Black Theology, Slavery and Contemporary Christianity explores the legacy of slavery in Black theological terms. Challenging the dominant approaches to the history and legacy of slavery in the British Empire, the contributors show that although the 1807 act abolished the slave trade, it did not end racism, notions of White supremacy, or the demonization of Blackness, Black people and Africa. This interdisciplinary study draws on biblical studies, history, missiology and Black theological reflection, exploring the strengths and limitations of faith as the framework for abolitionist rhetoric and action. This Black theological approach to the phenomenon of the trans-Atlantic slave trade and the institution of slavery draws on contributions from Africa, the Caribbean, North America and Europe.

Black Theology, Slavery and Contemporary Christianity explores the legacy of slavery in Black theological terms. Challenging the dominant approaches to the history and legacy of slavery in the British Empire, the contributors show that although the 1807 act abolished the slave trade, it did not end racism, notions of White supremacy, or the demonization of Blackness, Black people and Africa. This interdisciplinary study draws on biblical studies, history, missiology and Black theological reflection, exploring the strengths and limitations of faith as the framework for abolitionist rhetoric and action. This Black theological approach to the phenomenon of the trans-Atlantic slave trade and the institution of slavery draws on contributions from Africa, the Caribbean, North America and Europe.

"First reconstructs the culutral matrix of African American religion, a total way of life formed by Protestantism, American culture, and the institution of slavery (1619-1865). Whites from Europe and Blacks from Africa arrived with specific, differing views of God, faith, and humanity. Hopkins recreates their worldviews and shows how white theology sought to remake African Americans into naturally inferior beings divinely ordained into subservience. The counter voice of enslaved blacks is the birth of the Spirit of liberation." -- Back cover.

Drawing on slave narratives found in forty-one volumes of interviews and one hundred autobiographies by former slaves, these contributors explore how enslaved African Americans received the often oppressive faith of their masters but transformed it into a gospel of liberation. This classic work demonstrates how an authentic black theology of liberation today must listen to the divine spirit that once fed and continues to feed the black religious experience. This second edition includes three additional provocative essays.

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.

Contemporary Christian theology continues to struggle with the tragedy of inexplicable human suffering and the endurance of evil. The pressing issue of "Where is God?" in seemingly godless situations provides the focus of Were You There? Godforsakenness in Slave Religion. In this book, David Emmanuel Goatley investigates the doctrine of God in relation to the experience of those living under conditions of extreme oppression. In this experience of "Godforsakenness" Goatley finds an echo of Jesus' poignant cry from the cross, "My God, why have you forsaken me?" Were You There? approaches this question through a narrative methodology, particularly by examining the slave narratives as well as the spirituals that were products of the same era. Both these sources provide important ways of viewing the experience of "Godforsakenness" and the problem of God's presence or absence in the extremities and absurdities of human suffering. Using these insights as a hermeneutic, Were You There? then proceeds to an interpretation of Jesus' cry of dereliction in Mark.