Theology

My theology is inspired by my ancestral African American roots and by liberation, postcolonial, and queer theologians.

“To acknowledge our ancestors means we are aware that we did not make ourselves, that the line stretches all the way back, perhaps to God; or to Gods. We remember them because it is an easy thing to forget: that we are not the first to suffer, rebel, fight, love and die.”

- Alice Walker (b. 1944)

I call myself a Queer Black Unitarian Universalist Pentecostal who resides in Northern New England. It is a blend of my social location, my previous childhood theology, and my current theology as a queer adult. My previous childhood theology was based in Christianity, while my current theology blends aspects of my childhood theology that affirmed my queerness with universalism---more specifically the belief in universal salvation.

Some elements of that experience as a child, and later, as a minister in that faith, that I have brought with me into my current theology draw not from the Biblical theology but from the African American Survival Theology that was embedded in the faith. It drew from the social and cultural experience of southern black communities, and more specifically, those who migrated north to be freed from racial oppression and suppression with roots in slavery.

Ernie Barnes, “Friendly Friendship Baptist Church” 1994. Photo by Victoria L. Valentine (click image for original source.)

Survival theology found in hymns and songs reside not just in the lyrics and the music, but in the embodiment of the lyrics and music in the form of worship and dance. The ritualized worship that Pentecostals are known for encompasses the theology of freedom and survival and was fully embodied. It was free, emotional, and cathartic. Survival is necessary for social change. This survival theology became activated in the outward public expression and the manifestation of a holy spirit that empowered, comforted, healed, offered hope and courage, and offered forgiveness. Songs like “Didn’t My Lord Deliver Daniel,” with the refrain, “then why not every man,” brings hope for the deliverance from oppression- true freedom. The worship as part of it outwardly expresses faith and joy for the hope of deliverance and to live on unto the next life and for salvation. However, this is where I deviate from my former theology to embrace a new one. One in which embodied expressive free worship is key, but salvation is more universal than just for the “fire-baptized” believers.

Universalism in its Christian form- the belief that, in the end, all creation and every human being will be reconciled to God or to the Divine is central to my current theology. For the belief that if God is the creator of all things, it would seem to be a failure of love to bring into existence beings who were going to end up suffering eternal punishment. A belief, in its basic form, that an all-loving Divine would bring us into existence only in the confidence that our final good could be achieved.

“The role that I have as a minister in a congregation that has multiple theologies, worship and preaching must reflect the pluralistic nature of the congregation. Truth and meaning and challenges can come from many sources and draws folk to UUism because of that. My role is to cultivate the search for truth and meaning and make space for the religious and non-religious alike.”

Coming from a faith that focused on the fear of God and being sent into the fiery pits of hell for even the finite sin, the concept of all people reconciling with the divine and being welcomed into loving arms was comforting as my previous faith taught that my sexuality was a dire sin. Instead, embrace the first principle of Unitarian Universalism that affirms my inherent worth and dignity whereas my previous theology repudiated it.

To be saved meant to be freed from sin and living a life free from it to enter into heaven based on my Christian Holiness roots, but the Pentecostal roots called for a visible conversion experience with spiritual physical evidence- speaking in tongues, dancing in the spirit or “shouting,” and be set apart from non-believers. Again, contrasts many depictions of Jesus and a loving Divine. However, my theology agrees with the late scholar of Comparative Religion, Wilfred Cantwell Smith, who defined salvation as “simply as having the ability to perceive our current life as meaningful, in contrast to nihilism and ultimate despair.” Being present, being mindful, and seeing this life as meaningful is salvation. And it's universal.

Merging Black Survival Theology with the Universalist theological belief in collective salvation can only be truly achieved through universal oneness, unity, in other words, collective sacrifice to make meaningful life and move us forward toward true freedom. Drawing from our traditions and working in all the ways possible together as a species for the sake of universal salvation calls us to the collective sacrifice of our resources, individuality, ego, power, privilege, and control is “a collective practice.” That universal salvation in my current theology is freedom. Freedom from the hell of homelessness, the hell of poverty, the hell of racism, the hell of war, the hell of violence and abuse, the hell of depression and helplessness. This is one thing my constructed theology is calling us now. And if we can achieve this, we can dismantle racism and other oppressions within ourselves and our institutions. As survival is essential for social justice, so is collective sacrifice.

As I continue on this journey of truth and meaning, I am a follower of Jesus but also realize that truth and meaning are not just from one source. I am a Unitarian Universalist and proud of it.

Click above to view a theological sermon.