During slavery, the Christian faith was brought to those of African descent by people who were cultural “outsiders.” These initial interactions with the Christian faith were in the context of violence and oppression. Therefore, the missiological concern for contextualization of the Christian faith was not of great importance. Moreover, the early proclaimers of the “gospel,” to African slaves, version of contextualization went no further then to eisegete household-codes to slaves so that they would be submissive to their oppression. Therefore, from the beginning, there has been a division between Christians of African descent and those of European descent.
In our current day there is much talk about racial reconciliation; that the Gospel calls people from all ethnicities to be in unity with one another in Christ. However, the demands of the Gospel rarely work in a mystical way that destroys all human responsibility to deal proactively with the present realities in the world. African-Americans and European-Americans have a real history in this country that is filled with fear, pain, and mistreatment. To have a sufficient response to this problem, a robust understanding of the role Traditional American Christian Theology (TACT) has played in it. My contention is that (TACT) has been shaped in such a way that it ignores the concerns, and justifies the condition of African-Americans in this country. This is the leading cause of the division between African-American cultural insiders and their White Evangelical brothers and sisters in Christ. I argue that if we want to see true racial-reconciliation, the White Evangelical Church must re-analyze its (TACT). This theology must be contextualized so that the broader African-American church can feel as if they are welcome in White Evangelical spaces. I hope to show the blind-spot and need for contextualization of (TACT) by assessing Missiologist Paul Hiebert’s “Flaw of the Excluded Middle” and its relevance to the relationship of (TACT) to African-Americans and multi-ethnic relationships.
Paul Hiebert, a Missiological Anthropologist, developed a concept called “The Flaw of the Excluded Middle.” This was based on his extensive research and experience as a missionary in India. He asserts that in India when people became sick they typically went to a “person of god,” or a magician for healing.[i] However, when these villages converted to Christianity the individuals began looking to the missionary for answers to the problems they formally would present to magicians, but, they often would not get one.[ii] Hiebert states that the western missionary’s typical response to spirit-possession or curses was dismissive: “‘these do not really exist, they say.’ But to people for whom these are very real experiences in their lives, there must be another answer. Therefore, many of them return to the magicians for cures.”[iii] Hiebert points out a flaw in his worldview and theological training as it relates to non-western cultures. He believed that his western mind caused him to assume that confronting the supernatural was part of an unordinary experience and not the norm.[iv] He describes this by using an analytical framework. He asserts that on the first level of reality is the empirical world of our senses; for this, people have developed “folk sciences” to explain and control it. Above this level are “beings and forces that cannot be directly perceived but are thought to exist on this earth. On the highest level are the transcendent world of heaven, hell, and the high gods of religions.
According to Hiebert, the western worldview typically deals with the transcendent and empirical worlds while ignoring the middle area of the supernatural. He explains, “the reason for my uneasiness with the biblical and Indian worldviews should be clear. I had excluded the middle level of supernatural this-worldly beings and forces from my own worldview. As a scientist I had been trained to deal with the empirical world in naturalistic terms. As a theologian I was taught to answer ultimate questions in theistic terms. For me the middle zone did not exist.”[v] This, he argues is the “Flaw of the excluded middle” among western missionaries. He contends that because the Western word does not provide explanations for questions on the middle level, Western missionaries have no answers within their Christian worldview.[vi] The greatest tragedy of this phenomenon is that, “given no answer, they return to the diviner who gives definite answers, for these are problems that loom large in their everyday life.”[vii] This often results in syncretism.
White Evangelicals are faced with a similar problem in regards to their attempts to form multi-ethnic and multi-cultural bonds with the broader African-American community. This problem originates with the fact that when a society is shaped to structurally oppress a people, the religion of that society will typically be shaped to protect that structure of oppression. One does not have to be a historian to know the use of Christianity in America to affirm and defend slavery and racial oppression in the United States. Hence (TACT) has been shaped by those who were the beneficiaries of American slavery. Therefore, it is no mystery why the primary emphasis in (TACT) is with the individual’s responsibility to, and relationship with, God. The reciprocal side to this theological feature has been the notion (at least in practice) that racial justice is irrelevant to (TACT).
What I am attempting to show in this chart is that (TACT) has spent its time articulating answers for the problem with human sin as it relates to God, and the problem of personal sin as it relates to the individual; however, (TACT) has nothing to say about sinful structures (at least as it relates to the oppression of African-Americans). Consequently, just like the western missionaries that Hiebert describes, many White Evangelicals steeped in (TACT) not only do they lack answers to the issues American society presents to African-Americans, but they often do not even see them. Therefore, in many of our attempts to come together in unity with each other, African-Americans are left with the task of proving that the “ghost” of structural oppression really exists. This causes frustration and a lack of trust on both sides. Furthermore, African-Americans who are being engaged by (TACT) that White Evangelicals present to them find that their unique questions are not answered by this theology, and so they turn to alternative voices for answers and either reject the Christian faith, or syncretize Christian beliefs with other theologies that are relevant to their concerns.
Conclusion
If we want to see multi-ethnic churches that include not only African-Americans who are on the fringe of their culture, but the broader community, there must be a reassessment of Traditional American Christian Theology (TACT). When Hiebert found that his western worldview and theological training was insufficient in reaching the people of India he argued that there was a need to develop a holistic theology that deals with all areas of life.[viii] In order for the broader community of African-Americans to be willing to participate in multi-ethnic ministries there needs to be work done to deal with the “middle” that has been excluded from Traditional American Christian Theology.
[i] http://hiebertglobalcenter.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/29.-1999.-The-Flaw-of-the-Excluded-Middle.pdf retrieved 12-14-15 at 1:00pm.
[ii]Ibid.
[iii]Ibid.
[iv]Ibid.
[v]Ibid.
[vi]Ibid.
[vii]Ibid.
[viii]Ibid.
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