Natalie Frydryck

Dr. Gabrielli

SRT 280

12 November 2018

Douglas and the Black Jesus

Something that stuck out the most to me in this reading was the idea of homosexuals as a

threat to the black community and how the church according to Douglas was very homophobic. I

think this is interesting since this is still a huge debate around the world. I know in the United

Methodist church that is a huge debate on whether we will allow homosexuals to get married in

the church. Douglas talks about why the church was so homophobic at the time. She states that

“they were even more passionate in their claims that gay and lesbian lifestyles were a threat to

the stability of the Black family” (Douglas 99). The “they” in the quote above was about black

male ministers but she goes on to talk about how women were just as judgmental. Douglas

struggled with this because she believed that black people needed to stick together in this time.

She talks about how the black women of this time did not want to complain about women issues

as it would make the black people look separated and weaker. This is all very intense thinking I

feel like. Women could not complain about their problems due that it would make it look like

they turned away from their men and then the homosexuals were the reason that black families

were not together. This thinking is somewhat crazy to me and seems to be pointing blame at the

wrong things.

I know why Douglas had these fears of turning away from men and also supporting other

minority groups. She says how “black women have traditionally been concerned, not just for

their welfare, but for the welfare of their entire community and families- sons and daughters,
husbands and brothers” (Douglas 98). This shows that her concerns stem from not that

homosexuals are a thing and that there is evidence in the bible that they are not accepted but that

she has been taught as a black woman to care for everyone. These problems that see brings

foreword, with feminism and homosexuals, conflict with what she was taught to care about and

who to protect. Since feminism makes someone turn from their man and homosexuals are the

supposed cause for the weakening of the black family. It causes for the black community to

divide and to have more hardships than they already have as a minority.

Douglas idea of Christology and structural sin seem to show the support of Christ with

overcoming structural sin. I look up the definition of structural sin and the first definition that

pops up on google, from Wikipedia, is “Structural evil or systemic evil is evil which arises

from structures within human society, rather than from individual wickedness or religious

conceptions such as original sin. One example of Structural evil within a society would be

slavery”. This fits into the introduction of the Douglas reading.; when Douglas is talking about

her grandmother, that Christ is one that identifies with everyone struggles to help them. Douglas

talks about how the Black Christ identifies with the Black women struggles; “…a Christ who

seemingly identified with a poor Black woman in her day-to day struggle just to make it”

(Douglas 2). Douglas identifies with the Christ that is there for everyone no matter what race,

minority, sexuality, or problem that person has. Christ is there and understands to help you

through it. This view of Jesus fits in with what we talked about earlier in the course as well. The

different pictures of Jesus and what that meant to us about who Jesus was. Jesus is meant for

everybody so our portrayal of him may be different to other people in terms of his looks and how

he understands our problems. This fits in with my view of Jesus as a man I can relate to and feel

comfortable leaving my problems to which is the same as Douglas.

 Works Cited

Douglas, Kelly Brown. The Black Christ. Vol IX. The Bishop Henry McNeal Turner

Studies in North American Black Religion. 1994. Pp 1-8, 53-77, 97-117. Print

“Structural Evil.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 26 Mar. 2018,

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structural_evil.