God of the Oppressed

my basic theological perspective—that the God of biblical faith and black religion is partial toward the weak.

Who helped me to bear my heavy cross? Who fixed me up, turned me ’round, Left my feet on solid ground? I know it was Jesus! I know it was the Lord! Who do you think gave sight to the blind? Made the lame to walk And dead men rise? Who took the fishes and the loaves of bread And made five hundred so all could be fed? Oh, Jesus, Oh Lord, Jesus! My Lo

“I had much rather starve in England, a free woman than be a slave for the best man that ever breathed upon the American continent.”

They investigate the past and relate the struggles of the apostles and the Fathers to our present struggles. Thus they become defenders of the faith, showing its reasonableness, its “fittingness” for the oppressed community now.

the death of the man on the tree has radical implications for those who are enslaved, lynched, and ghettoized in the name of God and country. In order to do theology from that standpoint, they must ask the right questions and then go to the right sources for the answers. The right questions are always related to the basic question: What has the gos

It is impossible to interpret the Scripture correctly and thus understand Jesus aright unless the interpretation is done in the light of the consciousness of the oppressed in their struggle for liberation.

I first observed this faith as a child in the lives of black women and men of Bearden, Arkansas. They affirmed their dignity as human beings against great odds as they held on to faith in Jesus’ cross—the belief that his suffering and death was for their salvation. For them, salvation meant that

context decides not only the questions we address to God but also the mode or form of the answers given to the questions. That is the central thesis of this book. And I intend to illustrate it through selected theological themes, with particular reference to the contrasting ways that black and white people think about God.

It is the ability of black people to express the tragic side of social existence but also their refusal to be imprisoned by its limitations.