Pedagogy as Celebration

Abstract

In this book we have looked at the emergence and flowering of Black and womanist theologies and have sought to draw implication for the ways in which they serve as resource for pedagogy. Black theologians claimed that the primary reason for Black theology was the exclusion of the Black religious experience by White religionists in the articulation of White theology. This claim was based on the notion that African and African American culture, including ways of knowing and being, are inherently inferior to White culture and its ways of knowing and being. As Black theologians rejected the exclusionary posture of White religionists they sought to articulate a theology that spoke with specificity to the needs and hopes of the Black community. What surprised these Black male theologians as they sought to craft a Black theology for the entire Black community was that because they worked from the Black male experience, they in fact excluded the religious experiences of Black women. Black theologians were surprised to learn that Black women could not see themselves in their work because they were accustomed in church, society, and now in the academy to speak for women. The practice of Black men representing Black women has for a long time been a way of existing in the home, the church, and the society and therefore was a logical carry over to the academy.