Abstract
This article argues that Christ’s passion/crucifixion functioned within the African American psyche as a religious narrative and symbol that uniquely addressed the severe trauma they underwent during the Middle Passage and slavery by enabling them to experience the presence of God in the depths of extreme suffering. Christ’s passion/crucifixion mirrored their experience of racial oppression and, thereby, provided a critique of the system and actors that perpetuated it. The Spiritual “Were You There?” is interpreted in this light. This correspondence between the African American’s historical experience and the narrative symbol of Christ’s passion/crucifixion helps explain their conversion to Christianity.
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Moltmann, J. (1974). The crucified God: The cross of Christ as the foundation and criticism of Christian theology. New York: Harper & Row Publishers.
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Sobel, M. (1988). Trabl’n On: The slave journey to an Afro-Baptist faith. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
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James Noel is Associate Professor of American Religion and occupies the H. Eugene Farlough Chair in African American Christianity at San Francisco Theological Seminary and the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley and Interim Pastor of SojournerTruth Presbyterian Church in Richmond, CA.
Matthew V. Johnson Sr. is a graduate of the the University of Chicago Divinity School in Philosophical Theology. He has also done postdoctoral research in Psychoanalysis. He is currently pastor of the Christian Fellowship Baptist Church in the greater Atlanta area.
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Noel, J.A., Johnson, M.V. Psychological Trauma, Christ’s Passion, and the African American Faith Tradition. Pastoral Psychol 53, 361–369 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11089-005-2063-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11089-005-2063-6