Seminary professor condemns those who say theology matters
By Craig M. Kibler, The Layman Online, January 27, 2003
SAN ANTONIO – “To those who say theology matters, I say, ‘To hell with you!'” a seminary professor told nearly 200 participants at the biennial conference of the Presbyterian Health, Education and Welfare Association.
The Rev. James Noel, a Presbyterian pastor and an associate professor of American religion at San Francisco Theological Seminary who also has been a board member and was president of the association from 1987-1989, offered what he called a “black/postmodern perspective” on liberation theology.
His thesis was that “everything has a location, is initiated by location. We don’t want our theology to be something that Calvin already did. We want to adjudicate and negotiate what we mean by the truth.”
With several references to God as “Her,” Noel criticized the Reformation as not answering the questions raised by non-whites.
“The Reformation infused itself into the culture and became the dominant force in northern Europe,” he said. The problem, though, was that the “Reformed culture was not able to come up with a solution that said non-Europeans were human beings, too.”
That’s when Noel condemned those who say theology matters by saying, “To hell with you!” He explained that it “depends on where you are situated when you read Calvin.”
As a metaphor, Noel used the various decks of a slave ship. The first Christians that African Americans met were English and Dutch slave traders, he said, explaining that Reformed theology looks a lot different from the bottom of the slave ship, amid the filth and the abuse and the chains, than it does from the top, where there was fresh air, good food and sunshine.
Those differing locations, Noel said, provided different views of God. As the slaves’ first prayer, for example, he said it was a moan – a cry to God – asking, “If you exist, why are you doing this to me?”
That “cry was a protest against injustice,” Noel said. “It asks ‘Why?’ and ‘If there is a God, why am I forced to undergo hardship?’ That cry was the first sound of black theology.”
Black theologians, rejecting the Calvinist arguments that justified slavery, condemned the institution of slavery by citing Jesus’ words that “No man can serve two masters.” Noel said their thinking was that a slave could serve God and be free, but was refusing to serve God if he served a slave owner.
He also cited three points raised by Henry Garnett: freedom is a spirit; people can’t be oppressed if God is near; and God intervenes when a people cry out.
This evolution in theology led to new ideas about God, Noel said, illustrating his point by saying that man was created because God was lonely and needed community.
He told a story about a minister in the Atlanta area who grew angry with God because black people were being lynched. The minister, upset with what he perceived as God permitting the lynchings, prayed – crying out to God and asking why didn’t He do anything to prevent the lynchings.
Noel said, however, that the minister then heard God ask, “Why aren’t you doing anything when I pray to you?”
He said that prayer from God, telling us what we need to do in answer to our prayer, is a gift exchange – the bringing of a piece of ourselves – that will lead to a radical transformation that will dismantle the “structure that permits the oppression to take place.”