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 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 out of jail, blacks are required to obey laws of humiliation. “Law 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 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 19 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 I 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." 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.