Summary and Analysis 
of Black Theology
by David Beutel

Oppressive racist social policies have dominated the experience of blacks in the United States and South Africa for several hundred years. In the twentieth century, blacks have taken strong action to fight against the oppressive systems of segregation in the United States and apartheid in South Africa. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, black Christians initiated a new response to the oppression they faced: Black theology. Black Theology is very inclusive term, referring to the diverse work of black nationalist separatists, Marxists, and non-racialist integrationists. The common thread uniting Black Theology is the attempt to relate Christianity to the black experience and political-cultural aims. According to scholar Dwight Hopkins, “Though black theologians are at variance regarding their shades of black theology, nevertheless all would agree that the gospel of Jesus Christ has the potential to bring political and cultural freedom to the black poor” (Hopkins 166). This study, which relies heavily on Hopkins’ work, will investigate the rise of Black Theology, the specific theologies of the most prominent black theologians, and the broad themes of Black Theology. A comparative analysis of Black Theology in the United States verses in South Africa and a critical appraisal of Black Theology as an expression of Christianity will follow the expository section. Though there is much Christian content in Black Theology which Christians may wholeheartedly affirm and applaud, there is also much non-Christian content which Christians cannot accept.

Black Theology arose in the United States in 1966. Its historical background begins with Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Civil Rights Movement. Many of the black pastors who later became involved in Black Theology participated in King’s movement. However, even after the passage of the Civil Rights Acts of 1957, 1960, and 1964, most poor blacks still suffered poverty, injustice, and oppression. Many pastors, disillusioned by the meager gains King’s movement won for most blacks, were quickly drawn to the Black Power movement. Black Power began when the recently-elected president of the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Stokely Carmichael, spoke in favor of black separatism at the Meredith March against Fear in Greenwood, Mississippi, in June 1966. According to Carmichael, Black Power was the “only viable hope” for blacks, presenting the “last reasonable opportunity for [American] society to work out its racial problems short of prolonged destructive guerrilla warfare” (Carmichael vi). Carmichael’s Black Power vision called for blacks to regroup as a people in order to protect themselves from corruption and dominance by white society, including white liberals, and to fight for political freedoms. Carmichael was not clear entirely clear about the goal of Black Power. At times, he argued for pluralistic integration into the existing American state, as in this passage: “Before a group can enter the open society, it must first close ranks. . . . [G]roup solidarity is necessary before a group can operate effectively from a bargaining position of strength in a pluralistic society” (Carmichael 44). At other times, though, he called for blacks to overthrow the existing American system, stating, “Our view is that, given the illegitimacy of the system, we cannot then proceed to transform that system with existing structures” (Carmichael 42). This ambiguity carried over into Black Theology as well. Carmichael’s revolutionary tendencies and willingness to use violence, drew widespread and harsh criticism in the American Press.

Meanwhile, many black pastors had joined forces, creating the National Committee of Negro Clergymen (NCNC). They published a full-page Black Power statement in the New York Times on July 31, 1966 supporting Carmichael. According to Rev. Leon Watts, a founder of the Committee, “The NCNC had its beginnings in response to the way in which the press responded [rabidly] to Stokely Carmichael’s call for Black Power on the Meredith March” (Hopkins 17). In their statement, the NCNC followed Carmichael in advocating a qualified integrationism, i.e. reconciliation on equal terms only. The statement declared,

A more equal sharing of power is precisely what is required as the precondition of authentic human interaction. . . . Without this capacity to participate with power—i.e., to have some organized political and economic strength to really influence people with whom one interacts—integration is not meaningful. . . . Negroes need power in order to participate more effectively at all levels of the life of the nation (Wilmore 25, 26, 27).

Malcolm X and the Black Muslims provided additional motivation for black Christians to come together in advocacy of Black Power. As a Muslim, Malcolm X challenged black Christians to formulate a radical response to white oppression to demonstrate that their religion was not inherently a white religion, especially when he labeled Christianity as a “white man’s religion.” Huey Newton, a minister of the Black Panther Party, further influenced the political wing of American Black Theology by teaching that a cultural focus would never help achieve economic or political liberation. Conversely, black cultural advocates like Ron Karenga and LeRoi Jones, influenced the cultural wing of American Black Theology, arguing, “We must free ourselves culturally before we succeed politically” (Hopkins 15).

In South Africa, the historical background of Black Theology reaches back to the beginning of the Independent Church Movement in the late 1800s. Numerous Africans dissatisfied with the white denominations, seceded and formed independent churches which sought to integrate Christianity and traditional African ways. Members of the independent churches in Zululand combined African religion with Christianity in a decidedly syncretistic religion. They viewed Moses as the main character in the Bible because he acted as liberator and giver of detailed taboos. Similarly, they considered John the Baptist the main New Testament character, as he personified values of the old African order. A number of prophets arose among the Independent Church Movement who proclaimed themselves to be black messiahs and claimed to have risen from the dead. Some taught that the black Christ in heaven would guard the gate and turn away whites (Sundkler 290). Some even claimed that “another God had another Son in heaven, and that Jesus, the white Christ, had been driven out of heaven because of his jealousy” (Sundkler 281). The most famous prophet was Isaiah Shembe, who led a sect called the Nazarites, claimed to be the Creator, and died in 1935 (Sundkler 281). According to missionary Bengt Sundkler, the “Bantu heritage is really taken as the standard by which to judge of Bible interpretation. . . . The Old Testament forms the foundation of the belief of these churches” (Sundkler 277). In many Bantu creeds, the Father and the spirit are mentioned, but not Christ, whose place is taken by the local Bantu prophet. The Independent churches proliferated with remarkable speed; by 1970, there were over three thousand churches, and about 6 million of the 43 million Christians in Africa were members of these churches (Kretzschmar 44).

Similar, but less radical combinations of Christianity and African culture were attempted in the 1960s as part of African Theology, a movement dominated by Harry Sawyerr (Sierra Leone), E Bolaji Idowu (Nigeria), John Mbiti (Kenya), and Kwesi Dickson (Ghana) (Kretzschmar 16). African theology, like the Independent Church Movement, heavily influenced the rise of the Africanizationist aspects of Black Theology. Additionally, post-colonial African Independence Movements, especially that of Ghana, led South African blacks in South Africa to consider more separatist ideas, encouraging the development of Black Theology. Also, the American Black Power exerted a very important influence on South African blacks by advocating themes which would prominent in Black Consciousness and Black Theology.

The Black Consciousness movement, led by Steve Biko, head of the South African Students’ Organization (SASO), was the immediate context in which Black Theology was born. Black Consciousness and Black Theology developed closely together, with Black Consciousness provoking black Christians to think about black identity with respect to Christianity and Black Theology bringing a strong religious undergirding and driving force to Black Consciousness (Kretzschmar 61-62). Assuming the motto, “Black man, you are on your own,” Black Consciousness refused to cooperate with white liberals, whom Biko accused of “claiming a ‘monopoly on intelligence and moral judgment’” (Biko 35). The goal of Black Consciousness was to restore the identity and integrity to blacks. Biko argued that “the most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed,” and he fought avidly for the freedom of black minds (Biko 82). In comparison to the American Black Power movement, Black Consciousness was concerned much more with psychological liberty and black pride than with political liberation, as the former was far more realistic at the time in South Africa.

A final cause behind the birth of Black Theology in South Africa was the extreme white repression demonstrated most forcefully in the Sharpeville and Soweto Massacres. In March 1960, a crowd assembled in defiance of the pass laws in front of the Sharpeville police station. Police fired on them, killing 69 and wounding 178. In June 1976, police fired on black students in Soweto protesting the mandatory use of Afrikaans for secondary schools. In the next two days, the police killed over 500 blacks and wounded thousands.

The seventeen black theologians whose work has been most important can be grouped conveniently and instructively according to their country (the United States or South Africa) and their emphasis on either cultural or political themes. As Hopkins explains, politically-dominated Black Theology focuses on the political liberation of blacks and culturally-dominated Black Theology focuses on black culture as its primary source (Hopkins 3). We will begin with American political black theologians.

Albert B. Cleage is the most radical black nationalist among the most prominent black theologians. As historian George Fredrickson explains,

[Cleage] attempted to outdo Elijah Muhammed as a theorist of black supremacy by arguing that the Jews of the Bible were black people, that Christ was a black messiah who had come to save his chosen people, and that contemporary white Christians and Jews had usurped a heritage that properly belonged to blacks alone” (Fredrickson 304).

Cleage, a close friend of Malcolm X, believed the black church should lead black people in building a black nation, just as Christ led the Black Nation of Israel against the white Roman oppressors to win a separate black polity. Repudiating reconciliation with whites, he taught that the Church and the black liberation movement were equivalent and coextensive. Cleage, pastor of the Shrine of the Black Madonna, claimed that Jesus was the messiah by virtue of his fighting for the black nation. Cleage aimed at achieving paradise on earth through a nationalist holy war. He created a Black Christian Nationalist Creed to replace the traditional creeds, baptized his followers into the “hub” of the black revolution (the black nationalist church), and offered communion to signify individual and collective willingness to shed blood and sacrifice its body for the cause of the black nation.

James H. Cone, the most important and influential black theologian both in the United States and in South Africa, wrote the first systematic scholarly Black Theology text, Black Theology and Black Power, published in 1969. Political liberation at all costs was Cone’s main theme, though he also devoted careful attention to Black Consciousness, insisting that blacks be empowered to “say Yes to [their] own ‘black being’” (Cone 8). Similarly, he states, “Freedom . . . is what happens to a man’s being. It has nothing to do with voting, marching, picketing, or rioting—though all may be manifestations of it” (28). In the most famous passage of the book, Cone wrote, “Christianity is not alien to Black Power; it is Black Power” (Cone 38). For Cone to say “Christ is black” meant that Christ has identified in twentieth century America with the oppressed blacks, for “Jesus is where the oppressed are and continues his work of liberation there” (Cone 38). Cone asserted that “Jesus is not for all, but for the oppressed, the poor and unwanted, against oppressors” in all time places and time periods (Fredrickson 306). Cone wrote to blacks only, stating that whites should be neither loved nor hated, but completely ignored; the white church was an unchristian manifestation of the Antichrist which could be saved only by repentance (Cone 73). Cone did refer to eventual racial reconciliation on equal terms, but this was not a primary emphasis. In his theology, Cone took as his test for right doctrine the “common experience among black people in America” (Cone 120).

J. Deotis Roberts is the American black theologian most like the South African black theologians in that he emphasized reconciliation and multi-racial fellowship as “the goal of Black Theology” (Hopkins 48, 50). Hopkins has described his work as “Black Theology of Balance,” i.e. balance between liberation and reconciliation, and between King’s civil rights movement and Black Power. Roberts, an ordained Baptist, wrote,

Reconciliation can only take place when blacks as well as whites are free to affirm their authentic selfhood and peoplehood. There can be no Christian reconciliation between oppressors and oppressed. We are called to Christian maturity in the body of Christ. The new humanity in the fellowship of believers requires that all God’s children be free and equal . . . The only Christian way in race relations is a liberating experience for the white oppressor as well as for the black oppressed (Kretzschmar 18).

Black liberation, for Roberts, is a means to the true end of racial reconciliation.

William R. Jones is perhaps even more radical than Cleage. According to Jones, a Unitarian Universalist minister and professor, the history of racism is proof that “God is a white racist.” For Jones, blacks really are on their own; even God is on the other side. Jones advocates replacing divine sovereignty with secular humanism, and that blacks fight actively for their political liberation. As a Unitarian, Roberts sees nothing essential about Christianity and tries to include non-Christians in the liberation movement, identifying black faith with “the Spirit of Liberation in their midst” (Hopkins 59).

Next, we will consider the work of the cultural wing of American Black Theology. The cultural wing accused the political wing of borrowing too heavily from white sources instead of relying on black sources, which is understandable given the constant quotations from Barth, Kierkegaard, Pannenburg, and Bonhoeffer in Cone’s book. The single-most important figure in this movement is Gayraud S. Wilmore, who co-edited with James Cone the standard Black Theology textbook, Black Theology: A Documentary History, 1966-1979. Wilmore considered black Christianity a subset of black religious thought. He looked to lower-class folk religion, African religion, black sermons and leaders, and slavery-based African-American religion as sources for his Black Theology.

Charles H. Long insisted that Black Theology rely completely on black religious language and move away from its Christian sources. According to Long, Christianity is inherently a domineering white power discourse. Long attacks Cone and Cleage as “apologetic theologians,” trying to articulate their message as part of Christianity, which is bound to backfire, since Christianity is a white power discourse.

Cecil W. Cone looks to black conversion experiences as the sources for his theology. The essence of black religion, which entails but supersedes Christianity, is the encounter with the “Almighty Sovereign God of Africa.” Spiritual conversion through this encounter is the precondition for political liberation. The freedom struggle is important, should be directed by black religion, but is not itself the essence of black religion. Therefore, the black church, rather than the secular Black Power movement, should lead the black liberation struggle.

Vincent Harding, a Mennonite, protested against blacks using white categories to handle their religious experiences. Theology and the attempt to categorize religious experience is a Euro-American religious phenomenon; blacks should instead enjoy their spirituality completely independently of theology.

As we continue our investigation by considering South African Black Theology, it will again be helpful to group the theologians by political and cultural emphases. Among the South African political wing, Manas Buthelezi, “the Father of contemporary Black Theology in South Africa” is probably the most prominent (Hopkins 29). Like Roberts, Buthelezi sought racial fellowship. Accordingly, he viewed any theology which blocked black-white contact in society as a sacrilegious attack on God’s agape love. Buthelezi wrote that the black man

should now cease playing the passive role of the white man’s victim. It is now time for the black man to evangelise and humanise the white man. The realisation of this will not depend on the white man’s approval but solely on the black man’s love for the white man (Kretzschmar 64).

Blacks must out of love teach whites that blacks bear God’s image. They should follow Christ in cross-bearing, i.e. painfully being with others, even when others have turned their back.

Allan A. Boesak’s Farewell to Innocence, the first South African book of Black Theology, echoed James Cone: “Liberation is not only ‘part of’ the gospel or ‘consistent with’ the gospel; it is the content and framework of the gospel of Jesus Christ” (Boesak 10). Boesak, a member of the Dutch Reformed Church, more than any other Black Theologian, insisted on fidelity to the Biblical text. Meanwhile, he sought to undermine the Dutch Reformed Church’s pro-apartheid position, aiming at the goal of racial reconciliation and fellowship. The Word of God, he argued, does not accommodate itself to culture, politics, or the immediate situation of blackness.

Simon S. Maimela argued that a heretical anthropology was the root of racial oppression. Christians should affirm that humanity is collectively responsibility to transform the natural and social environment, and that humans are responsible for mutual caring and protection. Liberation must aim at healing the sin of broken fellowship. Maimela, like Boesak, argued that class analysis encompasses race.

Frank Chikane argued that theology should always be “from below,” i.e. from those experiencing struggle and suffering. Chickane argued for a “contextual people’s theology” (Hopkins), which was part of the more inclusive Liberation Theology. Blacks should fight for a non-racial society liberated from systemic oppression.

Continuing now with the cultural wing of South African Black Theology, Bonganjalo C. Goba is an important figure. Goba sought to dialectically synthesize culture, Christianity, and the immediate South African context in formulating his Black Theology. His sources were the Bible, African tradition, black experience, critical theory, and revisionist Marxism.

Itumeleng J. Mosala, a Methodist, pushed historical materialist as the proper black worldview, in contrast to white Christian idealism. Mosala drew especially on black workers’ experience as sources for his theology. He viewed the black working class as the new exegetical starting point for Black Theology.

Takatso A. Mofeng, a member of the Dutch Reformed Church, argued that Christ exemplifies the agent of history which blacks are called to be. The crucifixion and resurrection demonstrate, not a passive reaction, but proactive response. Mofeng considered Black Consciousness and Black Theology intrinsically linked, and he personally fought against black acceptance of their suffering.

Desmond M. Tutu, a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984, argued the Black Theology, Liberation Theology, and African Theology all come together in South Africa and should be related, not pitted against each other. Tutu called for a non-racial South Africa for blacks and whites together, but insisted that reconciliation between the races could only happen on an equal basis, after blacks had decolonialized cultural and spiritual matters. Tutu also called for white liberation, which required white repentance, black forgiveness, and black liberation.

Steve Biko, the Father of Black Consciousness, also wrote some articles on Black Theology. His goal was “a true humanity where power politics will have no place” (Biko 106). He argued that Black Theology incorporates “African cultural concepts” into a redefined Christianity which supports black liberation. With African culture as his authority, he accepts parts of Christianity (the community of saints, monotheism, religion in everyday life), but rejects other part (hell, sinful human nature) (Biko 109). Biko emphasizes God’s creation of blackness as proof that blackness is a divine good (Biko 63).

Having surveyed the scene of black theology, we will now isolates broad themes and key trends. Louise Kretzschmar identifies three broad themes: Black Theology as African Theology (emphasizing traditional African religion), Black Theology as Black Consciousness (affirming blackness), and Black Theology as Liberation Theology (emphasizing Marxian class analysis and political revolution to destroy oppressive social structures). In addition, non-racialism, reconciliation, and mutual liberation might be considered a fourth theme.

A comparison of American and South African Black Theology helps understand general similarities and differences between the two movements. Black Theology in both countries attempts to begin with the black experience and theologize from there, to draw on black sources, to link the value blackness of God’s creation of blackness, to see God as active in present liberation struggles, and to critique white theology and white liberalism. Black Theology in South Africa unites the political and cultural themes more than in America, probably because blacks in South Africa had to band closer together due to the extreme oppression. Black Theology in South Africa emphasizes the land issue, an issue understandably absent from Black Theology in the United States, since blacks in South Africa possessed the land before whites came and were forced off their land into the Bantu homelands. Black Theology in the United States has inclined more toward Marxism than in South Africa, probably because blacks in America are a minority population, such that genocide was a much more real danger than in South Africa, where blacks are the majority. Black Theology in South Africa focuses more on African Religion and culture than in America, probably because South Africa blacks have experienced much more continuity of a distinct African culture than American blacks, whose experience is better described by DuBois’ “double-consciousness.” Finally, Black Theology in South Africa has been far more non-racial than in the United States, probably because South African black Christians have generally stayed more within white churches than in the United States, where black churches have been largely distinct for over a century (Hopkins 149-150).

Now is time to ask the crucial question for Black Theology: Is it really Christian, or is it misrepresenting itself as such? To answer this question, we will ask: a) Is its liberation really holistic?, b) Are its contrasts with white theology legitimate?, c) Can Christianity be redefined?, d) Can a particularist theology be Christian?, and e) Is it really a contexualization of Christianity, or is it syncretism? For the purposes of defining Christianity, I will consider the classical creeds (Apostles’ Creed and Nicene Creed) as the unifying expressions of Christian belief which are accpeted by the Catholic, Protestant, and Eastern Orthodox churches.

First, is Black Theology’s liberation really holistic? According to most black theologians, God’s purpose in history is holistic liberation, i.e. “a liberation that is radical and extensive, that is both individual and social, spiritual and political, moral as well as structural” (Kretzschmar 21). Black theologians’ advocacy of the social justice concerns of the Christian God and the accompanying social justice responsibilities for Christians is commendable. Their raising the call for social justice has served Christianity inasmuch as it has raised awareness of the responsibility Christians bear for fighting oppression and injustice. However, as seen especially in Chikane and Mosala, Black Theology often one-sidedly favors political liberation, thereby de-emphasizing spiritual liberation from sin to the point of complete omission. The term “holistic” often serves only to mask a thoroughgoing politicization which loses entirely the essential Christian doctrine of individual sin, forgiveness, and moral-spiritual liberation. Wilmore’s holistic term “psychophysilogical liberation” indicates the change from spiritual liberation from sin to mental liberation common in Black Theology. If a theology ever claims that systemic problems are more fundamental than moral-spiritual, and that systemic changes are the path to utopia, this cannot be affirmed as Christian.

Second, are Black Theology’s contrasts with white theology legitimate? Black Theology, to a large degree, replayings older, non-black trends in theology. As Louise Kretzschmar notes, “Black Theology and Liberation Theology, it must be remembered, are part of, and also an extension of, the political theology of Europe in the 1960s . . . [largely] the work of German scholars like Johannes Baptist Metz, and later, Jurgen Moltmann” (Kretzschmar 22). The “holistic liberation” rhetoric of Black Theology and Liberation Theology can also be traced back to the nineteenth century social gospel movement epitomized by Walter Rauschenbusch’s Christianity and the Social Crisis, which insisted that “the gospel deals with the whole man, not only his soul but his body; not only his spiritual well-being but his material well being” (King 91). Much Black Theology defines itself against “white man’s religion” or “white Christianity” or “white theology,” which is to say, that it owes its existence to its distinctness from white theology. However, its contrasts with white theology merely erect a straw man. Biko, Hopkins, James Cone, and Jones enumerate the key points of white theology: a God who is otherworldly and irrelevant to daily problems and realities, exclusive concern for the next world and the soul (such that this life and the body are ignored), obsession with vague absolutes divorced from existential needs, worship as an isolated, compartmentalized part of life, the sacred completely separate from the secular, a passive Christ, and commitment to individualism (Hopkins 30, 54; Cone 30, 93). By contrast, Black Theology’s relevant God, existential doctrine, religion integrated with life, fighting Christ, holistic gospel, and communalism look very positive.

However, most of these critiques of white theology simply restate arguments already made by white theologians (like Moltmann and Rauschenbusch) or else make insupportable accusations. Certainly, Neo-Platonist Christians of various times were other-worldly, but the accusation that all (or even most) white Christians today are otherworldly is very weak. Black Theology never cites specific white theologians or specific incidences of “white doctrine,” very likely because “white doctrine” is a hollow straw man Black Theology has erected. There is, I believe, a “white theology” which Black Theology can and does legitimately criticize: the pro-segregation and pro-apartheid ideology of American churches and the Dutch Reformed Church.

Third, can Christianity be redefined? Some black theologians openly admit to altering the message of Christianity. Steve Biko states, for example, “the only path open for us now is to redefine the message in the Bible and to make it relevant to the struggling masses. The Bible must not be seen to preach that all authority is divinely instituted. It must rather preach that it is a sin to allow oneself to be oppressed” (Biko 45). Biko makes no attempt to discover what the Bible really says, or to offer an exegesis of Romans 13, the passage which states that “all authority is divinely instituted,” or even to criticize the Bible for teaching something with which he disagrees. Rather, Biko openly declares that for his political purposes, the Bible must be redefined and made to say what he wants it to say. Can Biko consider his redefinition of Christianity any more legitimate than Cleage’s radical black supremacist redefinition of Christianity? This question cuts to the heart of the matter: if the classical creeds cannot be considered normative for defining Christianity, what can? If Christianity is to be defined by whomever wants, however they want, the term Christianity ought to be thrown out. In that case, though, all terms should be thrown out, since all terms rely on defining themselves, at least party, by precise and meaningful distinctions from other terms. Since terms are only useful inasmuch as they communicate specific, definable content, and since Christianity has been understood for centuries in accordance with the creeds, this ought to be the definition of Christianity. Christian Liberalism, in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, has insisted upon using common religious language and historical association as the grounds for considering a doctrinally non-Christian religion as Christian. Political Black Theology in many cases seems to be trying the same maneuver when it holds forth Christ as a symbol for its own political cause, having changed the meaning behind that symbol.

Fourth, can a particularist theology like Black Theology be Christian? Black theologians often claim that their theology comes from a specific living situation and is not normative or absolute. For example, the 1971 SASO Commission on Black Theology stated: “Black Theology is not a theology of absolutes but grapples with existential situations” (Kretzschmar 75). Black theologian Basil Moore calls Black Theology a “situational theology” (Moore 5). The corollary to this is the claim that Christian doctrine is relative to its cultural environment, i.e. that “cultural doctrine” is more basic than Christian doctrine. For example, Kretzschmar defines “white man’s religion” as “the Christian faith . . . plus Western culture, world views, and prejudices” (25). But, if Christianity is anything, it is a worldview; if it presents anything, it presents a system of doctrine for the interpretation of the world.

Finally, is Black Theology really a contexualization of Christianity, or is it syncretistic? A “situational theology” might be legitimate if it explained how traditional practices of a non-European culture might be situated within the Christian worldview. However, contextualization of any doctrine always faces the danger of situating the worldview into the culture instead of the culture into the worldview. The distinction of contextualization and syncretism relies on the distinction between form and meaning. Contextualization means that the external forms or symbols of Christian practice may change so long as its meaning within the Christian worldview remains constant. Black Theology seems to generally do just the opposite. For example, Cleage retains the forms of Christianity (creed, baptism, messiah, Eucharist), but changes their meaning radically. This is syncretism. It relegates the Christian worldview to a series of forms to be given meaning according to a person’s pre-determined worldview. No one needs to convert to Christianity, but if they do, conversion means a change of worldview, not of external forms. Ancestor worship, universal salvation, and black supremacy are incompatible with the Christian worldview and must be rejected outright to avoid syncretism. Theology, which deals with doctrine, is not the best arena for the discussion of contextualization, which concerns symbols.

Having stated all this, it is important to identify those black theologians who are immune to these critiques, i.e. who do not de-spiritualize Christianity, change its metaphysics, relativize or synscretize its doctrine, or depend for their existence on a straw man opponent of “white theology.” First, there are those such as Jones, Long, Wilmore, and Harding, who make no claim to be specifically Christian theologians. Among the Christian theologians, Roberts, Tutu, and Buthelezi meet the above criteria. With their mutual liberation from sin in all its manifestations, aiming toward the goal of a non-racial “great community” of Christian fellowship, they remain faithful to Christianity.

Black Theology has certainly contributed a spectrum of diverse views to the theological discussion within Christianity. It has much positive to commend itself: the need to distinguish Christianity from Western culture, the need to contextualize Christianity into the black ethnic/cultural environment, the social justice responsibility of Christians, the sinfulness of racism and oppression, the value of black skin in God’s eyes, and the need for oppressed peoples to stand up for themselves and refuse to accept inequal integration or subhuman or unjust treatment. Black Theology has clearly advanced the cause of equality in the United States and South Africa. White Christians can and should listen to black theologians and learn from their thought. However, as seen in this survey, most Black Theologians (not all) have generally tended to sell-out the Christian worldview to political agendas, Marxist soteriologies, and pagan worldviews and doctrines. Admittedly, black Christians face a very difficult situation—being accused of collaboration by black radicals and of traitors by white Christians—but the integrity of Christianity is at stake, so a strong critique is necessary.