“To Struggle Up a Never-Ending Stair”

Theodicy and the Failure It Gifts to Black Liberation Theology

Datos Bibliográficos

ID20209740
AutoresJamall A Calloway (0000-0003-4722-7846, University of San Diego, autor de correspondencia)
Año2020
Volumen18
Número3
Páginas223-245
Fecha de publicación2020-09-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaBlack Theology (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1476-9948 • E-ISSN: 1743-1670
EditorialInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/14769948.2020.1826652
OpenAlexW3093948074
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas6
Referencias citadas14

There has been much criticism – and an overall unfortunate dismissal – of William R. Jones' Is God A White Racist?: A Preamble to Black Theology (1973) in the literature of Black liberation theology. What is undertheorized, however, is the constructive possibilities of Jones' work. Analyzing the theological debate between Jones and James H. Cone provides us with the necessary material in order to construct a Black theology that commences with the assumptions of Jones' theodicy. I argue that theodicy is a useful “controlling category” for Black liberation theology, but only – and here I am following Kant – as a result of how its collapses rational arguments for believing in God/liberation. And it is precisely this failure that makes it profoundly useful as an avenue into understanding the contours of “Black faith” that undergirds Black liberation theology

Black theology · Criticism · Dismissal · Liberation theology · Political science · Preamble · Theodicy · Theology · Law · Pentecostalism and Christianity Studies · Philosophy · Race, History, and American Society · Religious studies · Theological Perspectives and Practices