Freedom Now

African American Liberation Theology, although it addresses eschatology, does not focus primarily on end times but rather seeks to view the end times as that which we must work towards in the present.

Both authors we read — J. Roberts and James Cone — start with the same premise: A theology of end times has no use to those who are oppressed unless it is also a theology of the present. The theology that has often been offered to oppressed people groups has made future promises of liberation without promising any realization of that hope in the present. Roberts and Cone, and African American Liberation Theology as a whole, fights back.

Future hope of liberation is nothing but a bandaid on the oppression and death of today — unless it is a hope that is being actively pursued and realized in the present.

Although that may sound like common sense, white theology tends to add forms of social justice as an afterthought to already developed eschatology. Those who are not oppressed are not likely to feel any urgency to change present reality. However, to not change present reality is to be complicit in the continuance of oppression.

Cone sees the divide in the white and black experiences as being in the relationship the oppressors and the oppressed have with death.

Cone states:
“Black theology rejects as invalid the attempt of oppressors to escape the question of death. White rulers in society attempt to evade the reality of their end by devising recreational hobbies . . . It is their confidence in their present strength that renders them incapable of the future squarely in the face. Oppressors do not know death because they do not know themselves — their finiteness and future end” (p. 136).

Unlike their oppressors, blacks have not been able to escape the present and daily reality of their death — an escape that whites make too easily from their place of privilege.

A theology that asks those who are oppressed to make peace with their oppression and focus on whatever life will be after death is, in itself, a form of oppression.

A theology that would silence the voices that speak out against their oppression is, in itself, a form of oppression.

The theology many of us cling to that gives us hope for a better future makes us accomplices in the continued oppression of blacks.

Roberts pays homage to the mantra of Martin Luther King Jr. who demanded “Freedom Now.” Freedom now demands that we stop keeping our eyes forward. Freedom now is well overdue. Only when whites have their feet, hearts, and minds on the ground will we be able to see the oppression, injustice, and suffering that has always been right in front of us.

These articles and our group discussion brought to the forefront our own eschatological beliefs and caused us to consider and confront the beliefs of the future we cling to in order to avoid the reality of the present. Although these articles certainly provoked our thoughts, African American Liberation Theology demands action. It is not a theology held in the head but rather a theology held in the heart that controls the movements of one’s body and the use of one’s voice and power in this world. Unlike many eschatological views that bring people peace in the moment, African American Liberation Theology offers a view that demands discomfort in the present. It demands an awareness of the chasm between what we hope for and what is. It demands that we never be at peace until “Freedom Now” is more than a mantra and is rather a realized hope.

Cone provides a better summary than I could hope to:

“Home is where we have been placed now; and to believe in heaven is to refuse to accept hell on earth” (p. 141).