God of the Oppressed Informing Pentecostal Faith

As a Pentecostal Christian believer who comes from both Black Church and multi-ethnic congregational experiences, we testify of a spiritual liberty that comes from salvation in Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit.  In this freedom in which “Christ has set us free,” we declare that we are no longer bound by the “yoke of slavery” that comes from “desires of the flesh,” and we press to “live by the Spirit” so that we can remain free from desires of entanglement (Galatians 5:1, 16, NRSV).  However, it is seemingly rare (if ever) that I hear anything within my church context on the matter of being liberated from social structures of this world that aim to keep certain folks (arguably even some of us Pentecostal believers) subjected, poor, and enslaved even though narratives in Scripture tell of instances in which people are released from oppressive situations by the hand of God.

James H. Cone contends in God of the Oppressed that God in Jesus Christ is on the side of the poor and heavily afflicted, thus making God a social and political God who not only gives attention to the true, particular experience of African Americans, but seeks to be their Liberator (Cone 15-16, 74-75).  The origin of this ethical principle that Cone proposes is in the truth of Jesus Christ which is found in the dialectical relationship between Scripture and tradition on one hand, and the social context of African Americans on another (100-105).  For Black Theology, Scripture becomes a source out of which this form of theology operates because it tells of Jesus Christ—the person of whom black people have been able to identify with in their struggle for freedom.  In their songs, stories, and sermons, African American people have been able to express the Jesus whom they have found in Scripture but have come to know in reality as the one who has been able to understand their sufferings and be the Redeemer of them as well (28-29, 101-102).  Moreover, they have been able to draw from the Church’s traditional proclamation of faith in Christ, but they have also made an effort to infuse their African culture into their understanding of Western Christianity.  This has been done as a means for blacks to take up an appreciation for Jesus that does not compromise their possibility for liberation.  Within the Christian tradition that has been esteemed as the standard, there is no consideration for the poor, enslaved, and oppressed in relation to the divinity and personhood of Jesus.  Therefore, out of the tradition’s unwillingness to do so comes the problem that hinders liberation (104-105). 

What has presented itself as the metaethical problem has been the universal theological scholarship that has been based around “whiteness” without contemplating the particularities of the black experience, namely the oppression that is present within it (7, 48-49).  Cone recognizes that the Christian tradition adhered to by a white American theologian overlooks matters of color in theological discourse because he or she has not been a victim of oppressive violence and, therefore, has no religious or social context that is relatable to that of black people.  For this reason, a universal theology is valued and the stories and religious experience of black folks are not adhered to within this constructed system of Christian thought (49).  According to Cone, this leaves black Christians questioning how they can “explain [their] faith in God as Liberator of the oppressed,” especially since they have undergone centuries of oppression that cannot be identified by white society (173).

Because the struggle of blacks cannot be identified in the history of white people firsthand, Cone calls for blacks to construct a theology of liberation that cuts loose from white structures and finds its center in Christ’s presence within their struggle (179).  In this effort, the task of theology must be one that recognizes “the significance of the oppressed’s struggle against inhuman powers,” the idea of God taking up the struggle, and the ability to express God in the particular context of the struggle (90-91).  The goal of this imperative is liberation; however, it must be remembered by the black theologians who carry out this task that the salvation that comes from God through Jesus Christ is the primary source for human liberation (127).    

Within the salvific past, present, and future events of Jesus and in the narratives of Scripture, God proves to be the Liberating God of history (51, 120-121).  Knowing that Jesus Christ has and continues to give the oppressed vitality and personhood through his life, death, and resurrection, black people have been able to see Jesus as a real, historical figure who is on their side (108-110).  Moreover, African Americans have been able to appropriate the “historical character of liberation” found in Hebrew Bible and New Testament events to their struggles for freedom and to their understandings of God’s ability to make liberation historically real in their situations (140-141, 120-121).  For example, Black preachers utilizing narratives such as the Israelites being led out of slavery have been used in contexts of black suffering as a way to evoke the hope and the proof that God can deliver blacks out of situations and institutions of oppression (141).  By recognizing the relationship between God in Scripture and God in the realities of history, one can also discover what they should do—just as these preachers begin to do themselves.

The theological question, “Who is God?” should influence the ethical question of, “What must we do?”  When we understand who God is and what God has done for the oppressed in Jesus Christ, we can know what to do to ensure the liberation of people suffering from injustice (180).  In the case of African Americans, knowing what to do can begin by looking to both Scripture and the Black experience relationally (188).  Considering the experience of the oppressed as well as the God who liberates people as evident in Scripture is the adequate way of ensuring that black people in particular do not remain under oppressive ideologies and structures—ideologies and structures that did not take their experience into consideration to begin with, nor the evidence that the God of the Bible is a Liberator (188-189).

Reflecting back on my particular experience in the Pentecostal stream of Christianity, I believe that the knowledge that comes from the African American exploration of these theological and ethical questions is translatable to my tradition.  Just as relating the social experience of black people to Scripture in order to get an understanding on what to do for the purpose of liberation, I would like to see how Pentecostal traditions can adopt this same practice as a means of determining what we must do to see the full liberation of the oppressed come to pass in light of God’s activity in Scripture.  This exploration may not only encourage us to recognize the oppressive social powers that keep people bound along with the spiritual; it may also move believers of Pentecostal faith from places in which they might find themselves socially oppressed.

Cone, James H.  God of the Oppressed.  Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1997.