Black Theology and Holy Hip-hop in the Inner-city Dilemma

Blog post #3

 Different theologies teach us about different understandings about God, but that understanding has to be contextualized to the listening ear of the hearer.  As particular attention focuses on the inner-city, traditional Christianity that professes turning the other cheek is not effective or useful for spiritual formation. The reality of this “racialized society” infiltrates the structures of church.  It allows and disallows the activity of the church to be limited to the status quo, thereby allowing the sin of racism to invade the pews and pulpits. A challenge, therefore, is for theology to define and understand how any reality can be applied to the nature and character of God and continue to confess a faith as a substance of hope. 

 “The reality of God is presupposed in black theology. Black theology is an attempt to analyze the nature of that reality, asking what we can say about the nature of God in view of God’s self-disclosure in biblical history and the oppressed condition of black Americans.” Cone also points out, Black theology  is practically the only remaining radical perspective linking the liberating essence of biblical faith and Trinitarian theology to a cultural and political strategy for fundamental social change.

Hip-hop challenges and questions racism sanctified by religion. “Hip-hop addresses the crisis of urban America and begins to seek spiritual answers connected to Jesus, while challenging the institutionalized church and questioning the centralization of power in pastors to bring about a higher involvement with God.” The next generations of hip-hoppers are seeing the society, the church, and themselves through a different lens, and they seek spirituality that speaks directly to them. Their voice is not speaking through the theology of orthodox Christianity because they believe traditional Christianity has betrayed them with complacency and silence.  

 The next generation of worshippers who  are shouting with a loud voice, “No Justice, No Peace, No Justice, No Peace,” and this voice must speak in the rhetoric of Black theology. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness becomes a lie in the face of constitutional truths. Black religious thought, radical black faith, and black theology are three elements in understanding how to do theology in the inner-city. However, the language of communicating those three elements to a younger generation is best accomplished with Holy Hip-hop.