When the fictional character Loonquawl was told that the answer to “Life, the Universe and Everything” was a very simple “forty-two,” he was, to put it mildly, upset, especially seeing as the computer, Deep Thought, had taken seven and a half million years to compute it. When asked if forty-two was definitely the answer, Deep Thought replies, “I checked it very thoroughly, and that quite definitely is the answer. I think the problem, to be quite honest with you, is that you’ve never actually known what the question is” (Adams 1997, 162). This situation in Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy throws a humorous light on humanity’s tendency to just want answers without perhaps fully understanding the scope of the question. Everyone, at some point in their life, might consider “What is the answer to Life?” And if Life is what we experience as humans, then we can also pose, “What does it mean to be human?” Teenagers in existential crisis, ancient Greek philosophers and middle-aged grocery baggers can all identify with the desire for an answer to that question. People come up with various ways and means to find this elusive answer. Some might look to the human experience and try to use philosophy (and perhaps thus end up as grocery baggers). On the other hand, some may instead turn to the exact opposite of “human”: the divine. Many religions propose to have found the answer of what it means to be human through knowledge and experience of the divine. Christianity, in particular, has been grappling with this question ever since the birth and death of a man named Jesus, who was reported to be, in various ways, the very presence of divinity on Earth. Unfortunately, the majority of any “official grappling” in Christianity has ...
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The second edition of “African American Religious History: A Documentary Witness,” covers the religious experiences of African Americans—from the late eighteenth century until the early 1980s. My paper is written in a chronological order to reflect on the progress blacks have made during the years—by expounding on the earliest religion of Africans to black religion of today. Race Relation and Religion plays a major role in today’s society—history is present in all that we do and it is to history that African-Americans have its identity and aspiration.
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James H. Cone is the Charles A. Briggs Distinguished Professor of Systematic Theology at Union Theological Seminary in New York City. Dr. Cone probably is best known for his book, A Black Theology of Liberation, though he has authored several other books. Dr. Cone wrote that the lack of relevant and “risky” theology suggests that theologians are not able to free themselves from being oppressive structures of society and suggested an alternative. He believes it is evident that the main difficulty most whites have with Black Power and its compatible relationship to the Christian gospel stemmed from their own inability to translate non-traditional theology into the history of black people. The black man’s response to God’s act in Christ must be different from the whites because his life experiences are different, Dr. Cone believes. In the “black experience,” the author suggested that a powerful message of biblical theology is liberation from oppression.
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Today, women share the same equal rights and opportunities as men; nevertheless, that has not invariably been the case. Before the Jazz Age era, gender discrimination between men and women in society was considerably popular. Women were seen as inferior to men. Their jobs were to care for the home, children, and other domesticated duties while men were able to work, get an education, and become doctors or lawyers. Many women like Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Ida B. Wells, Sojourner Truth, Zora Hurston, to mention a few, seen the unfairness in women's rights and fought for equal rights for women through different movements, efforts, protests, and even marches to abolish women’s rights. As a consequence, women now pursue not only higher education and higher paid jobs/ businesses, but their rights. One of the world’s most controversial issues among churches of today is the role of a woman. Many people are confused about the duty of a woman and how she is supposed to serve God because of history. History taught us to never deny someone of gender, race, or even diversity since he or she has human rights. However, this issue should not be viewed as men versus women because this is not a political issue; instead, it should be viewed as the structural of a church. Women should not be priests, pastors, or even rabbis for God condone women for being priests, pastors, and rabbis as well as proscribed.
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“Today I appeal to the whole Church community to be willing to foster feminine participation in every way in its internal life. This is certainly not a new commitment, since it is inspired by the example of Christ himself….nevertheless, he also involved women in the cause of his kingdom; indeed he wanted them to be the first witnesses and heralds of his resurrection. In fact, there are many women who have distinguished themselves in the Church’s history by their holiness and hardworking ingenuity.”