One of the greatest of sporting cliches is when the sport commentator or pundit pronounces “It's a game of two halves.” Many sporting activities are divided into two halves of equal length. The cliché is often made when significant events have taken place in the one half but that does not necessarily fore tell the events of the second half. Until both halves have been completed, the game is not ended. Hence, it is a game of two halves.
This issue of the journal is comprised of four articles; it is in a sense, a game of two halves. The four articles come from the two contexts which represent the two most significant locations in which Black theology has been undertaken, namely the African continent and the African Diaspora. Black theology first emerged in Diaspora, amongst a community of people who were the descendants of enslaved Africans. James Cone's towering work gave life to this intellectual movement.
Soon, after Cone's work emerged, Black theologians in South Africa began to write in response to the context of apartheid and White supremacy. The likes of Allan Aubrey Boesak and Itumuleng Mosala helped to pave the way for the development of Black theology in that context. As the 1970s turned into the 80s and 90s, and into a new century, Black theology has begun to flourish in locations north of the Limpopo River. On the continent of African and across the African Diaspora, the development of Black theology has responded to the existential needs of Black people. It has used a variety of methods and approaches. It has reflected on the nature of being and often done so in dialogue with the Bible. Right from the outset, whether in its Diaspora or on the continent, Black theology and Black theologians have wrestled with Black reality and with the scriptures. In both context, the nature of Black life and identity and that which has been narrated in relationship with and through the Bible, has been central to the development of the discipline.
This issue of Black Theology: An International is comprised of four articles, which represent the two sides of the oceanic division between the two heartlands of Protestant Black theology.Footnote1 Two pieces come from the US and two from Africa. This issue is a game of two halves – of a sort!
Albert Douglas Honegan is a new name to our journal. This paper first emerged as a presentation in the “Bible in Visual Art” program unit at the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature (2019) and the University of Oxford's “Bible in Art, Music and Literature seminar” (2020). I am indebted to my Regent's Park college colleague Dr Christine Joynes for alerting me to this excellent piece of work and encouraging him to submit it for peer review. The article offers an artistic hermeneutic of the iconic Our Lady, Mother of Ferguson and All Those Killed by Gun Violence. This paper offers a biblical visual allegory by highlighting parallels between the icon, biblical scriptures, visual theologies of the “Platytéra,” “Black Madonna,” and “Pietà,” and the socio-cultural context of this icon following inter-racial violence in Ferguson, Missouri. This paper suggests the value that the icon provides for discourse on the intersection of race, theology, and art. Honegan is studying in the US.
Derek Brown provides the second paper in this issue. His paper explores the relationship between James Cone and Marxist analysis. He demonstrates that Cone's early work often relied on and supported Marxist political economy, especially as it concerns its analytical use as an explanation for the origin and persistence of anti-Black racism. In this deep philosophical dive into Cone's work, Brown draws on the scholarship of Cornel West, in order to show that a continued engagement with Marxism remains the most effective political and analytical tool for the aspiring liberationist has at her disposal for improving the material conditions of the exploited in general and the Black exploited in particular. This analytical adherence to Marxism is an explanatory theory for understanding and even overcoming racism. Brown's work is an important restatement of the importance of Marxism as a means of addressing race and poverty. Brown's work is focused on the U.S.
Victoria Omotoso is domiciled in the UK, but her paper is drawn from her research in Southern Africa. In this paper, Omotoso explores the South African film Son of Man (2006). In her analysis of the film, the author demonstrates how issues of continuity and discontinuity in African culture and the Christian faith are played out in Southern African. This article suggests that continuity is manifested in the film; however, the author proposes that these claims, made by South African scholars such as Gerald West, are far more complex and fluid. Her article addresses the possibility that this “story of continuity” transcends variant forms of (South) African culture and that there are certain nuances where some cultural elements are retained whilst others are considered disposable.
John Ottuh provides the final paper in this issue of our journal. This paper interprets the concept of δοῦλος in 1 Timothy 6:1–2 in the context of socio-economic slavery in Nigeria. Using the liberation hermeneutics approach, the paper argues that the concept of δοῦλος in 1 Timothy 6:1–2 is a typical reflection of injustice and oppression to the person or group being socio-economically exploited. The resonance of the text with the Ibibio narrative of socio-economic slavery in Nigeria is in the similarity of treatment accorded the δοῦλος in domestic and economic affairs in first century Greco-Roman setting. Drawing on existing literature and the texts, this article interrogates the meaning of δοῦλος in the Greco-Roman setting and the status accorded the δοῦλος in the original and contemporary socio-economic settings of the study.
I trust you enjoy reading this issue of Black Theology: An International Journal.
Notes
1 Given that more enslaved Africans were taken from west and central Africa to Brazil, the major heartland of Black theology should be in South Africa. Due to the power of the English language as the dominant means of communication, largely Protestant English-speaking Black theology has proliferated in the literature.