“NEGROES SHOULD WORSHIP A GOD WHO IS A NEGRO”

Abstract

This chapter offers a brief sketch of the theological thought, or more specifically, the God-Talk language of Turner. The chapter then offers a rhetorical analysis of the text and argues that Turner engages in what some scholars call rhetorical theology. By maintaining that all theology is at its core a form of argument, rhetorical theology places emphasis on how a speaker or writer situates language in order to persuade its hearers to a certain position. In other words, when Turner spoke and wrote “God is a Negro,” he was not doing systematic theology; he was engaged in a public theology, which is a rhetorical enterprise that had as its aim a persuasive function within a specific context.