What’s Wrong With Our Theology

Rev. Sekou trains SCUPE students in non-violent civil disobedience (Jan. 2015)

CHICAGO: June 13, 2020

by Dr. Shanta Premawardhana

On Tuesday, June 16th, 9:00 a.m. Chicago time, OMNIA will launch a series of Tuesday Talks – global Zoom conversations on the “Seeking a New Reality.”

This New Reality is emerging. The signs are everywhere. Events of the last two weeks made it clear that the United States is ready for such a conversation. Our engagement with Nigeria, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh make it clear that other places of the world are ready for a New Reality as well.

Our conversations will focus on the nature of the New Reality, its values, its impact on our common life, and what OMNIA’s role is in helping bring about the New Reality.

The first conversation on June 16th will feature Rev. Osagyefo Uhuru Sekou, as the initiator and Dr. Afri Atiba as the first respondent. Participants will be invited to offer brief responses. The purpose is not to seek answers but to provoke thoughtful questions.

Upon registration participants will receive information about how to join the Zoom conversation.

Rev. Osagyefo Uhuru Sekou moved to his native Ferguson, MO, immediately following Michael Brown’s murder of August 2014. He was quickly at the forefront of the protest movement organizing and training young people in methods and disciplines of non-violent civil disobedience. I invited him to come to Chicago and train SCUPE’s seminary students. He gave them an unforgettable hands-on training in non-violent civil disobedience.

“These young people,” he said, referring to the Ferguson protesters, “These queer, black, young women, and these saggy-panted young men are the very ones leading the movement towards justice. Those who are the most marginalized in society are leading where the church is failing to go. This is where God is speaking, and the church is not listening.” “It’s 50 years since Martin Luther King,” he said, “50 years since the Voting Rights Act, 50 years since Bloody Sunday in Selma, but it is as if nothing has changed—it’s open season on black men and women.” So he asks, “What’s wrong with our theology that 50 years later we are still struggling with this?”

 That framing, “What’s wrong with our theology?” puts the onus on religious leaders --theologians, theological educators and preachers -- for not privileging the contextuality of the streets. Sekou’s criticism is also this: had the discipline of theology taken seriously the racial revolution of 50 years ago, and had given space for a theological revolution to take place, would the churches allow the atrocity of police brutality to happen today? This requires a paradigm shift for theologians, who are used to holding the “received” tradition sacrosanct. The best we know to do with the questions and struggles that arise from the context is to tinker at the edges of our received theological traditions.

Sekou’s question is still valid. And now we have another opportunity -- the kind of opportunity for which OMNIA was made. For we are not satisfied tinkering at the edges. We are willing to look courageously at the malevolent forces at the heart of our religious traditions and seek change.

OMNIA is already busy around the world helping birth this New Reality. Interfaith Peacemaker Teams are already challenging the received traditions and taking seriously the contextual realities. We are doing this in Northeastern Nigeria (where Boko Haram is active), where Muslims and Christians are putting aside their historic antagonisms and coming together. We are doing this in Sri Lanka, where Buddhists, Muslims, Hindus and Christians are coming together, despite last year’s Easter bombings by an extremist Muslim group, and continuing instigation to violence by some extremist Buddhist monks. We are doing this in Bangladesh, where increasing extremism among Muslims sees a corresponding increase in extremism among Christians and Hindus.

OMNIA trains religious leaders and people of faith how to collaborate despite their differences, to build power by building relationships and alliances, to think and act strategically to win. Each small victory leads to building greater power and to greater victories. Soon it becomes evident that formerly antagonistic groups can work together, and that they can achieve victories that were otherwise impossible. This begins to shift the culture from one that tolerates extremism to one that affirms pluralism.

We have learned many lessons from our engagement around the world. We have learned to take the questions and struggles of the people on the ground seriously. These require us to critically examine our received theologies that legitimize our oppression and undermine our liberation. As our theology changes, rather than legitimizing oppression, it becomes a force for liberation.

This happened throughout history. A great example is the religious legitimization of Apartheid in South Africa. When the World Conference of Reformed Churches under Allen Boesak’s leadership declared Apartheid a heresy in 1983, the entire system began to crumble. Boesak was responding the cries that were arising from the context of deep suffering and struggle. This can be true of White supremacy as well.

We are also clear that we can’t do this alone. We need lots of partners, friends, supporters. Our Tuesday Talks are a way for you to join the movement. Please do join us.