Interpreting Desire: Prayer in Thomas Aquinas and the Slave Spirituals

Abstract: This article uncovers connections between Thomas Aquinas’s teachings on prayer and the religious experiences and practices of enslaved African Americans, which were expressed in sacred songs called “spirituals.” It encourages theologians in the Thomistic tradition to understand and appreciate the significance of this Black spiritual tradition, while learning something from its particular desires for deliverance in the midst of oppression. The article begins by confronting the difficult legacy of Aquinas’s views on slavery, then seeks a better way forward by interpreting Aquinas’s teachings on prayer in light of the slave spirituals, and vice versa. Ultimately, it suggests that, just as Aquinas bridged Athens and Jerusalem by creatively integrating Greek philosophy with Christian Scripture and tradition, so too today we can bridge Thomistic scholarship and the study of Black religion by exploring shared spiritual commitments and practices between them.