Liberating grace

Q&A | Black theology gets the remedy wrong, says author Anthony Bradley, because it misdiagnoses the problem | Marvin Olasky

James Allen Walker for WORLD

The Rev. Jeremiah Wright's "liberation theology" received attention during the 2008 presidential election campaign and is being looked at anew during February, which is Black History Month. Anthony Bradley's just-published book, Liberating Black Theology (Crossway), examines the teaching of Wright and others; Bradley is a professor at The King's College, New York City (and a contributor at WORLDmag.com). Here are edited excerpts from an interview conducted in front of students there.

Q: From what does black liberation theology have to be liberated? Black theology has to be liberated from itself. Its primary anthropological presupposition is that humans are victims of social oppression: That is the starting point of a person's identity. I want to switch the conversation and say, "Slavery happened, injustice happened because the devil is real and the Fall is real, so you'll always have injustice. But the core of a person's identity is that of the Imago Dei, being made in God's image."