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Photo courtesy of James Cone |
From Bill Moyer’s Journal:
“Black churches are very powerful forces in the African American community and always have been. Because religion has been that one place where you have an imagination that no one can control. And so, as long as you know that you are a human being and nobody can take that away from you, then God is that reality in your life that enables you to know that.”
–James H. Cone
Professor James H. Cone is the Charles A. Briggs Distinguished Professor of Systematic Theology at Union Theological Seminary. Dr. Cone is an ordained minister in the African Methodist Episcopal Church. He is the author of eleven books and over 150 articles and has lectured at more than 1,000 universities and community organizations throughout the United States, Europe, Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean.
Watch Dr. Cone’s lecture, “Strange Fruit: The Cross and the Lynching Tree,” at Harvard Divinity SchoolDr. Cone is best known for his ground breaking works, BLACK THEOLOGY & BLACK POWER (1969) and A BLACK THEOLOGY OF LIBERATION (1970); he is also the author of the highly acclaimed GOD OF THE OPPRESSED (1975), and of MARTIN & MALCOLM & AMERICA: A DREAM OR A NIGHTMARE? (1991); all of which have been translated into nine languages. His most recent publication is RISKS OF FAITH (1999). His research and teaching are in Christian theology, with special attention to black theology and the theologies of Africa, Asia, and Latin America, as well as twentieth century European-American theologies. Dr. Cone has also written on faith and music in THE SPIRITUAL AND THE BLUES: AN INTERPRETATION. His current research focuses on THE CROSS AND THE LYNCHING TREE, exploring the relationship between the two theologically.
James H. Cone and Black Theology
Divinity schools and universities around the world include James Cone on their reading lists. Cone is known as the founder of black theology — a philosophy Cone first laid out in BLACK POWER AND BLACK THEOLOGY in 1969:
As we examine what contemporary theologians are saying, we find that they are silent about the enslaved condition of black people. Evidently they see no relationship between black slavery and the Christian gospel. Consequently there has been no sharp confrontation of the gospel with white racism. There is, then, a desperate need for a black theology, a theology whose sole purpose is to apply the freeing power of the gospel to black people under white oppression.
Cone furthered the idea with A BLACK THEOLOGY OF LIBERATION, which stated: “Any message that is not related to the liberation of the poor in a society is not Christ’s message. Any theology that is indifferent to the theme of liberation is not Christian theology. Liberation theology became and remains, a powerful philosophy and movement throughout the world.
- Interview with James H. Cone about Black Theology
- Read an excerpt from A BLACK THEOLOGY OF LIBERATION
Reinhold Niebuhr
In their conversation James Cone and Bill Moyers reflect on the impact of theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, whose 20th century work related theology to modern society and politics. In 2005, famed historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. lamented the disappearance of Niebuhr from modern discourse:
…maybe Niebuhr has fallen out of fashion because 9/11 has revived the myth of our national innocence. Lamentations about “the end of innocence” became favorite clichés at the time. Niebuhr was a critic of national innocence, which he regarded as a delusion. After all, whites coming to these shores were reared in the Calvinist doctrine of sinful humanity, and they killed red men, enslaved black men and later on imported yellow men for peon labor – not much of a background for national innocence. “Nations, as individuals, who are completely innocent in their own esteem,” Niebuhr wrote, “are insufferable in their human contacts.” The self-righteous delusion of innocence encouraged a kind of Manichaeism dividing the world between good (us) and evil (our critics).
But Niebuhr has made a reappearance in the 2008 campaign conversation. NEW YORK TIMES columnist David Brooks quotes Niebuhr consistently, describing him as a thinker we could use today “to police our excesses” in foreign policy.
- Reinhold Niebuhr: Religion Online Library
Complete texts of A VIEW OF LIFE FROM THE SIDELINES BY REINHOLD NIEBUHR, LET LIBERAL CHURCHES STOP FOOLING THEMSELVES and OUR SECULARIZED CIVILIZATION by Reinhold Niebuhr. And the biography THE CHRISTIAN WITNESS IN A SECULAR AGE, REINHOLD NIEBUHR by Howard G. Patton - “Forgetting Reinhold Niebuhr”
ARTHUR SCHLESINGER Jr., THE NEW YORK TIMES, September 18, 2005 - Reinhold Niebuhr is Unseen Force in 2008 Elections
Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, September 27, 2007
Filed under: Civil Liberties and Social Justice, Religion, Solutions | Tagged: african american, African Methodist Episcopal Church, bill moyers, black, church christianity, cross, james h cone, jesus, liberation, lynching, minister, reinhold niebuhr, theology
I find the question of innocence depicted in national or cultural terms as a fascinating subject. I think that people who talk about America’s innocence can rightly do so in the context of the historical conduct of other nations.
For example, it would seem to me that the U.S. is the only country in history in a position of military dominance that has not engaged in naked aggression towards it’s neighbors.
Countries that have done so in the past have not made excuses but have simply conquered for the sake of conquest. I am not ignoring the facts of the Mexican-American War, the taking over of the American continent itself or our one time position in the Phillipines and unfortunately, many other examples.
What I am saying is that there has always been a push-pull in the American conscience that has influenced American military adventures. I am not saying that America has been innocent because it is far from the truth. I am saying, innocent compared to whom? Spain, England, France, Germany? What country can claim to hold themselves innocent in comparison to the U.S?
You show me a country which has no history of military aggression and I will show you a country that has no competence in affairs military. No country has the right to question the morality of America but they certainly have the right to delve into the history of their own culture and pronounce it innocent. Too often what passes for innocent is in fact an inability to assert any kind of national dominance.
Were the native Americans innocent or deficient in numbers and military technology compared to the Europeans surging into the continent. Are we to believe that native Americans knew nothing of warfare, slavery, jealousy, greed, hatred?
What it often boils down to is who can do what to who. This is history. The only question is how much humanity resides in a culture to ameliorate the evils that in fact can and have permeated all cultures and nations that ever existed. Looked at in this light, using a word such as “imperialism” to criticize the U.S. is irresponsible in a historical context.
No country is innocent – it is simply a matter of the extent of their crimes put into a context of their ability to do so.