by Andre E. Johnson<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n Dr. Earheart-Brown\u2019s sermon was a reminder to me of what I have been thinking about since the death of Michael Brown on August 9, 2014\u2014that ministry is done not in a\u00a0Utopian\u00a0paradise,\u00a0but in the messy real world. After the aftermath\u2014the protests, the marches, the denials from the police administration\u2014after the riots, tear gas, body armor, rubber bullets and the continued fight for freedom, Ferguson reminded me that something major was happening right in front of me. In watching the scenes on television and following live streams on Twitter and reading Facebook posts until the wee hours of the morning, I discerned something else was at work here. In my prayer time, my mind and heart kept coming back to Ferguson and wondering how they were doing. I felt called and compelled to look at this, not just as another police shooting of an unarmed black youth, but as something much deeper. In short, Ferguson reminded me (again) that my call as both pastor and professor is to do ministry in the real world.\u00a0<\/p><\/span><\/div>\n The issues and problems in Ferguson are reminiscent of the issues and problems in the late 1960\u2019s when, according to Canon and Pinn, \u201cministers and academics took a public stand against injustice and demanded a re-visioning of life in the United States that took seriously the humanity of African Americans\u201d (1). Back then, for many African Americans, the prevailing theology of the day did not speak for or to them. Today, many are asking for a theological response to the unrest and tensions in Ferguson. With this class, I hope to move it from a merely academic pursuit of theological inquiry and place student reflection within a context that begs for a theological response.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Ferguson reminds me of what inspired James Cone to write his seminal work, <\/span>\u201cBlack Theology and Black Power.\u201d<\/i> When Cone saw all of the protest, violence, riots, murder, and hopelessness that made up the 1960\u2019s, he realized that the theology he learned at Garrett Theological Seminary (now Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary) did not speak to the real world happenings as he saw them. As a Barth scholar, Cone wondered what Barth had to do with the folks he saw struggling each and every day. Moreover, he also lamented why theology turned a blind eye to the misery suffered by African American as a result of racism. In writing about the key motivating factor in his writing Black Theology and Black Power\u2014the \u201cblack insurrection\u201d of Detroit in 1967, Cone wrote:<\/span><\/p>\n I remember the feeling of dread and absurdity as I asked myself, what has all this to do with Jesus Christ\u2014his birth in Bethlehem, his baptism with and life among the poor, and his death and resurrection? I intuitively knew that the responses of white preachers and theologians were not correct. The most sensitive whites merely said: \u201cWe deplore the riots but sympathize with the reason for your riots\u2026.I knew that that response was not only humiliating and insulting but wrong. It revealed not only an insensitivity to black pain and suffering but also, and more importantly for my vocation as a theologian, a theological bankruptcy. The education of white theologians did not prepare them to deal with Watts, Detroit, and Newark. What was needed was a new way of looking at theology that must emerge out of the dialectic of black history and culture (6).<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n It has been over 45 years since Cone wrote Black Theology and Black Power<\/i> and as Cone did back then in response to the riots in the 60\u2019s, I suggest that Ferguson has become a site of theological reflection and inquiry for us today. As I reflect on Ferguson, I am reminded that my task as a seminary professor is not only to change a couple of syllabi. My task as a pastor is not only to talk and preach about Ferguson. I must take part in Ferguson and my call as both pastor and professor is to contribute to the (re) envisioning, (re) imagination, and (re) thinking about this I have always contended that we must both proclaim and do theology in public. For theology to mean something, it must become a public theology. In proclaiming and doing this type of theology, one need to use words or demonstrate some action. This is why I also maintain that good theology\u2014and indeed all theology is rhetorical. Theology is not some innocent discourse that someone pronounced on high and it fell from the sky. It is a discourse that people construct and many times perform within the communities people find themselves. In short, theology is God-talk\u2014a rhetorical dynamic constructed by humans as we discern the will of the Creator in our lives. It is into this discussion I would like to add my voice.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
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However, it was in my African American Religious Thought class that Ferguson spoke the loudest. I share\u00a0here<\/a> what I did with the class upon learning about the murder of Michael Brown. Nearing the end of the post, I wrote:<\/span>\n
\n travesty by offering in some measured way, a theological response. <\/span><\/p>\n
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