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Books by James Cone
God of the Oppressed
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A Black Theology of Liberation /
For My People, Black Theology and the Black
Church
Martin & Malcolm & America: A Dream or a Nightmare (1992)
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Black Theology and Black Power
Risks of Faith: The Emergence of a Black Theology of
Liberation, 1968-1998 /
The
Spiritual and the Blues: An
Interpretation
Black Theology: A Documentary History: Volume Two: 1980-1992
/
My Soul Looks Back
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God of the Oppressed
by James H. Cone
Black
Struggle
A
review by Raymond G. Manker
Basing his black theology on the experience of
black Christians in the U.S. as they struggle to effect their
liberation, Cone offers a thesis of three essential parts, each
building on the previous one in a neat circular unity. First,
says Cone, theology must be existential if it is to have any
real meaning. Second, the freedom of the poor and the
downtrodden is the essential core of Scripture, and if Scripture
is taken as authoritative, then the Scripture’s God and Jesus
Christ are meaningless aside from the essential liberation.
Third, both God and Jesus have immersed themselves in and can be
found only in the black experience.
This circular parochialism – the notion that God and Jesus
can be found today only in the black struggle for liberation –
prevents the universal application of his theology which Cone
tries to achieve (and which is essential for theology if it is
to have any meaning). There are, after all, other peoples
equally poor and oppressed who are not black or are not
Christian, and to suggest that God is not immersed in their
liberation as well makes a universal God meaningless. I am sure
Cone would respond that any person poor and downtrodden is by
definition “black,” but unfortunately his whole approach
negates this universalism.
As he rightly points out, however, it is the existential
event and not his own parochialism that is important. For there
is a universal striving for freedom in the experience of the
poor everywhere. Some call it Jesus Christ, some call it Buddha,
and others refuse to personify it at all. It remains
nevertheless, keeping hope alive and inspiring people to bring
it to reality.
Cone’s work is excellent in its understanding and
appreciation of the black struggle and in the exposition of
black theology’s validity as a truer expression of Christian
theology than most Western white theologies. His attempt to
universalize black theology by confining both God and Jesus to
its expression and by superimposing his black Christian theology
on the universe is a mistake, but that should not be allowed to
detract from the real importance of his work; by tying theology
to experience, he illuminates the centrality of the struggle for
freedom in all Christian theology.
The power of this existential approach to the theology of
freedom from oppression is witnessed in this country in the
black freedom movement and the United Farm Workers struggle –
matched abroad in the non-Christian Gandhian an freedom movement
among Hindus and in the Chinese people’s struggle.
Cone has opened the door to a universal theology broader and
more inclusive than its author. Source: The Christian Century (3 March 1976)
Bill
Moyers and James Cone (Interview) * * * *
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updated 28 July 2008 |
