SSBR Mission

The Society for the Study of BlackReligion has been "formed exclusivelyfor religious and educational purposes,and in particular to engage in scholarly research and discussion about thereligious experiences of Blacks; topublish reports of its discussion andresearch; to encourage the teaching and discussion of the Black religiousexperience in the curricula of collegeand university departments of religionand theological seminaries; and to carry out other activities related to the study of Black Religion."

During the 1940s and 1950s, few African American scholars examined the religious experience of their owncommunities 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 Theologyand Black Power accelerated the production of articles and books among those teaching in seminaries. In the early1970s, 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 couldgather 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 seewhat 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 onTheological 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 in Atlanta 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 hadoccurred, and there was great enthusiasm for an occasion just to be together. Participants were so impressed that theydecided 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.

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.