“Stony the Road”: African Americans, the Bible, and the Problems of Historical Criticism
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This article is a revised excerpt of the paper “Thou Who Has By Thy Might, Led Us Into The Light,” which was presented at the 2021 Mid-Atlantic Region of the Society of Biblical Literature, as well as at the 2021 Society of Biblical Literature Conference.
The summer of 2020 was difficult. The loss of human life has not only enraged many black people, but caused many to re-evaluate how they view justice, equality, and fair treatment. While there have been secular and Christian movements working toward this end, those who have been silent in the past are beginning to make noise. This is evident in the subject matter of the books that were at the top of the New York Times Best Seller List that summer. Terms like fragility, white privilege, and reconciliation are being spoken by those who previously refused to acknowledge their legitimacy. While a new generation of activists struggle to change how society sees race, what is not lost on me is how deep theological racism is in America.
Cain Hope Felder, a New Testament scholar and United Methodist pastor, taught at Howard University School of Divinity. The 30th Anniversary Expanded Edition of his landmark text, Stony the Road We Trod, was released in November 2021 by Fortress Press. I passionately believe that the methodology of biblical reading and interpretation has been racialized since the European Enlightenment, and has been exported to American churches and theological institutions. Felder’s book illuminates this problem.
Historical Criticism
Felder argues that the worldwide uniformity of educational standards reinforces the academic prejudice that the European way of doing things is “objective” and somehow not culture bound. This is the result of the colonization of Africa by the Western Europeans after the Berlin Conference in 1884-1885. Western European educational systems were introduced within an African context, and all indigenous cultural training was deemed “heathen” or “uncultured.” As a result, educational objectivity focused on what could be measured, as opposed to what could be felt. Science became a priority, while the spiritual was subjugated to mythology. William H. Myers states the modern Eurocentric way of interpreting the text is often considered the normative way by which all other approaches are to be tested. The Alexandrian (and Augustinian) way of interpreting scripture, using allegory, was deemed inferior to the historical-critical method because it was viewed as uncritical, rooted in the belief in the supernatural.
Thomas Hoyt Jr. described the historical-critical method as a 19th century European methodology that includes textual, source, form, and redaction criticism. It seeks to clarify the meaning of the texts in their own settings. It can include analysis of the lives of ancient people in terms of their everyday experience; their moral values; oppression; the social world they inhabited; and psychological, economic, and political factors. The historical-critical method also serves as a hedge against the charges of biblicism (literal, dogmatic) and fundamentalism. This in and of itself is historically racist. The literal and spiritual method of biblical interpretation of Augustine, Origen, and Athanasius (the Father of Orthodoxy) has been the basis of some of Christianity’s greatest theological writings and arguments. De Principiis by Origen is considered a classic of Eastern Orthodox theological works according to Thomas Oden’s book How Africa Shaped the Christian Mind. Oden believes that the doctrines of the divinity of Jesus and the Holy Spirit that were argued by Athanasius are still central to the faith of countless Christians worldwide. Dwight McKissic and Tony Evans, in their book Beyond Roots II, note that Augustine’s Confessions and The City of God are esteemed by Western Christians.
Myers argues that Black students become aware of the fact that they have been given a “metric” set of “tools” to work with in a “nonmetric” context. What has been presented as universal is biased. Yet, the Eurocentric approach to theological hermeneutics has been dominant in Western cultures since the Enlightenment. The Eurocentric approach devalues the narrative character of the Bible, overemphasizing propositional statements to the exclusion of historical-experiential events. It excludes consideration of the way in which the text has been received in the interpretative process over time. It is too heavily dependent on the historical-critical method. In other words, it fails to recognize that how the story is told and received is as important as what truth claims can be made in the process. The Eurocentric approach to doing theological hermeneutics is inadequate in Third World cultures and minority cultures. Most Third World and minority cultural worldviews assume the existence and relevance of the spiritual realm. Many of those who have been trained in a Western educational context still retain this perspective of religion, the Bible, and faith. While tacitly implying that the Eurocentric approach is without cultural bias, the historical-critical method also implies that an African American reading of the text is culturally biased. A “culture-free” gospel is really Western in disguise.
African American Biblical Interpretation
Hoyt notes that Blacks report dissonance between what they know and what they were taught, and they tell of a kind of profound liberation when they finally are able to challenge, substantially, some of the conventions of the biblical field, according to Felder. African Americans have been accommodationist, oppositional, and even assimilationist in how we embark upon the task of reading the Bible. Now for the first time in centuries, African-descended people have developed a methodology of biblical interpretation. Black Bible scholars have given equal weight to scriptures that deal with justice and jubilee. And while most of those scriptures are in the Old Testament, Black Bible scholars have paid careful attention to the words of Jesus on justice. Many blacks emphasize the humanity of Jesus, particularly in his identification with the poor.
Hoyt states that black approaches to the Bible also insist that the socio-cultural contexts of the text and the interpreter must be examined. What is the motivation of the interpreter? What is the desired outcome of the methodology used in the interpretive task? Blacks appropriate the Bible mainly through storytelling and read it historically and concretely. In other words, Blacks interpret the Bible literally, with an eye on the narrative. Fundamental to any Black biblical hermeneutic are the universal parenthood of God and the concomitant universal kinship of humankind. A relational God resonates with the worldview of Black Christians. While White preachers often interpreted biblical events figuratively, blacks interpreted the Bible literally and concretely.
Vincent L. Wimbush describes five stages of development—not all of them entirely positive—in African American biblical interpretation. He calls these “readings of the Bible.” The first reading of the Bible (17th century) begins with the African experience in the New World. Most African slaves rejected Christianity. It was a foreign religion, and its holy book was written in a foreign language. The second reading of the Bible (18th century) led to a transformation of a Book Religion into Religion of Slave Experience. Jemar Tisby, in his book The Color of Compromise notes that beginning with Methodist missionaries, and followed by the Baptists, there were mass conversions of slaves after the American Revolutionary War. The third reading of the Bible (19th century) led to the establishment of Canon and Hermeneutical Principle that led to the beginning of Independent Black Churches. The fourth reading of the Bible (20th century) has resulted in what Wimbush calls Esoteric and Elitist Hermeneutical Principles and Texts. This agenda is being advanced by Bible scholars who have been trained in academic institutions that teach the historical-critical method as normative. The fifth reading of the Bible (20th century) has led to Fundamentalism, as many blacks have adopted traditional views to subscribe to a “culture-free gospel.”
Another model of African American hermeneutical reflections has been proposed by David T. Shannon. This model of biblical interpretation focuses on context, relationship, confrontation, and consolation.
Contextuality – The interpreter has a clear awareness of the role of the context of oppression in the human predicament and in the spiritual condition of the hearers.
Correlation – The interpreter correlates ancient biblical stories and changing historical situations.
Confrontation – In his or her presentation of the biblical message, the preacher uses double entendre and humor as methods of confrontation.
Consolation – A sermon presents the basic biblical theme of divine presence in the midst of oppression and suffering as a basis of hope.
This is how most blacks interpret the Bible subconsciously because it resonates with our worldview. This hermeneutic was born out of the black experience of oppression in America and is deeply rooted in liberation theology. However, it predates the works of James Cone. It is the result of slaves who taught themselves how to read the Bible and rejected the heavily redacted scriptures that they were given by their owners. It is the revelation that was given to them by the Spirit of God!
How we view the text determines how we read the text. If we believe that Jesus did not speak on slavery because he never mentioned it, then it will influence our theology. Yet if we allow the text to speak for itself and adopt a literal and spiritual hermeneutic, like the early church fathers employed, then we can see the obvious in scripture.
I am a firm believer that if Americans were to acknowledge that Protestant Christianity has been disproportionately influenced by Protestant European sources, to the neglect of African theologians of the early church, then we will see the Bible in a new, holistic light. Then we can move on to contextualizing, correlating, confronting, and consoling.
Odell Horne, Jr. is a ThD candidate at Evangelical Seminary in Pennsylvania, and he has a master’s degree in African and African American Studies from Clark Atlanta University.