Black People Mixing Religion and Politics

There are legitimate reasons for wanting to keep politics and religion separate.  There are definitely ways of separating beliefs you have about the world into beliefs that are specifically religious.  That being said, it is much more difficult and nuanced than it may seem for black communities to separate religion from political engagement.  In some […]

Malcom and the “White Man’s Religion”

One Christianity’s fiercest critics in recent history was none other than Malcolm X.  Malcolm himself was a very religious man who admired and revered many figures in the Christian faith.  He also was very familiar with the faith itself.  His father was a pastor and Malcolm has spent much time studying the bible.  This meant […]

Race in Ministry

One thing this class has made clear to me is that race is real.  I’m not saying it’s real in any scientific or biological way, but real in the sense that people have different experiences in the United States, on account of their race.  Thus, when thinking about effective and biblical ministry, it needs to […]

Africa’s impact on Christianity

History has a way of reflecting the interests and assumptions of those who write it.  All the great things we love and cherish had to originate somewhere, and coincidentally we trace their origins to our own ancestors.  To combat the narrative in the West that Christianity was founded primarily around Rome by white Greeks, Oden […]

God of just the “oppressed”?

This paper will begin with a summary of God of the Oppressed, followed by two theological positions I want to analyze deeper, my critiques of those positions, and ending with a summary of what I hope will be the main takeaways. This paper acknowledges Cone’s insights on how context influences our theology and how God’s […]

African Independent Churches and Apartheid

Introduction                 Africa has spent ages wrestling with and contextualizing scripture.  It has been aware of the liberating spirit of the Holy Spirit for centuries.  This spirit was in dire need in South Africa during apartheid.  There was a vast amount of resistance to apartheid that came from various Christian communities.  Two questions I will […]