Power in the blood? The Cross in the African-American experience

The dissertation treats the subject of the Christian doctrine of the Atonement, as that has been deliberated upon as a reflection of the lived reality of African Americans in slavery, in the post-slavery work force and in postmodernity. This work of systematic theology is intentionally multidisciplinary, implementing the insights of biblical scholars, church historians, economic historians and ethicists. In the first chapter, I compare and contrast the actual experiences of African Americans with those of early Christians, tracing the development of melodramatic rhetorical and liturgical sensibilities as theodical responses of both these religious communities. (This heuristic device informs throughout). Examining scripture, I delineate the contours of the hermeneutics of sacrifice, which assisted in the ideation of the Cross as the central motif in Christian thought. I write about the Cross in a variety of ways: as event (Atonement), as suffering, as symbol, historically understood as descriptive of Christian witness in theological discourse, the rhetoric of which, with the advent of triumphalism, became selectively prescriptive.; In the second chapter, I explicate (1) the emergence of the Black Church through the confluence of Evangelicalism and African retentions as a critical Christian response to slaveholding, or dominant, white theology; and (2) the Black Church as a source in the development of Black and Womanist theologies.; In the third chapter, I examine the views of three black theologians: Martin Luther King, Jr., Albert B. Cleage and James H. Cone on the themes of reconciliation, nationhood and liberation, as these inform their signification of the meaning of the Cross in the African American experience.; In the fourth chapter, I examine the views of three womanist theologians: Jacquelyn Grant, Kelly Brown Douglas and Delores S. Williams, as they discuss the particular experiences of African American women in the light of traditional, nationalist and liberationist perspectives on the Cross conceived as Atonement.; In my constructive segment, the fifth and final chapter, I discuss what it means to be a womanist in accordance with the definition of the term proffered by author, Alice Walker. Since so much of what I know is experientially referenced, there and throughout, I utilize my personal experience as the medium through which I translate the black, womanist and Christian theological enterprises.