An investigation into the phenomena and practices of spiritual ...

the church group to strangers. In the words of one minister as I explained the difficulties ingetting volunteers to agree to an interview; „We are a very private people‘ . Cultural shiftsover the past fifty years may have brought more integration of black people in the whitemajority churches. This has not happened in reverse within the Black majority churchesand their church population continues to grow. Kee (2006) complements and extends theway Beckford (1998) uses the resources of biblical criticism and the history of doctrine inthe „Concept of Dread‟ to develop a contextual theology which tas account of the Blaccommunity and addresses their situation.British Black majority churches, although theologically conservative and using a differentidiom, appear to making a statement similar to American and African Black Theology“that is born out of blacoppression, dehumanization and is therefore directed againstmajor social evils where black people are not entitled to positions of economic power,dominance and privilege and who are inherently inferior and doomed to servitude”. (Ela1994:182). The re-think is based on the failure of the indigenous population to meet thecultural and spiritual needs of the people where they “fail to find appropriate responses totheir life problems” (Ela 1994:136) in the white majority church. As a consequence of this,the black majority churches help the people retain their culture, style of worship andhealing and therefore an appropriate response to their life problems. Thus the idea ofdeveloping the concept of black theology has been transported from Africa to the WestIndies, initially through slavery, then to Britain through mass importation of labour. Thepeople aim to stay united in some form, even if it is on a supernatural/spiritual level. Theeffect of liberation is questionable as on leaving church they have to face day to day issuesin a white majority society that highlight these problems and create an imbalance. Theyreturn to church to get a balance and the cycle start again with no obvious progress from118