Bonhoeffer's black Jesus
Subtitle: Harlem Renaissance theology and an ethic of resistance
By: Reggie L. Williams
Publisher: Baylor University Press
Published: 2014
Place of publication: Waco, Texas
Language: eng
Number of pages: 184
ISBN-13: 9781602588042; 9781602588059
Subjects: Harlem renaissance; Schwarze Theologie; Influence; Black theology; Harlem Renaissance
Description: Dietrich Bonhoeffer publicly confronted Nazism and anti-Semitic racism in Hitler's Germany. The Reich's political ideology, when mixed with theology of the German Christian movement, turned Jesus into a divine representation of the ideal, racially pure Aryan and allowed race-hate to become part of Germany's religious life. Bonhoeffer provided a Christian response to Nazi atrocities. In this book author Reggie L. Williams follows Bonhoeffer as he defies Germany with Harlem's black Jesus. The Christology Bonhoeffer learned in Harlem's churches featured a black Christ who suffered with African Americans in their struggle against systemic injustice and racial violence-and then resisted. In the pews of the Abyssinian Baptist Church, under the leadership of Adam Clayton Powell, Sr., Bonhoeffer absorbed the Christianity of the Harlem Renaissance. This Christianity included a Jesus who stands with the oppressed rather than joins the oppressors and a theology that challenges the way God can be used to underwrite a union of race and religion. Bonhoeffer's Black Jesus argues that the black American narrative led Dietrich Bonhoeffer to the truth that obedience to Jesus requires concrete historical action. This ethic of resistance not only indicted the church of the German Volk, but also continues to shape the nature of Christian discipleship today.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: To Harlem and back: seeing Jesus with new eyes; title: A theology of resistance in the Harlem Renaissance; title: Bonhoeffer in the veiled corner: Jesus in the Harlem Renaissance; title: Christ, empathy, and confrontation at Abyssinian Baptist Church; title: Christ-centered empathic resistance: Bonhoeffer's black Jesus in Germany.