression?


Blackwatch!!!!!!