By Nathaniel Phillips
Theology is the study of God or religion. An individual or community’s “theology” is essentially what they think about, how they understand, and, to the extent that He can be known, what they know about God. Theology can be both taught and caught. It can develop out of education and experience. Different experiences can contribute to different understandings. These understandings aren’t necessarily contradictory and don’t have to represent disagreements unless one party insists their understanding is the only valid one. I’d like to explore some of the experiences and influences that contribute to “black theology;” specifically the theology of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Dr. King rose to prominence when he was asked to lead the Montgomery Improvement Association in response to Rosa Parks’ arrest for being black and out of place. He was new to town and an unknown commodity. The world had no idea that his thoughts, convictions, and moral leadership would go on to influence global consciousness in remarkable ways.
Dr. King spent a lot of time unpacking the “Imago Dei” or the image of God in all humanity. We ALL are carefully and wonderfully made. Jesus’ blood covered ALL of our sins. God’s love extends to ALL of us equally: oppressed and oppressor, powerful and powerless, from the city streets to the C-Suites. The fight for justice is so much more than leveling playing fields or diversity, equity, and inclusion. It is about recognizing and restoring God’s intentional design for humankind.
Dr. King once imagined that he found and translated a lost epistle of Paul. He entitled the speech “Paul’s Letter to The American Christians.” In this letter, the imaginary Paul marveled at the technological advances that were unimaginable in his time. Distances that once took weeks to traverse could be covered in hours. Americans had come so far but were yet so far away from what God wanted. Dr. King (speaking as the Apostle Paul) said, “You have allowed your mentality to outrun your morality. You have allowed your civilization to outdistance your culture, and through your scientific genius, you have made of the world a neighborhood. But through your moral and spiritual genius, you have failed to make of it a brotherhood.”
God wants more from the American Church. If we had a deeper understanding of the Kingdom of God (theology) then it would cause us to examine the way our society is organized (sociology). This process would have profound effects on how we understand humankind (anthropology). We could also approach it the opposite way. What do we think about humanity? How does that influence the way we organize society? Is that consistent with what the Bible teaches?
To be clear, the human experience is not theology. It would be an error for a Christian to presume that their experience is God’s plan without any further examination. However, if you hold an experience up to the bible and scrutinize it under the light of scripture you could possibly better understand the experience, the scriptures, and the God of the scriptures. Let’s challenge the American church to think about the black experience under the light of scripture.
In many ways, this is exactly what Dr. King did. His theological ideas, however, get characterized and sub-genred, sometimes in error, as “black liberation theology.” This classification makes it easy for your favorite, mainstream pastor/seminary professor/author to dismiss, disregard and ignore the experiences that informed the thoughts. Then without serious consideration, discredit the thoughts and their efficacy.