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Black Theology is one of the most exciting dynamics in current theological thinking. It challenges the academic establishment by drawing attention to the white hegemony that underpins most theological exploration. And for the churches it presents an approach to theological reflection deserving of serious consideration by all white Christians.

For Black Theology challenges Christians to allow their theology to be shaped by their experience. When it is, theology ceases to have the identity of a doctrinal, credal club and instead becomes an experiential reality rooted in one’s understanding of self in relation to others, to the social order and to God. Faced with the evil of slavery black people discovered new theological approaches for themselves. It will be interesting to discover what theological resources emerge in Iraq, rooted in that experience.

Does this model of theological exploration offer anything to white Christians and to the white institutional churches? I believe it could. By exploring Black Theology, white Christians too could discover the key to their own liberation from the economic models and assumptions that produce a narrow rationalism and cultural conformity, and which increasingly undermine family, community and society. It holds the potential to transform the established church and release it from its current imprisonment within the white dominant culture of the British political and economic establishment.

But the journey there is a tough one. The core challenge for the established church is the gulf in understanding that exists between experientially-based and doctrinally-based theologies In short, what does the gospel proclaim? It is in its denial of the radical gospel that racism, and all its concomitants, continues to have room to breathe in the church. With clarity and persistence, the radical biblical tradition proclaims liberty and justice. Jesus echoed this frequently such as when he declared: “I have come so that you may have life and have it in abundance.”

Starting from the premise that the ministry of the church is to spread news of this gospel and to live thereby in the present reality of God’s impending kingdom, then there are two (rhetorical) questions that should be posed. First, to what extent does the church reflect through the lives of individual Christians as well as through the life of the local, national and international church, that all people are born in the image of God? Secondly, to what extent is the church, in its many different dimensions, open to all people?

The continuing distance between the reality of exclusion and the invitation to equality in the sight of God is self-evident. The Church of England remains inextricably connected with the forces of social and economic oppression in Britain. That is the raw legacy of the transatlantic slave trade that still pervades the church. The institution remains part of the establishment that oppresses black people today.

It is arguable that until the church is weakened to the point that it experiences pain and vulnerability itself, it will not connect fully with the Spirit of the Gospel. Black Theology may offer the church hope. For it illustrates the power of faith (of belief in God’s presence among us) grounded in shared experience rather than structure. The challenge is to help reveal this to the church and to stimulate its coming.