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21361f7
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In the "lynching era," between 1880 to 1940, white Christians lynched nearly five thousand black men and women in a manner with obvious echoes of the Roman crucifixion of Jesus. Yet these "Christians" did not see the irony or contradiction in their actions." --
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James H. Cone |
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bc68b83
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The Christian community, therefore, is that community that freely becomes oppressed, because they know that Jesus himself has defined humanity's liberation in the context of what happens to the little ones. Christians join the cause of the oppressed in the fight for justice not because of some philosophical principle of "the Good" or because of a religious feeling of sympathy for people in prison. Sympathy does not change the structures of ..
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James H. Cone |
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163d26e
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The scandal is that the gospel means liberation, that this liberation comes to the poor, and that it gives them the strength and the courage to break the conditions of servitude.
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James H. Cone |
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8bae07b
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The cross can heal and hurt; it can be empowering and liberating but also enslaving and oppressive. There is no one way in which the cross can be interpreted. I offer my reflections because I believe that the cross placed alongside the lynching tree can help us to see Jesus in America in a new light, and thereby empower people who claim to follow him to take a stand against white supremacy and every kind of injustice.
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James H. Cone |
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1121cde
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And yet the Christian gospel is more than a transcendent reality, more than "going to heaven when I die, to shout salvation as I fly." It is also an immanent reality--a powerful liberating presence among the poor right now in their midst, "building them up where they are torn down and propping them up on every leaning side." The gospel is found wherever poor people struggle for justice, fighting for their right to life, liberty, and the pur..
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James H. Cone |
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2ccb9ca
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But there is no perfect guide for discerning God's movement in the world, Contrary to what many conservatives say, the Bible is not a blueprint on this matter. It is a valuable symbol for point to God's revelation in Jesus, but it is not self-interpreting. We are thus place in an existential situation of freedom in which the burden is on us to make decisions without a guaranteed ethical guide.
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James H. Cone |
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2a474ad
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The conspicuous absence of the lynching tree in American theological discourse and preaching is profoundly revealing, especially since the crucifixion was clearly a first-century lynching.
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James H. Cone |
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b25555f
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Without concrete signs of divine presence in the lives of the poor, the gospel becomes simply an opiate; rather than liberating the powerless from humiliation and suffering, the gospel becomes a drug that helps them adjust to this world by looking for "pie in the sky."
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James H. Cone |
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91e9210
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The gospel of Jesus is not a rational concept to be explained in a theory of salvation, but a story about God's presence in Jesus' solidarity with the oppressed, which led to his death on the cross. What is redemptive is the faith that God snatches victory out of defeat, life out of death, and hope out of despair.
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liberation-theology
lynching
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James H. Cone |
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f39877f
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One can never wrestle enough with God if one does so out of a pure regard for truth," wrote French philosopher, activist, and mystic Simone Weil. "Christ likes for us to prefer truth to him because, before being Christ, he is truth. If one turns aside from him to go toward the truth, one will not go far before falling into his arms."
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James H. Cone |
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669422e
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People reject the cross because it contradicts historical values and expectations--just as Peter challenged Jesus for saying, "The Son of Man must suffer": "Far be it from You; this shall not happen to You." But Jesus rebuked Peter: "Get behind me, Satan!" (Mt 16:21; Mk 8:31, 33). "In the course of a few moments," Peter went from being "the mouthpiece of God" to a "tool" of Satan, because he could not connect vicarious suffering with God's ..
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James H. Cone |
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7abd236
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And certainly the history of the black-white relations in this country from the Civil War to the present unmistakably shows that as a people, America has never intended for blacks to be free. To this day, in the eyes of most white Americans, the black man remains subhuman.
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James H. Cone |
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81bf600
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For [Martin Luther] King nonviolence was more than a strategy; it was the way of life defined by love for others--the only way to heal broken humanity.
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nonviolence
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James H. Cone |
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1b1a831
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Unlike Europeans who immigrated to this land to escape from tyranny, Africans came in chains to serve a nation of tyrants.
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James H. Cone |
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e6ad63c
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The word of God is upon me, [and] it's like fire shut up in my bones. And I just have to tell it." What King had to tell was the truth about war, racism, and poverty. "It may hurt me," he said. "But when I took up the cross I recognized its meaning. . . . It is not something that you wear. The cross is something that you bear and ultimately that you die on."[38]"
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James H. Cone |
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a59fda4
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King refused to lose hope or to relinquish the belief that "all reality hinges on moral foundations." He focused his hope on Jesus' cross and resurrection. "Christ came to show us the way. Men love darkness rather than the light, and they crucified Him, there on Good Friday on the Cross it was still dark, but then Easter came, and Easter is the eternal reminder of the fact that the truth-crushed earth will rise again." No matter what disapp..
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James H. Cone |
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09027d9
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While white mob violence against African Americans was an obsession in the South, it was not limited to that region. White supremacy was and is an American reality. Whites lynched blacks in nearly every state, including New York, Minnesota, and California. Wherever blacks were present in significant numbers, the threat of being lynched was always real. Blacks had to "watch their step," no matter where they were in America. A black man could..
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James H. Cone |
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f5f19bf
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What people think about God, Jesus Christ, and the Church cannot be separated from their own social and political status in a given society.
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James H. Cone |
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9a0c663
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Unfortunately, during the course of 2,000 years of Christian history, this symbol of salvation has been detached from any reference to the ongoing suffering and oppression of human beings--those whom Ignacio Ellacuria, the Salvadoran martyr, called "the crucified peoples of history." The cross has been transformed into a harmless, non-offensive ornament that Christians wear around their necks. Rather than reminding us of the "cost of discip..
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James H. Cone |
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d9096bd
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in 1969, I still regard Jesus Christ today as the chief focus of my perspective on God but not to the exclusion of other religious perspectives. God's reality is not bound by one manifestation of the divine in Jesus but can be found wherever people are being empowered to fight for freedom. Life-giving power for the poor and the oppressed is the primary criterion that we must use to judge the adequacy of our theology, not abstract concepts.
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James H. Cone |
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86130b5
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The acceptance of the gift of freedom transforms our perception of our social and political existence.
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James H. Cone |
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cd03774
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takes a whole lot of empathic effort to step into those of black people and see the world through the eyes of African Americans.
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James H. Cone |
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9c00a81
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Luke's Gospel was clear: Jesus's ministry was essentially liberation on behalf of the poor and the oppressed. I didn't need a doctorate in theology to know that liberation defined the heart of Jesus's ministry. Black people had been preaching and singing about it for centuries.
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James H. Cone |
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4a2a546
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My message to blacks was: "It is time to stop hating who you are. God created you black--love yourself, love your hands and face, big nose and lips, for that is the only way you can love God. Blackness is God's gift to humanity."
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James H. Cone |
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a14887e
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For Mrs. Bradley, the voice she heard was the voice of the resurrected Jesus. It spoke of hope that, although white racists could take her son's life, they could not deprive his life and death of an ultimate meaning. As in the resurrection of the Crucified One, God could transmute defeat into triumph, ugliness into beauty, despair into hope, the cross into the resurrection.
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James H. Cone |
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85ddd7c
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The oppressed...have a higher moral right to challenge their oppressors than these have to maintain their rule by force."6"
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James H. Cone |
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002171b
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any analysis of the gospel which did not begin and end with God's liberation of the oppressed was ipso facto unchristian.
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James H. Cone |
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2ab9d13
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Suffering naturally gives rise to doubt. How can one believe in God in the face of such horrendous suffering as slavery, segregation, and the lynching tree? Under these circumstances, doubt is not a denial but an integral part of faith. It keeps faith from being sure of itself. But doubt does not have the final word. The final word is faith giving rise to hope.
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James H. Cone |
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05ad26b
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Through the reading of scripture, the people hear other stories about Jesus that enable them to move beyond the privateness of their own stories.
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James H. Cone |
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93a3819
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If the Church is to remain faithful to its Lord, it must make a decisive break with the structure of this society by launching a vehement attack on the evils of racism in all forms. It must become prophetic, demanding a radical change in the interlocking structures of this society. This
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James H. Cone |
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29199b1
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Black Power, in short, is an attitude, an inward affirmation of the essential worth of blackness. It means that the black man will not be poisoned by the stereotypes that others have of him, but will affirm from the depth of his soul : "Get used to me, I am not getting used to anyone." 16 And "if the white man challenges my humanity, I will impose my whole weight as a man on his life and show him that I am not that `sho good eatin' that he ..
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James H. Cone |
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1320b66
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find myself suddenly in the world and I recognize that I have one right alone: That of demanding human behavior from the other. One duty alone: That of not renouncing my freedom through my choices.18
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James H. Cone |
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39ddfa1
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I do think that it is impossible to do Christian theology with integrity in America without asking the question, What has the gospel to do with the black struggle for liberation?
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James H. Cone |
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8370341
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For most evangelicals, revelation was found in the inerrant scriptures, and one need not look elsewhere. I knew in my gut that God's revelation was found among poor black people.
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James H. Cone |
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2f0564b
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The lynching tree--so strikingly similar to the cross on Golgotha--should have a prominent place in American images of Jesus' death. But it does not. In fact, the lynching tree has no place in American theological reflections about Jesus' cross or in the proclamation of Christian churches about his Passion. The conspicuous absence of the lynching tree in American theological discourse and preaching is profoundly revealing, especially since ..
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James H. Cone |
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5b78bcd
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If we cannot recognize the truth, then it cannot liberate us from untruth.
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James H. Cone |
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c0a7b0d
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Heresy is the refusal to speak the truth or to live the truth in the light of the One who is the Truth.
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James H. Cone |
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f216009
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They shouted, danced, clapped their hands and stomped their feet as they bore witness to the power of Jesus' cross which had given them an identity far more meaningful than the harm that white supremacy could do them.
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James H. Cone |
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06296a5
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The cross and the lynching tree interpret each other. Both were public spectacles, shameful events, instruments of punishment reserved for the most despised people in society. Any genuine theology and any genuine preaching of the Christian gospel must be measured against the test of the scandal of the cross and the lynching tree. 'Jesus did not die a gentle death like Socrates, with his cup of hemlock....Rather, he died like a [lynched blac..
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jesus
lynching
the-cross
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James H. Cone |
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d866bf2
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To be black means that your heart, your soul, your mind, and your body are where the dispossessed are."6 To become black is like what Jesus told Nicodemus, that he must be "born again," that is, "born of water and Spirit" (John 3), the Black Spirit of liberation."
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James H. Cone |
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695217d
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I wanted to construct a black theology--a theology that would be black like Malcolm and Christian like Martin.
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James H. Cone |
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a740e0e
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I was black before I was a Christian. Martin and Malcolm, therefore, had to go together, which meant being unashamedly black and unapologetically Christian.
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James H. Cone |
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772d7d3
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Christian theology is for the liberation of all humanity, and it could never be neutral in the fight against oppression. That much I knew. And that was how A Black Theology of Liberation was born: with the spirit of Martin and Malcolm, Jimmy, and the black poets of the 1960s.
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James H. Cone |
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626f2b0
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It never ceased to amaze me how white scholars could quibble, making simple things more complicated than they really were. What is more central in the Christian Bible than the exodus and Jesus stories and the prophetic call for justice for the poor?
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James H. Cone |