Theologian Robert Beckford is nurturing a new generation of African-Caribbean academics with his controversial views.
By Liz Ford
If a picture paints a thousand words, then the posters on the walls of Robert Beckford's office at the University of Birmingham speak volumes about his life and work. Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali and the U.S. preacher Bishop Noel Jones loom behind his desk. As symbols of black struggle, black power and the black church, they provide a fitting backdrop for the lecturer in African diasporan religions and cultures, one of the country's most outspoken black theologians.
Although the emboldened words "by any means necessary" on the Malcolm X poster seem too extreme to describe his work, Beckford is no less passionate about racial equality than the man he calls an inspiration - but the focus of the academic's ire is the church, and in particular "the white church."
Beckford is unflinching in his criticism of the Church of England, which he describes as inherently racist. God may be colour-blind, but the church run in his name certainly isn't. "I'm not the first scholar to argue that traditions of white supremacy and superiority are still very much bound up in white Christian expression within Britain," he says. "And as far as I can see, there has been no radical attempt in my lifetime to overturn those traditions."
To back up his claims he need look no further than his own university library, where he says there are "10 times" more books written by white Christian theologians that discuss whether animals have souls than there are on how churches can be inclusive and tackle racism. "Now, I haven't got anything against people being nice to animals, but I do think God will have something to say to a Christian theological community that writes more about being nice to 'Fido the Dog' and 'Che-Che the Cat' than dealing with issues of race and ethnicity and the church's complicity with racial terror in its history."
But it is not just the white church that comes under attack. The academic is also prepared to throw a few harsh words at the black Pentecostal movement. Born to Jamaican parents in the Midlands, Beckford grew up in the Pentecostal church, a tradition he says he loves, but one he also feels he has earned the right to criticize. "The black church needs to be much more socially engaged and it needs to fight more vigorously the battles black people face. You can't have black children failing in school and have no national campaign that's taken to the streets by black churches. I see that as being an act of complicity." He adds: "I have spent all my academic life developing black clergy and also black intellectuals for the black church, so I think I've earned the right to raise a few critical questions."
And that is exactly what he has done, most notably in three recent Channel 4 documentaries, which have all courted controversy. In June last year, Beckford was accused by the Evangelical Alliance, which represents more than 1 million Christians worldwide, of resorting to stereotypes in his program "God is Black," which examined the effect of the African evangelical church on Anglicanism in Britain. Then, in December, "Who Wrote the Bible?" made headlines for challenging the perceived origins of Biblical text (although Channel 4's timing may have played a part - it was broadcast on Christmas day). In March, he risked the wrath of his own community when he explored claims made by a U.S. academic that the roots of gospel music lay in the Christian traditions of Scotland.
Beckford, however, is not a man who bruises easily. He praises Channel 4, with whom he has an exclusive contract for the next year, for taking religious broadcasting seriously, and believes being black makes him a target for trouble. "If I was not black, I would not be seen as controversial; I would probably be called groundbreaking, innovative, challenging. It's just the way in which we categorize black people. "If you're a sports person or entertainer, there are various boxes you fit in to. If you're an academic, then it's a little more difficult to work out where you place those people, so I often get labeled as either community-focused - which means my work is concerned with empowering people outside the university - or controversial."
The academic's next television outing, later this month, is also expected to raise a few eyebrows. Focusing on the role Britain played in the slave trade, which Beckford describes as "one of the major scars on British history," "The Empire Pays Back" calculates how much money African-Caribbeans would be owed if they were compensated for slavery. "Basically we tell the story of how Britain got rich out of slavery and of the individuals and institutions who still benefit, and we provide the first empirical calculation of how much African-Caribbeans are due. It's a conservative figure, but it will still bankrupt the nation," he says. "And what I argue in the program is that it should be used as a measure when we're talking about aid to Africa and debt in the Caribbean." A timely nudge to a British government about to head the G8 group armed with a poverty-eradicating agenda, perhaps?
Despite his outspokenness, Beckford appears neither brash nor angry. He speaks with the passion of a preacher under a moral obligation, and takes heart in the support he has received for his work from young black people who tell him it's great to see a black academic on television. Of course, it could so easily have been different. He says he was lucky to have been taught by two inspirational teachers who opened his eyes to the world and his role in it. His "white, middle-class" religious education teacher "turned me on in a big way to religious education and sowed the seeds to think about religion and culture," while his math teacher, an ardent member of the Communist party, introduced him to politics and the work of Malcolm X, and made him rethink his aspirations to be a professional football player. "He taught us very little in terms of math, but everything in terms of what it meant to be a human being and how to think critically," says Beckford. "He gave me the stark choice: are you going to go with the flow and be an entertainer? Or are you going to try to forge a new pathway, and show us that there are other ways to be black and male in this country?"
He chose the road less travelled and after his A-levels studied religion and sociology at Houghton College in New York - US universities having a stronger tradition in black theology. Back in the UK, he studied for a masters degree in hermeneutics at what was then London Bible College, in Middlesex, and is now the London School of Theology. After a year away from the books, he headed to Birmingham to begin work on a PhD. While studying, he worked part-time at Queen's College, now part of the Queen's Foundation, where he became Britain's first tutor in black theology. He joined the University of Birmingham as a research fellow five years ago. His initial work focused on how film could be used to teach religion in prison to empower black and Asian offenders, work he continues to this day. "Prison has become a university for many working-class black men. If you are concerned about reaching out to the whole community, then as a black scholar you have to work both inside and outside the university, and prison is that for me." He is currently arranging a course on Islam and Christianity at Feltham.
He is clearly proud of his work at Birmingham, especially as it involves nurturing a new generation of black academics. He says he has more African-Caribbean postgraduates working with him than anyone else in western Europe. It's something he has striven to do "in order to justify my existence within this kind of institution." He says Britain lags way behind the U.S. in supporting its black academics, and argues that universities here have failed to develop centers that focus on black studies and provide a context for attracting and developing black scholars. "Part of the '60s revolution in the U.S. among African-Americans in higher education was the demand for black studies and faculty, and universities went for that. Thirty years on, you've got thousands of scholars and thousands of scholarly texts coming out of American universities that focus on ethnicity and race. In Britain, we're the poor relations in comparison."
For all his frustrations, though, as a committed Christian, it is clear what drives Beckford. "The church basically gave me the voice that I have. Without the experience of church I would not be able to do the critical academic or the media work," he says. "What I'm trying to do now with my work is encourage the church to take seriously the frontiers of social and political life and fight battles on behalf of the black community."
http://education.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,5194603-111763,00.html
By Liz Ford
If a picture paints a thousand words, then the posters on the walls of Robert Beckford's office at the University of Birmingham speak volumes about his life and work. Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali and the U.S. preacher Bishop Noel Jones loom behind his desk. As symbols of black struggle, black power and the black church, they provide a fitting backdrop for the lecturer in African diasporan religions and cultures, one of the country's most outspoken black theologians.
Although the emboldened words "by any means necessary" on the Malcolm X poster seem too extreme to describe his work, Beckford is no less passionate about racial equality than the man he calls an inspiration - but the focus of the academic's ire is the church, and in particular "the white church."
Beckford is unflinching in his criticism of the Church of England, which he describes as inherently racist. God may be colour-blind, but the church run in his name certainly isn't. "I'm not the first scholar to argue that traditions of white supremacy and superiority are still very much bound up in white Christian expression within Britain," he says. "And as far as I can see, there has been no radical attempt in my lifetime to overturn those traditions."
To back up his claims he need look no further than his own university library, where he says there are "10 times" more books written by white Christian theologians that discuss whether animals have souls than there are on how churches can be inclusive and tackle racism. "Now, I haven't got anything against people being nice to animals, but I do think God will have something to say to a Christian theological community that writes more about being nice to 'Fido the Dog' and 'Che-Che the Cat' than dealing with issues of race and ethnicity and the church's complicity with racial terror in its history."
But it is not just the white church that comes under attack. The academic is also prepared to throw a few harsh words at the black Pentecostal movement. Born to Jamaican parents in the Midlands, Beckford grew up in the Pentecostal church, a tradition he says he loves, but one he also feels he has earned the right to criticize. "The black church needs to be much more socially engaged and it needs to fight more vigorously the battles black people face. You can't have black children failing in school and have no national campaign that's taken to the streets by black churches. I see that as being an act of complicity." He adds: "I have spent all my academic life developing black clergy and also black intellectuals for the black church, so I think I've earned the right to raise a few critical questions."
And that is exactly what he has done, most notably in three recent Channel 4 documentaries, which have all courted controversy. In June last year, Beckford was accused by the Evangelical Alliance, which represents more than 1 million Christians worldwide, of resorting to stereotypes in his program "God is Black," which examined the effect of the African evangelical church on Anglicanism in Britain. Then, in December, "Who Wrote the Bible?" made headlines for challenging the perceived origins of Biblical text (although Channel 4's timing may have played a part - it was broadcast on Christmas day). In March, he risked the wrath of his own community when he explored claims made by a U.S. academic that the roots of gospel music lay in the Christian traditions of Scotland.
Beckford, however, is not a man who bruises easily. He praises Channel 4, with whom he has an exclusive contract for the next year, for taking religious broadcasting seriously, and believes being black makes him a target for trouble. "If I was not black, I would not be seen as controversial; I would probably be called groundbreaking, innovative, challenging. It's just the way in which we categorize black people. "If you're a sports person or entertainer, there are various boxes you fit in to. If you're an academic, then it's a little more difficult to work out where you place those people, so I often get labeled as either community-focused - which means my work is concerned with empowering people outside the university - or controversial."
The academic's next television outing, later this month, is also expected to raise a few eyebrows. Focusing on the role Britain played in the slave trade, which Beckford describes as "one of the major scars on British history," "The Empire Pays Back" calculates how much money African-Caribbeans would be owed if they were compensated for slavery. "Basically we tell the story of how Britain got rich out of slavery and of the individuals and institutions who still benefit, and we provide the first empirical calculation of how much African-Caribbeans are due. It's a conservative figure, but it will still bankrupt the nation," he says. "And what I argue in the program is that it should be used as a measure when we're talking about aid to Africa and debt in the Caribbean." A timely nudge to a British government about to head the G8 group armed with a poverty-eradicating agenda, perhaps?
Despite his outspokenness, Beckford appears neither brash nor angry. He speaks with the passion of a preacher under a moral obligation, and takes heart in the support he has received for his work from young black people who tell him it's great to see a black academic on television. Of course, it could so easily have been different. He says he was lucky to have been taught by two inspirational teachers who opened his eyes to the world and his role in it. His "white, middle-class" religious education teacher "turned me on in a big way to religious education and sowed the seeds to think about religion and culture," while his math teacher, an ardent member of the Communist party, introduced him to politics and the work of Malcolm X, and made him rethink his aspirations to be a professional football player. "He taught us very little in terms of math, but everything in terms of what it meant to be a human being and how to think critically," says Beckford. "He gave me the stark choice: are you going to go with the flow and be an entertainer? Or are you going to try to forge a new pathway, and show us that there are other ways to be black and male in this country?"
He chose the road less travelled and after his A-levels studied religion and sociology at Houghton College in New York - US universities having a stronger tradition in black theology. Back in the UK, he studied for a masters degree in hermeneutics at what was then London Bible College, in Middlesex, and is now the London School of Theology. After a year away from the books, he headed to Birmingham to begin work on a PhD. While studying, he worked part-time at Queen's College, now part of the Queen's Foundation, where he became Britain's first tutor in black theology. He joined the University of Birmingham as a research fellow five years ago. His initial work focused on how film could be used to teach religion in prison to empower black and Asian offenders, work he continues to this day. "Prison has become a university for many working-class black men. If you are concerned about reaching out to the whole community, then as a black scholar you have to work both inside and outside the university, and prison is that for me." He is currently arranging a course on Islam and Christianity at Feltham.
He is clearly proud of his work at Birmingham, especially as it involves nurturing a new generation of black academics. He says he has more African-Caribbean postgraduates working with him than anyone else in western Europe. It's something he has striven to do "in order to justify my existence within this kind of institution." He says Britain lags way behind the U.S. in supporting its black academics, and argues that universities here have failed to develop centers that focus on black studies and provide a context for attracting and developing black scholars. "Part of the '60s revolution in the U.S. among African-Americans in higher education was the demand for black studies and faculty, and universities went for that. Thirty years on, you've got thousands of scholars and thousands of scholarly texts coming out of American universities that focus on ethnicity and race. In Britain, we're the poor relations in comparison."
For all his frustrations, though, as a committed Christian, it is clear what drives Beckford. "The church basically gave me the voice that I have. Without the experience of church I would not be able to do the critical academic or the media work," he says. "What I'm trying to do now with my work is encourage the church to take seriously the frontiers of social and political life and fight battles on behalf of the black community."
http://education.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,5194603-111763,00.html
