Chapter 12 - Making the Difference

Summary

This chapter sketches some nascent thoughts around how a re-imagined Black theology for the twenty-first century, approached through the lens of Practical participative Black theology, might begin to be “cashed out” in the messy and grossly unequal world in which we presently live. This chapter draws on five case studies, using them to pose critical questions around how a Black theology of practice can remain committed to challenging the vested interests of those at the centre from a position of apparent weakness, working on the margins. This chapter, like the rest of the book, seeks to demonstrate how a subversive and polemical Black theology can re-interpret traditional, Judeo-Christian themes and concerns in order to become a resource for personal and systemic change during this century. I have termed this chapter “Making the difference” because at the very heart of this exploration of Black theology, it is essentially about just that – how do we make the difference?

This chapter is something of a personal credo. A decade or so has elapsed since I made the fateful change in careers or vocations. In the early 1990s, I was working for the Asbury Circuit of the Birmingham District of the British Methodist Church. I was employed as a Youth and Community worker in the Handsworth area, North Birmingham, working with Black children, young people and their families. My work was multifarious and involved working with people of all ages, either inside the church or external to it.