Black Experience and the Bible

Abstract

“The black experience in America is not the Jewish-Christian experience in ancient Palestine. But as the tale of sorrows of a people awaiting deliverance, the black narrative has a message consistent with the biblical witness though not to be found in that witness. It is a testimony of its own, distinct from Scripture even as it would proclaim its word to us in biblical images and in the categories of scriptural revelation … Though not of canonical status, the story of the black man in America is a self-validating account of faith which when heard and heeded, helps black and white respond more creatively to the divine word for our present situation.”