This paper outlines the means by which candidates training for Christian ministry are encouraged to engage with the deontological positionality of anti-racism as a substantive element of Christian praxis. The first part of the paper provides some brief historical reflections on what was then the conventional approach to teaching an anti-racist ethic for Christian ministry, namely, the practice of “racism awareness”. Following these reflections, the author proceeds to outline the epistemological change that has occurred in his own ethical teaching, moving from the focus on racism awareness to a more critical, postcolonial deconstruction of Whiteness and its concomitant links to Mission Christianity. Mission Christianity, the religion that underpinned the British Empire, is identified as the repository that helped to institutionalise the existence of “white supremacy” and racism within the body politic of colonialism and the rise of notions of “manifest destiny”. In switching the modus operandi for an anti-racist ethic within Christian ministry, this paper seeks to reframe the ways in which the ethical basis for opposing and resisting racism is effected within Christian theology

This paper explores the intersection of Black Liberation theology and Practical theology, wrestling with the complexity of human subjectivity and epistemology. Practical theology has often been at the forefront of exploring the relationship between lived experience and knowledge production, often in terms of gender and sexuality. Yet, like other forms of theological articulation, the impact of Whiteness has rarely been explored particularly in relation to the converse visibility of Blackness and its paradoxical absence in the British theological academy. This paper seeks to open up that discussion. The latter part of the paper offers a theological exploration of the underlying forces and concerns that gave rise to the Referendum vote to leave the European Union. In what ways has the phenomenon of Whiteness helped to shape the Brexit vote? What might it mean for Practical theology in Britain if Whiteness was acknowledged, especially in our post-Brexit epoch?

This paper outlines the development of a form of scholarship that seeks to bring together transformative modes of pedagogy that have become commonplace in Christian religious education alongside the liberative themes to be found in Black theology. The paper summarises the significant contributions of Paulo Freire to transformative pedagogy and conscientization as the first stage in this developing work. This formative analysis is then followed by reflections on the significant developments in religious education by and for Black people, principally in the US. In the final part of the paper, I describe my own participative approaches to Black theology by means of transformative pedagogy, which utilises interactive exercises as a means of combining the insights of the aforementioned ideas and themes into a transformative mode of teaching and learning.

This study explores the contemporary crisis in Black Theology and its present moribund complexion. The author, a well-known black theologian, argues that Black Theology as an academic discipline has struggled with an identity crisis emerging from its origins as a pragmatic response to the existential struggles evinced in the lives of black people and not as an intellectual movement in the first instance. As sociopolitical contexts have changed, a number of scholars have posed the question as to whether there is a continued need for Black Theology. This study outlines the nature of the semantic challenges facing Black Theology and reflects on the importance of Black spirituality (an important theme in the work of Vuyani Vellem) as a means of enabling this form of liberative praxis to better connect to the lived experiences of ordinary black people. Contribution: This article contributes to the ongoing development of black liberation theology across the world. The article focuses on three historic locations where Black theology has traditionally flourished, these being the United States, the United Kingdom and South Africa. In response to the necessity for Black Theology to better relate to the practical realities of ordinary underprivileged black people this article proposes that greater attention should be given to liberative, spiritual praxis.

This paper explores the critical intersection of transformative pedagogies, especially the work of Paulo Freire and Augusto Boal, as it encounters Black theology. The nexus of these epistemological frameworks is then reflected on further, in order that a Black participative mode of theological reflection can be explicated as a newer, more critical form of intellectual enquiry. The development of this work, I argue, can then be used as a means of improving the praxiological intent of Practical theology in South Africa. In the final part of the paper, I outline how South African Practical theologians have responded to the radical intent I am outlining in this article.

I have lived with the painful realities of White privilege all my life. From witnessing a White neighbour call her Black labrador *igger to wrestling with the existential challenge of relating to a...