The Black Christ

Douglas, Kelly Brown; Burkett, Delbert

doi:10.1002/9781444327946.ch25

Cited by 10 publications

(12 citation statements)

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“…Although deep analysis of American slavery is not appropriate for this study, it should be noted that Africans’ primary existence in America was to labor in order to produce massive amounts of wealth for Whites, and that millions of African lives were sacrificed for the sake of building America. Moreover, Kelly Brown Douglas (1994) writes, “Slavery in the American colonies was a part of a wider ideology structure, which presupposed that hierarchal relationships between human beings were divinely ordered” (p. 10). According to this ideology, Whites were superior and Blacks inferior or, in a religious sense, Whites were God’s elect—His chosen race, while Blacks were cursed—separated from God.…”

Section: White Salvation and Black Sacrificementioning

confidence: 99%

“And They Knew They Were Naked”: The Mortification of the Black Body

Lindsay

2020

Journal of Black Studies

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While it may be characterized as the inception of freedom for the colonizing and imperial-minded European, America represents a great tribulation for the enslaved African, kidnapped and sold an ocean away from his homeland, and it can be characterized as an all-out assault on African peoples’ bodies, culture, and minds. Though the economic interest of Europeans was the impetus for the African Holocaust, European Christian theology has consistently offered religious justification for the inhumane practices of the oppression of Black people—making the fight for freedom, in part, a religious battle. Insomuch, White supremacy is held together by a version of Christianity that venerates whiteness as its most divine ideal. This study explores the religious conundrum that Black people face by reexamining biblical text to connect the sacred and secular experiences of Black people to their social predicament. Apostle Paul’s idea of mortification in Colossians 3:5 and the theory of mortification as intrinsic to the idea of order are connected in order to critique the complex system of religious racism and illustrate the impossibility of freedom under current circumstances. In addition, the theory of social death and the theory of the death-bound-subject are utilized to interpret the Black experience in America, in part, as a battle for spiritual survival in an anathematic state of being. Ultimately, this study concludes that it is the formulation of White supremacy, and not the execution of White supremacy, that places Blacks in confrontation with death (physically and spiritually), and this confrontation has deeply religious underpinnings.

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Section: White Salvation and Black Sacrificementioning

confidence: 99%

“And They Knew They Were Naked”: The Mortification of the Black Body

Lindsay

2020

Journal of Black Studies

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“…Whilst I have not been able to find any instances of black, Womanist or Asian women theologians speaking of the Christa as such, the notion of a black female Christ figure is certainly not strange to them. Womanist theologians such as Jacquelyn Grant (1989) and Kelly Brown Douglas (1994) draw on a long tradition of black women's struggle for liberation, as well as on the work of multiple black male theologians who have asserted that Christ is Black. Building on the liberation struggles and faith of women like Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman and Fannie Lou Hamer, Grant and Brown Douglas challenge the dominance of black male images of Christ in male Black Theology, and assert that 'Christ, found in the experience of Black women, is a Black woman' (Grant, 1986: 201).…”

Section: Conceptualizing the Christa In Feminist Theologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Visualizing, Conceptualizing, Imagining and Praying the Christa: In Search of Her Risen Forms

Slee¹

2012

Feminist Theology

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This article explores the image and the concept of the Christa, evaluates its significance for contemporary feminist theology and spiritual practice, and suggests ways in which the notion of the Christa needs to be enlarged and developed. A distinction is made between visualizing the Christa in art and film, conceptualizing the Christa in theological discourse, imagining the Christa in fiction and poetry and ritualizing the Christa in liturgy and prayer. Whilst considerable attention has been paid to visual representations of the Christa, and feminist theologians have written about the Christa, little attention has been paid to the Christa in poetry and fiction, or as a focus of feminist prayer and ritual.

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“…As a systematic work, Evans’ text complements Cone’s God of the Oppressed . Cone’s student Kelly Brown Douglas centralizes Albert Cleage’s contributions to Black theology in her substantial engagement and expansion of Cleage in The Black Christ (1993). In Beyond Ontological Blackness: An Essay on African American Religious and Cultural Criticism (1999), Victor Anderson pushes against the category “ontological Blackness,” Cone’s interpretive lens in God of the Oppressed .…”

Section: Developments In Black Theology and The History Of Black Relimentioning

confidence: 99%

Black Theology and the History of U.S. Black Religions: Post Civil Rights Approaches to the Study of African American Religions

Ross

2012

Religion Compass

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Black Religions as a field of study is one of many supervening developments of the U.S. Civil Rights Movement. Two conditions influenced development of this field. First, the Civil Rights Movement resulted in exponential increases in higher education of African descended people in the United States. These increases expanded research and scholarship on Black religions, generally. Second, because Black religions helped shape the Civil Rights Movement, an area of research and writing broadly identified as Black theology issued from and about Black religions and making of the Movement. During the mid‐twentieth century, development of liberation theologies (which challenged religions' collaboration with imperialism) coupled with the substantial role of African American Christianity, especially Protestant Christianity, in the Civil Rights Movement to create an early focus of much mid‐century scholarship about U.S. black religions on development and evolution of black theology as a form of liberation theology. Even so, foundational work in the history of black religions appeared alongside developments of black theology. In the late 20th and early 21st centuries these two trajectories – black theologies and history of black religions – have emerged as standard emphases in the field of black religions. This article examines emergence of Black religions as a field of study and includes four sections exploring U.S. Black religions and the Civil Rights Movement, the appearance of Black theology in the United States, developments in Black theology and in the history of Black religions, and current trends in the study of Black religions.

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The Black Christ

Cited by 10 publications

References 0 publications

“And They Knew They Were Naked”: The Mortification of the Black Body

“And They Knew They Were Naked”: The Mortification of the Black Body

Visualizing, Conceptualizing, Imagining and Praying the Christa: In Search of Her Risen Forms

Black Theology and the History of U.S. Black Religions: Post Civil Rights Approaches to the Study of African American Religions

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