Black Christology

            Christology from the perspective of the black especially from African American context is known as Black Christology.  Its approach addresses Christology in light of the challenges faced by people of African descent.  The defining context of Black Christology is race.  We will attempt to highlight its origin and see Black Christology as Liberation theology.

            (a) Origin of Black Christology: 

                        Black Christology developed within the discipline of Black theology, which arose in the 1960s as a religious response to the white racism against black Americans.  It has three contexts:  (i) the civil rights movement of 1950s and 1960s, largely associated with Martin Luther King, Jr.; (ii) the publication of Joseph Washington’s ‘Black Religion’ (1964); and (iii) the rise of the black power movement, strongly influenced by Malcolm X’s philosophy of black nationalism.  It was Malcolm X who asserted in 1963, “Christ wasn’t white.  Christ was a black man.” However, it was in 1968, the first treatise on Black Christ came out.  Most of black Christological formulations articulate Christ’s blackness in metaphorical terms.  But  Cleage argues that Jesus was historically and ethnically black.  He saw Jesus’ blackness as literal, resulting from black blood that the Israelites had acquired during their sojourn in Egypt.  Recent studies suggested that there may be some truth in Cleage’s assertion, even though it sounds to be controversial.  In contrast to Cleage, James Cone favors a metaphorical approach to black Christ.  He likes to base his Christology on the historical Jesus- the one who he was.  For Cone, the most important characteristic of the historical Jesus is his identification with the poor of his time, and therefore he is able to interpret Jesus’ solidarity with the poor and oppressed Christologically as the hermeneutical key for imaging Jesus as black.  Starting point of black Christology is black experience.

            (b)       Black Christology as Liberation Theology: 

                        It is one thing to proclaim black Christology and quite another to give it theological substance.  Many white Christians and almost all white theologians dismissed black theology/Christology as nothing but rhetoric.  Since white theologians controlled the seminaries and university departments of religion, they made many blacks feel that only European persons who think like them could define what theology is.  In order to challenge the white monopoly on the definition of theology, many young black scholars realized that they had to carry the fight to the seminaries and universities where theology was being written.   The first book on black theology was written by James Cone (1938) under the title of ‘Black Theology and Black Power’ (1969).  It was he who first articulated Black Theology.  He was of the opinion that traditional Christian Theology had been complicit in perpetuating a white supremacist theology that continued to enslave the blacks in America.  He argued that a black theology is the only hope for improving the plight of black Americans by means of the Christian gospel.  He further stated that a theology can be Christian only when it is liberative, because Christ Jesus was involved in liberation of all people.  Therefore, Black theology is related to the idea of liberation and Jesus Christ in his humanity and divinity, is the point of departure for a black theologian’s analysis of the meaning of liberation.

            During the beginning of 1970s, black theologians of North America began to have some contact with other forms of liberation theology in Africa, Latin America, and Asia.  Recently a feminist consciousness has also emerged among black women, and this has led to the beginnings of a black feminist theology.