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155
Liberation:
A
Dual-Edged
Sword
Leonard Lovett
‘
.
.
‘
.
‘
.
The
Scope
of the Liberation
Challenge
Liberation is one of those
perennial
concerns that creates a great deal of pain when debated in
public, partly
because we have bad memories and associations with certain individuals or
groups
with vested interests. The
landscape
is
amply
strewn with the tattered banners of revolutionaries who have tried to correlate
properly
the relation of their
particular
cause to some
ideological claim,
in hopes of rendering it legitimate, and often this is done in the name of God.
The remarks in this article
represent
less conclusions
reached, than difficulties and
complexities
encountered in discussing such a concern as liberation. The
problem
of the
subject
of liberation is further
heightened by
the fact that there are so
many
definitions and kinds of liberation.
Hence,
this treatment is more like that of a collage
than of a
mosaic; yet
it somehow
“hangs together”
even though
all the
pieces
do not
always
fit. It may well
be, then,
that it is precisely
the inner dissonance and tensions rooted in the
quest
for liberation
as a whole, which allows it to speak more
authoritatively to us.
Hegel’s
dictum that “the real is rational” is not in good
repute in a day when the
real,
the
authentic,
is assumed to be fragmentary and at some levels incoherent.
The
major
focus of this
presentation
is to examine the claim that liberation,
in essence, is the
product
of an interaction between the Divine and human in history.
By no means should this be construed as implying that this is the sole focus of the
problem;
it is, however, a major one. While
many
definitions and
approaches
to liberation abound,
liberation need not be bound to ideology alone. This
paper understands
ideology
as the human
attempt
to unmask structural demons of oppression on the one hand while on the other hand it is the
Holy Spirit
as God that
provides
the
spiritual motivating dynamic ultimately
to throw off the
yokes
of
oppression.
While I do not
presume
to
speak
for Pentecostal-Charismatic believers,
the view of liberation
espoused
here has
developed
from a religious perspective forged
out of my
pentecostal
roots. This view points
to
Scripture
as a
guide
for all
programs
and
agendas including
that of liberation, with the
understanding
that in order to achieve maximum effectiveness our
programs
and
agendas
must evolve from the nexus of basic
religious experience,
under the guidance
of the
revolutionary transforming presence
of God the Holy Spirit.
Implicit
in these
preliminary
remarks is the view that liberation is not
rightly
understood when it is regarded solely as the
antonym
for
1
156
ideology,
in which case one would choose- between them. But liberation need not constrict
ideology. Actually,
liberation can confer and
express ideology
as
readily
as it can cancel it. The real antithesis of
authority
is absence of
accountability
for one’s freedom. Since
racism,
sexism and
capitalism
are the most domi- nant
strongholds
of
oppression
in our
time,
we need to review an aspect
of our
history
that is still too much with us.
1. The Problem of God as
Holy Spirit
in a Niggerized World
The Grand
Inquisitor
in
Dostoevsky’s work,
The Brothers Karamazov, profoundly
observed that the real ruler of humankind is he who holds their conscience and their bread in his hands. The discordant features of
contemporary
American life all too often announce the brokenness of our
world,
and
provide
us with a proleptic
clue to our fallen world.
Throughout
this
analysis
I will consistently
make a distinction between
“Christianity”
as it has been
expressed
and
espoused historically by oppressors
and their institutions,
and
Christianity proper,
embraced
by adherents
of the Christian faith under the
Lordship
of Christ. Frederick
Douglas was
quite discerning
in making a vital distinction between the two. After his reference to Christianity as
the
slave-holding religion
of the
land,
he went on to
say
in a rather
indicting way:
I love the
pure perceivable
and
impartial Christianity
of
Christ: I therefore hate the corrupt,
slaveholding,
women-
.
whipping, cradle-plundering, partial
and hypo-critical Christi-
anity
of this land.
Indeed,
I can see no reason but the most
deceitful one for
calling
the
religion
of this land Christi-
.
anity.
I look
upon
it as the climax of all misnomers, the
boldest of all frauds, and the grossest of all libel.
I
.
.
‘
.
The
long, agonizing, dehumanizing process
of slavery began with European
Colonial
expansion
and was initiated
during
the advent of the Atlantic slave
trade,
circa 1440. For the next three
and a
half centuries,
the Western World
participated
in the
rape
of a highly civilized
people
as several million slaves were
transported
from the shores of West Africa to
positions
in forced servitude elsewhere. Combined with the traumatic and
debilitating
effects of
being uprooted
from their homeland, came the
midnight
of despair and death for a people branded like cattle and herded like captured wild animals for their
journey through
the Middle
Passage
to the Americas. The
long midnight
was marked
by
fatal
disease,
severe lashings, frequent rape
and a “seasoning period” where slaves were taught
obedience under the
absolute
dominion of the slave master.
During
this difficult
period
of change and
transition,
black slaves relied
upon
their ancestral
religions
for
support
as
they
became
2
English
empire.
157
century,
adapted
to the new world.
By
the end of the seventeenth chattel
slavery
became a dominant force in all of the colonies of the
With the
reality
of chattel
slavery
came the problem
of the status of slaves. Carter G. Woodson indicated that there was an unwritten law that a Christian
would be tantamount
could not be held a
to
complete
as the
slave,
that in effect,
baptism emancipation.2
Religious
instruction
Anglican
Church’s
Society Foreign Parts,
limited effects.
Religious slavery
while
rebuking
as the
temporal
the fusion of
Christianity affinity
between the two
traditions,
of black slaves
by
such
groups
for the
Propagation
of the
Gospel
in whose efforts were
opposed by
slave
masters,
had
instruction which
gave
divine sanction to
insolence as an offense
against
God as well masters3
proved
favorable to slaveholders. With
and African
beliefs,
there was so much
Christian by beginning
of
Woodson
argued,
that
practi-
slave made was to label as
of
oppression
that the black
church
cally
the
only change
that the
Negro
what he
practiced
in Africa.4 The attack
against slavery
the
Quakers
and later the Abolitionist
Movement, signaled
the
a
struggle against
a
debilitating
evil which has indeliblyleft
its mark on the scarred tissues of black humankind.
It vas
during
this
long nightmare
was born.
Religion
became a powerful force for the survival of blacks even
beyond emancipation.
Genovese was
quite
discern-
when he asserted:
ing
.
two,
‘
‘
.
community
Since the denominations could not
easily
absorb the African
impulse, they
found themselves defeated
by it in
sometimes
complementary
and sometimes
antagon- istic, ways: large residues of “superstition” remained
in the interstices of the black
community
and Afro-Christian
and yet remained
very much without.5
slaves,
or
principles
exploiting
system
of evil ever land founded on Christian
Where was Samson’s
of
world which
glorifies
science
We must
ask,
“Where was God?” when black
humanity
was
being dashed
upon
the earth
by
a vicious and demonic
system pecularily called “chattel
slavery.”
Was God in
hiding
when black families were divided
by
the use of the “stud”
system
in
breeding strong
at the all-too-familiar auction block? Where was the God of the Exodus when the most inhumane
perpetrated
on earth took roots in a
under the banner of
democracy?
God when Western Colonial
imperialism began
its
project
the colored
peoples
of the world? In
short,
we must ask when did our world become
niggerized?
When did it become a
and
rejects
the Word of God; a world which
glorifies knowledge
without wisdom: a world which
tampers with the
mystery
of the atoms but
rejects
the Son of God.
3
158
Niggerization
has to do with the misuse and
exploitation
of another
person
on the basis of a claim to inherent
superiority.
It is a
negation
of “World
Order,”
a phrase used to
designate
the
way
in
which the affairs of the world are conducted and the
way
in which
its varied
component parts
are related.6
Following
Edmund D.
Soper’s analysis,
the aim of all
right-
minded
people
is to create a world order which will be truly orderly,
a
system
of international
relationships
which will
bring
freedom
from disturbance and secure
tranquility
and
peace.
He indicated
that racism is based on the belief that the
particular group
to which
one
belongs
is
superior
to others and that this
superiority
is
inherent in the
biological
and cultural constitution of the
group
itself and cannot be alienated as long as the
group stays
intact and
does not debase itself
by mingling
with others. The
argument
he
makes is the notion that racist attitudes affect the order of the world
in its wider
reaches,
for racism cannot be isolated. Like
influenza,
“…it
leaps
national boundaries and runs the
danger
of affecting the
world and
engulfing
all peoples with its
devastating
influence
At the conference on “Christian Bases of World Order” in
Delaware, Ohio, 1943, it is interesting
to note that the first
problem
presented
on the
agenda
was that of race. While other issues such as
economic
freedom, politics,
the relation of land and human welfare . were discussed from the
standpoint
of their relation to world
order,
there was
general
consensus that all of these issues were
directly
related to the
problem
of race and received their form from it. There
was
agreement
on the
difficulty
of escaping the conclusion that of
all the ills to which
humanity
finds itself heir
today,
there is none
more virulent and none which has so many
facets,
involves so
many
human
beings,
and affects so many world issues as that of racism.8 .
We understand racism in much the same
way
as it was defined
by
UNESCO and
accepted by
the World Council of Churches in
1968,
that:
By racism
we mean ethnocentric in one’s own racial
group
and
preference
for the distinctive characteristics of
pride
that
group;
belief that these characteristics are funda-
mentally biological
in nature and are thus transmitted to .
succeeding generations; strong negative feelings
towards
other groups who do not share these characteristics
.
the thrust to
coupled
with discriminate
against
and exclude the
out-group
from full
participation
in the life of the com-
‘
munity.9
While this definition is
comprehensive
it is still
incomplete.
In
any
serious enumeration of attitudes
perceived
to be
“racist,”
power
also
plays
an
integral
role. The
right
to dominate others on
the basis of color is legitimated.
‘
.
.
4
159
Oppression
is intricately bound
up
with
domination,
and domi- nation is as old as recorded
history.
Whether the reference is to Egypt controlling
Nubia
along
the
upper
reaches of the Nile and treating
its inhabitants as inferior, the Greeks with their colonies to the
North
on the shores of the Black Sea in ancient
times,
or the English
and Dutch as enemies of the
Spanish
and
Portugese
in their fight
for control of the
east,
the method was the same.
Might
made it
right.
What is at stake is the fact that while colonial domination was primarily
economic at its base,
imperialism
was almost
always
the result of
grave
unresolved
political
issues.
However,
from the standpoint
of
racism,
both
systems
are
intricately
bound
together by
the fact that distinctions of race lie at the bottom as the most fundamental feature of the colonial
imperialistic system. Raymond Kennedy
was
quite perceptive
as well as correct when he observed that:
.
The first of the universal traits of Colonialism is the color
lines. In
every dependent territory
a true caste division
exists,
with the resident white population separated from
the native masses
by
a social barrier that is
The color
virtually
.
‘.
impassible. line, indeed,
is the foundation of the
.
entire colonial
system,
for on it is built the whole social
economy
and
political
structure. All the
relationships
between the racial groups are those of superordination and
subordination,
of superiority and inferiority. 10
Nearly eight
decades
ago,
W.E.B. Dubois in his momentous work,
The Souls
of
Black
Folk, prophetically wrote:
Here lie buried
many things
which if read with
patience
”
may
show the
strange meaning
of being black here at the
dawning
of the 20th century. This
meaning
is not without
‘
interest to you, Gentle Reader, for the problem of the 20th
century
is the
problem
of the color line.11 I
In
commenting
on Dubois’
perspective, Benjamin
Reist con- cludes that to “reflect now in the
light
of Dubois’
insight
is not to say
that the
problem
of the color line is the
only problem
of the 20th century.
But it is to
say
that the color line is the
problem
that informs all other
problems-quite
a different
thing. “‘2
A more
significant point
that Reist makes in his discussion is what
happens
to
theology,
from
any side,
when it takes
up
its task on the
assumption
that Dubois was
right,
that the
problem
of the 20th
century
is the
problem
of the color_ line. The answer to the question
forces us to come to
grips
with the
problem
of Christ and . cultures. The real root of racism is the
question
of perspective.
13 My perspective
is largely determined
by
where I stand in faith and in history
as a believer.
My
stance determines
my perspective
on the one
hand,
and so does
my faith.
When I look at the world
through
5
160
discerning eyes from my perspective
in faith and in history, I can see the
activity
of God at work where
people
are
struggling
to be free. Where
people
are
living
on the
edge
of human
existence,
one can find God as Holy Spirit moving immanently among God’s children.
2. The Backward Look
.
Following signals
from Gerhard Von Rad’s
emphasis
on “the Exodus” as a
starting point
for a
theology
of
salvation-history, liberation
theologians
affirmed creation as the first salvific
act,
i.e. God
struggling
with human existence
(e.g. Gutierrez).’4
But for James
Cone,
Exodus is liberation, the first of God’s
mighty
acts. 15 5 While
rejecting
Von Rad’s division into
multiple theologies
that characterized his
magnum opus,
Cone furthermore views the Exodus event as
revelation,
that
is,
it was in the Exodus that God was
tearing
down old orders and
establishing
new ones…God reveals that
God
is the God of the
oppressed
involved in Israel’s history, liberating
them from
bondage.’6 Here,
salvation is inti- mately
bound
up with,
tied
to,
and is an
integral part
of
political liberation.
Any proclamation
that fails to deal with the structure of oppression (e.g. political
and
economic)
is viewed as a preservation of the status
quo and, therefore, opposed
to liberation. Procla- mation
performed
with a deep sense of integrity
invariably
leads to salvation both at the
personal
and
corporate
levels of human exis,tence.
Proclamation must of
necessity
shift its
style
to the
oppressed, those who are
trapped
in the
ghettos
of the
contemporary polis, often victims of
drugs, unemployment,
and whose
very
lives are intimately
bound
up
in life and death issues of survival. The
present . political
and economic situation has not made a difference. It is to such a people that the
Gospel message, indeed,
must
bring hope, and a
profound
sense of
personal dignity
and worth. The
“good news” of
“personhood”
is
primarily
for the
oppressed
in
making their exit from
“Egypt.”
The late Dr. Howard
Thurman,
former dean of Marsh
Chapel
at Boston
University,
a contemporary black sage
reminds us in an
early provocative work,
Jesus and the Disinherited”
of the tremendous concern shared
by
his
grand- mother toward the
development
of his self-image. His grandmother was born a slave and had lived until the Civil War on a plantation near
Madison,
Florida. The awareness of
being
a child of God resulting
in new
courage,
fearlessness and
power,
was transmitted to her
through
a certain slave minister
who,
on occasion, held secret religious meetings
with his fellow slaves. The
meetings
were
usually ended with a triumphant climax
by the minister: “You-you
are not niggers. You-you
are not slaves. You are God’s children.”
.
6
161
‘ .
Thurman observed that this established for them the
ground
of personal dignity,
so that a profound sense of personal worth could absorb the fear reaction. This alone was not
enough,
but without
it,
. nothing
else was of value.17 The affirmation of one’s sense of personhood
is an
integral part
of the
pilgrimage
out of
Egypt.
The traditional and fundamental notion of
redemption
must be linked to the liberation of the
oppressed,
in order to
accomplish
a full-orbed faith and to achieve wholeness
among
members of the oppressed community
whose
lifestyle
is influenced,
shaped,
and in most instances determined
by dehumanizing
forces and structures operating
within the confines of the
contempory polis.
The concern of Jesus was “when the Son of Man
comes,
will He find faith on the
,
.
earth?”
(Lk. 18:8).
The
message
of
redemption
must of
necessity
focus on the demonizing power
of
poverty
and
powerlessness,
for
poverty means not
only lacking money
but also
lacking power.’8
Slave- consciousness,
which is the direct result of the
long stay
in
Egypt, has to be broken. To be liberated from
Egypt
is one
thing,
but to get Egypt
out of the
oppressed, poses yet another problem.
For the
late, distinguished
American
sociologist,
C. Wright
Mills, power
has to do with whatever decisions men make about the
arrangements under which
they live,
and about the events which make
up
the history
of their times. But in so far as such decisions are
made,
the problem
of who is involved in making them is the basic
problem
of power.
“In so far as
they
could be made but are
not,
the
problem. becomes who fails to make them.”‘9 At such a time as this the message
of salvation-liberation
says, “rise,
take
up your
bed and walk,
and never return to
Egypt.”
The
Gospel
liberates
by
a
process
of
spiritual
de-colonization from destructive values and idols which have held
sway
over the psychological
domain of the dominant
society. Feeding
the
hungry means
understanding
micro and macro-economics and
purging systems
and structures of
injustice
and institutionalized evil. It means that the incarnation becomes real in the
blood, guts
and tissues of
society, particularly among
the
powerless
and the oppressed.
The burden of
proclamation
becomes that of value clarification for the
“oppressed”
so as to avoid the
possibility
of future re-enslavement to those values which have
perpetrated
and maintained oppression.
Any
form of
ministry
directed
toward
the
community
of the “hurt” and
oppressed
must of
necessity
be
political
in
method, kergymatic
in
style
and
content,
and
authentically liberating. Authentic liberation must be
grounded
in
spiritual
encounter. Here,
Pentecostal-charismatics
may
be instructed w
by
the conver- sation
among
black
theologians.
.
‘
‘
.
7
162
In the
preface
of
Joseph
R.
Washington’s
first
book,
Black Religion:
The
Negro
and
Christianity
in the United States
(1964) which achieved wide
acclaim, especially among whites
at a time when
major
civil rights
legislation
was being
negotiated
in Congress, lies a clue that becomes a sign. Washington
optimistically
viewed his work as the first one which
challenged simultaneously
and equally
white and
Negro congregations
and denominations to close the
gap
between creed and deed.20 His belief that the black church’s involvement in the civil
rights struggle
had
placed
them in the position
of being “untouchables” and
beyond criticism,
is a serious misreading
of black
religious history.21
Several
years later, Washing- ton,
in his The
Politics of
God was
charged
with
building
a Black Power
theology
on the Foundation of black
religious tradition,
an issue
ultimately
resolved
by
Cecil Cone.22
James Cone’s
theological
bombshell
exploded
in his Black Theology
and Black Power where his close alliance with the Black Power stance influenced him to the
point
that he appropriated their language.
For
Cone, self-determination, self-identity,
and emanci- pation
from white
oppression “by
whatever means
necessary” became
synonymous
with his view of what God was doing in history in the task of liberation. For our
purpose,
a more
significant point is made
by
Cone in a rather
cogent argument
which has definite missiological implications
for the
Church
universal. He
wrote, .
… unless the empirical denominational churches make
a determined effort to recapture the man Jesus a
total identification with the suffering poor
through
as expressed in . Black Power, that church will become exactly what Christ
is not.23
In brief, Cone
attempted
to make the
message
of Jesus
contempo- raneous with the life situation of black
people,
a task to which most theologians
should be committed. The
task, however, must be informed
by
a message, the
proclamation
of good news.
Neutrality is absent when one reads Cone. Whoever takes Cone
seriously, must choose sides. For
Cone,
God has chosen sides with the oppressed.
For “if the
Gospel
is a
Gospel
of liberation for the oppressed,
then Jesus is where the
oppressed are-proclaiming release to the
captives
and
looking
askance at those Christians who silently
consent to their discomfiture.” He further
concludes,
that “if Jesus is not in the
ghetto,
if He is not where men are
living
at the edge
of
existence,
if He is somehow ensconced in the
split-level hypocrisy
of
suburbia,
then the
Gospel
is a
prevarication
and Christianity
is a mistakes
8
163
Of greater
significance
in Cone’s
theologizing
is his return to his black
religious
roots. Cone
goes
“back home” to his home
church, Macedonia A.M.E. at Bearden, Arkansas, where God was not merely ontological speculation,
but in fact real. In his
work,
The Spirituals
and the
Blues,
Cone
goes
back to the sources of black religious
tradition to
begin
his
theologizing,
the slave
experience, an
emphasis
which was
missing
in his A Black
Theology of Liberation. When he did
this,
it was not
long
before Cone recognized
the severe limitations
imposed
on his
analysis
in his reliance on and use of the critical tools and
categories
of white Euro-American
theologians
to
engage
in black
God-talk,
which is his definition of Black
Theology.
His
pilgrimage
back home is further evidenced in his latest
publications
with
emphasis
on such primary
sources as
songs, sermons, prayers, folklore, testimonies, and slave narratives derived from the black
religious
tradition.2s
One discovers in J. Deotis Roberts a far less controversial and balanced
theological
road
map
on the
pilgrimage
toward the promised
land. Roberts’
primary
aim is to lead the
oppressed
to liberation and confront the
oppressor
with reconciliation which displays
the title of his
primary work,
Liberation and Reconcili- ation : A Black
Theology.
Roberts’ concern for a universal Christ who will embrace the entire
community
of faith and at the same time
participate
in Christ’s
liberating
task with the
oppressed, forces him to
struggle
in his
analysis
between the
categories
of particularity
and
universality.
His
goal
is to bridge the gap between blacks and
whites,
master and
slave,
the
oppressor
and the
.
. ‘
oppressed.
While Roberts admits that liberation from
oppression
is the primary goal
and is at the heart and center of his
program,?6 reconciliation is the more excellent
way.
Christ the liberator is likewise Christ the Reconcilor. We are called forth as
agents
of reconciliation. Reconciliation has to do with
overcoming estrange- ment, mending fences, breaking
down walls of separation between people.
For
Roberts,
reconciliation is “costly
grace,”
it is beyond liberation, beyond
confrontation. It is not based
upon
sentimental love.27
Reconciliation can take
place only
between
equals.
It
‘
cannot co-exist with a situation of Whites over Blacks….
‘
Reconciliation includes cross-bearing for Whites as well as for Blacks. It is not so much concerned with taming Black Power as it is with
humanizing
White Power…. The cross in reconciliation for Blacks is forgiveness. The cross in reconciliation for Whites is
repentence….
Whites who are aware of the widespread and all-embracing effects
.
‘
9
164
.
of white racism have the
responsibility
to awaken and
actuate other whites to the end that racism
may
be
overcome,
root and branch. This reconciling work is much
more difficult than charitable deeds in the inner
city.28
Should Pentecostal-Charismatics remain
open
to the
dialogue between black
theologians,
it
may
become a
fruit-bearing exper- ience. If there is to be authentic
engagement
in mission and social ministry by pentecostal-charismatics
to the
larger society,
as well as the
community
of the
“hurt,”
the
dispossessed,
and the disen- franchised, something revolutionary
must occur.
Historically, Pentecostal-charismatics have been known for their
rigidity
in matters of social concern and social
justice. They
must now be willing
to celebrate
joyfully
the death of
rigid
ecclesiastical structures and renew themselves
by
involvement in the
liberating activity
of God. With the tremendous
growth
of Pentecostalism in Third World countries and in North
America,
more than at
any moment in history because of its sheer
size,
the movement can now participate
in a creative and innovative role
by defying
the chaos and social
disruptions
which
plague
our
world, by
radical obedience to
the
Lord of the Church.
3. Liberation as Divine Creation
‘
‘
.
.
–
Liberation is like a
two-edged
sword which moves within the humanity
of the
oppressed.
To hold a
person
in
bondage against one’s will is, in and of itself, sinful. It is a crime
against humankind, society,
and God. It is a violation and
perversion
of the
very
essence of God-love. For the freedom of humankind is intricately bound up
with the freedom of God. To enslave and
subjugate
one who is created in God’s
image
is to tamper with the
very freedom
willed
by God for His creation.
Liberation of necessity must be two-sided. Liberation must affect victims and
perpetrators; oppressed
and
oppressor; powerless
and powerful; though
in various
ways.
The liberation of the
oppressed is ultimately a spiritual task, even
though
the
forms
it utilizes
may be bound
up
in institutions which reflect human finitude. That is the reason
theology
must also be political if it is to be relevant and concrete.
Following
leads from
Ignazio Silone,
Robert McAffee Brown speaks
of a
pseudonymous
God who is often found in
strange places. Using
the Old Testament as a
model,
he mentions God encountering
Jacob at a certain
place,
and
changing
his name; God encountering Elijah
not in the usual
theophanic
manifestation but rather a voice of gentle stillness. Brown discerns the
pseudonymous activity
of God in such events as the Civil
Rights movement,
sit-in protests,
antiwar
protests,
and the Black Revolution.
Says
Brown:
10
165
..
.
.
,
Do not look for me just in sanctuaries, or in the
words of
precise
theologians
or in the calm of the
country side;
look for me in the place where men are struggling for their
very
survival as human
beings,
where they are heaving off
the load of centuries of
degradation,
where
that the
they
are
insisting rights of the .
children of God are the rights
of all my children and not just some, and if you will not find
me there,
expect
to find me acting in a more heavy-handed
fashion elsewhere.29
The same
Spirit
that moved
upon
the face of the
deep
in creation empowered
God’s
people
in the Old Testament in such a way that they
were enabled to
accomplish
their task with
greater
risk and vitality. Samson, Othniel, Barak, Deborah,
Moses and others were
.
.
.
.
‘
grasped by the Spirit
and were thus enabled to
perform
tasks that
were
virtually beyond
human
comprehension.
The same
Spirit
moved
upon
Harriet
Tubman,
Gabriel Prosser and Martin Luther .
King,
Jr. The same
Spirit
that
grasped
and encountered believers at
Pentecost
enabling
them to be more effective witnesses also
encounters us as the Divine Enabler.
For “Where the
Spirit
of the Lord
is, there
is liberty” is a claim
long attested
to and affirmed
by Pentecostal-charismatic believers.
The
Spirit
is not an isolated
portion
of God. The
Spirit
is God and
God is expressed in community, shattering and
renewing, rending
and
healing, revealing
and
transforming, lifting
and
liberating
a
people
unto God. When the human
spirit
is grasped and
energized
by
the
Holy Spirit,
it is
given
the
necessary power
to
go beyond
itself
enabling
it to perform tasks
beyond
our
normally anticipated
human
ability
and
comprehension.
One
example
of the
Holy
Spirit’s
work
may
be drawn from the
way
some leaders were
appointed during
the
early development
of the United
Holy
Church,
a
Black,
holiness-Pentecostal
body.
H.L.
Fisher;
one of
the
founding personalities
of the denomination tells of a Rev.
Robert
White,
who had been a local
preacher
in the A.M.E.-
Church,
and who volunteered to
provide leadership
to new
converts
needing
a
place
to
worship
and
express
their newfound
experience. Says Fisher,
I was
leading
the
hymn
when the
holy
fire struck him
(White)
and he cried out and the
people gave a great
shout.
Here is a part of his first
public testimony,
“What I am, I
was not, and what I was, I am not,” and he gave God the
glory.
He thus became the
acknowledged
leader of all the
holy people
in the community.3o
White was
grasped by
the
Spirit
and driven
beyond
himself.
Within Black holiness-Pentecostalism it is the belief about the
baptism
in
Holy Spirit
with the enduement of
power
that receives
11
166
primary emphasis.
While the Pauline view with the
concepts
of
regeneration,
fruit of the
Spirit,
and
being
filled with the
Spirit
is .
embraced,
it is the Lukan view which
highlights
the enduement and
power
for service as recorded
especially
in Acts, that is given major
emphasis.
In
regeneration
the
Holy Spirit
is
experienced
in an
introductory ministry,
but in the
Baptism
in the
Holy Spirit,
the
believer
experiences
the
Spirit’s empowering ministry.
The
Baptism
in the
Holy Spirit
is perceived as being the
spiritual baptism
where
Jesus the
Baptizer
exercises His
sovereign will, control,
and
possession
of us
through
the
person
of the
Holy Spirit.
The Fire
Baptized
Holiness Church of God of the Americas
places
tremendous
emphasis
on fire as part of the crisis
experience.
Using
Hebrews 12:29 as a
point
of
departure,
“our God is a
consuming fire,”
this movement
radically
contends that:
Fire is
uncompromising.
Fire
Baptized
saints will not
‘
.
compromise
with the wrong in themselves. Fire will do four
things:’first, light up; second,
warm
up; third, purge;
and
fourth, purify.
Fire
Baptized
folks are lit up, warmed
When we use “fire”in our name we use
up,
purged
and purified.
it as a symbol of the uncompromising God.30
then, Spirit-baptism
in this context is a radical
.
Experientially
encounter of the Divine with the human
spirit.
God infuses it with dunamis,
thus
opening
the
way
for
transforming
vertical
disciple- ship
into horizontal
responsibility.
Whatever
way baptism
in the
Holy Spirit
is manifested or expressed among
Black
holiness-Pentecostals,
there
appears
to be general
consensus that the
experience
is normative for all Christ- ians, enduing
them with
power
for more effective
witnessing.
I doubt
they
would
disagree
with Kilian McDonnell’s observation that this
power-generating, bridge-burning experience
is the ulti- mate
sign
of the
supreme
relevance of the
Gospel,
that it is the
sign that God is
truly present
in human conscious
life,
and active in human
personal history.
Somewhere on the continum between
“beyond
itself” and the “not
yet” goal of liberation,
the human
spirit
becomes enthralled
by the
power
and
glory radiating
and
emanating
from the
Spirit,
and at that moment
hope
is renewed, for the moment of encounter also becomes the basis and source of
hope. Apparently,
this is what Martin Luther the
reformer,
and Martin Luther
King,
Jr. the social prophet, experienced during deep
moments of personal crisis when their
goals
were
frustrated,
thus
making
them vulnerable to despair. Hope
rooted in
Spiritual
Presence
encourages
us to hold on
tenaciously
even when the terrain of our
pilgrimage
becomes muddled and the need to
escape
or flee the human scene becomes most
apparent.
12
167
Hope
is the
mainspring
of
present
and future existence and without it humankind
collectively hangs
at the end of the tether in time without
meaning
or
purpose.
Our Pentecostal-charismatic forefathers understood and knew this better than we because their
teleology
was clear, thus
enabling
them to endure the
searing
lash of chattel
slavery. Undoubtedly,
it was the
Spirit
who
gave
them the ability
and
authority
to
fling
their defiance into the teeth of circumstance as
they peered
toward the dawn of a “new
day a’comin’ in
history.”
That is the reason it appears dubious that there can be authentic liberation into freedom
apart
from
empowering Spiritual
Presence. The root cause of our
problems
is a spiritual one.
Many
economic and
political problems facing oppressed peoples
both here and abroad are
usually
the
consequence
of
spiritual deprivation
and years
of human
neglect.
Whenever the dollar becomes the ultimate indicator
of reality
and economic decisions sit at the center of the universe,
as is the case in such
underdeveloped
countries as the Dominican
Republic
where
60%
of the children die from starvation or malnourishment before
they
reach the
age
of
six,
while multi- national
corporations
such as Gulf and Western
exploit poor workers in the
sugar industry,
this is the case. This is but a mirror and a reflection of a
deeper
crisis at the heart of Western civilization, namely,
a crisis of values. For the most
part, many
of us in faith
community
have received our cues and
signals
from culture,
a culture which is
spiritually impoverished
and
morally bankrupt.
During
a recent Urban
League
Conference held in Los
Angeles, after much debate and discussion about issues of crime,
unemploy- ment and various forms of social
dislocation,
it was concluded that sweeping
and massive
changes
in federal
legislation
are needed to rectify
the social ills of our
society.
I was left with the
question, “How can massive
changes through Congressional legislation occur, apart
from consciousness
raising,
and a realistic
appraisal
of the needs of persons?” Can true consciousness
raising occur, apart from
genuine attempts
at value clarification? The entire
process
of value clarification
presupposes
that certain values are more viable than others. It is at this
point
that the
process
of value clarification enters the moral realm where normative values are needed. At issue is whether the norms
which.are
utilized to inform and
critique
the value clarification
process
are to be absolutes.
It appears that need should
invariably
dictate
process.
It is highly inconceivable that moral relativism could indeed be
responsive
to radical life and death issues since God as absolute
Judge
and Redeemer
has a far
reaching
concern for God’s
creation.
God’s
_
.
‘
.
13
168
concern is so far
reaching
that God
radically “puts
down the mighty”
and “exalts the
lowly;”
God
radically
makes the
“rough places plain”
and the “crooked
straight”
in
history
so that the “glory
of the Lord can be revealed while all flesh sees it together.”
To the issue of absolutes I am
compelled
to state
unequivocally, “Yes,
moral absolutes are needed and it is the task of theology and ethics to formulate the criteria and
lay
the
ground
rules so that continuity, relatedness,
and relevance can take
precedence
in the liberating activity
of God.” The concern raised
by the Jesuit,
Pierre Bigo,
is profound;
Had Jesus
organized
a political enterprise, taken on the
leadership
of a
guerilla movement,
he would not have
changed people’s
consciences and the structures of society.
And
humanity
would have been definitively delivered over
to the servitude of false adorations…His divine mission led
.
‘
..
Him to his death more directly than any political enterprise could have, for it challenged the very forces of iniquity. By fulfilling it,
Jesus has taken his place at the
very
core of history
and
inaugurated
a new era…Salvation is worked out in the very heart of relationships which make
up life, the
only
life given people to live. Just
that, and all that, is : the liberation announced
by Jesus Christ
to the poor and oppressed.3′
.
Since Jesus has taken his
place
at the
very
core of
history,
then the time is long overdue for his followers to take their
places
beside Him. It means
sacrificing
our
very being
in order to be for freedom. To
be for freedom, liberation, indeed,
must be a two-edged
sword, for
oppression
has two
aspects:
The shackles of oppression must be broken
(external),
while the
oppressors
are liberated from oppression
within
(internal).
To those of us who name the name of Jesus Christ under the Pentecostal-charismatic
banner,
several areas
of challenge
and risk must be faced if we are
radically
to alter our future. For the Kingdoms
of this world have not become the
Kingdom
of our Lord. We must
constantly
battle
principalities
and
powers,
as well as structural
oppressive
demons.
In order to take our
place
beside our Lord the
Liberator,
allow me to share
my
dream. I dream of a movement of Pentecostal- charismatic Christians so sensitive to the
guidance
of the
Spirit
and God’s initiative and
liberating activity
that
they
will know when to tear down
oppressive structures,
and when to build new structures or
they
will receive wisdom to work within
existing
institutional structures as
change agents.
I dream of a time when members of the
Society
for Pentecostal Studies and other
scholarly
and
professional
societies will return to
.
‘
‘
14
169
their denomination, under the
guidance
of the
Holy Spirit,
and seek ways
to
engage
in responsible dialogue with their
leadership
about the church’s
opportunity
to participate with the Lord of the church in the act of liberation. I dream that we will be
willing
to suffer ostracizement, expulsion, unemployment
or social abandonment for the
opportunity
of identification with the
oppressed.
I dream of a time when we will seek out our best minds and talents
in order to turn
radically
to the Absolute source of our
being, God, for
grace
and
guidance
in the act of liberation. I dream of a time when our
political scientists, sociologists, psychologists,
econo- mists, teachers,
and others will search for common
ground
with Pentecostal-charismatic
theologians
and church leaders in pooling and
mobilizing
our resources for the
struggle.
Even
though they come from various
disciplines they
are
urgently
called
upon
to remember that the form of liberation chosen
will, indeed,
be the product
of Divine
creation,
and not
merely
human
ideology.
The prophets
of ancient Israel linked the
doing
of justice with divine liberation. We need to
stop merely debating
and
making scholarly presentations
about
liberation,
and become “liberative.”
To
participate
in God’s
liberating activity
in the world is at the same time to experience creatively that love of God
which judges
in order to liberate. If the Westminster Confession is
right
when it affirms that “the chief end of man is to
glorify
God and
enjoy
Him forever,”
it
appears
that our total
activity
on this terrestial ball should
inevitably point toward,
or
reflect,
ultimate concern. We were created in the
very image
of
God,
and bear
upon
our
person the indelible
stamp
of our Creator. Even human
bondage
has
a way of tampering with the freedom of the human
spirit.
The God of the Exodus is still the Lord of creation and
history.
The Divine imperative
to “Let
my people go that they may
serve me”continues to resound
through
the
very
corridors of
time,
as
God,
the Incarnate One with
us,
is the God who shall be with us till all bondage
ceases and the
glory
of the Lord shall cover the whole earth. For Jesus is Lord to the
glory
of God.
‘
*Leonard Lovett holds the Ph.D. in Social Ethics from
Emory University.
He was the
founding President/ Dean
of the Charles Mason
Theological Seminary,
the first
fully
accredited Pentecostal seminary
in the US.
Currently
he serves as the
pastor
of the Church at the Crossroads in Los Angeles, CA.
‘Frederick
Douglas,
Narrative
of
the
Life of
Frederick
Douglas: American
Slave, (N.Y.:
New American
Library, Signet Books, 1968). 2Carter G. Woodson, The
History of
the
Negro Church,
2nd
ed., (Washington,
DC: Washington Association Publishers,
1921), 2.
15
170
.
.
–
3Kenneth M.
Stamp,
The Peculiar Institution:
Slavery
in the Ante- Bellum South,
(N.Y.:
Random
House, 1956), 158.
4Carter G.
Woodson, African Background Outlined for
the
Study of Negro, (Washington
D.C.: Association for the
Study
of the Negro,
1936). 5Eugene
D.
Genovese, Roll, Jordan, Roll, (N.Y.:
Pantheon
Books, 1974), 211.
6Edmund D.
Soper,
Racism: A World
Issue, (Nashville:
247.
Abingdon- Cokesbury Press, 1947),
7Soper,
Racism: A World Issue, 247.
8Soper,
Racism: A World Issue, 247.
‘
9Norman
Goodall,
ed. The Uppsala 68 Report,
(Geneva:
World Council of Churches,
1968), 241.
IORaymond Kennedy,
“The Colonial Crisis and the
Future,” Ralph Linton, ed.,
The Science 0/ Man in the
World Crisis, (New York: Columbia University
I
Press, 1945), 308,
as quoted in Soper, p. 256.
Colin
Legum,
Pan
Africanism (New
York:
Praeger, 1962), 24
cites W. E. B. Dubois’statement from the 1900 Pan African Congress in London.
12Benjamin Reist, Theology
in Red, White, and Black,
(New
York: Seabury Press, 1975),
20.
.
13Benjamin Reist, Theology
in Red, White, and
Black, 20.
”’Cart E.
Armerding,
“Exodus: The Old Testament Foundation of Liberation;” Carl E. Armerding, Nutley, ed., Evangelicals and Liberation, (N.J.: Presbyterian
and Reformed
Publishing Co., 1977), 49.
cites as viewing the Exodus as the model
Armerding
Gutierrez for a human-centered political salvation,
and resorting to the creation narratives as the foundation- stone for men’s crowning role in all subsequent events. Thus, the of liberation draws its salvation model from the
theology but its
experience
of the Exodus,
anthropology
from Genesis 1. This does not hold true for James Cone as we shall see. Also see Gustavo
Gutierrez, A Theology of Liberation, (Mary
Knoll: Orbis Books,
1973), 158.
15James Cone, A Black
Theology of Liberation,
63ff.
16James Cone, A Black
Theology of Liberation, 18.
17Howard Thurman, Jesus and the
Disinherited, (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1949),
50.
‘8Saul D.
Alinsky,
“The War on
Poverty
Political
Journal 2 I ( 1965), 197.
Pornography,”
of Social Issues,
19C. Wright
Mills, Power,
Politics and
People, Irving Horowitz, ed., (N.Y.:
Oxford
University Press, 1963), 31.
Black Religion, (Boston: Beacon Press, I1.
2°Joseph Washington, Jr., 1964),
Washington, Jr.,
Black
Religion,
1 l.
22Cecil 2’Joseph
Cone,
The Identity Crisis in Black Theology, (Nashville: A.M.E.
Press, 1975),
88. Among the tension
brought
about as Black Theology has
begun
to develop has been its point of departure, a matter which has been
thoroughly
discussed
by my
former
colleague
at
Candler
Emory University,
School of Theology doctoral
program
and at the Interdenomi- ‘
national
Center,
Atlanta where we both served deanships of our
denominational schools. The Cone makes in his critical
respective
point analysis
of
16
171
the identity
crisis in Black
Theology
is that Black
Religion
is the theological point of departure
for Black Theology and not Black Power. A second and yet related point Cone
makes is that if Black Theology is to remain faithful to the Black religious experience, it must look to the God whom black slaves encountered as almighty and
sovereign.
Cone’s statement came as a corrective to his brother James and other black theologians
whose points of departure were different than his. 23James Cone, “Christianity and Black Power,” in C. Eric Lincoln, ed., Is Anybody Listening to Black America?, (N.Y.: Seabury Press, 1968) 23. 24James Cone, “Christianity and Black Power” in Is Anybody Listening to Black America?, 31.
25James Cone, God of the
Oppressed, (N.Y.: Seabury Press, 1975).
Deotis Roberts, Sr., Liberation and Reconciliation
(Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1974).
27J. Deotis Roberts,
Sr., “Black Theology
in the
Making,”
Review and Expositor,
70 ( 1973), 326.
28J. Deotis Roberts, Sr., “Black
Theology
in the
Making,”
327. 29Robert McAffee Brown, A Pseudonymous God, (Nashville:
Abingdon Press, 1976).
3°H.G. Fisher,
History of the
United
Holy
Church
of America, (n.p., n.d.), 5.
31 W. E. Fuller, Jr., Tenets of the Fire Baptized Holiness Church
of God of the
Americas
(Atlanta,
Ga.: Fuller
Press, n.d.),
19.
32Pierre
Bigo, S.J.,
The Church and Third World
Revolution, (N.Y.: Orbis Books,
1977), 113.
17
