Diversity, Difference, and Otherness: African American Experience in Contemporary Black Liberation Theology

Black liberation theology as an academic discipline in the late 1960s was initially conceived, interpreted, and articulated as Christian theology that characterized material and spiritual liberation from oppression as the primary aim, task, and meaning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. This Black theology determined to interpret the gospel message in light of black experience in a system of white racism in the United States. This article raises the question: What is a more holistic, comprehensive, inclusive and nuanced depiction of African American experience as a theological source for doing contemporary Black theology in the North American context? To avoid representing the black experience in the US as one-dimensional, overly racialized, and monolithic, this work resists androcentrism, outdated racial reasoning and logic, reductionism, and stereotypical social constructions that falsely circumscribe, essentialize, and totalize the theological representation of black experience. Rooted in the diversity, difference, and otherness found within the African American community, this contemporary Black theology of liberation reframes black experience in terms of the inclusive justice and subjective freedom of the gospel message. It seeks to graciously affirm, honor, and uplift the inherent dignity, integrity, and worth of Blackness, all Black lives, and each Black life.