Untangling the Legacies of Slavery: Deconstructing Mission Christianity for our Contemporary Kerygma

ABSTRACT

This paper arises from a pilot project of the Council for World Mission (CWM) that is seeking to explore the Legacies of Slavery via the archives of the London Missionary Society, the forerunners of CWM. Arguments around the justification of European Christian Mission often focus on the efficacy and utilitarianism of missionary activity, in terms of education, medicine or the removal unethical indigenous religio-cultural practices. This paper seeks to move beyond these justifications to focus on the representational damage imposed on the descendants of enslaved Africans that have traduced Black bodies to “less than” in the body politic of many Western nations in the global North. The denigration of Black bodies has continued beyond the epoch of slavery and finds expression in the absurdity of Black people needing to assert that “Black Lives Matter”.

KEYWORDS:

• Black Lives Matter
• Black bodies
• slavery
• colonialism

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 See Cone, My Soul Looks Back.

2 See Hood, Begrimed and Black, 23.

3 Beckford, Dread and Pentecostal, 95.

4 See Eze, “Race” and the Enlightenment.

5 See Perkinson, White Theology, 154.

6 Hopkins, Being Human, 144.

7 One of the best texts in this regard, from a Christian theological purview is by Reddie, Abolition.

8 Johnson, Race, Religion, and Resilience, 101.

9 See Butler, Liberating Our Dignity, Saving Our Souls. See also Ashby Jr., Our Home Is Over Jordan.

10 See Delroy Hall’s doctoral work that has explored the psycho-social needs of African Caribbean in Britain and the pastoral implications for this community. Hall “But God meant it for good”.

11 See Day, “Global Economics & U.S. Public Policy,” 9.

12 Perhaps the best explanation for this phenomenon in terms of Black and Womanist Theologies can be found in Keri Day’s recent work. See Day “Global Economics and U.S. Public Policy,” 9.

13 This issue is addressed with great alacrity by the renowned Sri Lankan Liberation theologian Tissa Balasuriya. See Balasuriya “Liberation of the Affluent,” 83.

14 See Hood, Begrimed and Black.

15 Douglas, What’s Faith Got to Do with it?.

16 For a critical rereading of the Exodus narrative, which explores an anti-imperialist, anti-hegemonic hermeneutic, see Warrior “A Native American Perspective: Canaanites, Cowboys and Indians,” 277.

17 See Ray, “Contending for the Cross,” 53.

18 See Jennings, After Whiteness, 23.

19 See Jennings, The Christian Imagination, 1.

20 See Johnson, The Myth of Ham in Nineteenth-Century American Christianity.

21 See Douglas, What’s Faith Got to Do with it?.

22 See Reddie, “A Black Theological Approach to Reconciliation” for a more in depth analysis on this issue.

23 See Morrison, “Reparations.” Reddie, Hudson-Roberts and Richards (eds.) Journeying to Justice, 149.

24 See Asante, “Afrocentricity and Culture.”

25 See Williams, Capitalism and Slavery.

26 See Hopkins, Heart and Head, 127.

27 See Pinn, Terror and Triumph. See also Pinn and Hopkins, eds., Loving The Body and Pin, ed., Black Religion and Aesthetics.

28 Pinn, Terror and Triumph, 1–80.

29 Pinn, Terror and Triumph, 6.

30 This phenomenon and theme has been explored by Hood, Begrimed and Black.

31 This idea is taken from Kelly Brown Douglas’ excellent study on Black bodies and how they have been policed and controlled within the religious framework of Christianity. See Douglas, What’s Faith Got To Do With it?.

32 Douglas, What’s Faith Got To Do With it?, 3.

33 Douglas, What’s Faith Got To Do With it?, 37

34 Anthony Pinn “Introduction,” 1.

35 My friend and colleague in the “Black Theology in Britain Movement” Michael Jagessar has questioned the extent to which “Christian conversion” has ever delivered on its intent to provide a wholly new existence and identity for Black people, particularly, those of Caribbean descent. He feels that the claims for the new, over and against the old, provide an unhelpful binary between the two modes of being, plus they are usually accompanied by a repudiation of the often folk-orientated, historically developed, religious sensibilities that emerge from the cultures of one’s ancestral heritage. See Jagessar, “A Brief Con-version,” 300.

36 See Williams, Capitalism and Slavery.

37 West, Race Matters, 11–15.

38 See Hall, “The Middle Passage as Existential Crucifixion,” 45.

39 Hall, “The Middle Passage as Existential Crucifixion,” 46.

40 Other theologians have explored the theological significance of “Holy Saturday’ as a liminal space in which the unresolved search for redemption continues. See Rambo, Spirit and Trauma, 45. See also Von Balthasar, Heart of The World.

41 See Willis, “The Pilgrim’s Process,” 210.

42 See Goatley, Were You There?.

43 See Turner, Overcoming Self-Negation, 130.

44 See Jones, Is God a White Racist?.

45 See also Calloway, “To Struggle Up a Never-Ending Stair,” 223.

46 See Barton, Rejection, Resistance and Resurrection for perhaps the best scholarly, first- hand account of the experiences of Black and Asian peoples’ experience of dealing with racism in the Church of England.

47 “A Dialectical Spirituality of Improvisation: The Ambiguity of Black Engagement with Sacred Texts.' Anthony B. Pinn (ed.) Black Religion and Aesthetics, 153.

48 In using this term, I am speaking of a historical phenomenon in which there existed (and continues to this day) an interpenetrating relationship between European expansionism, notions of White superiority and the material artefact of the apparatus of Empire. This form of Christianity became the conduit for the expansionist paradigms of Eurocentric models of Christianity in which ethnocentric notions of Whiteness gave rise to notions of superiority, manifest destiny and entitlement. For a helpful dissection of this model of Christianity, particularly, the British version of it, see Gorringe, Furthering Humanity. See also Hull, Towards the Prophetic Church.

49 Black Lives Matter is a global protest movement that came to prominence after the murder to Trayvon Martin in 2013. Although it started in in the United States it has become a global movement protesting against the existence of systemic racism that impacts on the lives of Black people across the world. For further details see the following link: About - Black Lives Matter

50 See Hopkins, Being Human, 118.

51 See Cone, The Cross and the Lynching Tree.

52 See Maxime, “Identity and Consciousness,” 13.

53 See Dubois, The Souls of Black Folk, 3.

54 Pinn, Terror and Triumph, 82.

55 Dubois, xxxi.

56 Dubois, 3.

57 Pinn, 27.

58 See Copeland, Enfleshing Freedom.

59 Turman, Toward a Womanist Ethic of Incarnation.

60 See Armstrong, “(What Did I do to be so) Black and Blue.” See the following link for details (Accessed 19th January 2021). Black and Blue (Fats Waller song) - Wikipedia

61 On the 25th May George Floyd, an African American was murdered by a White police man who placed his knee on Floyd’s neck for 8 mins and 46 s. For further details see the following link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_George_Floyd (Accessed on the 3rd March 2021)

62 Press details on Clinton McCurbin’s death can be found in the following link: https://www.holdthefrontpage.co.uk/2020/news/deputy-editor-reflects-on-similarities-between-george-floyds-murder-and-an-incident-early-in-his-career/ (Accessed 3rd March 2021)

63 See Reddie, Abolition, 200.

64 This comment is reflective of the push-back of “some” White Christians on social media responding to the threat to law and order and property. It is important to acknowledge the many Black Christians who have also shared their disquiet at the dangers of mob rule and the desecration of public monuments. I am forced to acknowledge that there are obvious dangers of untrammelled “violent” direct action of this sort. My comments are not an absolute endorsement of this action, but a criticism of the complicity of the authorities in the city to side with the blandishments of White supremacy that is exemplified in the maintenance of a statue of Edward Colston in the first place.

65 For an example of a scholarly attempt to address the legacies of slavery, see Reddie, Black Theology, Slavery and Contemporary Christianity. The book contains essays written by scholars from the UK, the US, the Caribbean and South Africa, all exploring the legacy of slavery and the lack of “repair” or reparations for the horrors experienced by Black people in the years since the ending of this vile institution.

Additional information

Funding

This work has been supported by the kind offices of the Council for World Mission (CWM). This research undertaken to produce this article was a part of the larger “Legacies of Slavery” initiative sponsored by CWM. I am indebted to my colleagues the Revd Dr Peter Cruchley and Revd Dr Michael Jagessar for personal support and insights that have helped to shape the finalised version of this paper.

Notes on contributors

Anthony G. Reddie

Professor Anthony G. Reddie is the Director of the Oxford Centre for Religion and Culture in Regent’s Park College, in the University of Oxford. He is also an Extraordinary Professor of Theological Ethics and a Research Fellow with the University of South Africa. He is the first Black person to get an “A” rating in Theology and Religious studies in the South African National Research Foundation. This designation means that he is a leading international researcher. He has a BA in History and a Ph.D. in Education (with theology) both degrees conferred by the University of Birmingham. He is a prolific author of books, articles and chapters in edited books. His latest book is the co-edited Intercultural Preaching edited with Seidel Abel Boanerges with Pamela Searle. He is the author of Theologising Brexit: A Liberationist and Postcolonial Critique (Routledge, 2019). This book is the first intercultural and postcolonial theological exploration of the Brexit phenomenon. His previous book was Journeying to Justice (Paternoster Press, 2017) (co-edited with Wale Hudson Roberts and Gale Richards). He is the Editor of Black Theology: An International Journal. He is a recipient of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s 2020 Lambeth, Lanfranc Award for Education and Scholarship, given for “exceptional and sustained contribution to Black Theology in Britain and Beyond”.