Part V. Contemporary Constructive Voices & Parallel Streams: Beyond Borders, Toward Belonging

Black theology today does not exist in a vacuum. It lives in dialogue—with history, with the wider church, with other religions, and with a fractured society still struggling with race, justice, and belonging. If earlier eras asked whether Black people could survive, protest, or build institutions, contemporary voices ask: What does it mean to imagine the future of the church, the nation, and the world when race itself has become a theological problem?

This is the era of constructive theology—where Black thinkers, pastors, and activists re-imagine what Christianity can be even as they engage Islam, Judaism, Afro-Caribbean religions, and Buddhism. Their work insists that theology cannot stop at the boundaries of the church but must address the entire ecology of race, faith, and belonging.

Protestant and Ecumenical Voices

Few thinkers have reshaped the conversation like Willie James Jennings. In The Christian Imagination: Theology and the Origins of Race (2010), Jennings argues that Western Christian colonialism produced a racialized Christian imagination by severing faith from land, neighbor, and embodied belonging.^1 His call is not merely to critique but to re-root theology in place, community, and creation.

Esau McCaulley, in Reading While Black (2020), models what he calls a Black ecclesial hermeneutic—a way of reading Scripture that is deeply orthodox, deeply hopeful, and unapologetically shaped by the Black experience.^2 McCaulley demonstrates that fidelity to Scripture and commitment to justice need not be opposites.

Together, Jennings and McCaulley show that contemporary Black theology is not only protest but reconstruction—faithful, communal, and transformative.

Black Islam: From Separation to Reform

Islam has long shaped the Black religious imagination. Elijah Muhammad and the Nation of Islam (NOI) advanced a separatist Black-nationalist theology that rejected white supremacy and, in its classic teaching, deified Wallace Fard Muhammad.^3 Malcolm X became its most famous voice—until his 1964 pilgrimage to Mecca transformed his outlook. His Letter from Mecca describes the radical equality of Muslims across color lines, inspiring a global and pluralist vision of liberation.^4

Warith Deen Mohammed, Elijah’s son, led most NOI members into Sunni Islam beginning in 1975, integrating orthodox practice with a theology of dignity, justice, and civic engagement.^5 Later, Amina Wadud made global headlines in 2005 by leading a mixed-gender Jumuʿah prayer in New York City, embodying Qurʾānic hermeneutics that insist women and men share equal authority before God.^6

For Black Muslims, theology thus became a site not only of racial survival but also of gender justice and religious reform.

Black Hebrew Israelite Movements

Another stream developed outside both Christianity and Islam: the Black Hebrew Israelites. William S. Crowdy founded the Church of God and Saints of Christ in 1896, teaching that Black people descend from the tribes of Israel.^7 Ben Ammi Ben-Israel led followers from the U.S. to Israel in the late 1960s, establishing the Dimona community by 1970.^8 In Chicago, Rabbi Capers Funnye bridges Hebrew-Israelite identity and mainstream Judaism; after a Conservative-supervised conversion, he joined the Chicago Board of Rabbis and now heads the International Israelite Board of Rabbis.^9

These identities are diverse—many groups remain outside denominational Judaism, while others like Funnye’s seek mutual recognition. For them, the question is not assimilation but identity: Who are we in God’s story?

Afro-Caribbean Religions

Across Haiti, Cuba, and the wider diaspora, Afro-Caribbean religions such as Vodou and Santería preserve the memory of Africa fused with Catholic forms. Haitian Vodou, described by scholars Patrick Bellegarde-Smith and Claudine Michel, teaches one God (Bondye) working through a host of spirits (lwa). Far from superstition, it is a theology of community, healing, and resistance that played an important mobilizing and symbolic role in the Haitian Revolution.^10

In the United States, Ernesto Pichardo, priest of the Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye, won the landmark Supreme Court case Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye v. Hialeah (1993), protecting Santería from discriminatory ordinances and establishing major precedents for religious freedom.^11

These traditions remind us that Black theology is broader than Christianity—it is an interwoven fabric of African spiritual survivals continually reinterpreted for new worlds.

Black Buddhists

Even Buddhism has become a spiritual home for some Black voices. Jan Willis, in Dreaming Me (2001), recounts growing up Baptist in the segregated South, surviving racial violence, and later embracing Tibetan Buddhism. She insists that non-violence, meditation, and justice belong together.^12 Rev. angel Kyodo williams, co-author of Radical Dharma (2016), teaches that the Dharma must confront white supremacy as directly as inner suffering.^13 For her, liberation is both personal and social.

Their work expands Black theology into genuine interfaith dialogue, proving that liberation cannot be confined to Christian or Muslim frameworks.

Themes: Belonging, Identity, and Reconstruction

This contemporary moment weaves together multiple streams, yet three themes stand out:

Theology of Belonging — Jennings calls for a faith rooted in place, community, and embodied identity.
Hermeneutics of Hope — McCaulley and others reclaim Scripture as a resource for justice without abandoning orthodoxy.
Interfaith Expansions — Black Islam, Hebrew Israelites, Afro-Caribbean religions, and Black Buddhists widen what it means to practice “Black theology” in the Americas.

Must-Reads

Willie James Jennings, The Christian Imagination: Theology and the Origins of Race (2010).
Malcolm X, Letter from Mecca (1964).
Amina Wadud, Qur’an and Woman (1999) and Inside the Gender Jihad (2006).
Jan Willis, Dreaming Me (2001).

These texts—Christian, Muslim, and beyond—bookend the challenge of our time: to imagine faith beyond racial division and to see God’s vision of justice as global.

Conclusion: Beyond Protest, Toward a New World

In our time, Black theology has become more than resistance—it has become reconstruction. From seminaries to mosques, from Vodou temples to Buddhist sanghas, from Chicago pulpits to Kingston dancehalls, the message resounds: faith must be re-imagined until it sustains human dignity.

If Part I was survival made sacred, Part II protest made prophetic, Part III freedom made constructive, and Part IV liberation made revolution, then Part V is belonging made global.

Here the journey of Black theology in the Americas does not end—it expands. It asks us all: What would a world look like where no one is displaced, no one is erased, and God is known in every tongue, drumbeat, and breath?

Notes

Willie James Jennings, The Christian Imagination: Theology and the Origins of Race (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010).
Esau McCaulley, Reading While Black: African American Biblical Interpretation as an Exercise in Hope (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2020).
E. U. Essien-Udom, Black Nationalism: A Search for an Identity in America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962), chap. 4.
Malcolm X, “Letter from Mecca,” New York Amsterdam News, May 15, 1964.
Mattias Gardell, In the Name of Elijah Muhammad: Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1996).
Amina Wadud, Inside the Gender Jihad: Women’s Reform in Islam (Oxford: Oneworld, 2006).
Yosef Ben-Jochannan, A Chronology of the Bible: A Challenge to the Standard Version (New York: Black Classic Press, 1973); James E. Landing, Black Hebrews and the Chosen People (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002).
John L. Jackson Jr., Thin Description: Ethnography and the African Hebrew Israelites of Jerusalem (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013).
Josef Berliner, “Rabbi Capers Funnye Jr. and the Black Jewish Renaissance,” Jewish Journal, October 14, 2015.
Patrick Bellegarde-Smith and Claudine Michel, eds., Haitian Vodou: Spirit, Myth, and Reality (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006).
Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye v. City of Hialeah, 508 U.S. 520 (1993).
Jan Willis, Dreaming Me: Black, Baptist, and Buddhist (Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2001).
angel Kyodo williams, Lama Rod Owens, and Jasmine Syedullah, Radical Dharma: Talking Race, Love, and Liberation (Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books, 2016).

Bibliography

Bellegarde-Smith, Patrick, and Claudine Michel, eds. Haitian Vodou: Spirit, Myth, and Reality. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006.
Ben-Jochannan, Yosef. A Chronology of the Bible: A Challenge to the Standard Version. New York: Black Classic Press, 1973.
Berliner, Josef. “Rabbi Capers Funnye Jr. and the Black Jewish Renaissance.” Jewish Journal, October 14, 2015.
Essien-Udom, E. U. Black Nationalism: A Search for an Identity in America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962.
Gardell, Mattias. In the Name of Elijah Muhammad: Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1996.
Jackson, John L., Jr. Thin Description: Ethnography and the African Hebrew Israelites of Jerusalem. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013.
Jennings, Willie James. The Christian Imagination: Theology and the Origins of Race. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010.
Landing, James E. Black Hebrews and the Chosen People. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002.
Malcolm X. “Letter from Mecca.” New York Amsterdam News, May 15, 1964.
McCaulley, Esau. Reading While Black: African American Biblical Interpretation as an Exercise in Hope. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2020.
Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye v. City of Hialeah, 508 U.S. 520 (1993).
Wadud, Amina. Inside the Gender Jihad: Women’s Reform in Islam. Oxford: Oneworld, 2006.
Wadud, Amina. Qur’an and Woman: Rereading the Sacred Text from a Woman’s Perspective. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.
williams, angel Kyodo, Lama Rod Owens, and Jasmine Syedullah. Radical Dharma: Talking Race, Love, and Liberation. Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books, 2016.
Willis, Jan. Dreaming Me: Black, Baptist, and Buddhist. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2001.