From Hymns to Hip Hop: The religious roots of the Black Lives Matter Movement and musical evolution from Thomas Dorsey to Beyoncé. Christ and Culture (original) (raw)
Related papers
Rap and Religion Black Theology Review
is described as the leading representative of Black theology in the United Kingdom. Editor of the influential Black Theology: An International Journal, Reddie has produced thirteen books and more than fifteen articles and essays on Christian education and Black theology. And this current text does not disappoint. Indeed, it continues to deepen his masterful critical command of Black theology and the formal engagement with theology and religious studies.
The Subject of Black theology, has been met with much controversy within various theological circles and among varied theologians. It often seems, consists of movement in two directions, one political and the other cultural. However, for all practical purposes and implications, Black theology is the official religion of black power, the black Church, and the black community. The arduous task of black theologians rest in the ability to explain how these two directions complement each other, while uniquely merging them into some form of systematic unified project. What then, somehow, ensues is a liberation theology for a people whose history has been scarred and marked by centuries of racial injustice, slavery, and oppression in America. This process cannot be left to secular reason alone, as it is incapable of answering the issues that this constituency face in light of their respective experiences in America and within the Church as it relates to their relationship with God, His Christ and His Spirit. Secular reason when supplemented by language (or concepts, or beliefs) of faith, God, Christ, and Spirit, Matters of concern to the community then satisfies the longing in a radical black politics and black Cultural manner, then it no longer seems independent of, or even at odds with, the issues raised and portrayed by the community or by black theology. When God is aligned with the poor and the oppressed, and His work is interpreted as a freeing agent of the poor and the oppressed, then its meaning is found in the language and practices of the black community as a systematically oppressed
Conversion to the Rhythm of Blackness: Final Reflection Paper for Black Theology
2015
One of the blessings of being a student at Union Theological Seminary, and also of the blessings of being able to continue on here as a doctoral student, is the living encounter with Black liberation theology. This is a hard blessing, and a challenging blessing, especially for someone like myself who is wrapped up in numerous layers of hypocrisy and privilege. My encounter with Black theology forces me to wrestle not just with my integrity as a theologian in the 21 st century academic world, but more so as a human being on this Earth at a time in which our civilization is faced with an unprecedented moment of crossroads. It is not just that the murder of the body of the Earth herself makes the status-quo untenable. It is the murder of the black body and the murder of the Dalit body, and the murder of anybody who is oppressed under the heels of a global hegemony controlled by white supremacy and the rampant, immoral, unfeeling mechanisms of capitalism which makes our current situation one that cannot last. The warning of James Baldwin of a "fire next time" in the 1960's, if the boot heels of the oppressor are not lifted, are even more urgent today. Those of us who claim to speak from faith and for faith have no choice but to respond to this urgency, and in this sense the contexts of Black theology, both broad and particular, speak to us with an ever-new urgency today as well.
Scriptura, 2012
The article argues that there is still need of black theology. Although apartheid is believed to have died and blacks have political power, the socioeconomic and cultural realities and conditions that necessitated black theology are still prevalent. For as long as the black experiences involve pain and suffering there will be need to reflect theologically on what it means to be black in the South African context. This time around, as black theology is resuscitated, it should not merely be an academic-intellectual enterprise of the elites but it should seriously be in such a way that it has an organic relationship with the poor and oppressed. For black theology to be sustainable it has to be done in the context of theological reflection not from the Ivory towers such as academia but together with and alongside the poor and the oppressed, as well as their ecclesiastical and social movements
The Buried God: Toward a Theology of Black Lives Matter
Enlightenment progress and liberal harmony have found little realization in the black community. Amid a nation of democracy, in the era of the first black president, police brutality, mass incarceration, and poverty still plague black lives. The Black Lives Matter movement which formed as a response to this condition cares nothing for bold political promises. There is a commitment in the Black Lives Matter movement to breaking down idols and false prophets in the fight for liberation. Stirring is a theology of liberation, one which ignores the idealism of secular culture and empowers black people to pursue black freedom. In this paper, I will offer a portrait of a God who refuses to be domesticated by white supremacy and is relentlessly concerned with black lives who suffer. This God blasts the idolatry of liberalism, defaces false prophets who preach peace but perpetuate oppression, challenges orthodoxies which reinforce injustice, and demands the liberation of black lives. This theology will have for its point of departure the material experience of real black lives, particularly as recorded in Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow and Mary Buser’s Lockdown on Rikers, and as expressed by the music of Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly. For too long have white theologians neglected the matters of black lives.