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ABSTRACT
This article offers some critical reflections on the process of contextualising the Christian faith in the Caribbean. The process of seeking to find synergy between Christianity and the culture and experiences of poor, disenfranchised people of the Caribbean is one that has been undertaken by committed postcolonial scholars and activists since the early 1970s. This faith-based work received significant sustenance from the socialist-inspired, anti-colonial politics of the Cuban Revolution and the leadership of Fidel Castro. This article juxtaposes the contextualisation process of Caribbean theology as a faith-based parallel to the socio-political transformation of the Cuban Revolution and the legacy of Fidel Castro. The central conceit of this article is that cricket provides a symbolic heuristic for articulating the theo-cultural re-articulation of Christianity within the Caribbean milieu.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes on Contributor
Anthony G. Reddie is an Extraordinary Professor of Theological Ethics at the University of South Africa and a Fellow of Wesley House, in Cambridge. He has a BA in History and a Ph.D. in Education (with Theology), both degrees conferred by the University of Birmingham. He has written over 70 essays and articles on Christian Education and Black Theology. He is the author and editor of 17 books. His more recent titles include The SCM Core Text: Black Theology (SCM, 2012), Contesting Post-Racialism (2015) (co-edited with R. Drew Smith, William Ackah and Rothney S. Tshaka) and Journeying to Justice (2017) (co-edited with Wale Hudson Roberts and Gale Richards). He is editor of Black Theology: An International Journal. He is a member of the “International Academy of Practical Theology”.
Notes
1 See Mulrain, “The Caribbean,” 163–81.
2 See Jagessar, “Early Methodism in the Caribbean,” 153–70.
3 See Hernandez, “Cuban Revolution and the Caribbean,” 46–56.
4 See http://cubastudies.org/fidel-castro-hero-of-the-disinherited/ (accessed 7 August 2017).
5 “Fidel Castro, African Hero,” The Washington Post, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/11/28/fidel-castro-african-hero/?utm_term=.9705a9d80e9e (accessed August 7, 2017).
6 See Jagessar, “Cultures in Dialogue,” 139–60.
7 Potter et al., At Home with God and in the World.
8 Mulrain, “The Caribbean,” 165.
9 Ibid., 165–8.
10 See Erskine, Decolonizing Theology.
11 Ibid., 121–5.
12 One cannot overestimate the significance of Michael Manley’s socialist government in Jamaica on the wider consciousness of the Caribbean. Manley, a confirmed democratic socialist, sought to develop close ties with Fidel Castro’s Cuba, during his first spell as Prime Minister of Jamaica, between 1972 and 1980. His first period in government created the favourable socio-political context for the birth of the “Caribbean Conference of Churches” and the initial emergence of Caribbean theology. For further details on Michael Manley, see the following link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Manley (accessed 8 August 2017).
13 Erskine, Decolonizing Theology, 122.
14 Ibid., 123.
15 Davis, Emancipation Still Comin’.
16 Williams, Caribbean Theology.
17 Davis, Emancipation Still Comin’, 101–4.
18 Fashion Me a People [Caribbean Conference of Churches]. (Kingston, Jamaica: CCC, 1981).
19 See Reddie, Growing into Hope.
20 Williams, Caribbean Theology, 177–81.
21 Ibid., 180.
22 See Jagessar, Full Life for All.
23 Ibid., 126–51.
24 Ibid., 132–40.
25 Ibid., 136.
26 See Niebuhr, Christ and Culture.
27 See Bevans, Models of Contextual Theology.
28 See Schreiter, Constructing Local Theologies.
29 See Arbuckle, Earthing the Gospel.
30 An excellent text in this regard is Jagessar and Burns, Christian Worship.
31 See Bevans, Models of Contextual Theology.
32 Ibid., 3–4.
33 Ibid., 70–87.
34 One of the best texts that outlines the various “types” of Contextual theology (as opposed to “models” or “methods” can be found in Pears, Doing Contextual Theology).
35 Bevans, Models of Contextual Theology, 70–87.
36 Pears, Doing Contextual Theology, 110–17.
37 The best examples of Caribbean theology that corresponds to the modus operandi of this essay are the following: See Erskine, Decolonizing Theology; Davis, Emancipation Still Comin’; Williams, Caribbean Theology; Gonzalez, Afro-Cuban Theology; and Reid-Salmon, Home Away from Home.
38 The nomenclature of “Theologies of Liberation” refers to a group of socio-political theologies that seek to re-interpret the central meaning of the God event within history, particularly, in terms of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus the Christ. They provide a politicised, radical and socially transformative understanding of the Christian faith in light of the lived realities and experiences of the poor, the marginalised and the oppressed. For further details on the wider family of “Theologies of Liberation”, see Althaus-Reid, Patrella, and Susin, Another Possible World.
39 Emmanuel Lartey provides a helpful analytical synthesis of theologies of liberation that articulates the central tenets of contextual theology alongside a commitment to practical theological engagement with the lived realities and experiences of people in a particularised time and space. See Lartey, “Practical Theology as a Theological Form,” 128–34.
40 This centrality of this concept to theologies of liberation, particularly that of Black theology is addressed in Reddie, SCM Core Text, 1–26.
41 Williams, Caribbean Theology, 31–53.
42 Ibid., 45.
43 An excellent example of this form can be found in Sheerattan-Bisnauth, Righting Her-Story.
44 See Lewis, “Diaspora Dialogue,” 85–109.
45 Ibid., 99–102.
46 See Cooper, “Resistance Science.”
47 Stewart, Three Eyes for the Journey, 139–87.
48 It is interesting to note the arguments that have been made by White editors of popular White owned magazine in the areas of fashion, beauty or the media that placing a Black face on the cover often lowers the sales for that particular issue. This issue has particular piquancy when applied to the cut throat arena of high fashion. See http://bitchmagazine.org/article/when-tyra-met-naomi for an interesting insight into this issue. Note also the controversy that has arisen from George Lucas claiming that he was forced to self-finance Red Tails, the story of Tuskegee Airmen, as Hollywood did not want to fund a film that consisted of an all Black cast. See http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/10/george-lucas-hollywood-di_n_1197227.html.
49 This issue is raised. See Robert E. Hood in his landmark Must God Remain Greek?
50 See Hood, Must God Remain Greek? See also Byron, Symbolic Blackness and Ethnic Difference.
51 Other useful texts to in this category include: see Jagessar, “Unending the Bible,” 81–94 and Davidson, “Leave Babylon,” 46–60. More recent explorations in Caribbean Theology and Caribbean religious history include Edmonds and Gonzalez, Caribbean Religious History, 1–14. See also Gossai and Murrell, Religion, Culture and Tradition and also Miller, Reshaping the Contextual Vision.
52 See Thomas, Biblical Resistance Hermeneutics.
53 Cricket is, in many respects, the quintessential game of the English establishment that was exported to the British empire, including the so-called Old Commonwealth of Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Canada and the so-called New Commonwealth of India and the Caribbean. Details of game itself can be found in the following link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cricket.
54 See James, Beyond the Boundary.
55 Speaking as postcolonial outsider–insider to the Caribbean by dint of my British birth, but also Jamaican parents, it strikes me that the issues of convention and propriety remain at the heart of the struggle for contextual relevance for Caribbean Christianity, as a whole. What makes a pipe organ more intrinsically Christian than say a steel pan? Why is the King James Bible more authentic than say the developing resource that is the Patois Bible in Jamaica? I hope that the metaphor of cricket and the differing ways of playing the game can be a helpful metaphor for re-examining this seemingly perennial problem.
56 This is one of my earliest memories concerning the West Indies cricket team was listening to my Uncle celebrating Garry Sobers’ 150 at Lords in 1973 – I was 8 years old! I seem to remember him shouting expressions not unlike the one above every time Sobers struck a boundary.
57 For the most substantive work that critiques the overwhelming Christian hegemony of Caribbean theology, see Stewart, Three Eyes For the Journey.