There are three main movements that influenced the rise of Caribbean theology. The first was the struggle for political independence, which came to fruition in the region in the 1960s. Therefore, Caribbean theology represents an attempt to formulate a theological discourse that would complement the political imaginations of regional independence. Consequently, there is in Caribbean theology, a major emphasis on the idea of the decolonisation of theology.
The central thought is that the church must also disassociate itself from colonial theology (European/American) if it is to contribute to the social reconstruction in the region. The missionary thrust in the Caribbean was, in many respects, a movement of cultural imposition.
According to Watty, also a former president at UTC, those missionary activities could be termed 'imperialism at prayer' because in the mind of the missionaries, there was not always a clear distinction between evangelisation and Europeanisation.
Another movement that influenced the rise of Caribbean theology was the discourse on liberation theology that developed in Latin America. It emphasised social analysis of the actual conditions in which oppressed people were living, reading and questioning the Bible in light of the situations of oppression and taking action to change the situation of the oppressed.
The third influence is the Black Power movement, which swept across the Americas, reaching the height of its glory during the 1960s. Of course, one of the earliest inspirations of the movement was Marcus Garvey, who disseminated a unique brand of African nationalism and black pride through the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) that he organised in 1914.
The Caribbean theological discourse draws on the ideals of the Black Power movement in stressing the need for the indigenisation of faith and racial consciousness.
Williams and Indigenisation
The thesis of his book is that the rise of an indigenous Caribbean theological discourse is a backlash to European missionary activity, which went hand in hand with European geo-political expansion. He illustrates this marriage between colonialism and European evangelisation with reference to an incident in Guyana.
He quotes an English Anglican clergyman who said: "We owe it to the negro to think for him, to help him by placing over him trustworthy men, armed with almost feudal authority to enforce such social duties as devolve upon him, and to save him from himself." [p. 5].
This kind of presumptuousness in the thinking of our Christian forbears, Dr. Williams argued, was detrimental to the Caribbean region. The development of a process in Caribbean theological thought, which emphasised cultural and racial respect, was a necessary corrective to the European missionary ideal. According to Dr. Williams, the failure of Caribbean thinkers to see this as an authentic enterprise "suggests that there may be some lingering need for European blessing on the process."
The failure to develop a truly indigenous church and the failure to expand indigenous Caribbean theological thought are probably the main reasons that Christian ideals are not seen to be making a significant impact on the character of life in the country.
We only have to look at the anomaly in which, a myriad of churches populate the depressed communities - in the midst of extensively high levels of crime, violence and poverty - to see evidence of the failure. Part of the reasons churches are at a loss about how to deal with the realities of day-to-day life in Jamaica is that we continue to borrow the language and ideas for the way that we think and speak from foreign contexts.
Pastors should pay greater attention to the surveys coming out of the social science faculty at UWI, the Survey of Living Conditions and the reports of the different task forces on crime and violence and read them alongside their bible.
In the long run, those reports are more critical to Sunday-morning preaching than the fuzzy ideas about people being afflicted with spirits and the need to convert Muslims, which we see coming out of America. Focusing on the realities of Jamaica and putting transformation in real and visible terms at the centre of our thinking is what Dr. Williams means by indigenisation in Caribbean theology.
The enduring contribution of Dr. Lewin Williams, then, is that the relevance of the Caribbean church is always going to be judged by its commitment to social transformation, genuine independence and cultural respect.
Livingstone Thompson is a Jamaican theologian living and working in the Republic of Ireland. He may be reached at livingstone.thompson@oceanfree.net.
