Embodiment and the New Shape of Black Theological Thought

Preface

| xi Preface This book requires a bit of context, a framing of its intent in order to place it within the objectives that inform my larger intellectual concerns. How has a humanist come to write this book? In important ways, this book has been more than fifteen years in the making , stemming as it does from my ongoing effort to do theology in nontraditional ways, and in light of overlooked but vital dimensions and schemes of African American life. Here I point to my concern with the presentation of an alternate black theology. While black and womanist theologies assume a limited range of religious orientations and creedal formulations, I continue to be concerned with religious pluralism marking African American communities as well as the manner in which theology serves as a way to query and articulate the religiosities of African Americans. My 1995 book, Why, Lord? Suffering and Evil in Black Theology, attempted to begin this process through a theological and archeological discussion of African American humanism.1 I continue to see that text as an extension of William Jones’s Is God a White Racist?; it critiques Jones’s theological assumptions regarding doctrine of God and pushes for the grounding of African American humanism in contemporary cultural production (such as hip-hop) through the use of a new hermeneutic—nitty-gritty hermeneutics.2 And, it attempts to accomplish this in a way that acknowledges (while challenging ) the centrality of Christ for those whom Jones critiqued in his brilliant study. The attention to the blues and hip-hop in that text was meant to problematize the inherent spiritualization of human existence through imago Dei rhetoric that dominated black and womanist theologies as I read them. Why, Lord? was my first attempt to re-envision the doing of black theology in ways that allowed for the centrality of the existential, human embodiment as the primary raw material for and concern of theology. Although most have failed to recognize the central point of Varieties of African American Religious Experience, the authored volume following Why, Lord?, this book has served as an extension of my earlier theological argu- xii | Preface ments through the attempt to formulate a theological framework capable of holding in tension the various religious orientations present in African American communities. Critics often assumed this text (granted the title was less than ideal and failed to capture the larger, theological intent) was my effort to claim some expertise in various religious traditions without extending our understanding of those traditions.3 This was far from the case. I attempted to provide a theological reading of those traditions—focusing on moral evil as a framework held in common. In the first four chapters; and, in the most important and final chapter, I suggest a way of “doing theology” that moves beyond the traditional limitations of black and womanist theologies . I made no claims then (and I make no claims now) to having a primary concern with the history of religious traditions in African American communities . Rather, I use attention to these traditions to push my points concerning religious pluralism and to problematize traditional ways in which African Americans have done theology. Attention to description of African American religiosity affords a useful mechanism by which to challenge black and womanist theology on their Christian bias. Furthermore, it provides opportunity to think through theological grammar and vocabulary better capable of speaking about African American religion(s) in substantive ways. (I should also note that I hoped a humanist scholar discussing in a serious manner theistic religious traditions would provide an alternate modeling of the role of religious commitment in African American religious studies scholarship.) It became increasingly clear to me this theological work required some attention to theories of black religion that could inform my largely theological interests. In addressing this topic, my aim in Terror and Triumph was to think through Charles Long’s classic assessment of black religion and extend it in ways sensitive to theological concerns and issues.4 Terror and Triumph represented my effort to more forcefully articulate the theory of black religion (as quest for complex subjectivity) that shadowed Why, Lord? and The Varieties of African American Religious Experience. That book, based on the Edward Cadbury Lectures I gave at the University of Birmingham (UK), was not an effort to shift from theology to history of religions, as some critics falsely assume.5 Instead, I sought to ground my work in a theory of religious experience that did not assume...