Anthony B. Pinn

Anthony B. Pinn is a contemporary professor and writer whose work focuses on liberation theology, Black religion, and Black humanism. Pinn is the Agnes Cullen Arnold Professor of Humanities and Professor of Religious Studies at Rice University. [“Anthony B. Pinn,” Religious Studies: Rice University, 2005] He earned his Ph.D. in the Study of Religion at Harvard University in 1994. His dissertation was entitled “I Wonder as I Wonder: An Examination of the Problem of Evil in African-American Religious Thought.” [Jacqueline Trussell, “BNC Academy Exclusive: An E-Interview with Anthony Pinn,” Black and Christian.com, March 2002, (23 February 2007).] The topic of theological responses to evil and suffering in Black religion has continued to dominate Pinn’s later work.

Black humanism in relation to other religious traditions

Throughout his work, Pinn refers to his approach to humanism as a “religion.” [Victor Anderson, “Three Paths to Empowerment in Recent African American Theology and Ethics,” Religious Studies Review 28, no. 1 (January 2002): 12.] In so doing, Pinn cites humanist Gordon Kaufman’s definition of religion as “that which helps humans find orientation (or direction) ‘for life in the world, together with motivation for living and acting in accordance with this orientation.’” [Anthony B. Pinn, “Anybody There? Reflections on African American Humanism,” American Humanist Association, 1997, (23 February 2007).] In other words, for Pinn, religion need not be theistic.

In Why Lord?, Pinn’s humanism “involves an increase in humanity’s importance which makes impossible the location of a space for God.” [Why Lord? 142.] He continues, “Religious answers to life’s meaninglessness promote an embracing of suffering which reinforces life’s meaninglessness rather than ending it.” [Ibid., 153.] In other work, however, Pinn moderates this claim. In a 1997 essay, Pinn describes humanism as another contribution to the plurality of religious traditions. [] In Varieties of African American Religious Experience (1999), he acknowledges that “the needs of various human communities are complex and varied enough to allow for a plurality of religious traditions.” [Victor Anderson, 12.] Finally, in a 2002 interview, Pinn states that the Black Church, although in crisis, “has tremendous potential” for addressing the social justice issues that affect African-Americans. [] Although Pinn’s work reaches into non-Christian sources of theology, much of his academic focus remains centered on the history and theology of the African-American Christian Church. [Anthony B. Pinn, The Black Church in the Post-Civil Rights Era (New York: Orbis Books, 2002).]

Importantly, Pinn differentiates Black humanism from other non-theistic worldviews such as atheism. Citing the work of Jean-Paul Sartre and Richard Wright, Pinn notes that Black humanism has no interest in disproving the existence of God. [Why Lord? 154, 156.] Rather, it is “not overly concerned with God as a negative myth, but rather God as a liberating myth that is nonetheless unsubstantiated.” [] Thus, oppressed African-Americans need not waste their time disproving God’s existence, but are simply better off seeking their liberation with the human tools of “desire for transformation, human creativity, physical strength, and untapped collective potential.” [Why Lord? 158.] This “full human potential” is capable of analyzing and working to rectify problems of oppression in the African-American community. [Will Coleman, “African Americans,” in Handbook of U.S. Theologies of Liberation, pp. 154-161. Edited by Miguel A. De La Torre (St. Louis: Chalice Press, 2004), 159.]

Pinn’s approach to theodicy, redemptive suffering, and Black humanism

In Why Lord? Suffering and Evil in Black Theology (1995), Anthony Pinn establishes himself as a liberation theologian and Black humanist. In Why Lord?, Pinn seeks to critique various responses found within Black religion to the question of theodicy, or God’s role in the suffering of humanity. His critique is based on the ultimate goal of Black liberation. [Anthony B. Pinn, Why Lord? Suffering and Evil in Black Theology (New York: Continuum, 1995), 13.] Pinn cites John Hick’s options for “the resolution of the problem of evil,” which are the following: “(1) a rethinking of the nature/purpose of evil; or, (2) the postulating of a ‘limited’ God; or, (3) a questioning/denial of God’s existence.” [Ibid., 14.]

The solutions that Black theology has formally articulated, Pinn argues, have essentially been limited to the first two options. All theodicean arguments following the first approach are not useful in the struggle for the liberation of oppressed people because, to varying degrees, they all rely on the concept of redemptive suffering. [Ibid., 17.] Pinn considers these arguments “unacceptable because they counteract efforts at liberation by finding something of value in Black suffering.” He places the work of James H. Cone, an early promulgator of Black liberation theology, in the first category. Although Cone refuses to accept Black suffering as God’s will, he nonetheless embraces suffering which Blacks incur as a result of resistance to oppression. Pinn rejects this distinction between positive and negative suffering, which he calls purely academic. [Ibid., 85-88.] Instead, a Black theology of liberation must characterize suffering “as unquestionably and unredeemably evil.” [Ibid., 89.] Pinn follows the thinking of existentialist writer Albert Camus, who rejects theodicean arguments for God limiting God’s own intervention, arguing that “if God is omnipotent and permits human suffering, then God is a murderer.” [James H. Cone, A Black Theology of Liberation (New York: Orbis Books, 1970), 79.] Theodicean arguments based on the postulating of a limited God, as presented by William R. Jones and Delores Williams, are not valid at all, as Pinn questions the efficacy and worth of worship and action in the service of a limited, ultimately ineffective deity. [Why Lord?, 111.]

Rather, Pinn proposes that Black theologians examine the third theodicean solution: the questioning or denial of God’s existence. In this approach, Pinn draws on William R. Jones’ important work Is God a White Racist? (1998), which questions God’s goodness. He ultimately takes this point farther than Jones, arguing that if God exists and is self-limiting in God’s support for Black liberation, as Jones concludes, God is indeed a racist. [Ibid., 93.] Pinn describes his approach as fundamentally pragmatic: where faith in God entails a justification of human suffering, he “would rather lose God than human value.” [Ibid., 142.] James H. Cone writes that "Black theology must relate itself to the human situation unique to oppressed persons generally and blacks particularly. If black theology fails to do this adequately, then the black community will and should destroy it." [Cone, 36.]

To this end, Pinn advocates a position of “strong humanism,” a non-theistic religion that concerns itself, above all, with human life, while rejecting the existence of God. [Why Lord? 148.]

ources of theology

Pinn draws on a variety of historical traditions in the formation of his religion of Black humanism. Examples from Black folk stories and jokes, spirituals, blues, rap, and political discourse form the basis of Pinn’s work. In his analysis of these diverse sources, Pinn employs what he terms “nitty-gritty hermeneutics,” an approach to theological thought that is constructed from the hard realities of human experience, unconfined by a need to fit into preconceived Christian doctrines. [Why Lord? 116.] In other words, nitty-gritty hermeneutics privilege solutions to the problem of oppression over the maintenance of religious tradition. [Ibid., 20.] He suggests that this approach is already widespread within hip-hop music, citing lyrics and quotes from Salt-n-Pepa, NWA, Dr. Dre, Grand Master Flash and the Furious Five, KRS-One, and Chuck D, all of which seek to describe the harsh realities of life. Essentially, Pinn attempts to transform the language of rap music, which expresses nitty-gritty theology on a popular level, into professional theology, acceptable to academia. [Leonardo and Clodovis Boff, Introducing Liberation Theology (New York: Orbis Books, 1986), 14.]

In his analysis of often overtly-Christian sources, Pinn finds meaningful support for the historical legitimacy of Black humanism. The tradition of spirituals, communally composed by African slaves in the United States, provides an early study in Black theodicy, questioning the purpose of slaves’ suffering. [Ibid., 36.] He quotes Daniel Payne, a leader in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, who in 1839 wrote about the extent to which slaves, aware of the hypocrisy of their Christian masters, “distrust both the goodness and justice of God.” In a telling example, Pinn quotes a runaway slave, who said he was not a Christian because “white men treat us so bad in Mississippi that we can’t be Christians.” [] Pinn also finds critiques of God’s efficacy in Riggin Earl’s “Brer Rabbit” stories, slave folklore that portrays God as weak or comical, and blues and rap music that seek worldly solutions and reject theistic religion. Pinn also refers to humanism among African-Americans within the American Communist and Civil Rights struggles of the 20th century. Academic sources for Black humanism include Richard Wright and Nella Larsen. Pinn cites Wright’s rejection, in the 1940 novel Native Son, of religion’s solutions to “life’s complexity and absurdity,” which “promote an embracing of suffering which reinforces life’s meaninglessness rather than ending it.” He affirms Larsen’s conclusion, asserted in her 1928 novel Quicksand, that God’s failure to deliver humans from suffering means that oppressed people must overcome “through human strength, but without guarantee of success.” [Why Lord? 132, 143-53 passim.]

In “Anybody There? Reflections on African American Humanism,” Pinn acknowledges the importance of the work of theologians such as James H. Cone in the 1960s and 70s. He states that Cone’s early writings, which presented theological arguments for Black power and liberation, ultimately became part of the separation between the Christian-based Civil Rights movement and the more radical Black Power movement.

In Varieties of African American Religious Experience, Pinn considers a wide range of non-Christian theological sources, including “Voodoo, Orisha devotion, Santeria, the Nation of Islam, and Black Humanism,” and advocates a broader understanding of African-American “sources, norms, and doctrines” beyond the Protestant church. [Coleman, 159.]

elected books written, co-written, and edited by Anthony Pinn

#Why Lord? Suffering and Evil in Black Theology (1999)
#The Black Church in the Post-Civil Rights Era (2002)
#Terror and Triumph: The Nature of Black Religion (2003)
#Varieties of African American Religious Experience (1998)
#Loving the Body: Black Religious Studies and the Erotic (2004)
#Pauli Murray: Selected Sermons and Writings (2006)
#The African American Religious Experience in America (2005)
#Social Protest Thought in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, 1862-1939 (2000)
#By These Hands: A Documentary History of African American Humanism (2001)
#African American Religious Life and the Story of Nimrod (2007)
#The Ties that Bind: African American and Hispanic American/Latino/a Theology in Dialogue (2001)
#Fortress Introduction to Black Church History (2001)
#Noise and Spirit: The Religious and Spiritual Sensibilities of Rap Music (2003)

External links

* [http://www.americanhumanist.org/hsfamily/rh/pinn.html Anybody There? Reflections on African American Humanism by Anthony B. Pinn]

References