"“No Respecter of Persons”: A Constructive Black Theology of Otherness" by Anthony R. Roberts

Date of Award

Summer 8-24-2024

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Organizational Unit

Joint Ph.D. Program in Study of Religion

First Advisor

Theodore M. Vial

Second Advisor

Sarah Pessin

Third Advisor

Jason O. Jeffries

Copyright Statement / License for Reuse

All Rights Reserved
All Rights Reserved.

Keywords

Alterity, Black Pentecostalism, Black theology, Emmanuel Levinas, Pneumatology, Subjectivity

Abstract

The emergence of black theology in the American academy during the mid twentieth century is a significant development in contemporary theology. As a theology that speaks from a particular context (which is defined by its plurality rather than its uniformity), black theology attempts to make sense of God and humanity in a way that reflects the experiences of African Americans. While there are multiple trajectories within black theology, they share a common focus on constructively thinking about human alterity. Black theologians tend to engage human alterity by reconstructing race (e.g., reconceptualizing blackness in such a way that God takes on blackness through God's identification with blacks) or centering human diversity (e.g., the multiplicity of differences that mark black bodies reflect the underlying plurality of the world). These approaches have led to the growth and maturing of black theology.

With this said, the further development of alterity within black theology requires the affirmation of the excessive nature of alterity (that is beyond containment in any totalizing concept) and a proposal for the way that humans relate to each other in the face of such excessive alterity. Through a critical engagement of Levinasian thought and black Pentecostal theology, I argue that the Spirit empowers humans to welcome each other’s irreducible otherness as a holy expression of communion with the infinity of the Other. The Spirit empowers the self to respond to the Other who approaches the self with an infinite call to responsibility. Through this interaction between the Other, the self, and the Spirit, a pentecostal subjectivity takes form in the self.

Copyright Date

8-2024

Publication Statement

Copyright is held by the author. User is responsible for all copyright compliance.

Rights Holder

Anthony R. Roberts

Provenance

Received from Author

File Format

application/pdf

Language

English (eng)

Extent

232 pgs

File Size

736 KB

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Available for download on Sunday, September 27, 2026



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