Black Theology (SCM Core Text)
Anthony G. Reddie
SCM Press £25
(978-0-334-04156-6)
Church Times Bookshop £22.50
THEOLOGY is never developed in a vacuum. St Paul's theology was
a response to the issues the Church encountered in its
Mediterranean expansion. The doctrine of the Holy Spirit came not
from dispassionate reflection, but as a result of the challenge
posed to the Early Church by the Montanist movement. "Practical
theology" is a redundant phrase: if it does not emerge from praxis,
it is not really theology.
Anthony Reddie's introduction to Black theology takes this
seriously. His book seeks to articulate what it means to apply the
Gospel to the situation of Black people. But it is not a book for
one group of Christians. Readers of all backgrounds and social
contexts may find their perspectives of Christianity challenged and
enlarged.
Reddie makes a strong claim, that Black theology "seeks to
reinterpret the very meaning of the Christian faith for the sole
and explicit purposes [sic] of fighting for Black
liberation in this world". To do so, it must engage with the
real-life setting of poverty and oppression which many Black people
experience. It must also engage with our affective side, the
emotions and feelings that arise from the experiences of exclusion
and discrimination. As a result, Reddie's book has not just the
usual summation of Black theology's themes and major works, but
also offers exercises to enable individuals and groups to reflect
on how they approach scripture and faith. It is these exercises
that help him to argue for the importance of experience to
theological reflection.
Reddie never adequately addresses the question exactly whom
Black theology is for. He repeatedly refers to "ordinary Black
people", who are "predominantly poor". Yet he also describes - and
laments - the way in which prosperity-gospel neo-Pentecostalism has
led many Black people into a form of Christianity which he finds
deficient and lacking. The reader is left wanting more explanation:
if Black theology emerges from the experience of Black people, how
does it account for the popularity of a non-liberative form of
Christianity?
For an introductory text, Reddie relies too heavily on
footnotes, and carries an excessive degree of his argumentation in
them. His writing is also heavily repetitive, within and between
chapters, which makes the reading a chore.
Readers may disagree with his diagnosis of the situation of
Black people or the conclusions that he draws about the
implications of the gospel, but all can be reminded that
theological reflection does not take place divorced from real-world
settings, and that if the gospel does not challenge and unsettle
us, then we are probably reading it wrongly.
The Revd Jesse Zink is Assistant Chaplain at Emmanuel
College, Cambridge.