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Abstract
Cornel West lectured to the ministerial leadership at the House of the Lord Pentecostal Church in Brooklyn, New York, pastored by Bishop Herbert D. Daughtry, Sr, which became the bases for Prophesy Deliverance! My article lays the context and historical circumstances that brought West to the church. The essay explains theological, political nexus, and the critical moment in which the church, as a central member of the Black United Front, found itself at the center of the call for justice and social change amid police murders and abuses in New York City during the mayoral administration of Edward Koch.
Abstract
Early lectures, which became the book Prophesy Deliverance! by Cornel West, were delivered at the House of the Lord Pentecostal Church in Brooklyn, New York. The location of House of the Lord, which West argued was an exemplar of Afro-American revolutionary Christianity, demonstrates the relational and reciprocal insights Pentecostalism shares with West’s commitments to radical historicism and prophetic pragmatism. Several Black descended Pentecostals–scholars Leonard Lovett and Keri Day, and denominational leader Smallwood Williams–enact both a complex cultural analysis, and a robust social analysis. I argue Pentecostal praxis and critical reflection engage and extend West’s corpus and Black critical thought.
Abstract
Black Apostolic Pentecostal Bishop Arthur M. Brazier employed various discursive practices to promote an integrationist agenda by affirming Black Power as a complex constellation of ideologies for achieving self-determination, Black pride, and self-sufficiency. Brazier deployed a Black Power/Black Liberation Theology-informed social program to help Black Chicagoans vie for their piece of the [American] pie in the name of cultural assimilation and socio-economic inclusion. Here, I reflect on Professor West’s proposal for an Afro-American Revolutionary Christianity. Recognizing that his discussion of the practical and programmatic dimensions of revolutionary Christian perspective and praxis were never intended to reify religious parochialism, in it, I find a theoretical framework with which to examine the religio-social consciousness of Black Pentecostals like Brazier, who prophesied deliverance via Black liberation.
Abstract
In Prophesy Deliverance, Cornel West calls on Black liberation theologians to critical engage with Marxist thought. Instigated by Black Lives Matter movement, this article explores the convergence of Black Pentecostalism, Marxism, and liberation theology, highlighting their collective potential to address racial capitalism and systemic injustice. Drawing on Black existential thought, insurgent theologies, and Pentecostal praxis, it proposes a theology that is anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist, antiracist, and antisexist, emphasizing the lived experiences of the Black poor. It argues for a Black Pentecostal Liberation Theology that critiques racial, economic, and gender oppressions through a revolutionary Christian lens. This framework seeks to transcend the historical legacies of slavery and racial discrimination, advocating for a transformative praxis rooted in Black struggle and resistance.
Abstract
This paper recognizes the 40th anniversary of the publication of Prophesy Deliverance! by Cornel West, and acknowledges the broad impact of his intellectual leadership. It begins with the important question of whether West has centered or marginalized Pentecostal thought and culture in the presentation of his basic argument regarding the evolution of Black critical thought and prophetic Christianity. Next is an exploration of how West’s ideas about Black revolutionary Christianity find expression in recent studies of Black Pentecostalism, with particular attention to the Pentecostal social imaginary framed by Dale Coulter and by Keri Day.