What Does the Christian Gospel Have to Do with the Black Power Movement?: James Cone’s God of the Oppressed

Abstract

In the above lines, James Cone reflects on his own early theological journey and emerging frustrations with and rage against the theological powers-that-be. With an explosive and creative merging of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X in his body and soul, in the 1960s Cone denounced his doctoral advisor, and really by implication the entire white, Christian theological establishment, as racist. How could any Christian in America at this time keep silent in the face of enormous racial tensions and violence? he asked. Cone credits blackness as the key to unlocking the theological shackles that had been placed on him and as the existential source for a revolutionary way of doing theology, a new set of concerns, and a new primary audience. Cone’s conversional “return to blackness” remains one of the most significant events in the history of Christian theology.

Blackness gave me new theological spectacles, which enabled me to move beyond the limits of white theology, and empowered my mind to think thoughts that were wild and heretical when evaluated by white academic values. Blackness opened my eyes to see African-American history and culture as one of the most insightful sources for knowing about God since the Bible was declared a canon. Blackness whetted my appetite for learning how to do theology with a black signature on it and thereby make it accountable to poor black people and not to the privileged white theological establishment. (James H. Cone, Risks of Faith, xxii)