African American Pastoral Theology

African American pastoral theology is a specialized branch of pastoral theology that addresses the unique spiritual, cultural, and social experiences of the African American community. This article provides a critical overview of African American pastoral theology. It documents the discipline’s history, developments, major themes, sources, and methods. Particular focus is given to the unique contributions African American pastoral theology, within the liberal protestant tradition, has made and will continue make to pastoral theology at large. African American pastoral theology has exposed how normative pastoral theological paradigms – such as shepherding – fail to address the various challenges facing the African American community. As a corrective, African American pastoral theology draws upon the communal experiences of the African American community itself to develop theologically derived and culturally relevant perspectives and strategies for effective pastoral care. Particularly in response to the call for liberation in African American contexts, African American pastoral theology utilizes cognate sources that speak, prophetically, to the African American community’s fight against oppression. And yet, because the experiences in the African American context are so diverse, African American pastoral theology must remain committed to the ongoing process of theological revision. The interrogation of prevailing pastoral theological paradigms requires ongoing reflection on an important question: where is a word (or the Word) that speaks life to African Americans today?