Theology in the Raw - S9 Ep959: What Is Black Liberation Theology? Dr. Dwight Hopkins

Episode Date: March 31, 2022

Dr. Dwight Hopkins is Alexander Campbell Professor of Theology at the University of Chicago Divinity School. He received his B.A. from Harvard, an MDiv, MPhil, and PhD from Union Theological Seminary, New York, and another PhD from University of Cape Town, South Africa. Dr. Hopkins is the author of over 20 books, including Black Theology--Essays on Global Perspectives, Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2017, Black Theology--Essays on Gender Perspectives, Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2017, and served as the lead editor, with Edward P. Antonio on The Cambridge Companion to Black Theology (Cambridge University Press, 2012). A student of the great theologian James Cone, Dr. Hopkins has given lectures in dozens of countries around the world and is a renowned expert in Black Liberation Theology, which is the focus of this podcast conversation.  https://divinity.uchicago.edu/directory/dwight-n-hopkins –––––– PROMOS Save 10% on courses with Kairos Classroom using code TITR at kairosclassroom.com! –––––– Support Preston Support Preston by going to patreon.com Venmo: @Preston-Sprinkle-1 Connect with Preston Twitter | @PrestonSprinkle Instagram | @preston.sprinkle Youtube | Preston Sprinkle Check out Dr. Sprinkle’s website prestonsprinkle.com Stay Up to Date with the Podcast Twitter | @RawTheology Instagram | @TheologyintheRaw If you enjoy the podcast, be sure to leave a review.

Hello, friends. Welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Raw. If I've timed this episode correctly, today is the first day of the Theology in the Raw Exiles in Babylon conference. So while you're listening to this, I might actually be on stage speaking along with several other people tonight. If you're listening to this early on March 31st, you can still register for the online virtual pass. It's 50 bucks. You can watch the whole conference. And if you can't watch it live, you do get a seven-day access to watch the conference. If you still can't do that or don't want to, we will be editing and fine-tuning the conference and putting different video angles and everything for purchase in about

a month. It should be available for purchase on the website, TheologyinRa.com. If you'd like to support this show, you can go to patreon.com forward slash theology in the raw. If you can't or don't want to support it financially, please do consider leaving a review, sharing it on social media. That really, really does help us out. So let's see. Without further ado, my guest today is Dr. Dwight Hopkins, who is Alexander Professor of Theology at the University of Chicago Divinity School. Dr. Hopkins has a BA from Harvard, an MDiv, an MPhil, and a PhD from Union Theological Seminary, and another PhD from University of Cape Town in South Africa. In other words, he's smarter than all of us put

together. Dr. Hopkins is truly a renowned theologian, a brilliant mind, the author of over 20 books, including Black Theology Essays on Global Perspectives, Black Theology Essays on Gender Perspectives. And he is one of the lead editors on the Cambridge Companion to Black Theology, a student of the great theologian James Cone. Dr. Hopkins has given lectures in dozens of countries around the world and is a renowned expert on black liberation theology. That's why I wanted to have him on. I mean, he is the, I mean, there's several experts on black liberation theology, but he is among the top and just a wonderful man of God, as you will see, incredibly humble and gracious and wise. And I just want to know, what is black liberation theology? I keep hearing, you know, growing up in the church, you always hear about, you know, liberation theology. And in my context, it was typically framed very negatively. In my context, it was typically framed very negatively. So as I like to do, I like to go to the proverbial horse's mouth and ask an actual black liberation theology, what is black liberation theology?

So that is the content of this really scintillating conversation that I had with Dr. Hopkins. So please welcome to the show, the one and only White Hopkins. All right. Hey, friends, welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Raw. I'm here with Dr. Dwight Hopkins. This is a great honor to have you on, sir. I mean, you have a legacy behind you in your work and your ministry and your global reach. So thank you so much for coming on Theology in the Raw. your global reach. So thank you so much for coming on Theology of the Rob. It's my pleasure. It's always a blessing to be amongst brothers and sisters who are about the business. All right. Why don't we start? Just tell us who you are for those who don't know your name. Give us a quick snapshot of who you are, and then I really want to dig into just what is Black Liberation Theology. So yeah, tell us who you are.

Just what is Black Liberation Theology, you know? So, yeah, tell us who you are. I teach at the University of Chicago at the Divinity School and throughout the college. I'm the professor of theology. Actually, I'm the Alexander Campbell professor as my chair. I enjoy teaching theology in and of itself as a tradition, but also in relationship to the broader society and complex issues domestically and globally. So I'm a theologian by training and by nature, a very curious interdisciplinary type of person. Have you always been into theology?

Have you always been academically wired? I mean, you got a lot of degrees behind your name. Is this the way you were always wired? behind your name. Is this the way you were always wired? Well, I'm originally from Richmond, Virginia, and I was a part of the baby boomer generation and at the tail end of segregation, different from my older brothers and sisters who were in the heart of it, youngest son, youngest child. And in Richmond, Virginia, and I always say before the highway came through, that's when I was in Richmond, Virginia, right? I was actually born in St. Philip's Colored Hospital. That's what it was called? Okay, wow. Yeah, because only colored people could go there.

And so my birth certificate says Dwight Nathaniel Hopkins, race, color. So that's just the context for what I'm about to say. And so for us, we had church, we had family, we had education, and also striving to be business owners. So it's sort of those combination of things. And for when I grew up before the highways were put in in Richmond, Virginia, there were two religions. One was football, and the other one was Baptist. two religions. One was football and the other one was Baptist. So it wasn't anything else but the Baptist. So you just grew up in it. You know, I grew up in the church, you know, spent all day in the church, Baptist training union, summer camp on Baptist, you know, summer camp, Baptist, you know, Boy Scouts, Cub Scouts, you know, Explorers, you know, star scout. I actually missed it by one merit badge. That was the whole life. My father was a usher at the church, and every Thursday,

the preacher would come by his house to have coffee. Didn't realize what that meant, but it made a great impression, right, to see the preacher at my father's table. My mother was taught Bible Sunday school, and she also was in the choir. So all of these things, context, family, education, tutoring, summer camps, striving, safety, affirmation, came out of the black church, looking back. Were you always a book reader? like the intellectual trajectory of your journey? Was that something that was always in you? Absolutely. Absolutely.

In fact, I have my sister, oldest sister is the keeper of the family records. So she has this thing of I did an interview for the newspaper in the kindergarten of first grade. And I said I wanted to be a writer, a traveler and a businessman. So even then. And the other thing too, I was just, I just loved it. Even now, I just, I mean, I'm a little tired because I stayed up half the night reading this biography, you know, I love biographies and autobiographies of individuals, institutions, and countries. Again, we had legal segregation, so there was difficulty going to the white library. But fortunately, we had a thing called a bookmobile.

And it was a minivan full of books. You'd walk, I'd walk in there in the kindergarten, they would come to your house, right? You don't have to go anywhere back in the day. And I would go in there and oh, man, it was like books everywhere. I have a little four year old, five year old, you know, person who was really just blown away by this world. And I could check out whatever books I want and just walk up to my house. Another thing I have to give credit to is my, so we grew up in pairs of two, it's eight of us, six boys, two girls. And so I grew up with my sister, she's

number seven, and she is brilliant. And here's the gender thing, unfortunately. So she skipped two grades. She should be sitting here on the Skype and you're interviewing her, right? But the gender question obviously played a role. But when she started school, okay, at five, I was two. And every day she would come back and teach me everything she knew. So she is the real, you know, woman behind the green curtain that helped produce at a foundational level amongst everything, family, church, business ownership, helpful to the poor, Bible literacy, all those things, education. But she has to be pointed out, my sister Brenda. Wow. Would it be too hard to ask you what are your top three or four or five favorite books

or most impactful or people that are like, but like if somebody asked me that, I'm like, oh man, I don't, I mean, I don't even know how to answer that. I'll shoot some off your bookshelf back there. It depends on my journey, right? So I was spiritually, politically, culturally, and just my being was at a place that when I read James Cone's first book, it impacted my journey. Okay. So it's really like context where I was. You know, I was, you know, struggling with some issues.

And there's a book that came out about maybe three years ago, four, maybe four years ago. It's called Deliberate Discomfort. And it's written by a former special forces guy. The. It's called Deliberate Discomfort. And it's written by a former special forces guy. The guy is amazing. Deliberate discomfort. Right. And he talks about how the special forces in the United States are trained and actually the exercise they go through.

And he also recounts blow-by-blow battles where guys die, and it's mainly guys. But he says one of the big things they learned is to intentionally, deliberately put them in situations of discomfort. And that book, four years ago, really just, I mean, it just blew me away. And now I go around looking for, can I find some situations of discomfort?

That sounds like the concept of anti-fragility with Nassim Taleb. I'm not sure if you're familiar with that, but that the human, just human nature is designed to get stronger through stressors. Kind of like our immune system needs stressors, our physical muscles need pressure, and even just our psychological makeup, it can be healthy. Obviously not to be put in a toxic environment, but to be in a place where you are uncomfortable. It actually makes you stronger and more resilient. Man, I wonder. Yeah, that's interesting because that concept really blew me. I mean, it makes sense, but it really was pretty eye-opening. Well, you mentioned James Cone, and I've heard you talk about being able to study under James Cone. Why don't we back

up and just tell us, this is Black Liberation Theology 101. What is Black Liberation Theology? Yeah, for many people who've heard me explain this, I usually talk about it in this way. We have the three terms, Black, liberation, and theology. And I always preface by saying within the phrase black liberation theology, the key issue is the Jesus story of liberation. That's the adjudicator or that's the norm. That's the plumb line. That's the North Star. That's the North Star. So we began with liberation. And all we're saying in that Black Liberation Theology, the liberation phrase, is that Jesus came to liberate humankind spiritually, physically, materially, all kinds of ways, psychologically. You know, part of that

is Jesus wants to liberate those who are in pain and struggling, particularly as it relates to the materiality of their souls, the materiality of their souls, because we don't see and we don't interpret the Jesus narrative as separating either spirituality and materiality. We are embodied, and we embody the spirit. The spirit is activated and uses our bodies. And we often refer to biblical passages for our claim that liberation is the key to black liberation theology. We refer to several passages, but, you know, the so-called classic one is Luke chapter 4, verses 16 and following, where Jesus comes to

the temple. And for many of us, this is where he makes his first proclamation about his own divine vocation, his own call. So it's not edited or it's not a person writing about him. This is how he's proclaiming. He sees himself. And as you know, I'm paraphrasing. He says, the Spirit of the Lord is upon me. The Spirit is capital S, which for a lot of us indicates the Holy Spirit, third party of the Trinity. And the Holy Spirit is upon me.

And depending on translation, it or he, I always say, you know, the Spirit has anointed me to do what? That is, the Spirit has called Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, and anointed him to do what? And he goes on to say to, you know, free the oppressed, liberate the poor, you know, you know, applying a widow of the widow, the hungry, those who suffer. And, and he ends up, I think it's Luke chapter four, verse, maybe it's maybe verse 20. And to proclaim, he says, that's to preach the year of our Lord. And we know that the year of our Lord is linked to a date of liberation where people, families will have their land returned to them, amongst other things. So, again, that liberation piece is totally holistic in his own understanding of how the Holy Spirit has anointed him to be there. And the other sort of bookend is Matthew 25, verses 31 and following.

And a lot of people preach on this and write on it too. It's, you know, the sheep and the goat, famous sheep and the goat passage. But if we listen, if we believe that these narratives of Jesus are real, then we listen closely to the words of the Master, right? He's saying there, those who will go into heaven, and we can debate what heaven is, whether it's this side of the Jordan or some other form, but he's talking about heaven, which is a new life for all humanity, all creation. Okay, why did the folks on the right get into heaven? Because they met the criteria to interest into heaven that Jesus laid out. What are those criteria?

Well, feed the hungry, you know, visit the prisoner, give water to the thirsty, give clothing to those who are naked, you know, and the widow, etc. Again, to me, the Luke chapter 4, verses 16 and following, and Matthew 25, verses 31 and following, dovetail first Jesus's proclamation of his anointing and vocation from the Holy Spirit, and Jesus's laying out the criteria for human vocation and proclamation of the human spirit. So that's the liberation part. We have to stay on. That's the first. Now, that's important in black liberation theology. So what's the theology part? The theology part is the history of the tradition of Jesus's words and practice of liberation and the Christian church. It is the historical piece. So wherever we see the relationship between theos and logos, theos means God and logos means human connection, thus theology. We want to look at the history of theos, logos, human-God connection as it pertains to liberation in the Christian tradition.

So it's a historical, so liberation is the norm, it's the thread in theology. So that's the theology part. The black part is how does the liberation of Jesus' message and the history of that tradition and theology reveal themselves in black culture? Hence, black liberation theology. But the biblical piece and the Jesus piece, that's, the struggle is over what does the Bible tell us us and what is Jesus' mission and his anointing and calling to us in all creation. That's the debate. We can debate how the history of the Christian church, we can debate what's black and what's not black. But the blue for me and for at least the founders, that's the Jameson, I call them the first generation, their struggle was over that.

James Cone, I call him the first generation, their struggle was over that. There was a lot of, you know, biblical interpretation and debating and passages and studying when Black liberation, contemporary Black liberation began on July 31st, 1966, three years before Cone's first book, actually. It was bubbling, effervescence, engagement with church, Bible, education, the larger public, global issues. It was just amazing. And I still think that vibrancy is one of the gifts that black liberation theology gives. Education where I am within religious communities and also the broader society. I would also argue globally. Yeah, yeah.

That's super helpful. also augur globally. Yeah, yeah. That's super helpful. I've heard you talk on the black part of that, going back to the days of slavery, where you had, I'll say, a version of Christianity being taught by slave owners and slave masters. And yet another, shall I say, version of Christianity was being celebrated and embraced by people who were enslaved. And, you know, the story of the Exodus, I think the slave masters maybe skipped over that story a little bit. There's several passages, some of the ones you mentioned that they had to skip over. Can you take us back to the formation of, we'll say, black Christianity during that era and some of the distinctives that were formed as a result of the social situation? Sure. Great question. A lot of people, even Americans, don't realize that black Americans or African Americans are recent phenomena in world history. I would say

white Americans as well, but we're at questions on Black liberation theology. August 1619, 17 African men and three African women were brought as enslaved. They were enslaved to Jamestown, Virginia, the colony of Virginia, where John Rolfe and his crew were. They were brought on a Dutch man of warship. So obviously, that's something about how they got here. And it was piloted by Captain Marmaduke. And so those enslaved 17 men, three African women were bartered to John Rolfe. And then the Dutch man of worship went off to get another crew of slaves and et cetera. So if not literally, metaphorically, black Americans as a people were created then. So we use that as a marker. That's pretty recent in human history.

Then the people, as they're forging themselves into a new identity, still drawing on the African piece, but also formed by white Americans, by British colonialists, Episcopalians, all of that goes into what it means to be a black American, I would think. The people are formed, and then the people formed the church and the religion. Okay. So there are various forms of religion that the people created. One was the underground or brush harbor, secret religion practices that enslaved blacks participated in. And then there was also the black public denominations, which begins roughly 1787 in Philadelphia, which eventually becomes the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Interesting thing. So basically, this first black denominational church, AME, in 1787, Pennsylvania, Black Denominational Church, AME, in 1787, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.

They were praying in a white church, but of course, blacks had to go in the back, you know, and they were worshiping, but they had to sit in the back. And one black person was trying to get back to, it was a man, his seat, but the pastor preaches, starts to pray, or maybe the deacon. Now, most churches, when anybody prays, you stop, you bow your head, right? And you, you know, so he stopped, but he happened to start in the white section. So then he got kicked out, and the black people left that church and started the first black public denomination, black church. The other thing is 1787 is also 1787 is also in Philadelphia is also when the founding fathers were writing the Constitution. So they were creating a new nation. And these black men may have been one, but the record shows men. They create the first black denomination.

So you've got the people who are created August 1619. And you got from August 1619 up to about 1780, the underground black church, particularly in the South, you know, called the Secret Society of the Black Church. And then in 1787, the first public black denomination. People created. Their religion is created, their church is created. And then from the people, their religion, church, they began to develop a theology. So it's really in that direction, those three parts, people, religion slash church, and thirdly, theology. And the theology is precisely what you so nicely articulated were struggles around the Bible. You know, what's the role of the Exodus? As we know that a lot of the slave masters had

preachers that they paid to come preach to the enslaved. They had regular catechism in the archives. Amazing. Now they're online. When I was, you know, in the MDiv program, we had to go, you know, put on blue jeans and dust covers and dive into the archive, which I still love. Amen. Yeah, get in there like you're a bookshelf. Oh, yeah. Dog ears, right?

Oh, yeah. Which, you know, younger generation, they love Twitter and all that stuff, which is great. But the archives and the material show that the same passive – here we're talking about the theology part and using the example of Exodus is where I'm going. The paid preachers or the catechisms or even the songs that the slave master paid people to teach to the enslaved would say, you know, God heard their cry in Exodus 3, right? God heard their cry. God came down. God came to save, made a covenant right there. So the slave masters representatives would say, oh, that's the spiritual Exodus, that's the spiritual covenant. And a lot of the enslaved

heard that same passage, because the majority, you know, it was against the law. You could literally have your arm cut off for reading on slavery. Most cases. Most cases. Okay. But they heard that story about Exodus. Ah, Egyptians were slaves. Hmm.

We're slaves, too. Wait a minute. What's going on here? They're making brick and mortar out of straw. Hmm. We're picking cotton, you know, and tobacco and rice in South Carolina. Hmm. They're being whipped with whip.

Hmm. We're getting whips. They long for a place of their own. Hmm. We're long. So they heard that. They couldn't say it to the white preachers or the preachers that were paid by the plantation masters to preach to them or teach to them.

But once we go into the archives and look at their interviews and their songs, and you even have to say there are quite a number of plantation mystics, that is the wives, who took notes and wrote diaries about, you know, we can say we want whether, whatever, but they left us a record and they were very curious about it. So all we're saying is then the theology, you have to have the history of how the people were formed, how the underground and then above ground denominations were formed, and then they have the breathing space and the institutional capacity to create their own theology. And in fact, that was the foundation for contemporary Black liberation theology.

That's so helpful. So I've got a question. I'm trying to figure out how to formulate it. And I'm going to apologize ahead of time if even my questions have ignorance built into them. Please correct me even if my question is not worded right. But I mean, history is not my area of expertise. History after 70 AD. Yes, we need to think about 586 to 70 AD and I'll kill it. Beyond that, my history is a little shady. But

as I reflect on the contribution of what you're calling, what people call, you know, black theology, black American churches, there's such a strong contribution that's interwoven through the fabric of what America is, what theology is, that is it helpful to even distinguish it as black theology when it should just be an essential part of theology in American church. Now, my pushback to even my own question is, well, yeah, but y'all kicked us out of that program. So we had to do our own thing. And we'd love your thoughts on that. But as I reflect now, I mean, goodness, we wouldn't have rock music, jazz, gospel music, contemporary worship music. We wouldn't have a holistic reading of the Exodus. We wouldn't have, I mean, the passages you're referencing, like our understanding of these

passages, or even the, you know, Cohen writing on the parallels between lynching and the cross of Jesus and how those dots can be connected. These are profound pieces of theological reflection that if the church doesn't embrace this as part of just good theology, we're missing out. So I don't know what my – I don't know. I'm just kind of wandering around here. But is – I guess how can we or should we integrate what is called black theology into just this is sound theological reflection, period? Correct. Yeah, awesome question. I think that a lot of this is good looking back, because when the black liberation theologians, the so-called first generation from July 66

through then Cone, etc., they had to sort of fight to clarify foundational issues. But now we can look back and see that, in fact, they were all starting from the point that they are American theologians. OK. That was their starting point. They're American theologians. There was only – I mean, like, Code gets all the credit, and rightfully so, because he wrote the first book on black liberation theology in March of 1969. But although, properly speaking, it starts July 31st, 1966, with pastors. There were no theologians.

They were all pastors. I call them the 42.1, plus one, 42 men and one woman, Anna Hedgeman, who started it back in July 31st, 1966. But looking back, they were all supposing and presupposing and just assuming they were American theologians. They were American pastors. They were located in the time and place and history and tradition of what we now call the United States, and they called it back then. So I think we have to sort of back up now. We've got, you know, 20, 30, 40, maybe 50 years. I'm not sure. It's 1966 to 2026. So that was the starting point. They couldn't understand why there are barriers against African-American or Black Americans' interpretation of their relationship to God or Jesus Christ. That's really what it was.

It's just nobody woke up, and even nobody of any race in the United States, and says, well, let me go out and let me just go out and take and just attack everybody. I mean, there might be some dysfunctional people, right? It's not that we read it, unfortunately, all the time. everybody. I mean, there might be some dysfunctional people, right? It's not that we read it unfortunately all the time. And the main thing, nobody in the United States, you know, 340 million, 345 million people every day don't just wake up. And so too, those are the men and the women who created it. They didn't just wake up and say, oh my gosh, let me leave this church. Let me leave this religion or let me leave this, you know, this theology, they were trying to participate, you know, and then they, as you

mentioned, there were barriers to participation. But the starting point is that they're American theologians. As American theologians, they draw on the history and culture, the sad and the jubilation part of what it means to be black or African-American in the United States. You know, it's almost like in a marriage or, watch what she said, my wife's going to be listening to this. It's almost like with children, right? You know, especially when I have two daughters and a boy, and the boy is like, oh my God, you push him down and push back, he's going to fight back. My daughters fought back, but they fought in a more sophisticated way. His is raw terror, right? So, and I think that's what happened. The more

people tried to get in, a lot of African American people, and the more people, whoever opposed them, then they just say, okay, we're going to leave. We're going to, you know, God has given, we're made in the image of God, Imago Dei, and we have the right to the fruits of the tree. We do. You know, we should have rights to these resources here. Also, our ancestors helped build this. You know, there's a book called The Debt by Randall Robinson. Yeah.

And he gives archival documentation how all those beautiful, awesome concrete architectural structures in Washington, D.C. were built by enslaved people who brought, I'm from Virginia, so I know all of this, right? Since I was in kindergarten, I knew all this stuff. I mean, the area. I didn't know the debt part, but I knew what he's describing. They brought the concrete off the Chesapeake Bay, right into D.C. and Northern Virginia. So the very foundation of the founding fathers and the institutions that they created,

drawing on the Iroquois and African-Americans. So we don't want to forget that. But those men are the founding fathers. I mean, we can say founding fathers. I quit how I say it, right? They founded the country, right? But those buildings that were built were all constituted by enslaved labor. So people want to be, we're part of the American American.

I mean, I'm not sure how anybody can say that black Americans are not one part stream or strand or thread within America. What it means to be fundamentally American. Right. or strand or thread, within what it means to be fundamentally American. Right. But again, going back to the original thing, people and barriers were set up to keep blacks out,

and others too, but particularly we're talking about black liberation theology, to keep them out. And once you push people down and not absorb them, even a little inkling of absorption, I mean, it was just,

well, you know, there's legal segregation, and then there was de facto traditional segregation, which kept so many black people out of prosperity and spaces to worship and live and educate their kids and grandkids and great-grandkids and make contributions to this country that they're part of and they helped build. It's more of that. Of course – sorry, please.

Well, on that note, I've heard you talk – I think it was in relation to the book, The Debt. the generations after generations of free labor, which is also contributing to the prosperity of slave owners and plantations and everything. So, I mean, it's like a double, I think you use a phrase kind of like a double, you have the free labor plus the products that's being produced from that labor. Like that forms a massive debt. I mean, is this kind of one of the foundations for the current conversations about reparations? And I didn't even plan on going there. But I remember when I heard you talk about the debt, I was like, man, you put it in those terms. And it's like, well, okay, what does that mean for today?

Like that's just lost on the sands of history. It's like, ah, yeah, whatever. But like that, that doesn't, that has to have ongoing effects, right? I mean, I don't want to state the obvious, but. Yeah. Yeah. It has ongoing effects, reverberations, if you will. Um, and again, um, there are many different people who use it different ways. So the whole question of reparations, it's within itself has debate. There's no one. Some people think that they're in the tradition of American history. There are people, African-Americans in particular, have had movements or clergy or organizations who have claimed that because of that history that you described, slavery and free labor, black people are owed reparations. And one form should be,

you know, five black states in the black belt South, right? So that's a whole separate nation. And we can talk about that. Some have said that it should be a monetary one. So they would take – I don't know how they calculated this, but they somehow calculated what they thought was a dollar form of the cost of the free labor back then. And then they used their formula to get to U.S. dollars today. And then you divide that by I think it's something like maybe 45 million people of African descent in the United States, and you get a dollar figure. So that's one option. Another option is that there should be affirmative action. And even within that debate, there are different forms of it.

But the third option would be affirmative action as perhaps a form of reparations. Another would be that wherever there's a majority of African-Americans, they should occupy proportionately those political offices. That's another. You could even say that, you know, some of the organizations since the summer 2020 in our country have were demanding a certain form of reparations. And then, too, if you take the business world uh you know you need enough capital to build business in the black community so there should be set asides you know when i lived when i worked in new york city to use the word would you set aside for black and other minority contractors so yeah reparation is a huge term and a lot of people are you have used it or suggested they use it but they're all drawing as as you correctly state, on this legacy.

The phrase you used is really good. It's unpaid labor for products that they probably can't even pay for the products that they produced freely. And the monetary form of reparations, does that come from the government or from just other citizens? Or I guess that's – you probably can't neatly divide those two. Yeah. They would say from the government. Okay. Okay.

Yeah. That's – I have not wrapped my mind around that. I know there's a good book out that a couple of buddies of mine wrote, Duke Kwan and – oh, I'm blanking on his name. He's such good of a friend. I can't remember his name. Anyway, sorry, bro, that I'm forgetting your name. Anyway, they just came out like a Christian, kind of a Christian perspective on reparations. It was very much in favor of some form of reparations. But as he said, yeah, there's differences there. So I grew up in a conservative evangelical context where the term black liberation theology was always associated with a very liberal form of Christian theology. Would that be accurate? And

I'm saying that in a neutral way, but is that accurate? And where does that come from? And how would black liberation theologians, I guess, line up on the theological spectrum, generally speaking? Because when I read James Cone, I haven't read a lot of Cone, just some. I found it – and I love reading just the wide diversity stuff anyway, so I'm a little bit of a different animal. But I thought it was profound. I was like, this is so good.

It's so Christ-centered and cross-centered. But I haven't, again, done a deep dive in black liberation theology or liberation theology as a whole. So I don't know where – would it be accurate to categorize it as a very liberal form of Christian theology? You know, if you were to ask me this question 20 years ago, I could give you a straight answer. But I think no. But today, given sort of the fractious nature of our political conversations and, you know, debates about counseling based about what's fact news, true news. At this point, it would be hard for me to give you a straight answer on that description of black liberation theology, whether it's liberal or not. I would say, I will share that, first of all, it's biblical-centered, and as you said, cross-centered. You know, anybody who reads Cone's stuff, if they, you know, exhale and just read him for what he's trying to say and then disagree with him later, but find the biblical part is very important. And,

you know, the Christianity and the black church are all very important for him. Then the question again is, how do you take black liberation theology, that is to say, the liberation part, as I shared at the top of the hour, And then how do you take the theology part and how do those two manifest within African-American, Black American culture and life in America? You know, because Black Americans are Americans. That's where part of the debate is, too. How does it reveal itself? How does the gospel of good news, how does the good news of Jesus Christ's proclamation

and the anointing of the Holy Spirit manifest in the materialities of our bodies, our families, our churches, our communities, and the U.S. and the world. So then we can get labels, whether it's a liberal, left, or whatever.

I only use the terms liberal and conservative if I feel like I absolutely have to for the sake of the context. But I think it's just so – I mean I'll get two emails back to back. One is accusing me of being conservative and another is liberal. It's like what is that? It's just – it's so – yeah, I don't want to go off here but maybe I will a little bit. It's so like narcissistic because what does it mean to be liberal to be the left of me and you're liberal?

It's like well, that's just so – like you're the center of truth and everybody to the right of you is conservative and everybody has that viewpoint. It's just, I think it's utterly unhelpful to me. It's like, rather than saying liberal or conservative, assuming that one's good and one's bad, say, is it true and here's why? And, you know, or is it helpful and here's why? Or is this a helpful lens to understand an aspect of scripture that might have been under understood without this lens? I just think there's so much more complications to it. Yeah. No, I think, as they say, across the lake, spot on. If we look at the actual primary documents and archival stuff, in addition to what people have written about people who have been enslaved, and if we also listen to their voices, which can be found in various sources, one,

there are 41, 41 volumes, 41 volumes of interviews with formerly enslaved. I mean, I have them right, all 41 right here in my shelf. That's a source to look at what black people thought about who were enslaved. Also, if you look at the so-called Negro spirituals or slave spirituals, they are a sense of their theology. A third source is a lot of the church bulletins. A fourth source I mentioned was the recordings and diaries of plantation mistresses. And another big source, fifthly, are the autobiographies of formerly enslaved. There's over 100 of those volumes. So what are they talking about? In the midst of all of that documentation and whirl, you find people who are talking about freedom for themselves, freedom for their families, freedom for their children, freedom for their grandchildren.

They're talking about education. For example, in 1865, when the Civil War, or depending on your perspective, war between the states, I'm from Virginia, you know, ended, the three demands of those now freed 4 million African Americans and Black Americans was to find family members, because a lot of them were sold. That was one. Two, education for their kids. And three, ownership of land. Those were the three demands. Pretty American demands, if you ask me. Conservatives, Make America Great, could hang their heads around that. Build Back, whatever it is. They can hang their heads around. And then, you know, the Bernie Sanders, Democratic Socialists, I guess, it's all three wings. And I'm being a

little facetious, but that's sort of how we are. And then all between, right? That's how American political stuff is projected, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Sort of authentically, indigenously, organically American without left, liberal. Now course when there debates over the to the degree of freedom and participation and access and Also the debates of the degree that history plays in the allocation of all those goods freedom care family education business ownership job production employment creation, safe communities, access to recreation, love, freedom to worship, you know, freedom to have a movement and having kids enjoy a great life. You know, those are all indigenously American to me, theologically

speaking. The question is the debate over how we put all those things into practice. There are, but I would say the first generation, the people who, the contemporary Black pastors, again, the people in July 31st, 1966, they were all pastors. No one had a PhD. No one was an academic. Black liberation theology may be the only indigenous American theology that was not created by academics. That's EX. When I think of black or just liberation theology in general, it does always feel, from my vantage point, kind of a top-down ivory tower started thing that kind of trickles down to the masses. But you're saying black liberation theology was really the opposite. I mean, it began in the church.

And I don't, I don't know, stressing the social, the essential social aspects of the gospel to me just, I don't know, it just seems kind of straightforward. I mean, there's just too many passages. The gospel of Luke in particular, I mean, you cited Luke 4, but virtually every chapter in Luke has some unique to Luke kind of thing that he's stressing that has to do with economic justice, with poverty. Women, obviously women play a significant role in Luke's Gospel. I mean, these are not subsidiary themes in scripture. And again, in my more conservative upbringing, whenever we came across Matthew 25, it was, well, how does this square with justification by faith? Because we've got to make sure Jesus isn't saying justification by works. We're not justified by these actions. And we tie ourselves in these theological knots without

justified by these actions. And we tie ourselves in these theological knots without just saying, hey, why don't we do that? Let Jesus sort out our justification from sanctification. Obviously, you know, if we believe in divine inspiration, God put this passage here for a reason. It's one of the lengthiest treatments of the final day, final judgment. And clearly the criteria for who's in or who's out are people who clothed the naked, gave water to the thirsty, fed the poor, and so on and so forth, visited those in prison. And which isn't, that's interesting. But... Can I say, can I just make a comment on that, on your comment? Sure. I think that it's, you know, we, and again, in the, in the academy where I am, you know,

part of me is here. I do a lot of things in life, but that's part of where I, you know, I work at my, um, you go to these conferences and hopefully everybody's there. I like conferences like that where everybody's there, all the theological, you know, I love that stuff. I don't want to be a ghetto left, right, or center. I like to have everybody there, you know, whether you make them or have them there. How does a hater have them? I'm like that. That's very University of Chicago of you, isn't it?

Right. But we've got to actually broaden, I think, a little more differences here, although that's the actual official position of the University of Chicago, which caught a lot of blowback back in the last presidential administration. The official position of the University of Chicago during the President Trump's administration was that everybody is going to be allowed on campus. The president of the University of Chicago was called Robert Zimmerman, and other universities used it as a Zimmerman principle. Now it may seem, well, what's the big deal? But during that period, he stood up and said, and he actually defended certain folks who supported President Trump.

So it was a very interesting, I have to give him credit for that. To me, the gospel message is holistic, and it includes everybody. Jesus, when Jesus is baptized, the dove appears, which symbolizes peace in the spirit and tranquility in the life energy of our bodies and our minds. You know, that's peace, love, right? To me, that's an example of faith coming down and justifying that Jesus is the son of God. He's already the son of God. It is further. You know, he wasn't born and not the Son of God. He's already the Son of God. It is further. You know, he wasn't born and not the Son of God. He was born.

But just a further manifestation, confirmation, or double anointing, depending on one's theological tradition. But again, the dove is coming down. The Spirit is coming down to an embodied person who went through real water, fully merged, and was brought up by John the Baptist. and when Jesus leaves and ascends then he sends the comforter the paraclete the Holy Spirit to embody the Holy Spirit within the materiality and culture human kind and all the creation so to me all the stories are just you know you know spirit faith justification you know do good work and manifest as good works I never have caught felt that I had to be quiet in the whole debate. But it is important, particularly since the Baptist, which I was grew up in, comes out of the Protestant, comes Luther, and also part of the Catholic, because we grew up

as sort of Episcopal Baptist, because Virginia was Episcopal colony, so everybody had that sort that everything is embodied in, the Holy Spirit is embodied in everything that we do. They're both together like that. So if Jesus' faith is good, it's also good with black liberation theology because it says that justification and the higher power that is Jesus Christ is the final decision-making

about what we happen in the material world. So it has a prophetic liberationist part of it as well, as well as the obvious salvation part as well. Do you know where the accusation of black liberation theology being liberal or departure from orthodoxy or whatever? Where does that come from? Or are you in circles where it's like, I don't hear that? Because that's more what I would hear. Not as much as I used to, but. Yeah, I talk to everybody.

I preached or lectured at a Southern Presbyterian, sort of wealthy, old school money. We had a great time. I've also gone up to far western Pennsylvania, and there were, you know, Confederate flags along the way, talked to people there. You know, I've gone to South Africa and apartheid and had conversations with Afrikaners, you know. But of course, obviously, I've also had engagement with social justice theologians and others, but I don't restrict myself. To me, the Spirit cannot be bound by any party or any theologian or any one people. And so I'm faithful

to that. The way it manifests is I just so happen to be born, you know, in St. Philip's Cullin Hospital. You know, it's, you know, you know, Warren Buffett talks about the luck of the lottery, right? Well, I got the luck of the racial lottery, and I'm very proud of who I am. So again, it's the spirit piece manifests in all ways across, and because it manifests always, always across, always being materiality, then one should pursue that. So I do hear it in different places. I've been challenged personally as well. I'll call all kinds of things.

The pushback or the interpretation of black theology is not Christian, is not proper theological, located as not being the words of Jesus Christ, but just a secularization of the gospel. Okay. Because it's black liberation theology explicitly stated. One, so that raises some hackles, theological hackles on some folks. hackles on some folks too because it was it arose out of the civil rights movement in the black power movement and some people say well theology doesn't the gospel the Word of God precedes culture so you've already trapped yourself theologically by saying that to do among others but two of the sources for the creation of your theology and your being as a Christian you know Jesus, Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior, is culture. You just said it, Dwight. You just said it, Jim Cohn. He actually, he's a big dog. So that too, right? So one of the

adjective black liberation theology people say, wait a minute, is that theology? And two, you're saying that civil rights and black power movements were part of the reasons or the sources that used you to create your theology, right? And then three, there are instances where you can have black liberation theology co-opting language from the circular into its own theological formations. So, you know, and then four, I've heard, said, well, black liberation theology is not real theology. It is just the justification of black civil rights movement and black power. And you can translate that to today's, whatever you think the day's black, you know. So it's about four or five reasons I've heard it say. And of course, I think what you have been pushing very insightfully, probably the big critique is saying that, look, justification by faith,

the Holy Spirit, the Word of God precedes everything. There is no adjective to that. Okay. Yeah. So there are about six or seven. I would love – I've got all those points. My mind is kind of going – I would love – I don't know. If you want to pick a couple of them and respond.

My, whenever, well, when I hear people critique the very idea of black theology and they say, well, we don't have a white theology. I'm like, well, do we not? I mean, when I learned theology, it was very much learning from mainly white theologians. When we studied Jonathan Edwards, he didn't even mention the fact that he owned slaves. Didn't even really talk about any really significant contributions from black churches during the last couple of hundred years, especially. What we call theology. We just say it's just theology. Well, it still has been a very one-sided theology, at least in my upbringing. So I don't, I don't, I don't know.

I think part of me is like, yeah, I don't, is it helpful? Like I kind of, what I said earlier, like I would love it if black theology and other Latino theology could just be part of the greater theological conversation, but that just hasn't been true. So I don't know. Yeah, I go back and forth on the helpfulness of the name. But do you want to respond to some of those six or seven critiques that you wrestle with?

Yeah. And by the way, I'm teaching a course, a first ever next year. You can fly in Chicago and take it. It won't be on Zoom. Black Theology, The Voices of All Us Critics. So we're going to read the books of the people who critique black theology. Oh, interesting. Which includes some black authors as well. So I'm really excited about it. Yeah, black liberation theology is, to me, both particular and universal, particular and universal.

Particularity of it is saying that within the revelation and incarnation of Jesus, then the Holy Spirit of the Trinity, there are ways that that incarnation reveals itself in different parts of African American culture. And so we just recognize that sites of revelation in human culture, Black culture and community and church as Black. So, you just put the Black there, right? It's important. That's one reason because the revelation of the Holy Spirit is there, therefore we use the adjective. Two, we use the adjective Black because the Black, the people who are creating the theology and the worshiping styles and the prayers and preaching and missions, all of that Bible studies

are primarily in a black church. And so it's just identifying how the, we're identifying where the Holy Spirit manifests itself in particular. And we identify particularity to the people who are the receivers of the Holy Spirit. That's why the black is there. Now, the other thing you mentioned is that I would say that those two things, where the Holy Spirit chooses to manifest itself, and to the people who receive the Holy Spirit, is universal. We have all, and it's not the critique, it's just observing.

We've got Scottish theology. We've got, you know, process theology. We've got Presbyterian theology. We've got all kinds of theologies. And, you know, we learned this in semin world since 2,000 years ago, the birth of Jesus, there have been adjectives. I mean, in the Cappadocian theologies, all the church fathers, there's probably about five to 10 different labels of theology during the church fathers, the founding church fathers. you know, even in the

Jesus movement that followed Jesus's resurrection, there were camps who had different theologies about Jesus's presence on earth. We can, I mean, we should go out and hang out, you know, you and I, and we can then broadcast it from wherever we go. And I mean, I can go from the birth of Jesus, And we can then broadcast it from wherever we go. And I mean, I can go from the birth of Jesus, the resurrection, up until today, and all theologies have labels. It's, I don't know, I'm not sure what the, you know, maybe, you know, I think part of it, they're all the theological and logical and spiritual and religious and homiletical disagreements with why I put black on black theology. But I think fundamentally it comes down to race debates and analysis in American culture being brought into theology. You know, there's, again, it's, oh man, I would love to hang out. I can start with the birth of

Jesus. Even when he was there, disciples had different theologies. That's why we have Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Mark in theology, Luke in theology, Matthew in theology. I could come all the way up to March 22nd, which is my father's birthday today, March 22nd, 2022, and put labels on all theologies. So I don't really, you know, I mean, I understand what they're saying, and I'm the type, my personality, I will take the patience to, you know, go through it up to a point. Some black liberation theologians wouldn't have, Cone wouldn't have that tolerance. But I engage the dialogue. But, you know, but it's not that difficult to say, why have black in front of black liberation theology? But it's not that difficult to say, well, I have black in front of black and racial theology. It sounds like it's simply identifying the obvious, whereas other people are not admitting that every form of theological reflection has a cultural context.

That our ethnicity, our socioeconomic status, our place in the world, like all these things shape how we think theologically, whether we put a name on it or not. The fact that I am a white male American reading the Bible, listening to sermons, raising a certain context, like all of that shapes how I think theologically. I mean, I've been reading the Bible for many years. It wasn't until, well, probably 15 years into my Christian journey when I realized that every single human agent in the early parts of Exodus were women. The men are screwing things up. All the agents that God uses are women. Why did I read that passage 50 times without even noticing that? The fact that I'm a man might contribute to that lens where I'm like –

and then obviously it was a woman that said, hey, yeah, we cling to this passage. Look at all these women redeemers in a patriarchal culture. This is a profound narrative that is screaming from the pages that I didn't even notice. Like my cultural context shaped how I didn't pay attention to that. It wasn't until, yeah, 10, 15 years ago when I read the Gospel of Luke through a more – I mean, I know this term is so debated or whatever, but who cares – through a more social justice lens and saw that a huge part of Jesus' ministry was living out that Luke 4 Jubilee announcement. So maybe I'm throwing you a softball or preaching to the choir, but the thing now called Black Liberation Theology, Latino Theology, whatever, that's in a sense just actually publicizing what other people are not willing to admit. We're saying there is a cultural context that does shape how we are reflecting theologically,

but everybody's doing that, whether you put a name on it or not. Yeah, it's correct again. The cultural context, the culture, the context, and the people who embody the Holy Spirit have a human dimension. Otherwise, if we just separate spirit from matter, if we separate gospel from culture, we're tearing apart the incarnation of Jesus Christ. I've been to 40 countries, 4-0, and I've lectured, preached. I've preached in Bethany one of the beautiful contributions of Christianity to the world is it believed in a Savior who, through grace and kindness, took God's initiative to send God's Spirit into the materiality and culture so humans could understand the Holy Spirit in their own culture. I mean, anybody who separates culture from the gospel, to me, they're going across both the incarnation

as well as the crucifixion, as well as the resurrection. I mean, they may as well throw Jesus out the water. I mean, you know, but to me, it's so basic and so simple. You cannot understand the gracious gift of God to humankind, which is God's divine Holy Spirit, without it coming into the level of cultural and materiality wherever we are. It has to come to the English in the English. It has to come to the enslaved and the enslaved. It has to come to the English in the English. It has to come to the enslaved and the enslaved. It has to come to the musician as a musician. It has to come in all the materiality, all the culture, all the ability for us to grasp it in the materiality and culture where we are. To me,

if it didn't come into materiality, if it didn't come into different cultures, it couldn't rally all the multiplicities of people within the United States, let alone the world. rally, all the multiplicities of people within the United States, let alone the world. But to your point, I know, you know, time ticks. Yeah. But your point about, you know, let's put it this way, within the United States, adjectives. As I said, I've been to 40 countries. I've hosted people all over, and from, you know, communist countries, you know, wherever.

And one of the things they say is, and even from people from evangelical, some of the countries, Africa, Latin America, one of the things they say is, and even from people who are from evangelical, some of the countries, Africa, Latin America, one of the things when they first get here is, it's my goodness, I can't believe how many different forms of adjectival Christianity you have in the United States. Why isn't there just one big church? So even people who don't grow up, they are blown away by all the adjectives and the racialized discourse that we have in the U.S.

We just think—a lot of us can't see it because we live outside the United States for a year or five years, or bring people here who've never been here. You'll see there are all forms of adjectives, theologies, and churches right here at home. And that can't—and you're saying that's not just the matter of, that's just not reality, but you're saying that that is an extension of the incarnation of Jesus. Absolutely. It's theological. Number one,

it's theological. Wow. That's super helpful. Well, Dr. Hopkins, I've taken you up to your time. I could keep talking to you for hours,

but thank you so much for unpacking Black Liberation Theology and everything that comes with that. And thank you for the work you do. I just, I love, I love your posture and I love how you do have the Zimmerman approach to being able to dialogue across differences. And I think that's so needed in our polarized culture today. So thank you for what you do. Also, thank you. My next project is on how to accumulate capital for poor black people to start businesses and jobs. I'm teaching now a course on faith plus wealth equals freedom. Well, shoot. Yeah. Maybe I'll have you back on and you can talk more about that and push some people towards that. That's awesome. Where can people find you i mean i have your your chicago divinity school website pulled up here are you on social media

i'm old school so you know you can do that okay check my page and call me on the phone or send me an email i mean it's so funny you list your phone number you're crazy the millennial generation and the gen z they set up a zoom Zoom. Let me have you check my calendar. The guys who are my generation, I'll pick up the phone. We just pick up any time. So I'm old school. But feel free to schedule it. Call me, email.

Email, obviously, I check all the time. So email is great. Okay. Okay, yeah. All your info is on your website. Yeah, it's right there. That's daring, man. All right. Take care, Dr. Hopkins. Appreciate you.

All right. Thank you so much. I appreciate it.