A Citizen of the Republic of Letters

In the Republic of Letters . . . there is no such thing as caste; . . . if any man, whatever his race, has anything to say worth listening to, men of all races who think will give him more than a respectful hearing.

“Preface to the Second Edition,” Christianity, Islam, and the Negro Race, i.

   Words are important, but they are not final. They are, at best, means, not ends. With the exception of words used in science—especially the sciences of numbers—words don’t have inherent value. Even those words that appear to have inherent value have a context that imbues them with value. For example, the word “four” and its Arabic synonym “4” presupposes a base number system that gives it value. The word “four” means different things in a ten-base or a twelve-base system. The word “four” does not exist in a binary system. So, when we use “four,” we have implicitly agreed to understand that word in a particular context.

Edward Wilmot Blyden
A Citizen of the Republic of Letters

   As I am looking for Blyden I am concerned about words and contexts. I keenly am aware that I am a white American living in a twenty-first century context attempting to learn about and from an African who lived in a nineteenth century context. Already I have heard challenges along the lines of “What can a white man from America say about the father of pan-Africanism?”

   My professional and vocational life has been centered in concerns for words and contexts. Near the beginning of my training to become a teaching theologian I chose to focus on what was, at the time, a new method of thinking and writing about Christian theology. Liberation Theology arose in the 1960s out the often painful reality that thinking and writing about theology had been dominated by particular contexts: European/American, privileged male, and a particular economic system. When I decided to take up various theologies of the oppressed I found myself on the defensive. I learned quickly the need to concede the points that I was a white American man, not Latin American, not black American, and not a privileged white woman.

   At the same time I was compelled to proceed. I simply could not capitulate to the tyranny of the particular any more than I could promote a tyranny of the universal. I learned from James H. Cone, the father of Black Theology, that “every universal is rooted in a particular.” I learned that the rootedness—the context—shapes our understanding and application of the universal.

   As I continue to look for Blyden I have not and will not presume to co-opt him or his words. I hope to learn from him and, too, to learn how better to live deeply in my time (see previous post).

   As I continue to look for Blyden I hope to become a better citizen of the Republic of Letters.