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Well, I’m still on vacation, which means I’m still alternating periods of swimming with the kids, reading by the beach, and drooling through naps.  I’ve decided that a “good vacation” for me includes frequently asking, “What day is it again?”, and memories of my boyhood.  Today’s memory: hot summer days without air conditioning in humid N.C. lying on the floor in front of a box fan.  Those were the good ol’ days (lazy days).

On this lazy day (with air conditioning!  Some things–like N.C. humidity and box fans–only need to be fondly remembered!) I’ve completed reading Anthony Bradley‘s book, Liberating Black Theology: The Bible and the Black Experience in America (Crossway, 2010).  Ordinarily theological critiques don’t make my vacation reading list.  I’m usually more interested in fiction and “lighter” reads.  But Bradley’s work zoomed to the top of my reading pile when I received a copy of Dwight N. Hopkins’ unfavorable review of the book.  Hopkins might be regarded as the successor to James Cone as the leading proponent of Black Theology.  Ahhh… a theological food fight I can’t resist.  So, having read Bradley, I thought I’d offer a brief review of Liberating Black Theology and a brief response to Hopkins’ review.

Liberating Black Theology

Premise.  On the whole, Bradley writes as a well-read critic of Black Theology (BT) interested in seeing this field of theology reformed according the Scripture.  Bradley believes that BT, as formulated by Cone in the 1970s, was doomed to fail because it abandoned biblical presuppositions in favor of black victimology and an inadequate cultural and theological view of man (anthropology).  “This book suggests that for any black theology to serve the black church in the future, it must be formulated within biblically constrained presuppositions.”  Bradley contends, “Black theology has a future only if it presupposes the triune God and seeks to interpret the black experience through the lens of the whole of Scripture” (p. 15).

Liberating Black Theology does not offer the reader a broad review of BT, but focuses more specifically on BT’s definition of “Blackness” and the black experience and its use of sources for doing theology other than the Scripture.  At points, Bradley leans heavily on John McWhorter‘s definition of black victimology and Thomas Sowell‘s critique of Marxism as an inadequate alternative for liberating the oppressed, the central aim of BT.

Organiztion.  Bradley addresses the subject in six chapters:

1. Setting the Stage: Defining Terms and Theological Distinctions
2. America the Broken: Cone’s Sociopolitical Ethical Context
3. Cone’s Theological Scaffolding
4. Victimology in the Marxist Ethics of Black Theology
5. Biblical Interpretation and the Black Experience
6. Is There a Future for Black Liberation Theology?

With this organization, one expects Bradley to move from a general introduction of Black Theology, to a program of evaluation and critique, to a proposal for the future.

Strengths. Bradley shows familiarity with the widening body of BT and its contributors. On the whole, he takes the writers he surveys seriously and responds charitably. Liberating Black Theology includes a helpful engagement with the Marxist underpinnings of BT, bringing the writings of Marx (via Thomas Sowell) into dialogue with BT. Ultimately, Bradley calls on Marx to invalidate some of the claims made by Cone and Cornel West. I haven’t seen this done as effectively and concisely as Bradley manages in Liberating Black Theology.

In my opinion, Bradley is strongest in chapters 4-6, where he steps back from Black Theology to offer some solutions for going forward. Bradley’s own theological convictions come forward with clarity and insight. I especially appreciated the analysis of Marxism (chap. 4) and his engagement with BT’s hermeneutical approach (chap. 5). Chapter 5 helps us see that we can and ought to raise many of the contextual concerns of BT without throwing the baby of sound biblical hermeneutics and contextualization out with the bath water of historical abuses of Scripture and indifference to African-American concerns. Bradley serves us well at this point. Chapter 6 gives us a series of critiques offered by others inside and outside BT. The range of responses help elucidate some foundational problems in BT and set the stage for Bradley’s contention that BT can only be resuscitated if it moves to firmer biblical presuppositions.

Weaknesses. Though charitable throughout, Bradley’s critique of BT–especially his introduction of victimology–begins far too early in the book. For example, the opening chapter, “Setting the Stage: Defining Terms and Theological Distinctions,” begins with only five paragraphs answering the question “What is Black Theology” immediately followed by three pages of Bradley’s introduction of “victimology.” The reader doesn’t feel he’s been properly introduced to BT before being moved on to Bradley’s criticism. While Bradley summarizes key ideas in BT throughout the first couple chapters, he rarely summarizes BT without inserting his victimology critique. I felt proponents of BT might have been better represented if the victimology construct had been left for a later chapter, after presenting black theologians “in their own words.” I suspect that most proponents of BT will not regard themselves as perpetuating “victimology” in the way Bradley via McWhorter contends, and therefore may find Bradley’s correct critique too easy to dismiss.

I also found myself wanting Bradley to articulate the biblical gospel in sharper contrast to the “gospels” offered in BT. I was surprised, given how radically BT distorts “the gospel” as liberation along economic, social, political, gender, and sexual lines, that Bradley gave very little space to saying “this is what the gospel is according to the Bible.” If there is a revision in the future, I hope the author will give greater attention to this issue.

A Question. Finally, I’m left wondering, “Why should Black Theology be revived as Bradley seems to suggest it ought?” To be clear, Bradley regards the Conian approach to BT dead from inception because it abandons orthodox Christian formulations. I agree with Bradley in this assessment. But why try to breathe life into something so radically contrary to biblical Christianity? The contribution of BT is its effort to raise questions that theologians from other ethnic backgrounds fail to raise. The questions are legitimate. But we don’t need BT to raise them. As Bradley points out, the questions have more to do with application and contextualization rather than exegesis and hermeneutics (where BT situates the questions and Black experience as the controlling principle of interpretation). Given that, aren’t we better off letting dead dogs lie in order to move on with appropriate responses to these important questions? I think so.

Beyond the necessary questions themselves (“How does the gospel of Jesus Christ speak to the particular experiences of African Americans?”), BT provides little help to us and rests on a Bible-denying, anti-Christian foundation. Surely our energies are better invested in consructive proposals, which Bradley gives attention to in his closing. I wish he had given more ink to offering us a more detailed statement on the way forward.

Conclusion. If you’re looking for a premier on Black Theology, perhaps Bruce L. Fields’ Introducing Black Theology: Three Crucial Questions would be a better starting place. If you’re looking for a more thorough critique of BT’s view of man, Marxist underpinnings, and hermeneutics, then I highly commend Bradley’s Liberating Black Theology. Bradley gives us a smooth read and penetrating insight into a deadly flaw in BT.

Responding to Dwight Hopkins

Hopkins begins his review and critique of Liberating Black Theology with an ad hominem attack.  He doesn’t deal with Bradley’s statements about the weaknesses of BT.  Instead, he questions Bradley’s bona fides as a black man.  Hopkins writes:

In the opening of his work, Bradley mentions his research focus on Black theology of liberation (BLT) for the last ten years. The back of his book describes his affiliation as a visiting professor of theology at the King’s College, New York and as a research fellow at the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty. Yet, though he claims his decade of expertise in BLT, his identity and his community remain a mystery. To what country does he belong (i.e., Germany, Greece, etc.)? Is he a Christian or a member of a church? What is his group of accountability—Black liberation theologians, pastors, lay people, clergy, or administrators? Is he familiar with Black church ministries?
What does Bradley’s affiliations–academic and ecclessial–have to do with the accuracy or inaccuracy of what he has written?  In a word: nothing.  Does his biography validate his critique, and if so, in what way?  For that matter, does Hopkins’ existence as an African American disqualify him for comment on “white theology” and “white” politics?  Of course not, and Hopkins himself has built an admirable career responding, in part, to things outside his own cultural and political location.

The ad hominem is hypocritical and, worse than that, inhibits fruitful exchange.  Hopkins’ opening paragraph reminds us that the politics of “race” and political correctness masquerading as indications of authority continue to hamper real dialogue and progress–even within the African-American community.  In fact, much of Hopkins continued critiques of Bradley (he gives seven in his review) are but better-veiled ad hominems.  We need to do better if we’re going to receive one another as brothers and sharpen one another in theological reflection and practice.

Of the seven “strange fallacies” Hopkins notes in Bradley’s work, I want to give brief attention to three.  First, Hopkins finds it “strange” that Bradley doesn’t know that Black Theology was not founded by Cone but by Black Church leaders on July 31, 1966, when they outlined their views in a full-page ad in The New York Times.  Few could honestly contend that Cone is not the father of BT.  Most of the subsequent writers ground their work in the seminal writings of Cone.  Bradley surely takes a legitimate step when he singles out Cone as the progenitor of this field of study.  Hopkins romanticizes the depth and breadth of BT’s acceptance in the Black Church.  BT is not now and never has been the predominant theological outlook of Black Churches (which is not the same as saying Black Church’s have not always had a concern for freedom).  To make the claim that BT has its roots in the Black Church, proponents of BT must engage in historical revisionism, which Hopkins’ statement illustrates.

Finally, Hopkins’ critique of Bradley illustrates why Bradley’s work needs to be more intentional and precise in articulating the biblical gospel of Jesus Christ.  Consider the second and fourth fallacies Hopkins sees in Bradley’s book:

The second fallacy is an unfamiliarity with Black American churches that preach and practice Jesus’ Good News for poor, working-class, and marginalized communities, especially, but not exclusively, in urban areas and ghettoized suburban spaces. Jesus gives hope and joy to these people that God is with them in oppressive structural situations and in personal emotional predicaments. Furthermore, what these churches claim is a celebration of God’s connection with them through Christ Jesus and the ongoing presence of the Holy Spirit. That is to say, despite it all, “joy comes in the morning.”

Fourth, the book is weak on theology. Theology is part of the Church in that it works in the Church and calls it to be accountable and faithful to the life of Jesus Christ. With a weak theological understanding, the writer misconstrues BLT. BLT has never said it would be the leader in transforming America or personal sins. Originating in the Church, BLT challenges the Church to have faith in God’s word. That Word, Jesus, offered creation a divine mission and a human mission. Lk. 4:16–21. give Jesus’ self-identified earthly mission—to be with the poor, oppressed, and the abused. And in Matt. 25:31–46, Jesus tells us explicit criteria to enter heaven—our earthly mission to be with the poor, oppressed, and the abused. The reason God sent Jesus to earth was to fight the kingdom of Satan, sin, and suffering and to realize a new liberated and saved life for creation. The Hebrew Scriptures say Yahweh God heard the cries of suffering and poverty of slaves in material oppression. Yahweh worked with them to liberate them from oppression and helped them to reach a new life of milk and honey on earth.

Notice that Hopkins equates the Good News with Christ’s comfort of those in suffering and the eradication of “oppressive structural situations and … personal emotional predicaments,” reminding them that their suffering won’t always last (2nd fallacy). Then, he contends that Jesus “tells us explicit criteria to enter heaven—our earthly mission to be with the poor, oppressed, and the abused” (4th fallacy). We must regard this as “another gospel,” which really is no “gospel” at all.

Those of us critical of BT, must be sure to keep the main thing the main thing. However useful we may find some questions and challenges posed by BT, we should never leave unstated how it is God reconciles sinners to himself, redeeming them from sin, justifying them in His holy presence, and glorifying them with himself. He does it on the sole basis of Jesus’ active obedience and atoning sacrifice on the cross, through the Son of God’s glorious resurrection, and our union with Christ through faith in Him. We enter heaven by God’s grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone–not by works we have done, including our care for the poor and marginalized. This, the Bible tells us, is “of first importance.” May all of our writing guard and advance this Good News.

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