Theology of the Black Church Experience

Have you ever wondered about the origin of the black church? Have you ever wondered why we have a black church versus a white church or even a multiracial church? How is the black church culturally different? How does the black church do hermeneutics? How is God depicted in the black church? These and many other questions will be addressed in my new course at Harding University entitled “Theology of the Black Church.” We invite you to sign up and join the exciting but honest conversation.

Come explore the history of the black church in Western Christianity and her contribution to the examination of Christian doctrine and praxis both by European and American theologians and the white church. The black church tradition needs more dialogue among the Restoration Movement and the white Churches of Christ. The course examines the inception of Christianity in West Africa by the explorers from Portuguese and the Spaniards under Papal decree as well as the further development of black theology through the currents of the Great Awakening in America, the Cane Ridge Revival of the Stone-Campbell Movement, the “dominion mandate,” and “manifest destiny” of Euro-expansionism.

We plan to show how Africans in the New World began to reshape and reinterpret the Bible as interpreted by the dominant motif of white slave masters from a “book religion” to a “language-world” of the Bible as people of African descent began to convert to Protestant Christianity on a massive scale. The black experience and theological perspective touches on every major theological category. In addition, drawing from my doctoral dissertation (“Developing a Public Theology in African American Churches of Christ”), we will address the need for a new hermeneutic informed by the pathos of the black church experience from within the Church of Christ perspective.

By Kenneth Gilmore, D.Min.

If you are interested in learning more about this course and how to register, please write onlinebible@harding.edu and ask about BRES 3210/3230 Theology of the Black Church Experience.

To check out the syllabus for Dr. Gilmore’s BRES 3210/3230 Theology of the Black Church Experience, click here.

We invite you to watch the 20 minute interview with Dr. Gilmore by clicking on the interview box below.