Black Liberation Theology
Liberation Theology
Week 5: Black Liberation Theology
Who was Rev. James H. Cone?
Rev. James H. Cone was a renowned American theologian that lived from 1938-2018. Throughout his six years of higher education, he noted that the only theologians they ever learned about were white. He was faced with 2,000 years of white thought about Christianity. There were no black authors or books about black theology. Just two months after the assassination of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Cone began to write his first book Black Theology and Black Power. He was angry about how white theologians and church leaders were handling or rather mishandling, the conversation around race in America. There was a lot of outrage and conversation about his first book. Through writing, Cone discovered that the core of Christianity and race was that, “No one is expected to speak and write honestly about race and the Christian gospel.” But Cone wrote about race and Christianity anyways. His books made incredible waves in Christian theology.
Click here for a complete list of his books.
The Harm of White Theologians
“If God is not for us, if God is not against white racist, then God is a murderer, and we had better kill God.” - James H. Cone
White theologians turned the gospel into a message of white supremacy. The white gospel discourages retaliation, and claims god calls us to a life of non-violence and turning the other cheek. However, this is a form of control. Cone claims that the oppressed should fight for and claim freedom by any means necessary. The idea of nonviolent protests are idolized, encouraged, and even enforced, but this is not necessarily a Christian idea. Take MLK for example. King has been severely whitewashed, to fit the narrative that the struggle for freedom should only come about through nonviolence. Cone believes that non-violence is the white theologian’s way of keeping people in their place. The conversation around nonviolence is a literalist interpretation of scripture, “literalism is being used by white scholars to encourage blacks to be nonviolent as if nonviolence were the only possible expression of Christian love,” (A Black Theology of Liberation). He claims that holy spirit is the force that empowers the poor and oppressed of the land to fight for freedom. Thus any fight for freedom is a holy and necessary struggle.
“Neither is new wine put into old wineskins. If it is, the skins burst and the wine is spilled and the skins are destroyed. But new wine is put into fresh wineskins, and so both are preserved.” Matthew 9:17, ESV
Cone uses the biblical metaphor of wineskins to help illustrate the need for black theology. The black experience can not be viewed through the lens of white theology, that would be like new wine in an old wineskin. It requires a new lens. Black theology is a new wine and needs a new wineskin. There is a deep-rooted belief that black minds are inferior or less intelligent, and therefore people had not taken the black thought of God seriously. The main gospel interpretation that has been pushed is the gospel of white supremacy. This gospel has caused millennia of extreme harm and suppression. The gospel of white supremacy needs to end.
What is Black Liberation Theology?
“Black theology and black power are not alien to the gospel, it is the gospel.” - James H. Cone
The core question of black liberation theology is to discover where God is at work within the black community. If God is in the world where people are abused and exploited, what is God doing? Cone’s goal with black liberation theology had two major aims. It was to offer a liberating gospel interpretation for the black community, and for whites’ to open their eyes to the terror of their deeds. Christians are called by God to fight for the freedom of those who are voiceless and hurting.
One of Cone’s most popular assertions was that Jesus is black. Not in terms of Race, but in terms of status. Think of the way the Romans would’ve viewed Jesus at the time of his death. Jesus was a poor, Jewish, Galilean peasant, executed as a criminal at the hands of the Roman state. Though he was oppressed by the Roman state, Constantine, a Roman emperor, converted to Christianity. Cone claims that the downfall of Christianity happened when Constantine forced Christianity on the Roman empire. It is dangerous for any nation or state to use religion as a tool. Constantine was arguably one of the most powerful men in the world at that time. He furthered oppression, so the gospel was twisted to fit a narrative that benefited his empire. Jesus was transformed into a “white” Christ that continues to serve the interest of powerful rulers in America and Europe.
The heart of Christianity centers on the blood of Jesus. And we can’t begin to understand the power of Jesus at calvary without first understanding the crucified people of today. Those who have been slaughtered unjustly. Cone states that God is always found where we don’t expect it, “A manger in Bethlehem, cross in Jerusalem, lynching tree in America.”
A Brief History of Race and Methodism in Missouri
Information gathered from the History of the Missouri United Methodist Church, written by Frank F. Stephens.
In 1844, the Methodist Episcopal Church split over the issue of ending slavery in America. The Missouri Methodist Conference voted unanimously to be a part of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. 1864 There was a confederate invasion planned to take place in Jefferson City around the same time as the Methodist annual conference was set to happen in Mexico, Missouri. The Sub-district provost Marshall was so worried about this group of preachers meeting that he tried to force all of the pastors to make an oath of allegiance to the Federal government and renouncing the confederacy, but they refused.
Around the same time, there was a push from the federal government to remove southern sympathizing pastors from the pulpit and to replace them with loyal ministers. The Stephens claimed “this was a serious infraction of religious freedom for many of the local congregations of the south, including many of those in Missouri. It was eventually stopped due to local resistance of members of the church, and in the end, the whole scheme was crushed through decisions of state and federal courts.” Columbia Methodists were generally from the south, either “immediately or by decent” and too sympathetic with the southern movement for this scheme to succeed. Thus the government didn’t even attempt to remove southern sympathizing pasters from pulpits in Columbia.
Crew Discussion Questions:
Do you agree with Cone, that there is a place for violence when it ends oppression?
How is the idea of “white Jesus” damaging? What do you think about the idea of “Black Jesus”?
How do you think the history of Methodism in Columbia affects our church today?
What work can we do as a community to be actively anti-racist?
Bonus Resources: