14 The Content of Theology the theological dimensions of the struggle for black identity. It seeks to reorder religious language, to show that all forces support- ing white oppression are anti-Christian in their essence. The essence of the gospel of Christ stands or falls on the question of black humanity, and there is no way that a church or institution can be related to the gospel of Christ if it sponsors or tolerates racism in any form. To speak of a "racist Christian" or a "segregated church of Christ" is blasphemy and the antithesis of the Christian gospel. In another connection, Paul Tillich wrote: Man discovers himself when he discovers God; he discovers something that is identical with himself although it tran- scends him infinitely, something from which he is estranged, but from which he never has been and never can be sepa- rated." Despite the pantheistic implications, there is some truth here that can be applied to the black identity crisis. The search for black identity is the search for God, because God's identity is revealed in the black struggle for freedom. For black theology, this is not pantheism; it is the conviction that the transcendent God who became immanent in Israelite history and incarnate in the man Jesus is also involved in black history, bringing about liberation from white oppressors. This is what black theology means for black persons who are in search of new ways of talking about God, ways that will enhance their understanding of themselves. 3. White Social and Political Power. Black theology is the theo- logical expression of a people deprived of social and political power. Poverty-stricken whites can manage to transcend the op- pression of society, but there is nothing blacks can do to escape the humiliation of white supremacy except to affirm the very attribute which oppressors find unacceptable. It is clear to blacks why they are unwanted in society, and for years they tried to make themselves acceptable by playing the game of human existence according to white rules, hoping that some day whites would not regard the color of their skins as the ultimate or only criterion for human relationships. But to this day, there is little evidence that whites can deal with the reality of physical blackness as an appropriate form of human existence. For this reason, blacks are oppressed socially The Content of Theology 15 even if they have economic and intellectual power. Jews in Nazi Germany found out the hard way that economic power was no security against an insane government that had the political and social power to determine the fate of Jewish existence. Realizing that white racism is an insanity comparable to Nazism, black theology seeks to articulate a theological ethos consistent with the black revolutionary struggle. Blacks know that there is only one possible authentic existence in this society, and that is to force a radical revolutionary confrontation with the structures of white power by saying yes to the essence of their blackness. The role of black theology is to tell blacks to focus on their own self- determination as a community by preparing to do anything the community believes necessary for its existence. To be human in a condition of social oppression involves affirm- ing that which the oppressor regards as degrading. In a world in which the oppressor defines right in terms of whiteness, humanity means an unqualified identification with blackness. Black, there- fore, is beautiful; oppressors have made it ugly. We glorify it because they despise it; we love it because they hate it. It is the black way of saying, "To hell with your stinking white society and its middle-class ideas about the world. I will have no part in it." The white view of black humanity also has political ramifica- tions. That is why so much emphasis has been placed on “law and order." Blacks live in a society in which blackness means criminal- ity, and thus "law and order" means "get blacky." To live, to stay to obey laws of humiliation. "Law out of jail, blacks are required to obey laws and order" is nothing but an emphasis on the stabilization of the status quo, which means telling blacks they cannot be black and telling whites that they have the moral and political right to see to it that black persons "stay in their place." Conversely the develop- ment of black power means that the black community will define its own place, its own way of behaving in the world, regardless of the consequences to white society. We have reached our limit of toler- ance, and if it means death with dignity or life with humiliation, we will choose the former. And if that is the choice, we will take some honkies with us. What is to be hoped is that there can be a measure of existence in dignity in this society for blacks so that we do not have to prove that we have reached the limits of suffering. The person in political power is a strange creature, and it is very 16 The Content of Theology easy for such a one to believe that human dignity has no real meaning. In André Malraux's Man's Fate, Konig, chief of Chiang Kai-shek's police, illustrates the inability of the man in political power to understand the condition of the oppressed. Intrigued by Kyo's participation in the Shanghai insurrection, Konig asks his prisoner: "I have been told that you are a communist through dignity. Is that true?" Kyo replies: "I think that communism will make dignity possible for those with whom I am fighting." But Konig asks, “What do you call dignity? It doesn't mean anything." "The opposite of humiliation,” says Kyo. "When one comes from where I come, that means something." Because oppressors do not come from the land of the oppressed, they do not have to attach any meaning to the demands of the oppressed. We can conclude, then, that survival is a way of life for the black community. Black theology is a theology of survival because it seeks to interpret the theological significance of the being of a community whose existence is threatened by the power of nonbe- ing. We are seeking meaning in a world permeated with philosophi- cal and theological absurdities, where hope is nonexistent. In existential philosophy the absurd is "that which is meaningless": Thus man's existence is absurd because his contingency finds no external justification. His projects are absurd because they are directed toward an unattainable goal.⁹ This is certainly the feeling of blacks as they seek to make sense out of their existence in a white society. What can we say to a commu- nity whose suffering and humiliation is beyond rational explica- tion? The black condition is inflicted by the white condition and there is no rational explanation of it. Speaking to the black condition characterized by existential absurdities, black theology rejects the tendency of classic Christi- anity to appeal to divine providence. To suggest that black suffer- ing is consistent with the knowledge and will of God and that in the end everything will happen for the good of those who love God is The Content of Theology 17 unacceptable to blacks. The eschatological promise of a distant, future heaven is insufficient to account for the earthly pain of black suffering. We cannot accept a God who inflicts or tolerates black suffering for some inscrutable purpose. Black theology also rejects those who counsel blacks to accept the limits which this society places on them, for it is tantamount to suicide. In existential philosophy suicide is the ultimate expression of despair. If we accept white definitions of blackness, we destroy ourselves. Black theology, responding to the black condition, takes on the character of rebellion against things as they are. In the writings of Camus, the rebel is the one who refuses to accept the absurd conditions of things but fights against them in spite of the impossi- bility of arriving at a solution. In black theology, blacks are en- couraged to revolt against the structures of white social and political power by affirming blackness, but not because blacks have a chance of "winning." What could the concept of "winning" possibly mean? Blacks do what they do because and only because they can do no other; and black theology says simply that such action is in harmony with divine revelation. Black Theology as Passionate Language Because black theology is survival theology, it must speak with a passion consistent with the depths of the wounds of the oppressed. Theological language is passionate language, the language of com- mitment, because it is language which seeks to vindicate the af- flicted and condemn the enforcers of evil. Christian theology cannot afford to be an abstract, dispassionate discourse on the nature of God in relation to humankind; such an analysis has no ethical implications for the contemporary forms of oppression.in our society, Theology must take the risk of faith, knowing that it stands on the edge of condemnation by the forces of evil. Paul Tillich calls this an "existential risk": The risk of faith is an existential risk, a risk in which the meaning and fulfillment of our lives is at stake, and not a theoretical judgment which may be refuted sooner or later."