Baker-Fletcher conducts an close analysis of each representative of black theology on the Holy Spirit but my summary will focus on only one, J. Deotis Roberts. Baker-Fletcher begins by observing a difference in theological method:
J. Deotis Roberts considers his work to be black church theology rather than the black liberation theology of James Cone. ... Roberts describes black church theology by assuming an interpenetration between the social and the personal, and the physical and the spiritual -- something that Western theology tends to divide. ... [In particular,] Roberts wants to correct the silence of liberation theologians on the Holy Spirit.
Roberts's efforts, as characterized by Baker-Fletcher, strike me salutary. Much of what has been described in the Companion as "black theology" has seemed untethered to the experiences of many black Christians. In other words, the lived Christian religion of many black Christians would not be recognized from the pages of the Companion. The converse is, however, not true: most black Christians could easily identify the reality of oppression--the center of black [liberation] theology-- in their experiences. What accounts for this disconnection? The absence of the Church strikes me as a a plausible reason. For all its emphasis on a starting point in the lived experience of oppression, the earlier chapters in the Companion seem remarkably abstract. Perhaps a sort of academic thaumaturgy.
In any event, this chapter then turns to a fine discussion of the connection between Pentecostalism in its current institutional form and the experience of Holy Spirit in black churches. On the one hand, like many in the Western Christian tradition, "Roberts tends toward calling the baptism of the Holy Spirit a 'supplement to faith.' He sees a danger between a supplementary experience and establishing what is 'faith's center'."
On the other hand,
Roberts notes that despite Pentecostalism's emphasis on "moral perfection," its virtues are often "negative and private." Further, Pentecostalism ignores social transformation because it is short on social conscience and commitment to social justice.
Channeling Roberts, Baker-Fletcher explains Pentecostalism's inward turn by recounting the aftermath of the Azusa Street revival that began in 1906. After starting under the leadership of black pastor William J. Seymour in a racially mixed community that experienced the Holy Spirit in an exceptional manner, white Pentecostals took over and divided the racial composition of the movement. According to Rogers, this racially-driven split quickly took institutional form, which continues to this day.
From personal experience at Regent University, I can report that white and black theologians in the contemporary renewal movement are fully aware of this chapter in Pentecostalism's history. And it is also my observation that the contemporary renewal movement has done much to bring about racial reconciliation as well as provide impetus for social change.
Returning to the centrality of the Church in Roberts's theology, he concludes by observing that
The church is the creation of the Spirit, both institutionally and as a community. As an institution, we are talking about structure ... As a community, we are speaking of the event that occurs within and between persons. ... The Spirit is one who heals, comforts, renews, and empowers in the context of meaningful worship. It is something that occurs no only inside persons, but between person.
Thus, in Roberts's black church theology, Holy Spirit provides power for liberation from oppression and also the power to transcend oppression itself.
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