The Absurd Report

This is a descriptive review of Black Theology & Black Power by James H. Cone, (New York: [Harper & Row, 1969]. It is not an attempt to politicize Cone’s arguments, but to simply explain what the book attempts to put forth. Keep in mind that according to Cone’s ideas in 1969, Black theology demands “blackness as the sole criterion for dialogue (p. 148)”. Additionally, as much as Cone would have liked his works to become the definitive explanation of Black Theology, many Black theologians dispute the fact and point out that Cone’s Black Theology is actually Black Liberation Theology.

[...]
It is the work of love to destroy what is against love, and “violence may be the black man’s expression . . . of Christian love to the white oppressor (pp. 54-55).
[...]
“Black Power, then, is God’s new way of acting in America (p. 61).” The White church has “enshrined” racism, which “is a denial of the Incarnation and thus of Christianity (pp. 72-73).”
Therefore, the white denominational churches are unchristian, and not of God, so renewal “seems out of the question (pp. 72-73, 115).”
The Black churches in America should proclaim the revolutionary gospel of “the black Christ (p. 114).”
[...]
White values “must be revolutionized or eliminated (p. 131).”
[...]
Reconciliation cannot come about until “white people are prepared to deny themselves (whiteness), take up the cross (blackness) and follow Christ (black ghetto) (p. 150).”
[...]
Cone’s theology is Christological in that his theology is centered in the Gospel of Jesus. Cone dialectically seeks to uncover the true nature of Christ. His conclusion is that Christ is united with the oppressed, and “God has chosen black people. (p. 151).”
[...]
The task and purpose of Black Theology is “to criticize and revise the language of the church,” and “to analyze the black man’s condition in the light of God’s revelation in Jesus Christ with the purpose of creating a new understanding of black dignity among black people, and providing the necessary soul in that people, to destroy white racism. (pp. 31, 84, 89, 117).”
[...]
The hyperbole of Cone’s language is indicative of the initial stages of the development of a militant Black Christian identity. Now that a generation has passed since its writing, and because Cone’s Black Liberation theology demands “blackness as the sole criterion for dialogue” (p. 148), the issue of reconciliation between the races can never be honestly addressed through the lens of Black Liberation Theology.

More from Wake Up America

Tags: Black Theology & Black Power

Comments RSS