Demetrius K. Williams: African American Christians Enlarged the Meaning of the Cross

Demetrius K. Williams is a scholar who comes from a long line of Black Baptist ministers. Williams has taught comparative literature, global studies, and theology at universities and theological schools in Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Atlanta, Georgia; and New Orleans, Louisiana. He has pastored Community Baptist Church of Greater Milwaukee since 2009. His most recent book is The Cross of Christ in African American Christian Religious Experience: Piety, Politics, and Protest (Lexington Books, 2023). In this edited conversation, he discusses how enslaved African Americans formed a distinctive view of Jesus Christ and his work on the cross.  

What new things does The Cross of Christ add to scholarship about the apostle Paul? 

Much has been written about how Paul theologically explained the meaning of Christ’s death and its effects for human redemption and atonement. He did this by emphasizing that Christ died for us and on our behalf. The Cross of Christ explores and advances the untapped potential of research and rhetorical analysis of cross terminology in Paul. He used this cross discourse and ideology to argue, talk with, or challenge fellow believers who questioned his apostolic identity or when Christian communities tried to make one group’s ethnoreligious identity or identity symbols the dominant template for belonging.  

Paul insisted that the power of cross not only provides individual atonement but should also bring about unity and equality within the body of Christ and society. Yet these aspects have been muted and distorted to advance and rationalize human enslavement and empire building in Western colonial ventures in sub-Saharan Africa and the New World. My book looks at original sources to see how African American Christians have religiously experienced the full power of Christ’s death on the cross. 

How did Paul’s context influence his cross terminology and ideology? 

As a subject of the Roman empire, Paul was broadly exposed to and undoubtably influenced by the language, imagery, and ideology of empire. Caesar was seen as the chief priest, savior, lord, and “son of God” divinely chosen to bring about peace, unity, and prosperity through the will of the gods. A widespread media program of temples, statues of the reigning emperor, and Roman coinage reinforced this understanding throughout the empire. 

But Paul saw Caesar as only an earthly lord—a human who desired divine status and ruled by dominance, force, cruelty, and military power. He told the Corinthians that there are “many gods” and “many lords” but reminded his audience, “yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live” (1 Cor. 8:6, NIV).  

Paul presented Jesus, who was crucified by Roman power, as the true and authentic alternative to Caesar. His followers must choose between Caesar and the crucified Savior, Jesus Christ, who emptied himself of divine privilege (Phil. 2:6–11). Jesus offers humankind the opportunity to share in his power and glory. He promises unity not by force and cruelty, but “by the power that also enables him to make all things subject to himself” (Phil. 3:21). 

Why was this aspect of the cross muted in Christian history? 

It was lost in the second century, when church leaders began to put less emphasis on the full power of the cross and more on the incarnation. They did so to oppose the threat of Gnosticism and Docetism in the church. Neither heresy sees Jesus as both fully human and divine. Focusing on this threat to the gospel led to less emphasis on the power of Jesus’ bodily death and resurrection to combat enemies of the cross. Paul’s rhetoric of the cross argued that the power of the cross of Christ should advance how the church participates in and quests for a more just and equitable world. This understanding lay dormant for centuries. 

How has Paul’s cross rhetoric about human equality and justice helped African American Christians? 

My examination of original sources shows that enslaved African Americans formed a distinctive view of Jesus Christ as uniquely with them in their suffering and also as the source of their ultimate deliverance, both spiritually and socially. Jesus was the faithful companion who would free them from the slavery of sin and the sin of slavery.  

This understanding came about through the power of the Holy Spirit and through African Americans who were able to learn to read and access the entire Bible rather than the so-called Slave Bible. Learning that Jesus died for all humankind helped Black Christians hope and work for a world in which all people have value, are part of the human family, and deserve dignity and humane treatment. 

Which sources reveal how African American Christians enlarged the meaning of the cross of Christ? 

There are so many sources. In The Cross of Christ, I divide these into four categories: spirituals, freedom narratives, conversion accounts, and Black preaching. While singing “Down to de Mire,” enslaved people would take turns kneeling and touching their heads to the ground. They understood that their Christ identified with the poor and enslaved he came to comfort. Identifying themselves with Jesus’ unjust and unmerited suffering meant that they would, like Jesus, be raised up from sin, slavery, and oppression.  

Rev. Charles Colcock Jones, a Presbyterian who enslaved people yet had a burden for their souls, recorded “Down to de Mire” and other spirituals he heard sung on his plantation. In African American Christian Ethics, Samuel K. Roberts observes that hearing enslaved Blacks sing “Jesus been down to de mire” enraged Jones. It challenged the pro-slavery Christology whose goal was the creation of a slave-making and slave-pacifying savior who died on the cross only to save souls. 

In his freedom narrative Thirty Years a Slave (1897), Louis Hughes describes how the enslaved community did its best under spiteful mistreatment to follow the discipleship that Jesus delineated in the gospels. Hughes states that “it was pathetic to hear [enslaved Blacks] pray, from the depths of their hearts, for them who ‘despitefully used them and persecuted them’” (Matt. 5:44; Luke 6:28). 

What are your favorite examples from conversion accounts and Black preaching? 

Peter Randolph, born around 1825 in Prince George’s County, Virginia, was freed from slavery in 1844. He moved to Boston, where he received Christian charity from Black and white anti-slavery leaders and became a prominent Baptist preacher. In his first written narrative, Sketches of Slave Life (1855), Randolph explains how in his conversion “the eyes of my mind were opened, and I saw things as I never did before. . . . With my mind’s eye, I could see my Redeemer hanging upon the cross for me.” Randolph describes the love he felt—demonstrated in Christ’s crucifixion on behalf of all humankind, including him—as “God’s adapting himself to my capacity.” In other words, God (in Christ) met enslaved Black people halfway in adapting God’s self to “their capacity.” 

Among the many Black preachers I quote, Reverdy C. Ransom (1861–1959) was—until Martin Luther King Jr.—perhaps the most effective communicator on the power of the cross to break down “the middle wall of partition” (Eph. 2:14, KJV). As an African Methodist Episcopal pastor and bishop, he witnessed firsthand the despair of Black communities and the inequality in American society, which he blamed on capitalism and individualism.  

Ransom preached that Jesus made room under the cross to unite Blacks and whites “to stand on equal footing, without reservation or denial, in full recognition of the abounding goodwill, each for the other, contributing without hindrance or denial the highest and best there is within them.” He said, though, that the white church had failed at leading in applying the power of Christ for social transformation. Ransom said the time was ripe for new African American and African leaders to revive and exemplify Jesus’ teachings and witness to the kingdom of God on earth.  

You said “until Martin Luther King Jr.” 

Yes, The Cross of Christ ends with the powerful voice of Rev. Reverdy C. Ransom. But I am researching and writing a second volume on how Paul’s cross terminology and ideology appears in MLK’s preaching, which galvanized the civil rights movement in the mid-twentieth century. This companion book will include insights from Black theologians such as James H. Cone and Willie James Jennings, womanist scholars, and other theologians. 

How might insights from The Cross of Christ benefit all Christians? 

The message of Christian spiritual equality could not be muted or contained once it reached the attentive ears of enslaved Blacks. This notion helped them transform the religion of their enslavers—and can still transform Christians today. Paul’s insistence that Christ died for all is the biblical ground for insisting on the absolute and unconditional equality of all persons under God. Social equality is the logical conclusion of spiritual equality. This view of the full power of the cross of Christ can provide us with a communal (not just individual) worship experience, an ethical principle, and a theological vocabulary. 

As the spiritual “There Is a Balm in Gilead” proclaims, even if you cannot preach like Peter or pray like Paul, “You can tell the love of Jesus, and say ‘He died for all.’” Christ’s work on the cross saves souls. It also makes equal access to mainstream society and political enfranchisement the ultimate measure for authentic Christian piety and experience. This kind of genuine piety and experience can inspire a social transformation that would powerfully witness God’s kingdom on earth.   

What good first steps can preachers take to open eyes to the full power of the gospel? 

I hope my book will supply preachers with interpretive power to craft transgressive sermons that counter and challenge status quo, business-as-usual social arrangements. Such sermons can draw on Black preaching that seeks to chart a course for a future of hope for all people. 

Preachers can also begin personal and congregational journeys to assess whether their version of the gospel is intertwined with racism. The first step is not easy, because it requires willingness to have open and honest discussions with people who differ from you. This requires approaching the subject with open hearts, open minds, and the recognition that discussions will be emotionally and cognitively painful. Another, perhaps less stressful step is to read materials that offer a counternarrative to one’s accepted position and tradition. A willingness to either dialogue or read is an indication that one seeks understanding, which might be the beginning of wisdom that can transform hearts and minds.