Racism evolves. Black theology must be adaptable. For this reason, Black Theology and the Menace of Racial Apocalypse argues that racism must take centre stage in Black theology because racism is an existential dread that inevitably confronts the Black person in their existential situation.
This book unfolds in two interwoven steps. First, it delves into the complex history of Black theology, examining its development across its first, second, and third waves. This critical study exposits the discomforting idea that something is missing and that this “something” makes Black theology seem a little deficient, as noted in the pioneering works of James Baldwin and other contemporary thinkers, challenging the hesitation to engage with ideas outside Black experience. The second step draws from multidisciplinary sources, including brain research on cognitive bias and psychological works on implicit bias and microaggressions. Effectively utilizing the methodological work of Bernard Lonergan, the book argues that incorporating "white" sources can enhance Black theology's articulation against racism.
In doing so, the book demonstrates how this interpretative mechanism can help overcome societal ideological differences, as well as help meaningfully address the ever-evolving problem of racism for Christian theology.
Preface
Acknowledgment
Introduction
1. The Seven Horse Riders of Racial Apocalypse
A Statement of the Problem
Recovering the Heroic Virtues and the Poetic Imagination of James Baldwin
Naming the Seven Horse Riders of Racial Apocalypse
Conclusion
2. The Perplexing Matter of Black Theology
Context of Black Theology and the Category of Meaning
Why the American Situation Finds the Term “Black” Appropriate
Mediating Writers and Theologians
(a) James Baldwin
(b) James H. Cone
(c) J. Deotis Roberts
(d) Katie Geneva Cannon
Shift Towards a Second Wave
Conclusion
3. The Nature of Prejudice: A Psychological and Theological Understanding
Why Black Theology Has Not Paid Attention to the Data of Consciousness
Prejudice: A Provisional Judgment?
What an Application of Lonergan’s Notion of Common Sense to Critical Race Theory Yields for Race Discourse
The Four Kinds of Common Sense Bias
(a) Dramatic Bias
(b) Individual Bias
(c) Group Bias
(d) General Bias of Common Sense
The Structures of Sin
How Black Theology Might Appropriate and Use Lonergan’s Notion of Bias
Conclusion
4. The Karen Phenomenon and the Conceptualist Problem of White Privilege Discourse
A Truncated Discourse
Engaging the Normative View of White Privilege
The COVID-19 World and the Quest for an Explanatory Definition
Karen and Systemic Racism
White Privilege: A Theological Problem for Black Theology
Conclusion
5. Implicit Bias and the Zero-Sum Game Problem
The Perduring Myth That Blacks Pose a Racial Threat
The Recurring Problem of Dramatic Bias
It Is Not Microaggression but Dramatic Bias
Implicit Bias and the Cycles of Decline: Structural Injustice
Conclusion
6. Overcoming Racism and Conversion
Conversion: A Resistance against Resistance
The Five Dimensional Conversion Process (5D-C Process)
(a) Religious Conversion
(b) Moral Conversion
(c) Intellectual Conversion
(d) Affective Conversion
(e) Psychic Conversion
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Height:229
Width:152
Spine:25
Weight:1.00