In this essay I explore how early African-American gospel music can be interpreted from a theological liberation perspective. To highlight the most important parts of liberation theology, I take help from Gustavo Gutiérrez' A Theology of Liberation: History, Politics and Salvation, and James H. Cone's Speaking the truth: ecumenism, liberation and black theology. Both of these are representative in respective area. Gutiérrez within Latin-American liberation theology, and Cone within African-American liberation theology. To explain the background and theology of gospel I mainly use the works Holiness and Worldliness: Theologies of Black Gospel Music in the Sanctified Church by Awet Andemicael and Black Gospel Music and Black Theology by Louis-Charles Harvey. I then exemplify the theology of gospel by presenting and analyzing a selection of popular gospel lyrics, with a liberation theme. This selection includes "Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen", "Oh Mary Don't You Weep", "Take My Hand, Precious Lord" and "Through It All". An expression of a spiritual liberation through Jesus is found in these gospel lyrics, while an expression of political liberation is found only in the shadow of the spiritual. This I problematize, and aim some criticism towards Cone and Harvey. They argue that in African-American and gospel theology, Jesus gives strength for the weak, so that they may be able to fight for their own liberation. I then conclude that gospel cannot be understood as a complete expression of liberation theology, but as a part of it. Even as a part of the liberation process. Meaning that in the process where the African-American Christian seek God, she finds the Holy Spirit who guides her to gospel music. Through gospel the African-American can express her emotions and thereby grow closer to Jesus, who provides her with strength. This leads to the liberation of the African-American Christian.
Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:uu-353646 |
Date | January 2018 |
Creators | Granlund Åberg, Amandus |
Publisher | Uppsala universitet, Teologiska institutionen |
Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
Language | Swedish |
Detected Language | English |
Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
Format | application/pdf |
Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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