Written by Rev. Howard Bess
This past Sunday evening I listened to the entire speech that was given by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright in Detroit before a gathering of 12,000 members of the NAACP. The speech was brilliantly conceived, masterfully delivered and wildly cheered by the audience to which he was speaking.
Most people who watched and listened had little understanding of what was being said. Welcome to Black theology. Black theology is a particular application of liberation theology. And what is liberation theology?
The roots of modern liberation theology are found in Central and South America. In its inception, liberation theology was firmly rooted in the Roman Catholic Church. Catholic priests and bishops took note that the post-World War II prosperity in Europe and in the United States did not translate into prosperity for the poor of Central and South America. The rich were getting richer and the poor were getting poorer.
They took note that Jesus was poor and identified with the poor of his day. Jesus had found himself in an intense struggle with the wealthy and the powerful. Those with wealth and power killed him. A considerable body of Central and South American Catholic writers began identifying themselves with the Jesus who spoke out for the poor.
Peruvian Catholic Priest Gustavo Gutterrez gave the movement intellectual integrity when he published “A Theology of Liberation” in 1972. It was the definitive volume on liberation theology.
At first the Vatican was supportive of the movement. Pope John XXIII and Vatican II were seedbeds of encouragement. However, since the mid-1970s the Catholic hierarchy has become increasingly negative about the movement. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, has been especially condemning of liberation theology. The Vatican silenced Gutterrez.
By the time Pope Benedict XVI visited Brazil in 2007, The New York Times estimated that there were at least one million Bible study groups in Brazil with an orientation to liberation theology.
Educator/sociologist Paul Freire was born into a middle class family in Brazil. His family lost everything in the great depression of the 1930s. Freire identified with the poor and never forsook them when he became a successful academic. His book “Pedagogy of the Oppressed,” published in 1973, is a classic in the liberation movement.
According to Freire the biggest problem with the poor is their “culture of silence.” After suffering poverty and oppression over a long period of time, poor people accept their fate in silence. The greatest challenge of any oppressed people is to break that silence.
Liberation theology in Central and South America, led by people like Freire and Gutterrez, broke down the control gates. They broke people out of their chains of silence. Things will never be the same in the South American hemisphere. Just as liberation theology comes out of the experience of the poor and oppressed in Central and South America, black theology flows out of black experience in America. It is an ugly history. First slavery, then segregation, then educational and economic discrimination.
The amazing part of the black story is the “culture of silence” that developed over the centuries. This is exactly the same “culture of silence” that Paulo Freire found among the poor in Brazil. People like Freire and Gutterrez broke the silence of the oppressed in our south hemisphere. Who will break the culture of silence for our oppressed black neighbors? Black movie stars, black writers, black musicians, black academics, and black athletes are making a contribution. However, the key is the black preacher. Martin Luther King Jr. was the prototype. Americans are almost totally ignorant about what is going on in American black churches and the leadership being given by very capable black preachers.
Jeremiah Wright is not a lonely voice. He is a part of a huge chorus of intelligent, educated, talented black preachers who understand how badly African Americans have been treated by their European American neighbors.
What is going on is much bigger than the 2008 presidential election. Wright is correct when he says that the attacks on him are really attacks on the black religious community. All Americans need to be listening.
And then there is feminist theology, gay theology and Hispanic theology. Straight, European American male dominated leadership is looking at rough times.
The Rev. Howard Bess is pastor of Church of the Covenant, an American Baptist church in Palmer. His email address is hdbss@mtaonline.net.
3 comments:
This analysis is a huge stretch and rationalization. Rev Wright is more akin to Jimmy Swaggart and Jim Bakker. They started with good intentions but fame and fortune evolved them into nothing more than performers for profit. At the end of the day Rev Wright follows in the footsteps of of Swaggart, Bakker, etc and retires to his huge estate and multimillion dollar payoff paid for by the faithful. I don't believe Jesus retired rich. Hats off to Sen. Obama for finally breaking with Wright. I am sure he initially joined the church for political networking and has paid a price for that very typical political ambition.
Well, I agree with you that many preachers and evengelists are nothing more than flim-flamers, but I think the important thing here is to put ourselves (assuming we are white) into the black perspective of their liberation.
I found it odd last year that Obama suggested democrats need to get closer to their faith. This sending an assumingly wrong message, yet ironically, he is nearly taken down by his own pastor.
One thing is for sure with me, I won't be voting for Rev. Wright for president anytime soon.
I worked in the civil rights movement in the South and this is the "theology" that destroyed that movement. This is the theology of those who hated Martin Luther King and trashed John Lewis. So many of the fringe of the civil rights and anti Vietnam war movement, people who destroyed those movements, have come to represent what good came from those movements - although they accomplished none of the good. They try to imitate the movement but preach the opposite of the goal;s of those movements. Martin Luther King,never preached like Wright - his vision was opposed to Wright's "preaching".
Afro-centrism was a beautiful joyful movement that had nothing in common with the thug culture embraced by rich, white, left males who funded the Panthers and the takeover of SCLC and SNVCC. This was the culture that developed the liberation theology of the black church which is separate from the catholic liberation theology and closer to the world view of Farrakhan. It is the opportunistic anti-wing of the civil rights movement. It is the vulture wing of the civil rights movement - the vampires. What good has it done, for blacks, for the country or for anyone? It gives a false sense of bonding as long as you hate the enemy and encourages a self defeating anger/paranoia and then passes the collection plate. People leave church feeling a sense of a common enemy and that passes for community. The kind of community that excludes and demonizes the wider society.
The worst part of this is that no political or institutional change comes from it. That would require coalition. But the anger enforcement bred by this kind of preaching works against coalition for change. It discourages the qualities necessary for self-actualization within society. It is masturbatory and no birth is possible. That is what makes it different from other liberation theology, particularly that used to organize in South America.
Get your history from reliable academic sources and your politics from secular institutions. This faith based hatred of your country and never ending justification for failure is no good for anyone.
At one point I thought it was good but that time is long passed. Everything has a time and that time passes. Evolve or die. I am tired of unjustified anger directed at anyone seen as "privileged" because segregation keeps us from understanding the restrictions of each other's lives. I am tired of excusing child abuse in the POC communities because of their suffering. I am tired of excusing misogyny, violence and animal cruelty with cultural relativism. None of the virtues are valued, empathy, compassion for the other is not taught in black churches. This phony theology is part of the problem. I think is is time for blacks to demand a more responsible approach to living in this country with people who are not black.
I am willing to pay slavery reparations. I think corporations who profited from slavery and wealthy families who profited from slavery should be taxed for reparations. But that is not a goal organized for in these segregated churches. No constructive solutions are offered only curses for perceived wrongs.
Segregation is segregation. Separate is not equal -- different standards have become the norm. It is not good for the country --- maybe at one time but we need to ask ourself what is the current goal? Do we we want separate but equal? Is that what your political goal is ultimately?
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