The former President of the Methodist Conference, Rev Dr Inderjit Bhogal spoke out ahead of the Roots and Routes International Conference on Black Theology, which will be held in Sheffield, UK this week.

The conference has the aim of bringing together representatives from across the globe to reflect, document and promote Black Theology. Attending the conference will be Methodist members from the UK, the Pacific, India, Jamaica, South Africa and the USA.

Bhogal said, "To say 'God is Black' reflects on the way God identifies with black people and our experience of God. Over the last twenty years Black Theology has emerged from black people reflecting on their experiences of God, especially in relation to our varied roots - our heritages, our histories, our hurts, our hopes - and routes, by which I mean the ways that we will flag up markers for our continuing journeys."

Bhogal is the director of the Urban Theology Unit, which trains Methodist ministers, and the unit has had a big hand in helping to organise the conference.

There has been a great development in Black Theology over the past decade since the last International Conference was held, and in particular the UK has seen Black Theology progress and take many strides forwards.

The former President said, "Black theologians have come forward with distinctive and intelligent contributions to black theology. Roots and Routes will challenge participants to push the frontiers of black theology even further."

Supporting the Roots and Routes event is the Racial Justice Office of the Methodist Church. The secretary for Racial Justice, Naboth Muchopa had this to say: "Black theology underpins the challenge for racial justice and equality. This Conference will further raise the profile of black theology, and will help us in our long term aims of integrating black theology and racism awareness training into the theological training programmes for lay and ordained people."

The two forums that have joined together to organise Roots and Routes are the Urban Theology Unit based in Sheffield, and the Black Theology centre of Birmingham University, and who together hold regular British Black Theology forums.

The Conference will take place from 15th until 17th July at Wilson Carlile College of Evangelism in Sheffield. Following this conference a Black Theology Reader will be published and will include selected papers on Black Theology that have been published over the past decade in the UK.