Carolina QuotesIn examining Black theology, it is necessary to make one of two assumptions: (1) either black women have no place in the enterprise, or (2) black men are capable of speaking for us. Both of these assumptions are false and need to be discarded. They arise out of a male-dominated culture, which restricts women to certain areas of the society. In such a culture, men are given the warrant to speak for women on all matters of significance.
Jacquelyn Grant Carolinian
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p. 322
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- "Black Theology and the Black Woman"
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- p. 322
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“In examining Black theology, it is necessary to make one of …” Jacquelyn Grant. Carolina Quotes, record CQ-FD1A60DE2F. https://carolinaquotes.com/quote/fd1a60de2f
More from Jacquelyn Grant
It is often said that women are the “backbone” of the church. On the surface this may appear to be a compliment, especially when one considers the function to the backbone in the human anatomy. ... The telling portion of the word backbone is the word “back.” It has become apparent to me that most of the ministers who use this term have reference to location rather than function. What they really mean is that women are in the “background” and should be kept there. They are merely support workers.
I can agree with Karl Barth as he describes the peculiar function of theology as the church’s “subjecting herself to a self-test.” “She [the church] faces herself with the question of truth, i.e., she measures her action, her language about God, against her existence as a Church.”On the one hand, Black theology must continue to criticize classical theology and the white church. But on the other hand, Black theology must subject the Black church to a “self-test.”
If the liberation of women is not proclaimed, the church’s proclamation cannot be about divine liberation. If the church does not share in the liberation struggle of Black women, its liberation struggle is not authentic. If women are oppressed, the church cannot possibly be “a visible manifestation that the gospel is a reality”—for the gospel cannot be real in that context. One can see the contradictions between the church’s language or proclamation of liberation and its action by looking both at the status of Black women in the church as laity and Black women in the ordained ministry of the church.