Confronting Black Suffering, Resisting Systemic Violence: An Anabaptist Theology of Racial Justice

White Christian theology is plagued by a history of construction, accommodation, and reinforcement of racial oppression, progressive Christians must begin to wrestle with the implications of Black suffering in America for their core theological discourse. In this paper, I critique progressive Anabaptist theology to open a way for further discussions related to racial justice which must take place within white Christian communities. Anabaptist theologians use language of nonviolence as the primary way of understanding the nature of God, mechanisms for human salvation, and requirements of Christian ethics, which provides a useful corrective to theologies that tend to spiritualize God\u27s relationship with humanity, however, it ultimately limits the tradition\u27s ability to engage theologically with realities of racial injustice by distracting from the causes of systemic violence. This paper critiques the Anabaptist focus on divine nonviolence, as it plays out in the theological categories of God\u27s work in History, Conversion, and the Kingdom, through engaging with Black Liberation theology as a source of revelation of the violence of Black experience in America. Black Liberation theology\u27s characterization of God as being on the side of the oppressed would be a more productive way for Anabaptist theologians to discuss God\u27s nature if they are to facilitate systemic transformation