6 The Content of Theology First, in a revolutionary situation there can never be nonpartisan theology. Theology is always identified with a particular commu- nity. It is either identified with those who inflict oppression or with those who are its victims. A theology of the latter is authentic Christian theology, and a theology of the former is a theology of the Antichrist. Insofar as black theology is a theology arising from an identification with the oppressed black community and seeks to interpret the gospel of Jesus Christ in the light of the liberation of that community, it is Christian theology. American white theology is a theology of the Antichrist insofar as it arises from an identifica- tion with the white community, thereby placing God's approval on white oppression of black existence. Secondly, in a racist society, God is never color-blind. To say God is color-blind is analogous to saying that God is blind to justice and injustice, to right and wrong, to good and evil. Certainly this is not the picture of God revealed in the Old and New Testaments. Yahweh takes sides. On the one hand, Yahweh sides with Israel against the Canaanites in the occupancy of Palestine. On the other hand, Yahweh sides with the poor within the community of Israel against the rich and other political oppressors. In the New Testa- ment, Jesus is not for all, but for the oppressed, the poor and unwanted of society, and against oppressors. The God of the biblical tradition is not uninvolved or neutral regarding human affairs; God is decidedly involved. God is active in human history, taking sides with the oppressed of the land. If God is not involved in human history, then all theology is useless, and Christianity itself is a mockery, a hollow, meaningless diversion. The meaning of this message for our contemporary situation is clear: the God of the oppressed takes sides with the black commu- nity. God is not color-blind in the black-white struggle, but has made an unqualified identification with blacks. This means that the movement for black liberation is the very work of God, effect- ing God's will among men. Thirdly, there are, to be sure, many who suffer, and not all of them are black. Many white liberals derive a certain joy from reminding black militants that two-thirds of the poor in America are white. Of course I could point out that this means that there are five times as many poor blacks as there are poor whites, when the ratio of each group to the total population is taken into account. 7 8 The Content of Theology But it is not my intention to debate white liberals on this issue, for it is not the purpose of black theology to minimize the suffering of others, including whites. Black theology merely tries to discern the activity of the Holy One in achieving the purpose of the liberation of humankind from the forces of oppression. We must make decisions about where God is at work so we can join in the fight against evil. But there is no perfect guide for discerning God's movement in the world. Contrary to what many conservatives would say, the Bible is not a blueprint on this matter. It is a valuable symbol for pointing to God's revelation in Jesus, but it is not self-interpreting. We are thus placed in an existential situation of freedom in which the burden is on us to make decisions without a guaranteed ethical guide. This is the risk of faith. For the black theologian God is at work in the black community, vindicat- ing black victims of white oppression. It is impossible for the black theologian to be indifferent on this issue. Either God is for blacks in their fight for liberation from white oppressors, or God is not. God cannot be both for us and for white oppressors at the same time. In this connection we may observe that black theology takes seriously Paul Tillich's description of the symbolic nature of all theological speech.³ We cannot describe God directly; we must use symbols that point to dimensions of reality that cannot be spoken of literally. Therefore to speak of black theology is to speak with the Tillichian understanding of symbol in mind. The focus on black- ness does not mean that only blacks suffer as victims in a racist society, but that blackness is an ontological symbol and a visible reality which best describes what oppression means in America. www The extermination of Amerindians, the persecution of Jews, the oppression of Mexican-Americans, and every other conceivable inhumanity done in the name of God and country-these brutali- ties can be analyzed in terms of the white American inability to he white recognize humanity in persons of color. If the oppressed of this want to challenge oppressive character of white society, they must begin by affirming their identity in terms of the reality that is antiwhite. Blackness, then, stands for all victims of oppres- sion who realize that the survival of their humanity is bound up with liberation from whiteness. This understanding of blackness can be seen as the most ade- quate symbol of the dimensions of divine activity in America. And The Content of Theology insofar as this country is seeking to make whiteness the dominating power throughout the world, whiteness is the symbol of the Anti- christ. Whiteness characterizes the activity of deranged individuals intrigued by their own image of themselves, and thus unable to see that they are what is wrong with the world. Black theology seeks to analyze the satanic nature of whiteness and by doing so to prepare all nonwhites for revolutionary action In passing, it may be worthwhile to point out that whites are in no position whatever to question the legitimacy of black theology. Questions like "Do you think theology is black?" or "What about others who suffer?" are the product of minds incapable of black thinking. It is not surprising that those who reject blackness in theology are usually whites who do not question the blue-eyed white Christ. It is hard to believe that whites are worried about black theology on account of its alleged alienation of other suffer- ers. Oppressors are not genuinely concerned about any oppressed group. It would seem rather that white rejection of black theology stems from a recognition of the revolutionary implications in its very name: a rejection of whiteness, an unwillingness to live under it, and an identification of whiteness with evil and blackness with good. Black Theology and the Black Community Most theologians agree that theology is a church discipline-that is, a discipline which functions within the Christian community. This is one aspect which distinguishes theology from philosophy of religion. Philosophy of religion is not committed to a community; it is an individualistic attempt to analyze the nature of ultimate reality through rational thought alone, using elements of many religions to assist in the articulation of the ultimate. Theology by contrast cannot be separated from the community which it represents. It assumes that truth has been given to the community at the moment of its birth. Its task is to analyze the implications of that truth, in order to make sure that the commu- nity remains committed to that which defines its existence. Theol- ogy is the continued attempt of the community to define in every generation its reason for being in the world. A community that does not analyze its existence theologically is a community that The Content of Theology 9 does not care what it says or does. It is a community with no identity. Applying this description, it is evident that white American theology has served oppressors well. Throughout the history of this country, from the Puritans to the death-of-God theologians, the theological problems treated in white churches and theological schools are defined in such a manner that they are unrelated to the problem of being black in a white, racist society. By defining the problems of Christianity in isolation from the black condition, white theology becomes a theology of white oppressors, serving as a divine sanction from criminal acts committed against blacks. No white theologian has ever taken the oppression of blacks as a point of departure for analyzing God's activity in contemporary America. Apparently white theologians see no connection between whiteness and evil or blackness and God. Even those white theolo- gians who write books about blacks invariably fail to say anything relevant to the black community as it seeks to break the power of white racism. They usually think that writing books makes them experts on black humanity. As a result they are as arrogant as George Wallace in telling blacks what is "best" for them. It is no surprise that the "best" is always nonviolent, posing no threat to the political and social interests of the white majority. Because white theology has consistently preserved the integrity of the community of oppressors, I conclude that it is not Christian theology at all." When we speak about God as related to human- kind in the black-white struggle, Christian theology can only mean black theology, a theology that speaks of God as related to black liberation. If we agree that the gospel is the proclamation of God's liberating activity, that the Christian community is an oppressed community that participates in that activity, and that theology is the discipline arising from within the Christian community as it seeks to develop adequate language for its relationship to God's liberation, then black theology is Christian theology. It is unthinkable that oppressors could identify with oppressed existence and thus say something relevant about God's liberation of the oppressed. In order to be Christian theology, white theology must cease being white theology and become black theology by denying whiteness as an acceptable form of human existence and affirming blackness as God's intention for humanity. White theolo- Comen of Ineology gians will find this difficult, and it is to be expected that some will attempt to criticize black theology precisely on this point. Such criticism will not reveal a weakness in black theology but only the racist character of the critic. Black theology will not spend too much time trying to answer its critics, because it is accountable only to the black community. Refusing to be separated from that community, black theology seeks to articulate the theological self-determination of blacks, providing some ethical and religious categories for the black revo- lution in America. It maintains that all acts which participate in the destruction of white racism are Christian, the liberating deeds of God. All acts which impede the struggle of black self- determination-black power-are anti-Christian, the work of Sa- tan. The revolutionary context forces black theology to shun all abstract principles dealing with what is the "right" and "wrong" course of action. There is only one principle which guides the thinking and action of black theology: an unqualified commitment to the black community as that community seeks to define its existence in the light of God's liberating work in the world. This means that black theology refuses to be guided by ideas and con- cepts alien to blacks. It assumes that whites encountering black thought will judge it "irrational." Not understanding what it means to be oppressed, the oppressor is in no position to understand the methods which the oppressed use in liberation. The logic of libera- tion is always incomprehensible to slave masters. From their posi- tion of power, masters never understand what slaves mean by "dignity." The only dignity they know is that of killing slaves, as if "superior" humanity depended on the enslavement of others. Black theology does not intend to debate with whites who have this perspective. Speaking for the black community, black theology says with Eldridge Cleaver, "We shall have our manhood. We shall have it, or the earth will be leveled by our attempts to gain it." Black Theology as Survival Theology To speak of black theology as survival theology refers to the condition of the community out of which black theology arises. We can delineate three characteristics of the black condition: the ten- The Content of Theology sion between life and death, identity crisis, and white social and political power. 1. The Tension between Life and Death. Black theology is the theology of a community whose daily energies must be focused on physical survival in a hostile environment. The black community spends most of its time trying "to make a living" in a society labeled "for whites only." Therefore, the central question for blacks is "How are we going to survive in a world which deems black humanity an illegitimate form of human existence?" That white America has issued a death warrant for being black is evident in the white brutality inflicted on black persons. Though whites may deny it, the ghettos of this country say otherwise. Masters always pre- tend that they are not masters, insisting that they are only doing what is best for society as a whole, including the slaves. This is, of course, the standard rhetoric of an oppressive society. Blacks know better. They know that whites have only one purpose: the destruc- tion of everything which is not white. In this situation, blacks are continually asking, often uncon- sciously, "When will the white overlord decide that blackness in any form must be exterminated?" The genocide of Amerindians is a reminder to the black community that white oppressors are capable of pursuing a course of complete annihilation of everything black. And the killing and the caging of black leaders make us think that black genocide has already begun. It seems that, from the white cop on his beat to the high government official, whites are not prepared for a real encounter with black reality, and thus the black commu- nity knows that whites may decide at any moment that the extermi- nation of all blacks is indispensable for continued white existence and hegemony. This is the content of "the tension between life and death." By white definitions, whiteness is "being" and blackness is "nonbe- ing." Blacks live under sentence of death. They know that whites will kill them rather than permit the beauty and the glory of black humanity to be manifested in its fullness. Over three hundred and fifty years of black slavery is evidence of that fact, and blacks must carve out a free existence in this situation. To breathe in white society is dependent on saying yes to whiteness, and blacks know it. It is only natural to cling to life; no one wants to die. But there is such a thing as living physically while being dead spiritually. As 18 The Content of Theology Blacks know what it means to have their lives at stake, for their lives are at stake every moment of their existence. In the black world no one takes life for granted: every moment of being is surrounded with the threat of nonbeing. If black theology is to relate itself to this situation, it too must take the risk of faith and speak with a passion in harmony with the revolutionary spirit of the oppressed. The sin of American theology is that it has spoken without passion. It has failed miserably in relating its work to the oppressed in society by refusing to confront the structures of this nation with the evils of racism. When it has tried to speak for the poor, it has been so cool and calm in its analysis of human evil that it implicitly disclosed whose side it was on. Most of the time American theology has simply remained silent, ignoring the condition of the victims of this racist society. How else can we explain the theological silence during the period of white lynching of black humanity in this nation? How else can we explain the inability of white religionists to deal relevantly with the new phenomenon of black conscious- ness? And how else can we explain the problem white seminaries are having as they seek to respond to radical black demands? There is really only one answer: American theology is racist; it identifies theology as dispassionate analysis of "the tradition," unrelated to the sufferings of the oppressed. Black theology rejects this approach and views theology as a participation in passion in behalf of the oppressed. Seeking to be Christian theology in an age of societal dehumanization, it contem- plates the ultimate possibility of nonbeing (death) with the full intention of affirming the ultimate possibility of being (life). In the struggle for truth in a revolutionary age, there can be no principles of truth, no absolutes, not even God. For we realize that, though the reality of God must be the presupposition of theology (the very name implies this-theos and logos), we cannot speak of God at the expense of the oppressed. Insistence on a passionate theology is a call for an anthropocen- tric point of departure in theology. I realize that such a call must raise the eyebrows of all who have felt the impact of Karl Barth. But let me state clearly that this approach is not a return to nineteenth-century liberalism with its emphasis on the goodness and worth of humanity (which always meant white European The Content of Theology humanity). Every black intellectual is aware that when liberals spoke of "inevitable progress" and the "upward movement of Western culture," it was realized at the expense of blacks who were enslaved and colonized to secure "progress." My concern is alto- gether different. Though my perspective begins with humanity, it is not humanity in general, not some abstract species of Platonic idealism. I am concerned with concrete humanity, particularly with oppressed humanity. In America that means black humanity. This is the point of departure of black theology, because it believes that oppressed humanity is the point of departure of Christ himself. It is this concern that makes theological language a language of pas- sion. My characterization of black theology as passionate theology is analogous to Paul Tillich's analysis of "the existential thinker." Quoting Feuerbach, he writes: Do not wish to be a philosopher in contrast to being a man. . . do not think as a thinker. . . think as a living, real being...think in Existence. Love is passion, and only passion is the mark of Existence." In fact, Tillich quotes Feuerbach as saying, "Only what is as an object of passion-really is."12 The existential thinker is a thinker who not only relates thought to existence but whose thought arises out of a passionate encounter with existence. As Kierkegaard put it in his definition of truth: An objective uncertainty held fast in the most passionate personal experience is the truth, the highest truth attainable for an Existing individual. 13 Relating this to black theology, we can say that the definition of truth for the black thinker arises from a passionate encounter with black reality. Though that truth may be described religiously as God, it is not the God of white religion but the God of black existence. There is no way to speak of this-objectively; truth is not objective. It is subjective, a personal experience of the ultimate in the midst of degradation. Passion is the only appropriate response to this truth.