Da Blood of Shesus: From Womanist and Lyrical Theologies to an Africana Liberation Theology of the Blood

Abstract

The theme of suffering is intimately tied to the possibilities of the blood as redemptive in theology. Potentially considered a universal pathway to salvation and racial transcendence for people of African descent, “Da Blood of Shesus” asks: Is there redeeming power in the blood for people of African descent? Turning to Womanist and lyrical theologians to postulate an African theological framework which explores redemptive suffering not glorified as inevitable and intricate to the historical Black experience and the church. Lyrical theologians affirm Jesus’ redemptive power of the blood in Hip Hop portraying the ways in which the cross reveals the attributes of God. Womanist theologians challenge the “classical” interpretation of redemptive suffering, illuminating the ways it contributes to Black oppression and wretchedness. Arguably, Womanist and lyrical theologians conjointly point towards liberatory and alternatives to examine redemptive suffering for people of African descent by offering sites to scrutinize and nuance the blood as an indispensable pathway to redemption. An African theological perspective decenters the logics of anti-Blackness proposing suffering is inevitable to Black life and the historical Black experience.

“Were you there when they crucified my Lord? I was … I was”. “Were You There”.

—Shai Linne

1. Introduction

In a “Letter from A Region in My Mind”, James Baldwin writes, “How can the American Negro past be used? It is entirely possible that this dishonored past will rise up soon to smite all of us … Color is not a human or a personal reality; it is a political reality. But this is a distinction so extremely hard to make that the West has not been able to make it yet. And at the center of this dreadful storm, this vast confusion, stand the Black people of this nation, who must now share the fate of a nation that has never accepted them, to which they were brought in chains. Well, if this is so, one has no choice but to do all in one’s power to change that fate, and at no matter what risk—eviction, imprisonment, torture, death… the impossible is the least that one can demand—and one is, after all, emboldened by the spectacle of human history in general, and American Negro history in particular, for it testifies to nothing less than the perpetual achievement of the impossible” (Baldwin 1962). Baldwin considers the role of suffering and anti-Blackness, questioning where is God in all of this? He is searching for the route to liberation from colonization, apartheid, and the assault on Black people globally. He turns to a particular site of salvation, the Black church. Here, people of Black diasporas seek restoration and wholeness from what has become known as Blackness or Black life. Baldwin begins his mediation with a hymn:

• Down at the cross where my Savior died,
• Down where for cleansing from sin I cried,
• There to my heart was the blood applied,
• Singing glory to His name!

In the light of the suffering and violence Black people endure under white supremacy who hold the cross where Christ died as a source of redemption, Christ’s blood on the cross is believed to liberate peoples of African descent who experience oppression due to social order ordained and determined by God. On 15 May 2022, while writing this article, a mass shooter of a local grocery store targeted a predominantly Black community in Buffalo, New York. The self-proclaimed White supremacist, Payton S. Gendron, gunned down thirteen people with ten being fatal, most of them identified as Black. Gendron was inspired by Brenton Harrison Tarrant who murdered fifty-one worshippers at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand on 15 March 2019. Tarrant wrote a manifesto and recorded the massacre. Similarly, Gendron wrote and posted his “manifesto” on social media before livestreaming the shooting. He intended to “kill as many blacks as possible”, locating by zip code the largest Black population near his upstate New York home where he was living with his parents and siblings. In “American Racism and the Buffalo Shooting”, Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor in the New Yorker writes, “The gunman seems motivated by a vision of history, pushed by the right, in which American racism never existed and Black people are undeserving takers”(Taylor 2022). The pervasiveness of Gendron’s motivation to kill anyone appearing as a person of African descent, sustains the belief that Blackness is a symbol of the damned. A belief in which many people of African descent seek redemption through the blood of Jesus to be saved from the supposed curse of Black skin.

European enslavement and colonization on multiple continents transformed discourses and conceptions about God, suffering, and the oppressed. In “A Litany at Atlanta”, W. E. B. Du Bois stated: “O God? How long shall the mounting flood of innocent blood roar in Thine ears and pound in our hearts for vengeance? … we raise our shackled hands and charge Thee, God, by the bones of our stolen fathers, by the tears of our dead mothers, by the very blood of Thy crucified Christ” (Du Bois 1969). Du Bois’ litany persists through time; a half a century later, William R. Jones asks is God a White racist? Rooted in Black suffering and “centuries of seminary training, theological teaching, missions, and a colossal breadth of Sunday (and Saturday) morning sermons have created a Christology which places whiteness at the top and Blacks near the bottom” (Hodge 2018, p. 115). During colonization, Europeans made God White, developing what Jones calls “Whiteanity” (Jones 1973). Whiteanity is the “religious ideology of White Supremacy” (Jones 1973) that constructs Jesus to fit into the image and likeness of Whiteness, offering wholeness and salvation for White people. Baldwin challenges the use of the blood as a redemptive power for Blackness, insisting Black people had been taught they must be redeemed of sin through White supremacy. However, he declares suffering is not inevitable to Black life.

Is There Redeeming Power in the Blood?

Returning to JoAnne Marie Terrell’s question in Power in the Blood? (1998), “How is the gospel message of the Atonement, or reconciliation of sinners with God through Jesus Christ’s death on the cross, to be construed by Black people who are similarly persecuted and simultaneously indicted as sinners” (Terrell 2005, pp. 3–4)? Womanist theologians provide “a sociohistorical theological framework to acknowledge the spiritual nature of the damage done” when Black people “are assaulted physically, sexually, and psychologically through intimate and cultural violence” (Crumpton 2014). Womanist theology “moves toward embodied views of the incarnation and redemption through social/cultural transformation” thereby dismantling White Supremacist ideologies offering a perspective that acknowledges Black people as human (Crumpton 2014). The embodied views of incarnation are necessary due to Black people’s endurance of heavy tensions between suffering and redemption decoupled from race and racism. Lyrical theologians provide an explanation of weighty theological truths, which is accessible and relevant. They, as Daniel White Hodge explains in Hip Hop’s Hostile Gospel: A Post-Soul Theological Exploration (2016), believe that Hip Hop theology, “create[s] a space for theological meaning to happen in a contextualized manner and for their audience to grapple with the social, cultural, and societal conditions within the urban and city geographic locations” (Hodge 2016, p. 159). The interplay of Womanist theology and lyrical theology provide a liberatory framework centering people of African descent, offering a perspective to suffering and the redeeming power of the blood while acknowledging White supremacy and systematic oppression. This interplay challenges Christian theology beliefs that suffering is inherit to Black life requiring a necessary path to salvation. To move beyond colonization, dispossession, and White Supremacy, we argue this requires an exploration of the blood that fucks with the grays (Morgan 1998). We argue an Africana liberation theology approach that is holistic allows for a rethinking of the blood for healing and liberating Black people from White supremacy. These reflect possibilities and refusals of the blood in which Womanist theologians, Hip Hop, and lyrical theology locate a potential for such an Africana liberation theological framework. This theology is gritty; it engages with the complexities of Black life to disrupt anti-Blackness to declare people of the African diaspora are not inescapable to suffer because of race, essentially, their blood.

2. Overview

This essay brings into conversation Womanist theologians and lyrical theologians attending to questions of the redeeming power in the blood for people of African descent. It endeavors to explore engagements with atonement inclusive of the scholarship of Womanist theologians and theology developed by lyrical theologians. There is not one singularly agreed upon view of the atonement that all Womanist theologians hold. They range from Monica Coleman’s notion of a creative transformation to JoAnne Marie Terrell’s belief in the power of the blood. Bringing lyrical theology into the discourse, creator Shai Linne details the atonement through Hip Hop.1 In “Lyrical Theology Interlude”, on his album “The Solus Christus Project” (Linne 2005), Linne coins the term “Lyrical Theology”, he describes:

Lyrical theology is just that. It’s lyrical, which is rhymes, rhyme schemes, rhyme patterns, and theology is the study of God, so it’s the study of God within the context of Hip Hop. What we do is we take passages from the Bible and put it directly into rhyme form. So, this could be the explanation of a particular doctrine from scripture, or it could even be a line-by-line exposition of a passage.

Womanist theology and lyrical theology provide multiple perspectives on atonement offering alternative perspectives to “classical” theology. An examination of redemptive suffering through the lenses of Womanist and lyrical theologians reveals a theology that resists White supremacy, reconnecting Black people with the pre-colonial theology that helped shape Christianity globally. We are intentional about elevating the voices of Black women and Hip Hoppas. Monica Miller in Religion and Hip Hop (Miller 2012), explains how scholars typically superimpose their worldviews on to Hip Hoppas and do so in such a way that they either interpret what Hip Hoppas believe as wrong or determine their beliefs for them. This misguided and, at times, dangerous approach silences Hip Hoppas who have developed their own theologies and religion. “Da Blood of Shesus” ultimately concludes within the field of Africana religious studies examining the possibilities of an Africana theology that messes with the grays by imagining the possibilities of liberation.

3. Black Theology, Religion, and Hip Hop Studies

A review of the literature on the redeeming power in the blood hinges on scholarship of White male theologians. They are cited and taught in religion programs, seminaries, and Bible colleges as the authorities of atonement. Most religious studies courses and religion scholarship emphasizes the historical Jesus, New Testament scholars, or various scholarship centering church history. Theology courses teach some variation of the “classic” view of atonement due to the persistence of “Whiteanity”.2 This persists inside and outside of academia; churches rarely acknowledge the work of Womanist and lyrical theologians thereby negating the need to explore atonement through the historical Black experience.

In situating our argument, the question: Is there redeeming power in the blood? lies at the intersection of multiple fields and disciplines: religious studies, theology, Black theology, ethics, Africana religious studies, and religion and Hip Hop studies. Religion and Hip Hop studies scholars have addressed the seemingly hopelessness of Black life, theodicy (questions why a good God allows human suffering), the White man’s religion and White Jesus,3 revealing that religion and Hip Hop studies have not given much attention specifically to atonement and redeeming power in the blood. One of the few examples is Daniel White Hodge’s work and construction of Hip Hop theology. Hodge explains Hip Hoppas challenge the very systems, institutions, and language that form our understanding of God. Whereas sin is usually thought of individual wrongdoing, Hip Hoppas identify “the ‘sin’ within the systems or people that produced it” (Hodge 2016, p. 119). He cites Dead Prez’s critique of the educational system that “causes variable amounts of pain and suffering”, (ibid, p. 120) exegeting the perspective of Jesus’ death atoning for sin and concluding that if sin is found in White supremacist institutions, then the goal should not be atonement, rather, it should be dismantling oppressive systems. Hip Hoppas have developed a particular perspective about Jesus that Hodge refers to as the Hip Hop Jesus or what some Hip Hoppas call Black Jesuz. Describing Hip Hop Jesus, Hodge states: “A Hip Hop Jesus, in this sense then, becomes a type of messianic figure that brings voice, shelter, identity, hope, dreams, love, and passion for a community seeking a higher consciousness” (ibid, p. 165). Therefore, specifically focusing on the cross, Hip Hop finds solidarity with Black Jesuz. In the same way many Hip Hoppas suffer and experience trauma, Jesus did so, too, on the cross. Hodge explains that “the cross is representative of suffering, pain, disenfranchisement, and political oppression; it is a crucial element of and for the Hip Hop community” (ibid, p. 156). As a result, there are elements of Hip Hop that align with the perspective of redemptive suffering locating power in the blood. Religion and Hip Hop studies scholar Ebony Utley writes, “The cross represents Jesus’ victory over death. Cheating death makes Jesus the gangsta’s hero. The cross as a symbol of death visually resurrects memories of unjust persecution from Jesus to ancestors who hung from lynching trees” (ibid, p. 156; Utley 2012, pp. 57–58). Hodge contributes to atonement discussions that Jesus offers solidarity to Hip Hoppas who suffer. It is important to note Black Jesuz stands with those who suffer, in contrast to the oppressor.4 Therefore, victory over “sin”, is victory over White supremacy. The cross, then, is both a tool of the oppressor and a symbol of hope; although the oppressor uses it to harm Black people, Black Jesuz’ overcoming the cross encourages other Hip Hoppas who are also being crucified.

In Hip Hop’s Hostile Gospel: A Post-Soul Theological Exploration (2016), Hodge provides a critique centering the mixtape entitled Shesus Khryst by Remy Ma (Superstar Jay) where Remy Ma is pictured on the album cover nailed to the cross. Through a Womanist and Hip Hop theology approach, Hodge reads the album cover of Remy Ma appearing as a “savior and a source of hope for a specific geographical space” connecting to “a Jesus that not only suffers, but also offers a type of redemption” (Hodge 2016, p. 157). He points out the caption under her name in the upper left corner that reads “Queen of NY/The BX Savior”, bringing attention to her bloody hands, curvy body, and the only clothing being a loin garment. The album cover appalled many when it was first released in 2007, challenging the false image of a White male appearing as Jesus on the cross in constant circulation. The image clashes with the depictions of White Jesus in which people of African descent are not represented, reorienting perceptions alluding to alternative possibilities of Jesus’ appearance. Remy Ma conceives of her solidarity with Jesus on the cross, by providing a visual representation of Jesus in her image. As a representation of a Hip Hop Jesus, the album cover deconstructs race and gender norms, and Whiteanity is conceived as hostile “for those who only see him in singularities and in constrained theological proportions according to what they have interpreted and learned” (Ibid, p. 166). The discussion of Remy Ma provides one of the few specifically focusing on the cross and Hip Hop theology. It is important to mention the cross within Hip Hop theology as central to its meaning in Hip Hop through its ability to connect the Hip Hoppa with Black Jesuz. As Hodge explains, Remy Ma’s Shesus Khryst album cover creates “a space and discourse for Womanist theological constructs to emerge and be re-imagined outside a White, Western, paternalistic modality and inside of a Hip Hop context” (Ibid, p. 158). “Da Blood of Shesus” builds on this work as a need to develop an Africana theology that liberates Black people.

4. Womanist and Lyrical Theologians in Conversation

Jesus Christ is a Black woman who “saves” individuals and communities by teaching, uplifting, and healing. While this may be debatable and startling to some, we can conceive of Jesus in this way as the album cover of Remy Ma illustrates. In addition, through the contributions of Womanist theologians, they bring attention to sexism in Black theology and the racism in Feminist theology. Womanist theology has grown to the point of developing a postmodern theology, challenging heteronormative, racist, sexist, and classist “classical” theologies (Coleman 2008). Jacquelyn Grant is the first Womanist theologian to claim that Jesus can be seen as a Black woman (Grant 1989; Coleman 2008). Grant reveals the ways in which Black women’s suffering in America shapes womanist theology. Due to the tri-dimensional reality of oppression, consisting of racism, sexism, and classism that is made up of the long history of enslavement, colonization, dispossession, and being raped, betrayed, separated from their families, persecuted, and subjugated, Grant contends that these experiences are sins against Black women (Grant 1989, 1993). Grant does not explicitly state whether she believes there is redeeming power in the blood (Grant 1989, 1993, 2004), while Womanist theologian Delores Williams explicitly states that there is none.

Contemporary conceptions of the “classic” view of atonement are usually accredited to the work of Gustaf Aulén and his text Christus Victor (2003).5 Although there is not one universally accepted understanding of the work of the atonement, violence, in some form or another, has continued to factor in Jesus’ suffering to reconcile God and humans. It is within this historiographical context that Delores Williams, Kelly Brown Douglas, and others argue against the necessity of suffering for salvation. In What’s Faith Got to Do with It (2005), Kelly Brown Douglas provides a common ground to discuss violence and atonement. She states: “Jesus’ crucifixion has come to be understood as some form of divine mediation, that is, a sacrifice made to or required by God as compensation for human sin” (Douglas 2005, p. 59). In Power in the Blood? (1998), Womanist theologian JoAnne Marie Terrell provides an understanding to the significance of the blood making intelligible that Jesus dying on the cross is directly in line with the system of sacrifice that God had designed in the Old Testament. Instead of animals, Jesus’ death was a blood sacrifice “once and for all” to reconcile the broken relationship sin made between humans and God (Terrell 2005, pp. 17–19). Terrell explicates the centrality of the cross in African American religion is not only for Africans in America, but for Africans in Africa and around the world, as the cross and the blood are a huge part of their faith and culture. In Sisters in the Wilderness (1993) Williams states: “Humankind is therefore redeemed through Jesus’ ministerial vision of life and not through his death. There is nothing divine in the blood of the cross” (Williams 1993, p. 167). Her two main sources of theology are the Black woman’s experience and biblical appropriation for survival/quality of life. Williams aims to construct a theology that comes out of Black people’s African heritage and “emerges from African-American people’s experience with God, not doctrine ‘inherited’ from oppressive Eurocentric forms of Christianity, not female exclusive doctrine formulated centuries ago by male potentates” (ibid, p. 217). Williams believes a theology informed by Black women’s experiences should not perpetuate suffering. The Bible and liberatory theology, when properly read and applied, are supposed to empower, not further hinder Black women.

According to Williams’ view of the Black experience regarding surrogacy, Jesus should not model the surrogate role. Williams describes African-American women’s surrogacy in “Black Women’s Surrogacy Experience and the Christian Notion of Redemption”, and identifies two types of surrogacies: coerced surrogacy and voluntary surrogacy. She explains that coerced surrogacy, belonging to the pre-Civil War period, was a forced condition in which people and systems more powerful than Black women and Black people forced Black women to function in roles that ordinarily would have been filled by someone else (Williams 1991, p. 1). Coerced surrogacy happened primarily during slavery in three areas: “nurturance, field labor, and sexuality” (ibid, p. 2). Black women had to fulfill the role of White women which became known as the “mammy tradition”. Williams shares Frederick Douglass’ story of his grandmother, who was a “mammy”. Douglass states: “they took her to the woods, built her a little hut with a mud chimney, and left her there to support and care for herself… they turned her out to die” (ibid, p. 3). After she finished serving, they just discarded her. After slavery, Williams identifies African-American women’s roles as voluntary surrogacy. She uses the term voluntary, not in the sense that Black women volunteered to fill these roles, but rather, their situation forced them to fill the roles despite being free. The main factors contributing to voluntary surrogacy were the White male patriarchal system, perpetuation of this system by Black males, and a poor economy for Black women. Fortunately, since Black women were no longer enslaved, they were able to reject the sexual mistress role, however, it remained a struggle. Williams also discusses surrogacy in Sisters in the Wilderness by examining the Biblical character of Hagar. She states:

Even today, most of Hagar’s situation is congruent with many African-American women’s predicament of poverty, sexual and economic exploitation, surrogacy, domestic violence, homelessness, rape, motherhood, single-parenting, ethnicity and meetings with God (Williams 1993, p. 5).

Based on Williams’ description of surrogacy, Jesus should not model the surrogacy role because it glorifies human suffering. This is the very same human suffering that the “classical” view of atonement presents. Explaining Jesus dies on the cross is like Black women surrogate roles, she writes it: “… teaches believers that sinful humankind has been redeemed because Jesus dies on the cross in the place of humans, thereby taking human sin upon himself. In this sense Jesus represents the ultimate surrogate figure standing in the place of someone else: sinful humankind” (ibid, p. 167). Williams is arguing that praising Jesus for being the “ultimate surrogate” encourages more suffering and “reinforces the exploitation that has accompanied their [Black women’s] experience with surrogacy” (Williams 1991, p. 9). The surrogacy roles continue because Black women passively suffer, thinking that they are doing what they are supposed to do. Those who are enforcing the surrogate roles continue doing so “in the name of Jesus”. Therefore, Jesus’ suffering on the cross in place of humanity illuminates further surrogacy rather than redemption.

Kelly Brown Douglas in What’s Faith Got to Do with It (2005) draws attention to the parallels between the cross and lynching, expressing the crucifixion was “nothing less than a first-century lynching. Directly aligned with Williams’ theory of coerced surrogacy, she shares the work of Orlando Patterson who contends, “just as Christ’s crucifixion was considered redemptive for humanity, black lynching was seen as redemptive for the post-Civil War South after its humiliating defeat in the war” (Douglas 2005, p. 5). Patterson conveys Southerners and their ability to stop Reconstruction which was called “Redemption” (ibid, p. 65). Southerners resisted Reconstruction, lynching Black people, and overtly sexualizing them, characterizing Black men as brutes and Black women as Jezebels (ibid, p. 66). White Christians used sexualized crimes to crucify/lynch Black people. Succinctly, Platonized6 Christianity “sexualizes those it demonizes” (ibid, p. 69). Douglas contends that it was the cross that “provided a theological anchor for sacrifice, especially for the sexualized terror fostered by a Platonized Christianity” (ibid, p. 69) and arguing, therefore, that the cross should be seen as “extremely troublesome”, weaponized to justify hatred and violence, claiming God is fine with terrorizing Black people who deserve to suffer.

In the song “The Cross”, Linne contends there is redeeming power in the blood of the cross. He lays out his full view in the bridge and hook of the song:

• So forever will I tell/In three hours, Christ suffered more than any sinner ever will in hell (4x)
• It’s where we see Your holiness- at the cross
• We see that You’re controlling this- at the cross
• We see how You feel about sin- at the cross
• Your unfathomable love for men- at the cross
• It’s where we see Your sovereignty- at the cross
• We see our idolatry- at the cross
• We know that there’s a judgment day- from the cross
• May we never take our eyes away- from the cross
(Linne 2008b)

Linne’s lyrics affirm Jesus dying on the cross as a revelation of the many attributes of God. The cross reveals the attributes of God, which range from holiness to sovereignty to love, appraising the cross to be “holy ground” (ibid 2008). Writing, “We see our idolatry”, in which the cross reveals human’s capacity to worship the cross, bestows believers with the ability to worship other “gods”. In this portrayal of the attributes of God, the human capacity to worship things/people other than God and God’s judgement, claiming Christians should retain faith in power of the cross, Williams rejects this perspective of the cross.

According to Williams, “The image of Jesus on the cross is the image of human sin in its most desecrated form” (Williams 1991, p. 12). She states, “The cross thus becomes an image of defilement, a gross manifestation of collective human sin” (ibid, p. 12). Williams disinclines the cross as a site of beauty, rather, it is a defilement unworthy of glorification. She compares the defilement of Jesus dying on the cross two thousand years ago with the contemporary corruption of nature. While recognizing the grotesqueness of the cross, Williams insists it exists with purpose. In Enfleshing Freedom: Body, Race and Being (2010), M. Shawn Copeland states: “Williams has been accused, quite inaccurately, of discarding the cross altogether; but what she is calling for is a new way of thinking and speaking about the meaning of the death of Jesus” (Copeland 2010, p. 174). Copeland reveals the misunderstanding in Williams’ argument, citing that she acknowledges the importance of the cross for Christian Black women. Williams reexamines the meaning of the cross, advocating a reframing of our understanding of its power. In the last stance of Linne’s second verse in “The Cross”, he maintains the significance of God dealing with sin on the cross:

• I could write for a billion years and still can’t name
• All of the sins placed on the Lamb slain
• But know this: the main thing the cross demonstrated
• The glory and the holiness of God vindicated.
(Linne 2008b)

According to Linne, the sin Williams’ references offend a glorious and holy God. By God placing sin on Jesus, the offense of sinning is resolved. In “Atonement Q&A” Linne raps: “Propitiation—Propitiation means since the Lamb has died His work is finished—God’s wrath is satisfied” (ibid 2008). Linn declares the sacrifice upon the cross satisfies the wrath of God. In the same song, Linne states: “Expiation—expiation means God’s removed my filthiness. The Old Testament type was the goat into the wilderness” (ibid 2008). Linne believes an account for the sacrificial system in the Old Testament, in which Jesus takes the human’s sin upon himself, is essential. If Jesus does not conquer sin on the cross, then sin is not being expiated from the human who is burdened by sin. Williams’ critique of traditional theology states sin needs to be reinterpreted in “A Womanist Perspective of Sin”. Sin, for Williams, is both social and individual. Social sins are committed by the dominant system that brings about oppression. She explains: “In the construction of a womanist notion of sin, it is quite legitimate to identify devaluation of Black women’s humanity and the ‘defilement’ of their bodies as the social sin American patriarchy and democracy have committed against Black women and their children” (Townes 1993, p. 144). In Williams’ social notion of sin, it is the American society that is oppressive to Black women and their families. This sin is systemic and needs to be understood within the framework of American society. According to Williams, individuals involved in the corporate act of oppression of African American women, as well as African American women who are oppressed but do not fight back against the oppressive system, are in danger of individually sinning. She states: “Individual sin has to do with participating in society’s systems that devalue Black women’s womanhood (humanity) through a process of invisibilization” (ibid, p. 146). Participation in the social system of oppression contributes to the suffering of Black women; that is, sin. Black women who do not challenge the patriarchal and demonarchal systems that are devaluing them are also perpetuating their own suffering. Based on this understanding of sin and Williams’ explanation of the “ultimate surrogate”, Jesus, it could be argued that if one believes in glorifying the suffering of Jesus then they are sinning.

In Williams’ critique of classical theology, she argues “most theories of atonement, classical and contemporary, are time-bound (as well as ideologically bound with patriarchy) and do not respond meaningfully to the questions of people living beyond the particular time period” (Williams 1991, p. 9). Linne’s alignment with the “classical” theological view, according to Williams, does not address Black women. Linne rewrites and records his version of the Negro spiritual “Were You There?” “Were You There?” originally composed by an unknown enslaved African creating the rap song “Were You There?” Linne contends that Black people have sinned against God in placing the people who are living today in the crowd with those who crucified Jesus more than two thousand years ago. In the second verse he raps:

• Sinfully, inwardly slick with the iniquity
• We see disciples sleep and mock today with a lot to say
• But we do the same thing when we don’t watch and pray
• Like the chief priests, we want Christ to surrender
• But we want Him out the way when He doesn’t fit our agenda
• Like Peter, we have misplaced, fleshly confidence
• But we’ll deny the Lord when faced with deadly consequence
• Like Pilate, we see Christ and find nothing wrong with Him
• But when the world chooses the wicked, we go right along with them
• Despite His kindness, we seek to do our Maker violence
• The fallenness of humanity at its finest
• The way they treat the Lord of glory is debased and it’s foul
• But you miss the point if you don’t see your face in the crowd.

Linne believes we were all present there, alongside the disciples, the crowd, and the Roman soldiers crucifying Jesus. He argues that if anyone denies their presence, then they miss the point of the cross: Jesus pardoning us of our sins. Linne argues Christians can read these biblical passages as the failures of those in the past and think that they do not apply to them. On the contrary, their past actions parallel contemporary sins. This is evident with the chief priest of the Israelites, one of the disciples, Peter, and Roman governor Pontius Pilate. Look at the disciple Peter, for example. Linne raps that he has “misplaced, fleshly confidence” because Peter claimed that he would never deny knowing and being with Jesus, even if that meant him dying. Although he made that claim, he ended up denying Jesus. In the same way, Christians today will take confidence in their own abilities but one day may learn that they are not able to do everything they claim to be able to do. The point is that Christians should not have confidence in their own “flesh” or themselves, rather they should place their confidence in the right place, Jesus. It is this misplaced confidence, like the idolatry that Linne raps about in “The Cross”, where humans trust in themselves, that is sinful. It is this sin that Jesus died on the cross to redeem humankind. Williams asserts that Jesus conquered sin in his life. She states:

Jesus, then does not conquer sin through death on the cross. Rather, Jesus conquers the sin of temptation in the wilderness (Mt 4:1–11) by resistance—by resisting the temptation to value the material over the spiritual (“Man shall not live by bread alone”); by resisting death (not attempting suicide; “if you are the son of God, throw yourself down”); by resisting the greedy urge of monopolistic ownership (“He showed him all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them; and he said to him, ‘All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me’”). Jesus therefore conquered sin in life, not in death.

(Williams 1991, p. 9)

The “classical” and Black theologies focusing on Jesus’ death atoning for sin fall short by failing to focus on the life of Jesus. Instead of drawing attention to a bloody cross marked with suffering and celebrating surrogacy, it is preferable to pivot on Jesus’ life and ministry that contests the status quo. Williams believes that Jesus’ ministry brought reconciliation between human beings. Looking at Jesus’ life shows redemption “through a perfect ministerial vision of righting relationships” (Williams 1991, p. 11). The cross, then, is a place and a symbol of the destruction of the ministerial vision of life. It was at the cross that humankind killed this vision of life. At the resurrection, the vision of life prevails over that which tried to stop it. Williams states: “The resurrection of Jesus and his flourishing of God’s spirit in the world as the result of resurrection, represents the life of the ministerial vision gaining victory over the evil attempt to kill it” (ibid, p. 11). Douglas, as well, accepts focus on the life God brought in resurrecting Jesus. She bases this on the crucifixion–resurrection event that she contends “God clarified the power not of Jesus’ blood but of his life” (Douglas 2005, p. 183). Since God raised Jesus from the dead, then the crucifixion was wrong. God holds sacred the body for restoring life. Douglas celebrates the redemption of a once desecrated body coming back to life, centralizing the parallel between the cross, lynching, and Black bodies. Deeming Black bodies sacred, unwarranted of lynching, she states, “to believe a rejection of the black body is necessary for one’s soul salvation is theologically misguided” (ibid, p.183). God does not require Black bodily suffering for anyone’s soul to be saved or redeemed. Furthermore, violence is inherently conceived through the White imagination from which anti-Black narratives originate. In “Stop the Violence: Breaking the Cycle of Anti-Black Violence”, Douglas centers violence against Black bodies under anti-Blackness as American as apple pie. Douglas writes:

The anti-black narrative is about more than chauvinistic repulsion to skin color. It is a narrative that negates the very humanity of a people; therefore, it is inherently violent. Any ideology or system of thought that objectifies another human being must be understood as violent. Furthermore, as we will see, such a system of thought initiates a cycle of violence in which the objectified being, in this instance Black bodies, become entrapped. This brings us to the centrality of this narrative to the American identity and another violent narrative (Douglas 2017). Explicating a theology that necessitates suffering is violent, and it also traps people into a cycle of violence. The cycle of violence is directly tied to Black bodies which Europeans have dispossessed, enslaved, and colonized. In “Limited Atonement” and “Mission Accomplished”, Linne stands firm in asserting that Jesus died only for the elect. Who is the elect? In “Mission Accomplished”, Linne raps, “The question concerns those for whom Christ died”, and later in the song, he raps, “Everybody’s not elect, the Father decides/And it’s only the elect in whom the Spirit resides”. The elect are the people who God the Father chose, Jesus died for, and the Spirit lives in. Specifically relating to Womanist theologians who do not focus on the cross as redemptive, in “Mission Accomplished” Linne raps:

• But worst of all, you’re saying the cross by itself doesn’t save
• That we must do something to give the cross its power
• That means, at the end of the day, the glory’s ours
• That man-centered thinking is not recommended/The cross will save all for whom it was intended
• Because for the elect, God’s wrath was satisfied/But still, when it comes to those in hell
(Linne 2008b)

Linne argues if one accepts that the cross perpetuates surrogacy, then God’s role in salvation is in question. Lyrical theologians believe that God predestined who would be saved, so the mission was accomplished on the cross because it was already predetermined. By shifting the focus away from the cross, it takes away from God’s plan that God had already decided who would be saved. Whereas Williams focuses on the elect by bringing back up the story of Hagar where God did not choose Hagar, God chose Sarah. Yet, Black people have identified with Hagar because she was a bondservant who, though she was sent away, God intervened directly in her life. The identification with the non-elect, Hagar, and elect, Israelites, whom God delivered from Egyptian bondage, creates tensions in Black faith. Williams discusses this in Sisters in the Wilderness (1994) and draws attention to the most oppressed: “the poor homeless, jobless, economically “enslaved” women, men and children sleeping on American streets, in bus stations, parks and alleys” (Williams 1993, p. 149). Looking at the most oppressed Black people raises the following questions. Williams writes:

Have they, in the use of the Bible, identified so thoroughly with the theme of Israel’s election that they have not seen the oppressed of the oppressed in scripture? Have they identified so completely with Israel’s liberation that they have been blind to the awful reality of victims making victims in the Bible?

(ibid, p. 149)

Douglas, such as Williams, believes that to save the elect, pointing to the dualistic nature within a Platonized Western Christianity is necessary. This is a closed monotheism put forth. Believing in a closed monotheism means that there is only one right God to believe in and all other gods are false while all the others who do not believe in this God are non-Christians. This “fosters divisions between Christians and just about everybody else. It creates opposition, us versus them relationships. Non-Christians are seen as at best godless and at worst evil” (Douglas 2005, p. 14). Douglas contends that it is us (the elect) versus them (non-elect), that creates the “theological core” of the Christianity that has brutalized Black bodies for centuries.

The Blood

The blood holds important benefits for people of African descent as a substance of medicine, nourishment, health, and wellness. Its origins and subsequent applications predate colonialism, continuing to offer a reprieve from oppression, an expression of gratitude, and to be closer to God. The various interpretations and usages of the blood convey its sole purpose is not tied to suffering; further, there are multiple endorsements to its (un)logics as it pertains to race and racism. Africans utilized blood as an essential practice in day-to-day life. In practice, the use of blood exists within the quotidian and the mundane of everyday life. Its purpose in African life and religion7 denotes kinship, sustain power, healing, symbolism, and expressions from the ancestors, spirit, and orishas. In “Blood Symbolism in African Religion”, M. Y. Nabofa writes, “symbolism has found spontaneous expression in several religious and secular practices among many different peoples of Africa. These expressions can be seen in religious emblems, ideograms, rituals, songs, prayers, myths, incantations, vows, customary behaviour and personifications” (Nabofa 1985). In “The Fetish Revisited: Marx, Freud, and the Gods Black People Make”, J. Lorand Matory describes the usage of “animal blood decanted over the assembled emblems of the god quicken those emblems with life, turning them into divine people” (Matory 2018, p. 196). Freedom fighter and Ferguson frontliner “Mama Julia” Julia Davis, also known as Ayaba Sibongile, brings to light an understanding of the blood in no other way than she can do with her ability to share wisdom and speak truth. She shared blood is sacred and lifegiving; it being shed during childbirth is powerful as it brings together the ways in which Black women’s bodies are the canal to this realm and the function of the blood within this lifeway. Mama Julia’s revelation about blood fits with African precolonial understandings about blood.8

In the film The Blood of Jesus (1941) by Spencer Williams, Martha (Cathryn Caviness), a faithful Baptist church member, Martha, is accidently shot by her atheist husband (Spencer Williams). While recovering from the wound, Martha’s faith is tested. She stands at the crossroads between Hell and Zion when the voice of Jesus Christ is heard along with the vision of him being crucified, while Christ’s blood drips down on Martha’s face. Illusioned as a dream-like sequence happening while she is unconscious, recovering from her injury. She awakened and realized that she was shot to pay the price for marrying a non-believer. Upon awakening she is reunited with her husband Ras, who has become faithful. The film screened at cinemas and Black churches with commercial success depicts the theme of suffering interwoven throughout the film’s plot—Martha is wounded by her husband, the blood of Jesus on the cross is used as a symbol of redemption, they both are saved.

The Blood of Jesus (1941) inspired Ganja and Hess (1973), a film about vampires of African descent written by Bill Gunn. Using Bill Gunn’s film, Spike Lee conceived Da Sweet Blood of Jesus (2014). These films reimagine and reinstate the meaning of the blood through the historical Black experience. Made for a predominately Black audience, they further consciously provide a commentary on the relationship and social constructions of Blackness and the blood, illuminating the messiness of faith, redemption, and the blood for those considered cursed, non-human, sub-human, and unfaithful. Further, interrogating the relationship and understanding of religion and redemption for Black people as a love story. The blood of Black people exists as a bodily fluid of life. These films depict blood and the blood of Jesus as addictive and required for existence rather than salvation to live an eternal life beyond the guise of humanity.

The blood continued to be important throughout African diasporic life. Due to its significance, we must focus on it and fully account for the blood’s pervasiveness throughout Black people’s socio-political history, culture, and theologies. Hip Hop and Womanist theologians reveal the continued significance of the blood. It has many functions as a metaphor for hope, liberation, redemption, and justice, as well as pollution, waste, and impurities. Blood as a material substance, metaphor, and symbol of redemptive power of the blood recognizes the importance of the body of Christ. The belief bestowed to the power in the blood and in the sacrifice of Christ’s life is a reclamation of love. In “Love”, K’eguro Macharia writes, “Policing love is central to establishing and sustaining claims about difference … Reclaiming love has been central to liberatory politics … love remains a leaky concept” (Macharia 2015). Blood through its malleability, fluidness, and fungibility liquefied on the cross into a material substance, and a live loss yields to shearing forces, unlike solid matter which resists them; in this space of resistance and belief, Jesus living and dying for our sins are acts of love. Womanist theologians unapologetically center Black and Womanist theologies, providing an alternative perspective to consider redemptive suffering in tandem with traditional theology predicating love as the universal power.

Hip Hop is a testament of Black survival beyond the middle passage from which some discuss as reality where people of African descent were never meant to survive. The presence of blood makes life and its purpose evident that survival was inevitable, and the brutality in colonialism and White domination produced greed and racism to retain people of African descent in captivity. Captured in hymns are the work of hope and redemption. In the remake of the hymn “Nothing but the Blood” (2014), Linne, featuring Eric McCallister, maintain the integrity of the lyrics naming that the power in the blood washes away sin and promises wholeness, maintaining a righteousness, hope, and peace. Rapping about Christ’s suffering as a reward, Linne mixes the hymn with the elements of Hip Hop. The blood and body of Christ are used as both subject and metaphor in the lyrics. The inclusion of the blood and its power creates a space for Black people’s bodies and lived experiences. The blood in Linne’s lyrics is an extension of creativity and rebellion in the likeness of Hip Hop. Establishing how the blood has become a fluid from which faith and joy are a fixture as opposed to terror, the rewriting of the blood of Jesus is set upon a sample of the Hip Hop classic, “Go Brooklyn”, displaying a personal relationship with the blood for the culture.

On the album cover of the mixtape Shesus Khryst, Remy Ma identifies as SuperJay and positions herself on the cross in the resemblance of Jesus. Plausibly a nod to her serving six years of an eight-year prison sentence. SuperJay’s struggles are embodied in the creation of Shesus Khryst’s body on the album cover, depicted wearing a long wig with Remy Ma’s signature lighter colored bangs, defiantly staring into the face of the artist and viewer. The self-reference of Shesus Khryst on the cross solidifies her belief of the redemptive power of Christ dying on the cross as she re-emerges as a Christ-like figure. Offering an alternative theological perspective on the possibilities of Christ as Shesus Khryst opposes the default White male presenting body with the intentional reveal of her breast yet maintaining a sense of modesty as her hair conceals her nipples. As Shesus Khryst, a formerly incarcerated Black woman rapper, she challenges and extends the possibilities of who could be a savior, the cross, and the blood. Shesus Khryst locates power in the Black feminine divine and the cross. These personas radically reimagine the blood while sustaining the symbolism of the cross in transforming Remy Ma into a “savior” or Hip Hop Jesuz for Brooklyn through the belief of the blood. Arguably, while Remy Ma’s engagement brings into purview gender and Black womanhood, it also signals her personal relationship with the symbols and metaphors related to the power in the cross, the body of Jesus, and the blood. In the intro, rapping as SuperJay, Remy Ma strikes:

• If Jay-Z is J-Hova
• And Nas is God son
• And I was spitting crack to the people and die son
• And then I came back like I never left nice
• Then I’m the BX Savior, Shesus Khryst9

This declaration is a recreation of herself as a god in Hip Hop. Alongside Jay-Z and Nas who are considered amongst the greatest emcees of all time. Her transcending into a Hip Hop god is a declaration to fuck gender, while declaring she has been resurrected positioning herself in an exalted position. In the official music video for “Shesus Khyrst”10, Remy is shown primarily rapping while hanging on the cross embossed by suffering and triumphed.11

5. Conclusions

Messing with the Grays—A New Direction

Most theological debates lead to residing within the binaries, choosing an either/or. Either the blood has power, or it does not; either Black people suffering brings about liberation or there is no salvation. A both/and approach allow a construction of a liberatory Africana theology of the blood, drawing from multiple perspectives. The liberatory Africana theology proposes getting messy by messes with the grays. In Morgan’s classic text When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost: A Hip-Hop Feminist Breaks It Down (1998), she writes: “I needed a feminism brave enough to fuck with the grays” (Morgan 1998, p. 59). Morgan articulated the tensions she, like others, experienced being a part of the Hip Hop generation and identifying with feminism or living as an outsider, both diametrically opposed to the other. Morgan states: “And how come no one ever admits that part of the reason women love Hip Hop—as sexist as it is—is ’cuz all that in-yo-face testosterone makes our nipples hard”? (Morgan 1998, p. 58) Liberation work is not neat, it does not exist within binaries, exploring the possibilities in the grays means messing in the in-between.

Africana theology exists in the messes with the grays. Building on the intermixture of Womanist and lyrical theologians and African theologies that exist outside the confines of White Supremacy. An Africana liberation theology of the blood recognizes the blood of Jesus heals and harms Black people simultaneously. It is a multifold framework to consider “salvation” and redemption without suffering for people of African descent through a love-centered theology. Seeking to affirm those who identify as queer, non-gender conforming, transgender, heterosexual, polyamorous, self-identify hoes, bi-sexual, gay, etc., who believe or not in the redeeming power of the blood. This theology embodies the belief that Black humanity does not require suffering. There is no need to return to century-long debates about predestination and the discussions surrounding universal salvation, especially since they have fallen trapped to Whiteanity. Black life as depicted in opposition to White Supremacy ideologies in sites such as Black films and precolonial African thinking imagine the possibilities of salvation, redemption, and liberation. People of African descent imagine liberation, turning to pleasure, and engage with the blood of Jesus through developing understandings of Black faith as a possibility to provide a historical perspective.

An African precolonial depiction of atonement exists by arguably one of the greatest theologians of all time, Saint Augustine of Hippo. Saint Augustine of Hippo believed that God’s atoning work to redeem humans starts with the incarnation when the Son of God became human. In On the Trinity (428 AD)12 Augustine states: “What, had God no other way by which He might free men from the misery of this mortality, that He should will the only-begotten Son, God co-eternal with Himself, to become man, by putting on a human soul and flesh, and being made mortal to endure death” (Horn 2019, p. 248)? Augustine posits that God becoming human is a manifestation of love in and of itself because of the amount of sacrifice it took to change from being divine to being human.

Augustine speaks directly to the question of power in the blood. In On the Trinity (428 AD), he explains how Jesus dying on the cross is an act of God’s love and wonderfully completed by the Trinity all working together to restore the relationship between God and humans. First, he asks, “What power is there in this blood … that they who believe should be justified in it? And what is meant by being reconciled by the death of His Son” (ibid, p. 249)? This is significant because it shows that Africans have been pondering this question for thousands of years. He then raises the point about God being angry with us which sounds like substitutionary atonement.13 “Was it indeed so, that when God the Father was angry with us, He saw the death of His Son for us, and was appeased towards us?” The answer to this question is no. Augustine goes on to explain how the incarnation and Jesus’ death was an act of love that pleased God the Father before the creation of the world. He writes:

[I]n the other, as though the Father first loved us, He Himself on our account does not spare the Son, He Himself for us delivers Him up to death. But I see that the Father loved us also before, not only before the Son died for us, but before He created the world; the apostle himself being witness, who says, According as He has chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world. Nor was the Son delivered up for us as it were unwillingly, the Father Himself not sparing Him; for it is said also concerning Him, Who loved me, and delivered up Himself for me. Therefore, together both the Father and the Son, and the Spirit of both, work all things equally and harmoniously; yet we are justified in the blood of Christ, and we are reconciled to God by the death of His Son.

(Horn 2019, p. 250)

According to Augustine, the blood does have redeeming power, not in the sense of the atonement theories of appeasing God’s wrath, but in the sense of expressing a triune love of God that started before the creation of the world. God the Father, the Son of God, and the Spirit all played their roles in freeing humans from the “misery of mortality”. God lovingly sacrificed his Son. Jesus willingly gave his life and the Spirit worked with both to carry it out. Another important point that Augustine puts forth is the community within the trinity that worked together to liberate humans. He says, “equally and harmoniously”, meaning they were not fighting for who should be glorified the most or exalted one above the other. They worked together in beautiful harmony to set humans free.

Moving beyond binary thinking of the role of the blood, a liberatory Africana theology centering redemption permits a deeper engagement with fluidity and fungibility of the blood. Africana liberation theology is found in the blood. The conversation between Womanist and lyrical theologians provides a pathway to theorizing about the blood as central to the meaning from which people of the African diaspora construct. It flows from one person to another coalescing them into a family and is shed when people make sacrifices for others. The films, The Blood of Jesus, depicts the overlay of suffering and redemption that has been present throughout Black life through those who believe in the power of the blood. Beyond humanity, Ganja and Hess reveal how the blood applies to the grotesque. Revealing there is no limit to the blood’s redemptive power. Augustine also goes beyond humanity positioning the community that existed before creation demonstrating how Jesus willingly gave his life on the cross, not to appease God, rather because God loves humans. Augustine’s depiction of God’s sacrificial love forms a space to disrupt the colonial imaginary, returning to an understanding of the cross not bound by “time, space, and cultural ideology” (Long 2003), illuminating African liberation theology of the redeeming power of the blood.

While bloodshed is a part of sacrifice, it also relates to trauma, pain, and anguish. While the blood does, at times, redeem, heal, and restore, its restoration does not pertain to the suffering of Black people for White superiority. As Womanist theologians reveal, an Africana liberation theology of the blood also does not cast aside the non-elect, it does the opposite, as a liberatory theology focusing on the most oppressed and least among us in society. In On Being Black and Reformed Antony Carter states: A New Perspective on the African-American Christian Experience (2003), will stand: “A biblical understanding would insist that we conclude that the transplanting of Africans to the shores of America was as divinely orchestrated as the pilgrimage of Israel into slavery in Egypt (Gen 15:13–14) and the migration of the first pilgrims from England to the Plymouth Colony” (Carter 2003, p. 11). If Carter is correct, then God intended for millions of Africans to be packed on slave ships and endure horrible tortures. God intended for Black women to be raped by their slave masters and then sold to another plantation. God intended for Black men to be hung up on trees like “strange fruit” with their eyes bulging out. God intended for Black people to be burned alive. God ordained for nations of African peoples to be dispossessed, forcefully migrated around the world to create colonized diasporas in strange lands and pass on that trauma from generation to generation making it present in Black lives today. Is this truly what God intended to happen? Was that all a part of God’s divine plan? Is racism divine, so much so that it is happening at the supernatural level, beyond individuals, institutions, and even this world?

Carter’s claim elucidates how extremely significant it is that we properly understand redemptive suffering. Carter’s theological views are the very theology that Douglas warns us about and why it is so important to include Womanist theologians. Douglas makes clear how these doctrines empower White Supremacy to have divine justification in their oppression of Black bodies. Yet, when going back to Augustine before colonization, and how Black people throughout its history in this “strange land” of America continued to find solidarity and redemption in the blood of Jesus, we cannot completely let it go. We mess with the grays and reimagine an Africana liberation theology of blood on the cross that is explicitly tied to the historical Black experience. This results in an Africana liberation theology of the blood of Jesus that holds together the intimacies of life and death, to provide liberation for all Black lives, now and beyond.