This is a link to a blog I follow—The Won Percent—and I want to note, upfront, that I am not promoting the hashtag #SeminaryWhileBlack. That would be presumptuous of me, not to mention appropriative.
However, I thoroughly enjoyed the post, especially as I read accounts from students at seminaries who discover that their texts are usually from the same source—European men. It’s critical that we have a broader view of theology than just what was created in cold North climes.
There is a tremendous need for something more that what’s been traditionally offered.
And the quote from Carter Woodson, from the 1920s, is just killer:
In schools of theology Negroes are taught the interpretation of the Bible worked out by those who have justified segregation and winked at economic debasement of the Negro sometimes almost to the point of starvation. Deriving their sense of right from this teaching, graduates of such schools have no messages to grip the people whom they have been ill-trained to serve.
I heard similar stories from some preachers and other ministers and teachers.