Interlude

A quick and nerdy theological musing (or rambling)

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“No matter what becomes of my faith, I will continually be interested in a Jesus who understands and identifies with the suffering of marginalized and oppressed people. I could not get enough of Black and womanist theologies and other liberation theologies.”—Rose J. Percy (more & enough)

This line in

Rose J. Percy

’s recent piece reminded me of why I started Decolonizing Faith (now Decolonizing Faith (and culture))¹. The first two “decolonizing influences” I wrote about were Black liberation theology and womanist theology. At the risk of simply repeating what I’ve said there, it wasn’t until reading Dr. James Cone (and later Drs. Gayraud Wilmore, Jacqueline Grant, Kelly Brown-Douglas, and Delores Williams) that Christianity made most sense. Not perfect sense. But more sense. If Jesus isn’t about liberating the oppressed here and now (Dr. James Cone), or at least about helping the oppressed survive and increase their quality of life (Dr. Delores Williams), then injustice and oppression easily become justifiable. Because if God, in fact, is on the side of the oppressed, why is there still oppression? What’s taking so long? The hymn claims: “And in His name, all oppression shall cease.” But when? In fact, it raises the question asked by Dr. William R. Jones in 1973: Is God a white racist?

I haven’t read Dr. Jones’ book by that title, which, from what I understand, is a critique of Black liberation theology—suggesting that Christian theism, even in it’s liberative forms, cannot adequately dismantle oppression. Only a reconceptualizing of God or a faith informed by humanism can do that. And I don’t disagree. I was in an online lecture a couple of years ago with Dr. Theodore Walker of the Perkins School of Theology. He admitted it was Jones’ critique of traditional theism that moved him towards process theology (or what he calls neoclassical metaphysics). In another book I’ve been meaning to get to, Mothership Connections: A Black Atlantic Synthesis of Neoclassical Metaphysics and Black Theology, Walker synthesizes Black liberation theology and process theology²—perhaps similar to how Dr. Monica Coleman combines womanist and process theologies in Making a Way Out of No Way: A Womanist Theology.

I know this post is rather nerdy—and I’m perhaps assuming the reader is as nerdy as I am!—but I appreciate how there are folks out there trying to reconcile the affirmation that God is on the side of the oppressed (liberation theologies) with the oft-perceived absence of divine presence and justice (process theology). I believe Dr. Cone is right in God of the Oppressed. I think the theological statement acting as the book’s title is unconditionally true. But I think Jones’ criticism is also true. Which is, perhaps, why the womanist critique of Dr. Cone also resonates. As Dr. Williams points out in Sisters in the Wilderness: The Challenge of Womanist God-Talk God does not always liberate. Or, as understood through the lens of process theology, perhaps God cannot always liberate.

Like Drs. Walker and Coleman I tend to embrace both liberation theologies and process theology. Since I’ve already discussed both in previous posts (I talk about process theology a bit towards the end of my piece on Time), I won’t do so here—other than remind the reader that process theology suggests that God’s power is inherently persuasive rather than coercive (i.e. “God can’t” à la Dr. Thomas Oord).³ But I’ve found that liberation theologies help me make sense of how to be in the world, while process theology acts as a backdrop. The backdrop is important—perhaps ultimately more important?—but the lived theology is more important now because it involves this moment. Resisting injustice and oppression here and now is more important than figuring out the mechanics of how/why things are the way they are. Plus the metaphysical stuff gives me anxiety 🤪. So while I’m thankful for a theology that helps make sense of the “theodicy” question, like Rose, it will always be Black liberation theology, womanist theology, and other liberation theologies that keep me grounded and help me make sense of Jesus. Because the Jesus who was sent “to preach good news to the poor, to proclaim release to the prisoners and recovery of sight to the blind, to liberate the oppressed, and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor”⁴ didn’t ask me to intellectually decipher the workings of the universe. Or recite doctrinal creeds. Or memorize sacred texts. Rather, the divine call I hear in Jesus says to feed the hungry, care for strangers, clothe the naked, heal the sick, and visit the incarcerated.⁵ Not to “go and think likewise.” But to “go and do likewise.”⁶ I think any theological or philosophical system created to make sense of metaphysics (the “big questions of ultimate reality”) should remain in the background. They’re questions worth exploring, but I can’t imagine that what privileged few of us have access to is more important than Jesus’s command to “Love one another.”⁷

“It is theologically much more comfortable to write essays and books about the authenticity or non-authenticity of this or that word of Jesus [or to philosophize about the “big questions”] than it is to hear his Word of liberation, calling the humiliated into existence for freedom.” (James Cone, God of the Oppressed, p. 47)

Dr. Cone and the others have taught me that love often requires embodied action and resistance. Thinking the right things will only get me so far. Process theology can only get me so far. It’s been the liberative message of Jesus expressed through theologies of liberation that have kept me Christian.

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1. I’ve realized I don’t want to write about religion all the time 😊!

2. I’ve since read this book and it doesn’t disappoint!

3. I’m referring to Oord’s book God Can’t: How to Believe in God and Love after Tragedy, Abuse, and Other Evils. As an “open theist” I suspect Oord might suggest God’s limited power was an act of self-limitation and not the essential or inherent characteristic of God that process theologians would claim. Either way—same result!

4. Luke 4: 18b-19 (CEB)

5. Matthew 25

6. Luke 10:37b (CEB)

7. John 13:34