Visualizing Christ Our Redeemer, Man Our Brother

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kymberly N. Pinder
Keyword(s):  
Public Art ◽  
Black People ◽  
Black Churches ◽  
Religious Art ◽  
Black Liberation ◽  
Black Liberation Theology ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Historical Figures ◽  
Black Public Sphere ◽  
History Of

This book explores the visualization of religious imagery in public art for African Americans in Chicago between 1904 and the present. It examines a number of case studies of black churches whose pastors have consciously nurtured a strong visual culture within their congregation. It features examples of religious art associated with some of Chicago's most historically significant black churches and art in their neighborhoods. It considers how the arts interact with each other in the performance of black belief, explains how empathetic realism structures these interactions for a variety of publics, and situates public art within a larger history of mural histories. It also highlights the centrality of the visual in the formation of Black Liberation Theology and its role alongside gospel music and broadcasted sermons in the black public sphere. Finally, the book discusses various representations of black Christ and other black biblical figures, often imaged alongside black historical figures or portraits of everyday black people from the community.

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.

Women in Religious Art

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Diane Apostolos-Cappadona
Keyword(s):  
Race And Ethnicity ◽  
Common Denominator ◽  
Religious Art ◽  
Male Body ◽  
Western Model ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Political Perceptions ◽  
Body Project ◽  
History Of ◽  
Human Figure

Like religion, art has been a fundamental component of human experience since the beginning of time. Often working in partnership, occasionally at odds, art and religion form a combination that has been a source of inspiration, pedagogy, contemplation, and celebration of the relationship between the human and the divine. However, each individual religion and its culture have encountered the arts differently; these encounters are reflected in distinctive attitudes toward the human, sex, gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, and class, as well as configuration of the holy. The human figure has been a common denominator in the arts envisioning transformations in cultural and societal attitudes, economic and political perceptions, and religious doctrines. Traditional wisdom suggests that the majority of world cultures and religions are established upon a patriarchal structure so that representations of the male body project attitudes of power while the female body projects negative attributes. More recent scholarship by feminist art historians, critics, cultural historians, and religious historians provides new ways of looking at the female figure and the role of women in religious art including the history of women artists, patrons, collectors, and, most recently, as critics and curators. Further surveying the iconography of specific women, whether deities, historical personages, or legendary beings, in the history of a religion affords the opportunity not simply to analyze variations in artistic styles but also to witness how religion shapes and informs cultural, societal, and even legal definitions of women. While the majority of scholarly investigations have focused on Western religions, the possibilities of both comparative analyses and innovative studies of non-Western iconographies of women in religious art can both inform and expand global recognition of the categories of gender, race, and ethnicity as well as research methodologies. The Western model of iconography may be found wanting and open to enrichment through engagement with new categories and models of analysis.

scholarly journals Contemporary Debates: The Hundertwasser Art Centre with Wairau Maori Art Gallery

2017 ◽  
pp. 5-25
Author(s):  
Imogen Van Pierce
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Public Art ◽  
Art Gallery ◽  
Civic Architecture ◽  
Economic Context ◽  
The Arts ◽  
The People ◽  
Artistic Representation ◽  
History Of

What began as a humble sketch on the back of an envelope, the Hundertwasser Art Centre with Wairau Māori Art Gallery project has evolved into a unique and ambitious quest for artistic representation in Northland. The history of this controversial public art project, yet to be built, has seen a number of debates take place, locally and nationally, around the importance of art in urban and rural societies and the broader socio-economic context surrounding the development of civic architecture in New Zealand. This project has not only challenged the people of Northland to think about the role of art in their community, but it has prompted New Zealanders to question whether there is an appropriate level of investment in the arts in New Zealand.

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.

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.

Psychology and Black Liberation in Richard Wright’s Black Power (1954)

2018 ◽  
pp. 198-210
Author(s):  
Dorothy Stringer
Keyword(s):  
Black People ◽  
Richard Wright ◽  
Historical Trauma ◽  
Political Systems ◽  
Freudian Psychoanalysis ◽  
Black Liberation ◽  
Psychic Life ◽  
Travel Writings ◽  
Black Resistance ◽  
History Of

In his travel writings on the Gold Coast/Ghana, Richard Wright drew on two psychological theories—Freudian psychoanalysis and the implicit psychology of African American literary tradition—to describe the relationships among colonialism, state power, racial identity and psychic life. Dorothy Stringer’s essay notes that while Wright’s rationalism and belief in modern progress often prompted him to question, and even condemn, the local cultures and political systems he encountered, his emphasis on actual and historical trauma (above all the traumas of the slave trade) also allowed him to understand daily life, quotidian relationships and minor economic transactions as political in nature, as continuous with a broad history of black resistance, and as tools for projecting a different future for black people.

Prison Power

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa M. Corrigan
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Black Power ◽  
Black People ◽  
White Supremacy ◽  
Organizational Strategies ◽  
Black Liberation ◽  
Political Analysis ◽  
Political Inquiry ◽  
History Of ◽  
A Site

Prison Power centers imprisonment in the history of black liberation as a rhetorical, theoretical, physical, and media resource as activists developed movement tactics and ideology to counter white supremacy. In highlighting imprisonment as a site for both political and personal transformation, Prison Power underscores how imprisonment shaped movement leaders by influencing their political analysis and organizational strategies. The book suggests that prison became the critical space for the transformation from civil rights to Black Power, especially as southern civil rights activists faced setbacks in achieving equality. In centering the prison as a locus of political inquiry, Black Power activists produced autobiographical writings, essays, and letters about and from prison beginning with the early sit-in movement. Prison Power introduces the critical optic of the “Black Power vernacular” to describe how Black Power activists deployed rhetorical forms in their writings that invented new forms of black identification and encouraged support for black liberation from prison. In using Black Power vernacular forms, imprisoned activists improved their visibility while simultaneously documenting the racist abuses of the judicial system. This new vernacular emerged to force various publics to acknowledge and end the massive brutality perpetrated against black people in prison and in the streets in the name of law and order thereby helping to shore up support for Black Power organizations and initiatives.

scholarly journals Black Churches and Their Attitudes to the Social Protest in the Civil Rights Era: Obedience, Civil Disobedience and Black Liberation Theology

2020 ◽  
Vol 46 (2 (176)) ◽  
pp. 247-279
Author(s):  
Paulina Napierała
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Civil Disobedience ◽  
Black Churches ◽  
Social Protest ◽  
Civil Rights Era ◽  
Black Liberation ◽  
Black Liberation Theology ◽  
The Social ◽  
Ethnic Churches

The article focuses on the diversity of attitudes that Black churches presented toward the social protest of the civil rights era. Although their activity has been often perceived only through the prism of Martin Luther King’s involvement, in fact they presented many different attitudes to the civil rights campaigns. They were never unanimous about social and political engagement and their to various responses to the Civil Rights Movement were partly connected to theological divisions among them and the diversity of Black Christianity (a topic not well-researched in Poland). For years African American churches served as centers of the Black community and fulfilled many functions of ethnic churches (as well as of other ethnic institutions), but the scope of these functions varied greatly – also during the time of the Civil Rights Movement. Therefore, the main aim of this article is to analyze the whole spectrum of Black churches’ attitudes to the civil rights protests, paying special attention to the approaches and strategies that are generally less known. * Funding for the research leading to the results of this study was received from the Polish National Science Centre (NCN) on the basis of the Decision No. 2018/02/X/HS5/02381 for MINIATURA 2 project: “Polityczno-społeczna rola Kościołów afroamerykańskich na Południu USA.” I gratefully acknowledge this support.

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.  

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