Theology, Black Ministers, Black Preachers, Black Theology Under Attack

Leonard E. Colvin, Chief Reporter, New Journal & Guide has a great article on 40th King Anniversary, Black Theology Attacked. I will tell you I love the black press. I plan to link more to the black press in my post. People in the black press have some great observations. Check his observations on Black Theology under attack.

He writes: Next Friday, April 4th, the world will be observing the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Dr. King was shot to death while standing on the balcony of the Lorraine Hotel in Memphis, Tennessee, where he was leading an effort to support improvements in the working conditions of black sanitation workers in that city. Dr. King was also making plans for his Poor People’s Campaign which called for thousands of poor—black and white—to converge on Washington, D.C., from all corners of the nation to highlight the plight of low-income Americans. Dr. King, until his death and especially four decades after his demise, is regarded as one of the most revered advocates of peace and racial harmony. His “I Have A Dream” speech in 1963 is used repeatedly to distinguish him as a man who called for defining each of us by our character and not by the skin tone. In his challenge to racism and injustice in the United States, Dr. King, the social activist, adopted the non-violence philosophy promoted in India by activist Mohandas Gandhi. Significantly, Gandhi, like King, died at the hands of an assassin. But Dr. King, an ordained Baptist minister, like many black preachers with a calling to social activism, was a skilled orator in what has come to be known as Black Liberation Theology. Recent declarations from the pulpit by a modern-day proponent of Black Liberation Theology, Rev. Jeremiah Wright of Chicago, have given rise to a discussion in America of this brand of religion and its intent. Read More