I was hoping that this book might end one of my most enduring classroom group research activities. At the beginning of my introductory module in black theology, I send the class to the library to search for all the books written by British theologians on ‘race’, since the First World War. Students return an hour later and acknowledge that there are none. Then I send the group back again but this time to search for books on the subject of ‘animal theology’ (by the same intellectual demographic). On their return each group announces, sometimes in triumph, that there were at least a dozen! I then respond by asking them to reflect on what we are to make of a theological community that appears to be more interested in the souls of animals than British Christianity's sojourn with racialised oppression?
However, my hopes were dashed because this book is not an attempt to challenge Christian theology in Britain in the same way that James Perkinson has done in the USA through his ‘white theology’ project. Nor is it a response to black theology that promotes a ‘critical whiteness’, examining the religious social location of whiteness concurrent with the last twenty years of work by British cultural theorists. Even so, this is an important text because it is a serious critique of black theologies. Criticism of black theology from the location of the white academy is not new, however this book ‘unsettles the waters’, by heralding the demise of ‘black theology’ and writing its obituary.
Now, one thing I learned from studying, living and working with African Americans is that one has to earn the right to be critical of their space and ideas. In other words, demonstrate that you are respectfully cognisant of their histories, contexts, cultures and struggles within your intellectual engagement. In contrast, Kee's approach is polemical. The introduction declares that black theology has lost its contextual viability, simply repeating mantras of a previous generation. Furthermore, not only are these mantras now irrelevant but in many cases initially misappropriated. Kee identifies four failed mantras. These are: a ‘false’ appropriation of the concept of the ‘liberation’ motif from the Exodus narrative, an illegitimate contextual transfer of Luke 4:18, a failure to engage in class analysis (as part of a multidimensional analysis – race, class and gender) and failure to move beyond the colour-line (racialised oppression) to a broader critique of capitalism. These accusations resonate throughout the book and mediate the challenge to black theology's claim to be a legitimate liberation theology. Why does this work make these accusations? Kee believes that black theology needs to be reorientated and engage more thoroughly with the economic plight of continental and diaspora blacks. These criticisms are ‘strong coffee’ and need to be substantiated.
The first chapter represents an intriguing starting point. Rather than interpreting the rise of black theology from a religious base (i.e. the histories of African American spirituality), Kee begins with the emergence of twentieth-century black nationalism in the Black Atlantic. W. E. B. Du Bois’ notion of ‘double consciousness’ is a central trope for reviewing the work of a range of thinkers including the Francophone scholars Senghor, Césaire and Fanon and in the Americas, Marcus Garvey. The central concern of this chapter is not explicit, so my sense is that Kee intends to ground the articulation of black theology within the wider black Atlantic world of colonial France, Africa and the British West Indies to expose a range of intellectual musings on the existential dilemma of being black in white supremacist societies (double consciousness). Situating black theology within black nationalism and specifically the internal dialectic of diaspora suggests that, for Kee, black theology's origins, if not its central meanings, lie in most part with intellectual elites reflecting on the question of blackness. What is missing here is recognition of the explicitly religious dimension of early twentieth-century black nationalism, particularly the theology of Garvey or Padmore. Even so, the starting point is intriguing.
Chapter 2 examines the origins of academic black theology from the mire of ‘American apartheid’ and the resistance of the civil rights and black power movements. Focusing on three central figures in the development of black theology, Albert Clegue, James Cone and Deotis Roberts, Kee distinguishes their responses to black power. These are: the reinterpretation of the Christian gospel in response to the context (Clegue), the theological legitimation of black power (James Cone) and the avoidance of black power (Deotis Roberts). Kee favours Clegue because of Clegue's critical socio-religious reworking of the Christian gospel that neither glamorises poverty nor essentialises white oppressors. In contrast, Kee reserves his strongest criticism for James Cone, claiming that Cone's first book, Black Theology and Black Power, failed to provide sufficient critical distance from black power to make an accurate and informed response. Instead, Cone's black theology capitulates to black power, making the gospel synonymous with the struggles of the black ghetto. Regarding Deotis Roberts, Kee considers him to have avoided real engagement with the social location, opting instead for a reworking of white theological norms. Kee concludes that the construction of the ‘black messiah’ in the black theology of James Cone (the dominant thinker in this period) is a white christology dressed in a black robe. This is not a new criticism and Cone himself acknowledges his dependence on European sources in his early work. What is best in this chapter is the framing of the responses to black power. But the historiography is problematic as Kee's review fails to adequately engage with the turbulent religious and cultural worlds of 1960s America and the ways that Cone's work, rather than being a capitulation, can be also read as radical incarnation theology.
Chapter 3 is a critical review of black theology in South Africa and the triangulation of theology, class and power. Beginning with the description of the rise of black consciousness, class criticism and racial politics within the life and work of Mandela and Biko, the chapter moves on to discuss the work of three waves of theological reflection. The first wave, i.e. Stanley Ntwasa's Essays in Black Theology, is considered a disappointment. But the discipline takes shape and focus with the work of Allan Boesak. Kee affirms the fact that Boesak's social analysis of apartheid avoids the pitfalls of racial-reasoning, as it neither valorises the poor nor demonises the whites. Boesak calls for a farewell to innocence, a black theology that refuses to accept black passivity and the pseudo-theology of apartheid. Moreover, Boesak carves out a new pathway that on one side departs from Cone's concept of the ‘black situation’ as the locus for reflection and action and on the other avoids Deotis Robert's limited politics of inclusion. The third wave is the materialist analysis of Old Testament scholar, Mosala. Kee rehearses Mosala's concern over the neglect of ideological and class biases within scripture and praises Mosala's historical-materialist perspective that reconnects the context of the oppressed within scripture with the working classes in South Africa. Kee concludes that, while South Africans have done good work in terms of ‘race’ and class analyses, they have failed to maintain their criticism and activism in post-apartheid period.
Chapter 4 turns our attention to the question of black feminism and womanist theology. Kee begins the chapter with a discussion of the rise of black feminism and its relationship to womanism and black theology. This chapter is arguably the most contentious but also the most disappointing. Kee questions whether or not the black women in this field are actually womanist or doing theology. Quite an accusation! The argument is based on two pillars. First, that womanist theology removes itself from traditional Christian theology. Second, that its base is more black feminism than classic womanism – because it does not wholeheartedly embrace Alice Walker's definition of womanism. Kee's assessment avoids the numerous discussions by womanists on the need to reformulate Walker's definition – that is, the various shades and genres of Christian womanism. He is also dismissive of autobiography and narrative in the earlier womanist texts. However, not all womanists are wrong – the kind of womanism that Kee affirms is found in the work of biblical scholar Delores Williams. She is praised for her critical interrogation of the notion of liberation, embracing biblical scholarship and doing more normative work.
Chapter 6 turns the spotlight on the UK, starting with a brief a history of post-war migration and the impact of racism and its challenge to identity formation. Kee suggests the UK context is distinguished by the lack of a credible black nationalism in the West Indian migrant community in Britain. However, some may argue that the plethora of studies on 1960s and 1970s urban social movements and the politics and culture of Rastafari would suggest otherwise. The chapter then proceeds to explain black identity as fluid and dynamic through an engagement with two empirical studies that undermine the notion of stereotypes. The first, by Claire Alexander, is a study of a small group of black males in London and the second, by Sharon Dyle, a study of middle-class blacks in Britain. Kee makes use of these studies to unpack essentialisms around the raced, classed and gendered existence of black subjects. The rest of the chapter is devoted to a review of the work of black theologians in Britain. After a critical review of the work of Anthony Reddie, Kee focuses on the work of Robert Beckford. Beckford is presented as a second-generation black theologian, but not the only black British theologian at work in the UK. Kee affirms Beckford's correlative approach, anti-essentialism and desire to engage with traditional modes of theology. However, like black and womanist theologians, Beckford is accused of rearticulating the (misappropriated) liberation mantra. Kee calls for a serious debate between Beckford and the Pentecostal Bishop Joe Aldred, for a more constructive black British theology.
The penultimate chapter seeks to identify some of the new developments in black theology and how they are beset by the limitations of the first generation. Especially poignant are the limitations of multidimensional analysis (race, class and gender) and autobiographical historiography. Black theology as a late modernist project is, according to Kee, beset by the problems of late modernism – moral consensus, aspiration for freedom, etc. To reveal black theology's demise, the author refers to themes within Foucault's archaeology of knowledge and Judith Bulter's anti-foundationalism. The high point of the chapter is a postmodern gaze on the notion of ‘blackness’ and the womanist ‘politics of retrieval’ to reveal limiting constructivism and modernist historiography respectively. However, praise is given to postmodern blackness in the work of African American ethicist Victor Anderson, particularly Anderson's famous critique of ontological blackness.
The book ends with an obituary. Kee claims that Black Faith and Public Talk: Critical Essays on James H. Cone's Black Theology and Black Power,Footnote 2 a book written in honour of the thirtieth anniversary of Cone's first book, informs us of black theology's demise. This collection of essays fails to radically critique Cone and thereby disserves Cone's achievements. In the collection, Cone calls for a radical race critique that he feels has not been advanced by the second generation of scholars. There are still unmet needs brilliantly articulated by Gayraud Wilmore's contribution to the volume as the need for a mass movement, ‘blackenize’ Christian education materials and to engage with the black world outside the USA. Kee ends with a call for an alliance of progressive whites and new generation black theologians to fight global capitalism.
The Rise and Demise makes a valuable contribution by identifying faultiness and critical questions of black and womanist theology. However, none of the issues raised, whether essentialism, Americo-centrism, historicism or class analyses are new questions in black theology. Over the past decade, I have sat through many a seminar at the American Academy of Religion and Society of Biblical Literature listening to these questions being debated and explored by African American scholars. Indeed, I was at the launch of Victor Anderson's critical reflection in 1996 and listened to the response from James Cone. The lack of recognition of these internal debates within black theology may leave some readers feeling that the book has not adequately researched the complex arguments and positions articulated in this field.
Even so, I think this book marks an important critique of the trajectory of black theology in the black Atlantic. The book identifies critical aspects of the future trajectory of black theology that should not be dismissed out of hand. While I admire Alistair Kee's attempts to challenge the claims of theologies of liberation, I was unsettled by the style and tone of the book. At times it was ironic, sarcastic and occasionally brutal. While I am aware that theological discourse can at times be passionate language about God, in this case the adversarial episteme employed may limit the intended aim of the book ‘to call black theology to engage with the global poor and the arrested development of the African continent’. As I stated at the outset, ‘respect’ is more than a popular 1960s soul song, but a vital mode for conversing with African Americans in the post-slave world.
While this book will be of value to all interested in developing liberation theology in the postmodern world, my fear is that the guild in general and African Americans in particular will interpret the text as inadequately researched, demeaning and more destructive than dialogic.
As for me, I still wait for a ‘critical white’ approach to theology that makes as its starting point an end to British theologies’ ethnic absolutism.
