Abstract
Ever since its advent, recent “black theology” has puzzled and troubled whites. We have not known what to do with it. It has been so black as apparently to exclude whites, yet on the other hand it appears to some extent to be addressed to us. We can neither copy it and do it as our own, nor contain it as a chapter within our own theology. The waters have been troubled and muddied further by analagous efforts of other minorities and women to do their theologies. In terms of liberation, following in the path of black theologies of liberation have come women’s liberation, gay liberation, Latin American liberation theology, etc.. Ironically, one effect of this proliferation has been an apparent ratification of the authority and dominance of white male theology, insofar as it has put upon the dominant theology the responsibility for clarifying, comprehending and ordering the situation which otherwise remains chaotic and confused. The thesis of this paper is, however, that the prevailing white (male) theology is not so easily off the hook. I contend that black theology is sui generis and singularly significant for white American theology (male and female), that while it cannot be appropriated by whites, neither can it be ignored or co-opted by them.1 The reason for this judgment, to anticipate the argument that follows, is that blacks are uniquely objects of oppression and that among all oppressed groups in North America they present an uniquely Christian self-understanding. Only they speak so radically with both the vision of the oppressed and the responsibility of Christian faith. I propose that in the biblical story of Joseph and his brothers we have a key to understand our situation as white theologians who find ourselves addressed by this unique black experience and the theology which comes out of it.2