Growing Black food on sacred land: Using Black liberation theology to imagine an alternative Black agrarian future

2021 ◽  
pp. 026377582110329
Author(s):  
Priscilla McCutcheon
Keyword(s):  
Liberation Theology ◽  
Black People ◽  
Black Body ◽  
The United States ◽  
Present Moment ◽  
Black Liberation ◽  
Black Liberation Theology ◽  
Food And Agriculture ◽  
Sacred Land ◽  
The Individual

This article uses Black liberation theology (BLIBT) as a framework to theorize “the spirit” in the alternative food and sustainable agriculture movement. While BLIBT was formally named by theologian James Cone, it was born of the struggles of Black people in the United States who believed that God called Black people to be free, and God called Black preachers to preach Black liberation. I argue that Black liberation is a grounded vantage point to understand how some Black people might find freedom through food and agriculture. In the first potion of the paper, I make a claim for the importance of studying spirituality in agrarian and food spaces, whether or not a researcher is spiritually inclined. In the second portion of the paper, I delve deeper into Cone’s articulation of BLIBT, and explore how we might begin to theorize it as an agrarian mandate including: a call for an urgent food source, liberation of the individual Black body, community ownership of land, the spirit of Black religious spaces, an emphasis on land reparations, and the freedom to dream. I conclude with a call for why an attention to BLIBT is called for in our present moment.

scholarly journals Sort etik med transkontekstuel inspiration

2018 ◽  
Vol 76 (3) ◽  
pp. 21-39
Author(s):  
Carsten Elmelund Petersen
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Liberation Theology ◽  
Black People ◽  
Martin Luther ◽  
Malcolm X ◽  
Black Consciousness ◽  
Black Liberation ◽  
Black Liberation Theology ◽  
Martin Luther King

Allan Boesak developed a black liberation theology in SouthAfrica in the time of apartheid. He was studying the thinking of four afro-americans in USA, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Albert Cleage,and James Cone. Boesak does not argue that his ethics is universal, becausethe validity of his black ethics is only in the contexts where thereis oppression. Black ethics is contextual, Boesak says. But this articleargues that according to Boesak, ethics has validity in all the contextswhere there is oppression. The liberation ethic is, therefore, transcontextual.Another foundational element in Boesaks ethics is “the Black”:It is the black consciousness that gives black people a sense of belongingwhen they are oppressed. The Black consciousness is transcontextual.He uses the inspiration from USA, which is his original context, intothe South Africa apartheid situation, the application context.

scholarly journals James Cone’s Liberative Pedagogy

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 97-100
Author(s):  
Jason Wyman
Keyword(s):  
Liberation Theology ◽  
Black People ◽  
Effective Teacher ◽  
Theological Seminary ◽  
Traditional Methods ◽  
Black Liberation ◽  
Black Liberation Theology ◽  
The World ◽  
The Common ◽  
Theological Study

James Cone is known primarily as the founder of Black liberation theology. Yet for those who were his students, his teaching was equally as powerful. Cone managed to mentor people, create dialogue, and foster collaboration, all around the common collective task of seeking justice and liberation through theological study and construction. These things made Cone such an effective teacher. His work existed on a continuum, in which the liberation of Black people, of all the oppressed, was a non-negotiable baseline. While he used “traditional” methods, primarily lecture and seminar formats, the purpose behind his teaching wasn’t traditional at all. And as a result, he has put in place a network of clergy, academics, and of many other vocations, who in one way or another are promulgating that commitment to liberation and justice quite literally throughout the world. This is one of several short essays presented by recent students at a public forum at Union Theological Seminary after his death in 2018.  

scholarly journals A matter of consciousness – Introducing Zora Neale Hurston and Katie G. Cannon

2021 ◽  
Vol 77 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hans S.A. Engdahl
Keyword(s):  
Liberation Theology ◽  
Zora Neale Hurston ◽  
White Male ◽  
The United States ◽  
Male Dominance ◽  
Black Consciousness ◽  
Black Liberation ◽  
Black Liberation Theology ◽  
African American Authors ◽  
African Black

This article involves a close reading of two African American authors, Zora Neale Hurston, an acclaimed novelist and Katie Cannon, an influential theological ethicist. Texts from Steve Biko on black consciousness and from James Cone on liberation theology are used as methodological tools in trying to ascertain the degree to which Hurston and Cannon espouse a black (womanist) consciousness. A strong resonance of black consciousness will indeed be found in Hurston’s and Cannon’s texts. The conclusion drawn is that not only is there a resonance of black consciousness, but both writers also give proof of a black womanist consciousness that reveals new knowledge. Cannon’s oeuvre also begs the question of epistemological privilege. In addition, an animated critique is registered between these women scholars and male colleagues, in the world of fiction (Richard Wright) and academia (white European males).Contribution: This article demonstrates a link from South African black consciousness (Biko) to black womanist thinkers in the United States (Hurston and Cannon). A connection is also made between male, black liberation theology (Cone) and black womanist thinking, while expounding the womanist approach, liberated from (white) male dominance, on par with all others.

scholarly journals Malcolm X’s the ballot or the bullet speech? Its implications for Black Liberation Theology in present-day South Africa

2015 ◽  
Vol 71 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rothney S. Tshaka
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Liberation Theology ◽  
Black People ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Malcolm X ◽  
Black Liberation ◽  
Black Liberation Theology ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Masses

This article attempts to bring one of the greatest speeches of Malcolm X back to life in the current South Africa – the year 2015. It is a year of growing frustration and extreme dissatisfaction with basic living conditions amongst the greater part of black people in the country. Recounting the influences that Malcolm X had on Black Liberation Theology in South Africa, the article proposes that Black Liberation Theology in South Africa moves away from being an inward-looking critical theology to one that identifies with the basic concerns of the most vulnerable in society. It criticises both the political and the economic hegemonies that are currently perceived to perpetuate much of apartheid’s grave social ills in democratic South Africa. It calls attention to party politics that floods society with propaganda but in reality seems to have little real interest in the social well-being of the masses. In the article, the question as to what Malcolm X would have said about the current South African socio-economic context is asked. It is clear that both structural apartheid residues as well as the pure selfish interests of the current political rulers gang up against the chances of black people ever experiencing social justice in the near future.

scholarly journals The black church as the womb of black liberation theology?: Why the Uniting Reformed Church in Southern Africa (URCSA) is not a genuine black church?

2015 ◽  
Vol 71 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rothney S. Tshaka
Keyword(s):  
Southern Africa ◽  
Black Church ◽  
Black People ◽  
Black Theology ◽  
Dutch Reformed ◽  
Black Liberation ◽  
Black Liberation Theology ◽  
Reformed Church ◽  
Critical Theology ◽  
Dutch Reformed Church

This article sets forth a controversial thesis which suggests that the Uniting Reformed Church in Southern Africa, although considered a black church, is in fact not a black church in the sense in which a radical black church is traditionally understood. A black church, it is argued, is perceived to be one that is a self-determined church which supports initiatives of ameliorating the depressive situations in which black people find themselves. References are made to black theology as a critical theology which was never accepted in the black church due to the dependency syndrome which was brought about by the white benevolence of the Dutch Reformed Church. This, it is argued, had become innate in the Uniting Reformed Church in Southern Africa which still considers itself as a so-called daughter church of the white Dutch Reformed Church.

An Ethic of Responsibility

2020 ◽  
pp. 113-142
Author(s):  
Kristopher Norris
Keyword(s):  
Liberation Theology ◽  
Original Sin ◽  
Wicked Problem ◽  
Body Of Christ ◽  
Dietrich Bonhoeffer ◽  
Racial Reconciliation ◽  
New Approach ◽  
Black Liberation ◽  
Black Liberation Theology

This chapter begins the constructive turn in the book and outlines the contours and substance of an ethic of responsibility. The chapter begins by noting the impotence of efforts at “racial reconciliation” and offers the idea of “original sin” as a more accurate lens for addressing whiteness. The failure of white churches and theologians to reckon with the power of whiteness suggests the need for a new approach: an ethic of responsibility built upon the shared commitments of Cone and Hauerwas, and their mutual appeal to Dietrich Bonhoeffer, as well as the criticisms and corrections that black liberation theology directs at white theology. As a process of formation, an ethic of responsibility promotes radical, communal action to confront through material practices the wicked problem of whiteness, while also recognizing the lingering challenges of whiteness within a broken and wounded body of Christ.

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