racial homogeneity of almost every other religious gathering of the day,
what could be more proof that this movement was of God?
The secondary role that racial diversity played in early white Pentecostal
theology stands in stark contrast to the theological signifi cance afforded
racial justice within the black Church. One of the concerns Schleiermacher
had with the prevailing hermeneutical approaches of the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries was their tendency to maintain the status quo, act-
ing as justifi cations for implicitly-held ideas. Similarly, black scholars have
always had an “ideological suspicion” about the ways in which ostensibly
neutral theories serve the interests of the powerful and the privileged.
James E. Turner writes:
Research is a social product, and the values and assumptions of the inves-
tigator are, more usually than not, congruent with the dominant ideas and
prevailing forces that govern the status quo ... The humanities are all too
frequently the bastion of white racism-national/cultural chauvinism, as they
serve to perpetuate a basic Eurocentric philosophy of history, language/
literature, music/creative production, and sociology of society by essentially
omitting and derogating non-European people and their projects. 48Martin Luther King, Jr., in his “Letter From Birmingham City Jail,”
echoed this sentiment:
The contemporary church is often a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncer-
tain sound. It is so often the arch-supporter of the status quo. Far from
being disturbed by the presence of the church, the power structure of the
average community is consoled by the church’s silent and often vocal sanc-
tion of things as they are. 49It is for this very reason that liberation theologians have always been explicit
in constructing theological themes refl ective of the injustices they sought
to overturn (e.g., Gustavo Gutíerrez’s positioning of “solidarity with the
poor” as the center of his theological program). 50 Such an approach “con-
sciously and explicitly accepts its relationship with politics,” 51 concerned
less about the “(false) impartiality of academic theology” 52 than with the
need to bring a potent social analysis to bear upon one’s hermeneutics
in order to “demarcate theo-political options related to the liberation of
the oppressed.” 53 The logic for this stance rests upon the recognition that
failing to articulate the ideals of an institution/movement—especially
ones that embrace principles that are counter-cultural—will result in the
238 D.T. LOYNES