Black Theology or Black Religion? Discipleship as a Theological Method

Since its inception black theology has wrestled with questions of method as well as the struggle of African-American Christian existence in the wake of modernity. This article examines the relationship between black theology and black religious scholarship. Arguing against the centrality of Charles Long as one who recapitulates a colonial dominance through the refusal of African-American Christian particularity, I examine the work of Victor Anderson and Anthony Pinn. I conclude with a consideration of identity as performance and the language of discipleship as a means of expressing a black theology of liberation intelligible within the particularity of African-American Christian life.