Cone told them that, in fact, Jesus Himself was Black, and was, that very day, among the oppressed. Cone spelled out all of this in his first book, Black Theology and Black Power, which came off the presses in , roughly one year after Dr. Cone studied classic white theology for six years in graduate school and had yet to locate a white theologian who dealt with the issue of race and racism in American society.
In fact, he found most American theologians turning their heads away from America altogether, and looking mostly to German theologians to tell them what God was currently doing in the world. He said that most theologians were busily reading papers to each other at academic conferences, while turning their heads away from the plight of the poor.
Cone said that white churches, for the most part, also ignored the Civil Rights Movement and the race issue in America, and that both white theologians and white churches were thereby contributing to the conditions that were giving rise to Black rage in America.
Cone pointed out that one of the major problems in the Black church was that it borrowed white theology, rather than developing a theory of its own, based on the experiences of its people. White theology, he informed, was a theology that told Black people to ignore the conditions of this world and wait, instead, for a reward in heaven.
Cone did not apologize for the angry tone that many white church leaders and theologians accused him of. He reminded both Black and white critics that he spoke just like the prophets of the Hebrew Bible. He also radically reinterpreted biblical passages, associating the Black Power Movement with the movement of the Israelites out of Egypt under Moses.
Cone also radically shifted from focusing on creeds and platitudes to human experience, primarily the experiences of the oppressed. This year, Dr. Cone was born on August 5, , in Fordyce, Arkansas. He grew up in the Black church. He earned a B.
He received both his master of arts and doctor of philosophy degrees in Systematic Theology in , from Northwestern University. Curating Theological Resources for Black Lives.
Home Explore. Facebook Comments. Instead, churches are seemingly engaging in smaller-scale development work as non-governmental organisations, addressing a class-based societal problem that immediately overlaps with race divisions due to the legacy of Apartheid.
I analyse this in my paper firstly by tracing the history of development discourse, and the way in which it resembles colonisation and the perpetuation of inferiority complexes within population groups.
Thereafter I analyse the similarities in the implications and assumptions of early Church missions to Africa and development theory. Once I have shown the similarities and deconstructed development discourse I turn to notions of development in South Africa, both within black and white theoretical thinking and how these were influenced by Christianity to justify Apartheid in white South Africa, and in Black Theology and Black Consciousness in black South Africa.
In this case study I analyse how the SACC has internalised development theory and its assumptions for economic opportunity, while neglecting the need for the mental development of the formerly oppressed population.
Lastly, I look at critiques of this type of discourse analysis, which seek to deconstruct notions of development through understanding power relations. Firstly, I will analyse development discourse, as a means of understanding how this discourse entered the South African socio-political and economic arena.
He said, More than half the people of the world are living in conditions approaching misery. Their food is inadequate, they are victims of disease. Their economic life is primitive and stagnant. Their poverty is a handicap and a threat both to them and to more prosperous areas. For the first time in history humanity possesses the knowledge and the skill to relieve the suffering of these people… Greater production is the key to prosperity and peace. And the key to greater production is a wider and more vigorous application of modern scientific and technological knowledge.
At face value the characteristics of a developed state were of course those of the states of Western Europe and North America. This section of the paper deconstructs these notions of development in the West, in Marxist literature and in the Third World; such as industrialisation, the decline of traditional cultural values and the rise of secularisation. I will pay particular attention to predictions for religion made as society develops.
Lastly, I will explore how these ideas of progress contributed to the creation of ideas concerning development under Apartheid ideology and Black Theology in South Africa. The discourse of development was born in the wake of modernisation theory. When the new nation- states were created after World War II, American intellectuals sponsored by the US Government were looking for alternative models of development for formerly colonised states.
These models became development theory. The theory held that the path to development was linear and could be fulfilled gradually over a period of time, if untouched by government intervention. However, given that industrialised states had already successfully tested and applied the steps necessary for progression, it was unnecessary for underdeveloped states to do the same.
Those states that were behind could accelerate their economic growth through intervention in the form of industrialisation and foreign investment. It would be a society that closely resembled the Western world. It exhibits neo-liberalist economic policy, and has a stable participative political arena that calls for minimal government intervention, as opposed to a centralised government exerting control on the economy.
On the micro level, individuals are rational, secularised, and competitive; and independent, individualistic beings, rather than intuitive, religious and communal beings working for the good of the collective.
As a result, poverty levels would be minimal — as would inequality between citizens, given that rational agents would use their money to maximise their utility for security and wealth. In addition there would be increased levels of urbanisation, as capital-intensive products would dominate the economy, and factories and therefore economic opportunities were situated in the city.
Industrialisation increases the economic well-being of families, allowing them to send more of their children to school. This results in higher levels of education in society, meaning that the choices people make when it comes to their careers are no longer limited to agrarian work. As people cease working the land, they move from dependency on nature for survival which was interpreted as a 8 Tipps, D. And for more on the financing and creation of modernization theory see Berger, M.
The functions of the state decrease. Ultimately, development theory predicted the rule of a capitalist market in society. Similarities between early church mission efforts in Africa and development theory This form of development resembles early church missions to Africa.
Though not secular, their aim was to share the gospel of Christ in an effort to civilise indigenous population groups. They would therefore divide society into civilised Christians and uncivilised natives.
Early missionary efforts were intended to spread the Gospel, but this did not occur in isolation to other desires. Missionaries fleeing the industrial revolution and its entrenchment of unequal opportunity escaped to areas not yet touched by industrialisation. The mandate of God was understood to be not just the making of disciples but the entrenchment of discipline, hard work and morality, in a specifically European way of life.
An example of this embodiment of European values and the desire 11 Baker, E. Christianity, as a culture and a set of values was seen as the main propellant into the economic success of European countries — these were naturally European norms and values.
For more on this see Kersbergen, K. His aims were to have the mission For those considered disempowered, Christianity brought access to those who were in power albeit by force , by using education and health to spread Western values. Mission stations seeking the protection and assistance of colonial powers often worked closely with these powers in their colonisation efforts.
This was done through the spread of European culture to make the indigenous people submissive to the colonial state through the material taught in class and in sermons. Stations contributed not only to the appropriation of the gospel by indigenous groups, but also to their economic, political and social oppression, by making converts subscribe to British rules of governance in society.
This was done in the name of obedience to authority. Under these perceptions, the white world embodied by post-World War II Western Europe and the US was the model for society; not only economically, but also politically and socially. The dominance of Western civilisation in social control, economic strength and political power was a created perception used to influence those who were colonised.
The colonisation of the minds of Africans made the colonisation of their land and economic prospects easier. As a result, civilisation efforts negatively affected both the aspirations of Africans and their capacity to achieve those aspirations by setting up the white missionary or colonial authority as the master.
They justified this one-way intervention and subsequent oppression in the name of progress, and further entrenched capitalist notions of human wellbeing as being measured through material wealth. I would infer, on analysis of Biko that, he would perceive that the terms of development are set by an external source, claiming to be the expert on development, and black South Africans are forever bound to Western or white definitions and norms offered by these external parties.
This resembles neo-colonisation not merely economically but also socially and mentally. Alternative model We now turn to an alternative model that sought to challenge the legitimacy of capitalism through class analysis. Marxism and development Marxist models of development provided alternative views, driven by differences in class.
Being oppressed by the bourgeoisie meant that the proletariat or working class would live as commodities, aiding in the production processes of capitalism. In colonised states, class divisions were necessarily race divisions, as oppression led to the majority of black people the proletariat living in poverty.
In South Africa, the proletariat were those workers in society who did not possess capital and had no other means of earning selling their labour.
This meant and still means the majority of black people. For more on the history of creating inferiority complexes in the colonised, refer to Achebe C, 19 Ibid.
Communism, on the other hand, was the model of the Soviet Union. Under Stalin, a forced industrialisation was implemented that had all production determined by large targets for workers to meet. Marxism, colonisation and religion Although Marx viewed the means and methods of colonialism as intrinsically unjust, he saw the outcome of colonialism as positive in that capitalism as exported on a global scale would lead to a global revolution — and ultimately the establishment of a universal, classless society.
Once capitalism had been defeated, society would have transcended its need for religion as a means of survival and have moved into the practise of communism. Communism describes a utopian communal society governed not by the market but by the collective proletariat. In brief, religion like the state is simply abolished and surpassed; what supplants it is a new consciousness socially rooted in socialism or Communism, certain to come if not very clearly defined.
Instead, as industrialisation occurred, capitalism would 20 Hands, G. This would lead to the commodification of labour, and ultimately alienation. This would arise as a result of the lack of control allowed to people in the capitalist society. Religion, created by the human consciousness, would then be used as a tool to explain injustice and suffering in the world and to provide hope for those who were alienated.
However, religion would not address the root of the problem, which was that people were alienated by an unjust social order in the form of capitalism. Therefore true emancipation requires that capitalism be abolished. This necessarily means that alienation would fall away, with the result that religion would no longer be required. Marx did not call for a return to agrarian society; instead, the linear progress to communism would result in rule by the proletariat of institutions found predominantly in Western governments.
Marxism and development theory as opposites Consequently, although created as alternative models, development theory and the Marxist approach to development had many similarities. Both theories provided models for Africa that had their ideology and reference points in Western civilisation. According to Berger, the main difference between development theory and communism was political outlook. Paradigm shifts in counter-discourses on development These very notions of development are ones which Arturo Escobar challenges in his book Encountering Development.
These aspirations for development and its implications 25 Ibid. Not unlike colonialism, development theory sought to change the entire scope of society — in favour of the economic aspirations of the West. Discourses are able to be used as instruments of power because they are more than a mere collection of statements. Reason and logic are seen in terms of power; therefore those who have the definitions of truth, are essentially in power. Foucault regarded modernity as an attitude or way of contextualising contemporary reality.
In addition it makes rigid the characteristics of improvement such as poverty alleviation in its own social construct. In such a construct, the traditional and the rational cannot co-exist. The Western becomes objective, serving as the standard measure of society. In this way power is ascribed to those who are founders and partakers of such a discourse. By being the centre, the West became the norm; responses by the Third World were required to access counter-theories through these preconceived notions of progress.
Conclusion 27 Ibid. Cooper, Frederick. As per Gustavo Esteva, one needs to consider oneself underdeveloped in order to engage in development.
However, not all are in agreement with Frederick Cooper, Escobar and Esteva. Development theory predicts the move towards secularization as states progress economically, because religion is viewed merely as a means to explain that which, before scientific discoveries, was once unexplainable.
However, Inglehart et al have found in their research that this prediction does not hold, even in capitalist and industrialised countries as the USA, where religion plays a larger role in modern society than development theory would have predicted. Though the aspirations of development are not implicitly undesirable, they must be deconstructed, so as to remove the West as the inherent expert on matters of development. They must be removed from the constraints of Western discourse and placed in a discursive arena, where progress runs along parallel trajectories instead of in a linear fashion.
To this dilemma, Escobar provides the following solution: In the case of development this may require moving away from development sciences in particular and a partial, strategic move away from conventional Western modes of knowing in general in order to make room for other types of knowledge and experience. This transformation demands not only a change in ideas and statements but the formation of nuclei around which new forms of power and knowledge might converge… Social movements and anti-development struggles may contribute to the formation of nuclei of problematized social relations around which novel cultural productions might emerge.
The desire of the black population for lower levels of poverty consequently becomes not a desire to imitate white society, but a desire to progress in the manner one chooses on a level playing field.
The effect of this deconstruction would result in the decline of those inferiority complexes present in many black South Africans. I now turn to the analysis of development discourse in the context of the church of South Africa, and how this affected the formulation of the realities of the populace. It implemented segregation among the population, along racial lines justified by the creation dichotomies in society.
This way of thinking is described by David Botha, a moderator of the Dutch Reformed Church Nederlandse Gereformeerde Kerk, or NGK in South Africa, as already strong, commonplace and influential among the white population as early as the midth century. The doctrine of Apartheid was founded on Christian Calvinism, though it was declared a false and secular doctrine in the Kairos document.
In any event, by the early 20th Century this doctrine had enough leverage to justify the segregation and oppression of the bulk of the non-white South African population. In Modernization and Apartheid, Johann Kinghorn explains both the background and the doctrines of Apartheid. A lack of economic opportunities in white rural South Africa saw the movement of rural Afrikaners away from subsistence farming into urban areas. Dwindling numbers in the rural areas and the imminent changes due to industrialisation threatened the Afrikaner identity and the foundation of Afrikaner society.
All these circumstances created a new nucleus in the form of Apartheid that sought to redefine the way in which Afrikaner society reacted to development. It was against this backdrop that Afrikaner nationalism gained strength; as a defence against modernisation and its perceived evils. The second was posed on racial grounds, against cheap black labour. Black labour was a threat to Afrikaner economic stability because it created competition in the labour market for young white Afrikaners fleeing the rural areas to find work in the cities.
The increasing perils of industrialisation and capitalism led to that same alienation described by Marx. The way to counter this alienation ultimately led to the entrenchment of religious ideals that supported the insecurities of Afrikaners.
However, this thinking permeated more than the church. Increasingly, with the formation of societies and sects such as the Broederbond a secret society comprising only male Afrikaners and large corporate bodies, church members that held these sentiments were put into positions of power.
Those beliefs held by the church-educated began to influence every sphere of society — politics included. With the establishment of societies and coalitions that actively contributed to Afrikaner nationalism, Afrikaner popular thinking soon embraced the false-doctrine Christian beliefs on segregation, modernisation and industrialisation.
Church interests consequently became state interests. As Kinghorn noted, by the time the National Party came into power in , members of Afrikaans- speaking churches dominated parliament.
Theology was used as a tool of suppression. The aim of separate development was ostensibly to give opportunity to each race group to aspire to its full potential. But the underlying 44 Ibid. In the words of D. Lategan: The policy of segregation as advocated by the Afrikaner and his Church is the holy calling of the church to see thousands of poor-whites in the cities who fight a losing battle in the present economic world. This policy will entail the removal of unhealthy slums, the creation of healthy suburbs where a sound Christian family can be developed, the undesired moral conditions can be overcome, and therefore as a consequence a healthy state, nation and Church can be developed.
The application of segregation will furthermore lead to the creation of healthy cities for the non-whites where they will be in a position to develop along their own lines, establish their own institutions and later on govern themselves under the guardianship of the whites. The use of development to justify this was not an uncommon theme; it was reflected in the colonialism taking place all over Africa. In many ways its results were similar to those of the aforementioned development theory; however, it was different in that its aim was to preserve an Afrikaner way of life shaped by Christian values.
Interestingly, this isolation of benefits for white people and the provision of forced below-cost black labour meant that the processes of industrialisation were accelerated. The formerly white, Afrikaans proletariat class became the bourgeoisie.
This meant that black South Africans were alienated, and became the proletariat seeking meaning in life through religion. Black separate development and Christianity in South Africa The entrenchment of Apartheid in South African society ultimately affected not only the economic and political freedoms of black people in South Africa, but also their ability to relate to the world from a place of objectivity. This was because the lack of work and economic opportunity for black men meant that they could not provide sufficiently for their families in an oppressive capitalist state.
This insecurity would be passed onto the women in households, already doubly marginalised by their gender and their race. This inferiority complex would thereafter be passed onto the children, learning behavioural patterns from their parents. A further source of alienation was the linking of aspirations to the white world. The desire to be economically sufficient and to have access to 47 Ibid. That black people were forced into of primary labour because it was presumed that they lacked the mental capacities for professional careers meant that labouring became a process of alienation.
In particular, in the minds of black people, he became a God of the foreign white man, intent on oppressing them through education, labour, politics and economics. The notion of learning from a foreign expert meant that progress was a tool that justified oppression. In schools and churches Romans: 13 was taught, to remind black people of the importance of obedience to God and to those in authority.
Thus, writes Frederick Herzog, the major issue facing Christianity in South Africa during the s was not whether or not God was real, but rather his race.
That Black students were taught that their history began with the arrival of white settlers meant that Bantu education prepared them for roles of subservience. Nevertheless, if God was black, obedience to him would justify challenging white authorities with Romans: This sense of otherness is the state WEB Du Bois uses to describe the state of the black man in an oppressive America: After the Egyptian and Indian, the Greek and Roman, the Teuton and Mongolian, the Negro is a sort of seventh son, born with a veil, and gifted with second sight in this American world, — a world which yields him no true self-consciousness, but only lets him see himself through the revelation of the other world.
Not only were the oppressed removed from economic decisions that affected their wellbeing, they were also incapable of competing with their oppressors on a level playing field. The popular belief of the oppressors was that they were further along the linear path to development. Hence the problem confronting the black man was both physical and psychological. It was used to justify and reinforce separate development. Despite this, in the percentage of black people professing the Christian faith was roughly half the black population.
And by , this percentage had increased to three-quarters of the black population. There was something in Christianity that served as a tool for emancipation. This was the identification of the God of Israel as the God of the oppressed, working on their side for their liberation. Christianity was therefore a double-edged sword; used both to justify oppression and to challenge it.
This is indicative of the metamorphosis of the faith. As a result of the oppressive nature of the gospel preached by white Afrikaner churches, the need for an alternative Gospel arose in order to keep Christianity relevant. One of these alternative gospels was found in Black Theology. The foundation of this theology was black empowerment and knowledge of self; however, the practical way in which to attain these aspirations was through economics.
The divinely-given mandate to work was the basis of self-empowerment in both Apartheid and Black Theology. By this figure had hardly changed. For a thorough and recent analysis from refer to Finn, Arden. Argent, Jonathen and Murray, Liebrandt. Woolard, Ingrid. Trends in South African Income Distribution. The proposed solution to this type of inequality is government intervention through economic policy. This, in short, is a requirement for development intervention; that same development intervention that, according to Escobar and Biko, leads to power being placed in the hands of white experts.
The South African government has not responded with the separate development that was proposed by Black Consciousness during Apartheid for fear of echoing the thinking that engineered segregation during that time.
Because in South Africa the bulk of those who are poor tend to be black, and the bulk of those who are black say that they are Christian, the church provides an important apparatus for gauging the sentiments of the majority.
Black Theology in the South African church therefore represents the aspirations of the black populace for a free and equal South Africa.
In the next chapter, I therefore turn to Black Theology and its notions of development for the black race. This development, however, was unlike that called for by the Apartheid regime, in that it sought not to oppress other races, but to liberate some.
Noticing the inherent flaws of white Christianity, it sought to call to account a God that was the Creator of all in his image, yet who allowed the enslavement and oppression of some.
Through their reading of the book of Exodus, the revelation of black theologians was that God was the God of the oppressed, which in this case meant he was the God of black people. Until then, Christianity had been perceived as a foreign religion that justified the oppression of the black population.
Since the Bible had been brought along with oppression, the interpretation of the Bible was closely aligned with the interests of those in power — white, male capitalists who ran government. A requirement for this capitalist system was inexpensive labour. The denial, based on race, of the opportunity to partake fairly in the economy had its effects on the consciousness of black people. Cone, the father of Black Theology in the US, said thereof that it combines traditional African beliefs with the theology of white Americans.
The key characteristics of this movement, Cone argues, were justice, liberation, hope, love and suffering. At the same time, the economic intentions behind oppression justified denying fair participation to black people, based on the colour of their skin.
Thus, the Gospel does not only bring the internal freedom from sin, but political and economic freedom, as well. He proposed that Christians need to take the side of the poor, and against social relations which en- slave, and this as a necessity and not an option, because only then can the breadth of Good News and of the freedom that Jesus Christ brings be truly understood. Gutierrez thus says that the Christians must become involved in the social and political areas on behalf of the poor, and against the sinful, unjust structures and relationships which oppose the Kingdom of God.
Christians cannot just wait for the Kingdom of Heaven; instead, they need to begin establishing it now and, in that sense, if the Church fails to stand with the oppressed classes and enslaved pe- ople clearly and without reservation, it will stray away from the Gospel Gutierrez , One of the characteristics of liberation theology practice are its base groups, i. In this way, the Church comes down to the people and is no longer lead from above, i. The Influence of Marxism In his Liberation Theology, Gutierrez leaves no doubts as to what is this social relationship that the Church should fight with alongside the poor.
Those include capitalism and the United States of America, as well as their allies in the form of the ruling national groups Gutierrez , The influence of Marxism on the liberation theology is very clear. Just like Marxism, under its influence the liberation theology also divides people into two classes: the oppressors and the oppressed. The oppressors are those who possess the means and the capital for work, while the workers are the oppressed.
So, just like in Marxism, private property is something that needs to be changed, because the relationship between the owner of the me- ans of production and the worker cannot possibly be righteous, as it inherently represented appropriation, robbery, and injustice.
It is clear that the liberation theology is using the Marxist interpretation of society, history, and justice itself, and is providing it with a Christian expression. Libe- ration theology provides a Christian appearance to the fight against oppressors and proclaims it to be a Christian duty. So, the influence of Marxism is clear. The same analysis and the division of society is used, the same vocabulary is used, and capitalism is also juxtaposed as the main enemy of righteous relationships.
A Reflection on the Criticism of Liberation Theology Due to such a strong influence of Marxism, some criticism has arisen against liberation theology. Liberation theology adopts Christian images and events, takes them out of context and provides them with a new, political, Marxist interpretation, which is separated not only from the context of the image or event, but also from the context of the entire Bible, and in this way liberation theology loses its balance in interpreting the Scriptures.
However, that does not mean that it is exclusively on the side of the poor, as is reflected in liberation theology, nor that it is on their side just because they are poor, and it is far from a call to revolution. For example, the Scriptures in Exodus and Leviticus talks about how we should never show any partiality, neither to the rich nor to the poor, although we should definitely show consideration for those who are in need. Biblical justice is justice for all, and not even the poor must be privileged simply because they are poor.
Biblical justice is primarily tied to the application of the law with no partiality whatsoever, and not to any particular social regime. In this way, Jesus fed the hungry, but he also practically drove away from himself people who were craving food John 6. He healed the sick, who were often oppressed by demonic forces, but he also refused to heal them when he had a more important task ahead, such as preaching the Gospel Mark 1.
Also, when he had the chance to take a stand against the oppressive political and social circumstances, Jesus Christ pointed out that it is important to give to the king what belongs to the king Matthew , thus clearly showing that following him does not mean changing social systems. It is to such an emperor, a representative of the oppressive government, that Jesus recognizes the right to be given what belongs to him!
He does not even do it when he talks about widows, who have been even more financially needy then than they are today 1 Timothy 5. Paul does not even ask the Christi- ans to free their own slaves, but rather to treat them with respect Ephesians , and he even asks the slaves to serve their Christian masters even more zealously 1 Timothy This does not mean that Paul is proposing slavery, but it does mean that he is not calling for the changing of a the system nor that he considers it a basic Christian duty which is supposed to prove that we have been truly tran- sformed by the Gospel.
The change in society will come about as the people begin to accept Christ as their Lord, just as many historical renewals have shown before. It seems like the liberation gospel the- ology ignores the main task of the Church and wants to create Heaven on Earth right now, and in no way other than shaped by Marxism. It would also seem that liberation theology divides people in such a way as to group them and pit them against each other.
According to Gutierrez, even the Christians who refuse to partake in the class struggle have somehow be- come the oppressor Gutierrez , How is that affecting the unity of the Church, and is this the example of the Church that we see in the New Testament?
Conclusion We have seen that liberation theology emerged from the need for the Church to define its response and practices when faced with the specific challenges of Latin American society. It is an attempt to engage the Church into becoming involved with the life of society.
We have seen that the basic assumption in liberation the- ology is the belief that God cares about man as a whole, and that He brings deli- verance to everything that makes humans what they are. Vegel: Liberation Theology: A Critical Analysis theology, being a Christian means to act together with God in bringing freedom on all levels, including the social and political levels.
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