Our Story
The Founding of the SSBR
Adapted from C. Shelby Rooks’ Revolution in Zion
During the 1940s and 1950s, few African American scholars examined the religious experience of their own communities in depth. After the appearance of Joseph Washington’s Black Religion, in 1964, a new burst of energy developed. Numerous articles about Black Theology began to appear. James Cone’s 1969 publication Black Theology and Black Power accelerated the production of articles and books among those teaching in seminaries. In the early 1970s,several new books began to appear, written by the new breed of authors such as J. Deotis Roberts, Cecil Cone, Major J. Jones, and William R. Jones. Yet there were few places these African American seminary professors could gather to discuss what they were thinking and writing about.
In the spring of 1969, C. Shelby Rooks, Executive Director of the Fund for Theological Education, was asked to see what could be done to draw African American seminary professors together. The request came from the Association of Theological Schools Special Committee on the Black Religious Experience, which was planning the 1970 Conference on Theological Education and the Black Religious Experience at Howard University. The committee wanted to ensure ongoing activity as a result of the conference. Rooks was asked to issue a call for a gathering at Gammon Theological Seminary inAtlanta during the summer of 1969, to discuss what African American seminary teachers might conceive and do together in theological education.
The meeting in Atlanta was well attended. It was the first time in theological education that such a gathering had occurred, and there was great enthusiasm for an occasion just to be together. Participants were so impressed that they decided to create a formal organization and to continue meeting on an annual basis. The gathered scholars chose a name, the Society for the Study of Black Religion (SSBR). The choice was debated with vigor and care, negotiating between the desire of some that the Society be concerned with all religious experience among African Americans and the desire of others that the Society be concerned primarily, but not exclusively, with Christian experience. The distinction involved differences in the perspectives of two disciplines, history of religions and systematic theology. The name chosen for the Society was actually an umbrella for both viewpoints, though the debate about the essential purpose of the Society has continued, for academic and other intellectual reasons.
By the close of this first meeting, Rooks was asked to be convener, since, due to his position with the Fund, he had a budget, a secretary, and visibility in scholarly circles. A Committee on Constitution and By-Laws was appointed and asked to report at the first annual meeting a year later. Some rules were agreed upon for those early days. For instance, meetings would be held in a sequence of cities, principally in the East, where most of the existing African American faculty were employed; a person could become a member by invitation, only, and would already hold a Ph.D. degree. The group made some exceptions in the original list of prospective members, including for Rooks, who had only an honorary degree. Dues were to be kept small so that this would not be a deterrent to membership.
Rook’s office sent letters to every African American seminary teacher or administrator whom participants in the Gammon Seminary meeting had identified. Each was invited to attend the first annual meeting of the Society the following year. It convened in October, 1970. Rooks was elected as the first president. In addition to the papers that were read and critiqued, a constitution was adopted that gave as purposes for the Society: (1) To engage in scholarly research and discussion about the religious experience of Blacks; (2) To publish reports of its discussions and research; and, (3) To encourage the teaching and discussion of the Black religious experience in them curricula of college or university departments of religion and theological seminaries.
The language of those purposes was important, because the Society was always greeted by very different expectations about what it was and what it should accomplish. One expectation was that the Society would be a forum whose principal purpose would be to connect research about and study of African American religion with the freedom struggle. It was a dramatic vision of a hopeful new union between church and academy. Another controversial expectation about the SSBR was that it should be a place for African Americans to think together by themselves about the issues that concerned them. Many white scholars were interested in what the Society was doing, but the Society decided to meet at a time and a place not coincident with the meetings of other academic societies, in order to preserve, without embarrassment, the prerogative of black self-reflection on religious experience.
The Society served important functions in its early years. When the SSBR celebrated its tenth anniversary in 1980, the late Lawrence N. Jones, the second president, summed up the decade:
The SSBR … contributed to a number of significant results. It was in one sense a circling of the wagons – it chose not to join the AAR as a constituent part and existed upon its own integrity. It was a community of individuals who reinforced, encouraged, and criticized each other. It was an intellectual oasis in the midst of a hostile educational context in which entrenched whites felt they were being coerced to accept as colleagues individuals who were not committed to their [the whites’] subject matter, and who injected issues of justice into intellectual discourse.
It was in one sense a circling of the wagons – it chose not to join the AAR as a constituent part and existed upon its own integrity. It was a community of individuals who reinforced,encouraged, and criticized each other. It was an intellectual oasis in the midst of a hostile educational context in which entrenched whites felt they were being coerced to accept as colleagues individuals who were not committed to their [the whites’] subject matter, and who injected issues of justice into intellectual discourse.
Much learning took place. The papers read were often frontier-type papers embryonic offerings and initial efforts to define a scholarly turf. Black Theology and scholarship was legitimated within SSBR and it was also an important place in which the views and strategies of the opposition were aired. It contributed to the internationalization of theological studies and reclaimed historic ties between Africa and those in the African Diaspora. And it was a group of scholars who addressed the critical questions of the meaning of all of the scholarship of the community–for the Black church, for its mission and its message.
define a scholarly turf. Black Theology and scholarship was legitimated within SSBR and it was also an important place in which the views and strategies of the opposition were aired. It contributed to the internationalization of theological studies and reclaimed historic ties between Africa and those in the African Diaspora. And it was a group of scholars who addressed the critical questions of the meaning of all of the scholarship of the community–for the Black church, for its mission and itsmessage.
And the story continues…..
