Black Theology And The Black Panthers

This book critiques the colonial foundations of capitalism and supplants them with intellectual resources from the Black Panther Party. By highlighting The Panthers' praxis, Joshua S. Bartholomew asserts the need for anti-colonial economic models of social justice that can build upon visions of collective liberation and racial equality.

This volume brings together established and rising scholars to revitalize political theology by examining conceptions of power that work beyond sovereign power. The hope is to reexamine the character of authority by attending to the multiple, various, but often under-appreciated ways that power is exercised in the contemporary world.

"The introduction to this edition by Cornel West was originally published in Dwight N. Hopkins, ed., Black Faith and Public Talk: Critical Essays on James H. Cone's Black Theology & Black Power (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1999; reprinted 2007 by Baylor University Press)."

Black theology has lost its direction. To reclaim its original power and to advance racial justice struggles today black theology must fully embrace blackness and theology. But multiculturalism and religious pluralism have boxed in black theology, forcing it to speak in terms dictated by a power structure founded on white supremacy. In Religion of the Field Negro, Vincent W. Lloyd advances and develops black theology immodestly, privileging the perspective of African Americans and employing a distinctively theological analysis. As Lloyd argues, secularism is entangled with the disciplining impulses of modernity, with neoliberal economics, and with Western imperialism – but it also contaminates and castrates black theology. Inspired by critics of secularism in other fields, Religion of the Field Negro probes the subtle ways in which religion is excluded and managed in black culture. Using Barack Obama, Huey Newton, and Steve Biko as case studies, it shows how the criticism of secularism is the prerequisite of all criticism, and it shows how criticism and grassroots organizing must go hand in hand. But scholars of secularism too often ignore race, and scholars of race too often ignore secularism. Scholars of black theology too often ignore the theoretical insights of secular black studies scholars, and race theorists too often ignore the critical insights of religious thinkers. Religion of the Field Negro brings together vibrant scholarly conversations that have remained at a distance from each other until now. Weaving theological sources, critical theory, and cultural analysis, this book offers new answers to pressing questions about race and justice, love and hope, theorizing and organizing, and the role of whites in black struggle. The insights of James Cone are developed together with those of James Baldwin, Sylvia Wynter, and Achille Mbembe, all in the service of developing a political-theological vision that motivates us to challenge the racist paradigms of white supremacy.

This autobiographical work is truly the capstone to the career of the man widely regarded as the "Father of Black Theology." Dr. Cone, a distinguished professor at Union Theological Seminary, died April 27, 2018. During the 1960s and O70s he argued for racial justice and an interpretation of the Christian Gospel that elevated the voices of the oppressed.ssed.

"The classic text in black theology, with a new foreword by Peter J. Paris and a new afterword by Kelly Brown Douglas"--

A book that reviews the principles of modern Black Theology, its roots and contributions to the Christian world. It also discusses what challenges Black theologians face in their minister and their religious communities.