A Black Theology of Liberation

As the influence of the church on American society has waned, there have been those who have sought to make it more relevant to the real life concerns of individuals. This has been particularly true in the African-American community, where Martin Luther King, Jr. gave fresh meaning and relevance to the church during the period 1955-1968. Yet another effort to make the church relevant was that of liberation theology.

Liberation theology arose in the third world--specifically Latin America--where it was recognized that one's view of God and his action in the world can be profoundly altered by one's praxis or experience of life. The God of the wealthy is rather different from the God worshipped in the barrios or slums of the major cities in such countries as Peru or Brazil. This idea that one's view of the gospel is shaped by one's location in life has taken firm root in certain groups in the United States, and specifically among blacks and women.

Black Theology

Liberation theology as it has expressed itself in the African-American community seeks to find a way to make the gospel relevant to black people who must struggle daily under the burden of white oppression. The question that confronts these black theologians is not one that is easily answered. "What if anything does the Christian gospel have to say to powerless black men," to use James Cone's words, whose existence is "threatened on a daily basis by the insidious tentacles of white power?" If the gospel has nothing to say to people as they confront the daily realities of life, it is a lifeless message. If Christianity is not real for blacks, then they will reject it.

There are many reasons why Christianity has not been real for blacks. To begin with, white Christianity emphasizes individualism, and divides the world into separate realms of the sacred and secular, public and private. Such a view of the world is alien to African-American spirituality. The Christianity that was communicated to blacks had as its primary focus life in world to come. This was at odds with traditional African spirituality which was focused on life in the present world. And if that were not enough, Christianity is hopelessly associated with slavery and segregation in the minds of many African-Americans.

More importantly, there are reasons to believe that many African-Americans are beginning to reject Christianity. The growing presence of Islam in the African-American community is nurtured by a variety of forces, but one of its principle sources of strength is the sense within many blacks of a tremendous gap that exists between what takes place in the Church on Sunday, and how church people live the rest of the week. Many of the new converts to Islam were Christian, but they testify to seeing little coherence between the worship of the church, and the rough and tumble world of the streets the rest of the week.

One element of Islam that has attracted many African-Americans is the fact that Muslims have a strong reputation for living what they preach. Whereas church members might spend much of their week hanging out and drinking, Muslims demonstrate discipline, respect, and personal integrity that many in the black community feel is lacking among many members of the church. In a similar fashion, the Muslim claim that Christianity was imposed on blacks by the slaveholders has struck a sensitive nerve in the black community, and has aided them in the effort to win new converts. Growing numbers of blacks have accepted the proposition that Islam was the original faith of African-Americans. As a result, the same forces driving Afro-centrism are also prompting many blacks to explore their roots in Islam.

In the face of all this, the question that confronts the advocates of a black theology of liberation is somewhat intimidating. "Can one still be black, and believe in the biblical tradition as expressed in the Old and New Testaments?" Can the Christian faith be stripped of the interpretations given these sacred texts by whites, and be made real for black men and women?

The Starting Point for a Black Theology of Liberation

To develop a theology that speaks to African-Americans, black liberation theologians such as James Cone begin with the person of Jesus, and specifically the Jesus revealed in the Gospel of Luke. In Luke's gospel, Jesus has a concern for the oppressed that does not always come through in the other gospels. Luke's Jesus begins his ministry with this announcement:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach the good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, To set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord. (Luke 4:18-19)

From this text, Cone draws a fundamental lesson about Jesus: his "work is essentially one of liberation." Jesus inaugurates "an age of liberation in which 'the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the good news preached to them.'" (Luke 7:22) "In Christ," Cone argues, "God enters human affairs and takes sides with the oppressed. Their suffering becomes his; their despair, divine despair."

Cone continues his line of argument with a force that cuts to the marrow of contemporary American Christianity: "Jesus had little toleration for the middle- or upper-class religious snob whose attitude attempted to usurp the sovereignty of God and destroy the dignity of the poor," Cone writes, "The Kingdom is not for the poor and not the rich because the former has nothing to expect from the world while the latter's entire existence is grounded in his commitment to worldly things. The poor man may expect everything from God, while the rich man may expect nothing because he refuses to free himself from his own pride. It is not that poverty is a pre-condition for entrance into the Kingdom. But those who recognize their utter dependence on God, and wait on him despite the miserable absurdity of life are typically the poor, according to Jesus."

When black people hear this message, Cone insists, they discover a message that resonates with their experience of life. Their experience of struggling for liberation is the same as the struggle of Christ himself. And if Jesus was resurrected, and is now alive, then he is now fighting for the very same things, working against the structures of injustice.

The Great Satan

In the New Testament, Jesus comes into the world to destroy the works of Satan. If the preceding identification of the struggle of Jesus and that of African-Americans seeking liberation is true, then there must also be a Satan in the contemporary picture. Black Theology does not get bogged down in quaint personifications of Satan (the current issue of Newsweek has a wonderful article on Satan, by the way), but sees him at work in the powers and principalities of this world that would enslave and demean human beings. And the most demonic of these powers in the black experience is that of racism.

Cone writes: "Theologically, Malcolm X was not far wrong when he called the white man 'the devil.' The white structure of this American society, personified in every racist, must be at least part of what the New Testament meant by demonic forces...Ironically, the man who enslaves another enslaves himself...To be free to do what I will in relation to another is to be in bondage to the law of least resistance. This is the bondage of racism. Racism is that bondage in which whites are free to beat, rape, or kill blacks. About thirty years ago it was acceptable to lynch a black man by hanging him from a tree; but today whites destroy him by crowding him into a ghetto and letting filth and despair put the final touches on death."

James Cone wrote those words in 1968, and while they are dated, they still convey a powerful truth. What happened to Rodney King at the hands of the Los Angeles police continues to happen to black men with disturbing frequency. The jails and prisons are filling with black men. One third of all black men are now under the jurisdiction of the courts or prison system. And one of the principle reasons are drug laws designed to punish with mandatory prison terms those who use "rock cocaine" (the principle form of cocaine used in the black community because it is relatively inexpensive), while penalties for possession of the powder form (the form used by wealthy whites) are largely financial, and do not require one to serve time. Why would society design a criminal justice system with such disparate impact? Cone and many blacks would lay the blame at the feet of the demonic force of racism.

The Goal of a Black Theology of Liberation

What is the goal of a black theology of liberation? Is it a society in which blacks are given special treatment and rights? No. All Black theologians are asking for is for freedom and justice. No more, and no less. In asking for this, the Black theologians, turn to scripture as the sanction for their demand. The Psalmist writes for instance, "If God is going to see righteousness established in the land, he himself must be particularly active as 'the helper of the fatherless' (Psalm 10:14) to 'deliver the needy when he crieth; and the poor that hath no helper' (Psalm 72:12).

Karl Barth--who was not black--recognized the legitimacy of this demand. "For this reason, Barth wrote, "in the relations and events in the life of his people, God always takes his stand unconditionally and passionately on this side alone: against the lofty and on behalf of the lowly; against those who already enjoy right and privilege and on behalf of those who are denied it and deprived of it."

Black liberation theologians do not intend to allow the church--whether it be white or black--to evade this responsibility. It "cannot say that the poor are in poverty because they will not work, or that they suffer because they are lazy. Having come before God as nothing and being received by him into his Kingdom through grace, the Christian should know that he has been made righteous (justified) so that he (or she) can join God in the fight for justice. Therefore, whoever fights for the poor, fights for God; whoever risks his life for the helpless and unwanted, risks his life for God."

Precisely what this entails is not always clear to whites. For them, loving one's neighbor "becomes emotional and sentimental. This sentimental, condescending love accounts for their desire to "help" by relieving the physical pains of the suffering blacks so they can satisfy their own religious piety and keep the poor powerless." But advocates of a black theology of liberation will not allow whites to get off so easy. "Authentic love is not 'help,'" Cone writes, "not giving Christmas baskets, but working for political, social, and economic justice, which always means a redistribution of power. It is the kind of power which enables blacks to fight their own battles and thus keep their dignity."

Some Closing Comments

Many whites, myself included, can be put off by advocates of a black theology of liberation. We would much prefer the approach of Martin Luther King, Jr. because his approach was the least threatening to the white power structure, and to our own understanding of ourselves. Many whites identified with him precisely because he did not challenge their own racism directly, and allowed them to assuage their own sense of guilt with little or no risk.

But I would be willing to contend that if the great chasm that separates the races in this nation is to ever be bridged, it will require that we bring to the discussion something more than good intentions, or pious words about making sure everyone is treated with equity. Not only will we have to bring to the conversation a willingness to try to understand the pain African-Americans feel, but we will also have to recognize that we are so intimately involved in a racist system, that we are often oblivious to the degree that we have caused or continue to cause that pain.

Perhaps the real test of whether whites can communicate with blacks as human beings is not what we might say to a Colin Powell, who--like King--does not challenge whites to confront their racism, but rather how we choose to respond to a Louis Farrakhan who challenges us in ways we would prefer not to be challenged.

A Black Theology of Liberation

Black Liberation Theology in North America
From Austin Cline,
Your Guide to Agnosticism / Atheism.
FREE Newsletter. Sign Up Now!
Black Power vs. White Christian Racism
The primary architect of Black Liberation Theology in North America is James Cone. A Protestant minister who grew up in Arkansas under the heavy hand of segregation, Cone observed first-hand the way white Christians treated blacks — even after desegregation was ordered by the federal government. The Christian messages of peace and brotherly love contrasted sharply with Christians’ bigoted behavior, and this left a lasting mark on Cone’s thinking.

Eventually Cone developed a “black theology” of liberation from oppression, racism, and poverty — and independently of the work of Gustavo Gutiérrez. Cone argued that the white church and white theologians had all failed in their duties to uphold biblical principles of helping the poor and marginalized of society. Indeed, Christians had become actively complicit in making the lives of others worse.

Because of this, it was no longer acceptable to leave the interpretation of the Bible to white Christians. Blacks must take responsibility for their own religion and their own relationship with God. Black liberation theology has a great deal in common with the Black Power movement that also developed in the 1960s. In his book Black Theology and Black Power, Cone writes:

“A moral or theological appeal based on a white definition of morality or theology will serve as a detriment to our attainment of black freedom. The only option we blacks have is to fight in every way possible, so that we can create a definition of freedom based on our own history and culture. We must not expect white people to give us freedom. Freedom is not a gift, but a responsibility, and thus must be taken against the will of those who hold us in bondage.”
White Christians in America might have preached a message of love and peace, but at every turn they failed to live up to their own words. The existence of segregated denominations and segregated churches proved this. Cone could also point to the long history of Christian theologians using religious arguments to defend both slavery and segregation.

Although Cone’s most obvious target was racism, his message was actually much broader. He also criticized middle-class black churches and argued that racism was only part of the problem. The much larger issue was the failure of Christianity to properly motivate people to care for others. Instead of acting on Christian principles of love and charity, they remain isolated in social or cultural groups.

Cone could also at times find some good things to say about white European theologians. He pointed to the examples of Karl Barth and Dietrich Bonhoeffer who, at great risk to themselves, used their theological writings to aid resistance to Hitler. Against this Cone contrasted the passivity of American theologians in the face of oppression aimed against blacks and other minorities.

Most of the time, though, Cone was critical of the ideas of European theologians that were part of the American experience. He noted, for example, that many white Christians emphasized ideas like justification by faith and grace as central Christian themes. Against this he argued that, from the perspective of black Christians, the idea of liberation from oppression was much more important and had a much more immediate relevancy to their lives.

The story of the Jews’ liberation in the book of Exodus naturally figured prominently in Cone’s arguments. Cone also cited the prophets, many of whom were frequent critics of the status quo and the failure of Israel to properly fulfill their duties to the poor in society. In both the Old and the New Testaments, Cone identified the establishment of justice for all, rich and poor alike, as the key principle that God has been trying to get humanity to understand.

Black Liberation Theology in North America: Black Power vs. White Christian Racism

James Cone And the Legitmizing of Black Theology
By: Rev. Angela Lee Price



At the height of the Black Power Movement at a time when strong voices where needed to speak truth to power regarding the African American predicament in America, the Lord put fire in the bones of theologian James H. Cone, using him as a trailblazing catalyst in the development of black theology. James Cone is currently the Charles A Briggs Distinguished Professor of Systematic Theology at Union Theological Seminary in New York City. James Cone spoke on the subject of the black church and success in the following video clip from Tavis Smiley's 2003 State of the Black Union IV, The Black Church: Relevant, Repressive, Or Reborn?



In 2006, James Cone caused a stir by declining an honorary degree at the Interdenominational Theological Center Commencement Exercises after discovering that “prosperity preacher” Eddie Long would deliver the commencement address. Cone’s legendary spirit of protest some 39 years has led him to become a major voice in social justice for people of color. At the penning of books, Black Theology and Black Power (1969) and A Black Theology of Liberation (1970), he became known in black church and academic circles as the Father of Black Theology. Cone’s greatest accomplishment to systematic theology has been in successfully positioning black theology as a studied discipline within Christian theology.

James Cone in laying the foundation for legitimizing black theology called upon a range of Protestant theologians from Karl Bath to Jurgen Moltmann, and on the writings of Paul Tillich and others to prove that a theology rooted in the black experience was as legitimate as any. Cone based black theology upon a classical interpretation of the Christian faith. Black theologian Gayraud Wilmore in the book, Black Religion and Black Radicalism stated, “Cone showed how a radical but historically accurate exegesis of the biblical story leads to the conclusion that black power is an expression of the gospel in a particular situation of oppression” (Wilmore, p. 214).


Using terms like “being” and “nonbeing” with regard to white racism and black opposition to it, Cone found in the Protestant writings correlative ideas to argue that black theology was a theology of black liberation and that the message of the gospel was one of liberation. Cone wrote in a statement of the National Commission of Black Churches against the backdrop of the Black Manifesto in the late 1960’s:
Black people affirm their being. This affirmation is made in the whole experience of being black in the hostile American society. Black theology is not a gift of the Christian gospel dispensed to slaves, rather it is an appropriation which black slaves made of the gospel given by their white oppressors. Black theology has been nurtured, sustained and passed on in the black churches in their various ways of expression. Black theology has dealt with all the ultimate and violent issues of life and death for a people despised and degraded (Wilmore and Cone in Black Theology: A Documentary History, 1966-1979, p.100-102 found in Wilmore, Black Religion And Black Radicalism, p. 215).

Very early in his discourse, Cone answered the question, is black theology Christian theology? He wrote, “Black Theology is Christian theology precisely because it has the black predicament at its point of departure.” Wilmore stated, “But in an effort to lay the foundation for a systematic theology of black experience that met the requirement of universality, Cone added:


Being black in America has very little to do with your skin color. To be black means that your heart, your soul, your mind, and your body are where the dispossessed are….Therefore, being reconciled to God does not mean that one’s skin is physically black. It essentially depends on the color of your heart, soul and mind (Cone, Black Theology and Black Power, p. 151 found in Wilmore, p. 217).
In A Black Theology of Liberation, Cone also borrowed from Paul Tillich’s writings to further develop his position. Cone wrote, "The focus on blackness does not mean that only blacks suffer as victims in a racist society, but that blackness is an ontological symbol and a visible reality which best describes what oppression means in America…..Blackness, then, stands for all victims of oppression who realize that their humanity is inseparable from man’s liberation from whiteness (Cone, Black Theology of Liberation, p.27-28).

Cone was criticized for using orthodox Eurocentric Christian constructs in developing black theology and postulating Jesus was black and on the side of the oppressed. His critics believed he should have drawn upon the black church fathers, black history, and black culture for its genesis. Wilmore wrote:
To say that being black in America has little to do with skin color is true, but only a half-truth and capable of gross misunderstanding. It is possible to argue that in a world dominated by white power that is inextricable from white Christianity, being black, or identifiably “Negroid,” is a unique experience that has, since the contact of African peoples with the white Christian West, produced a unique religion – closely related to, but not exclusively bound by, the classic Christian tradition. That, in fact, is the reason for the emergence of a black theology. Simply being oppressed, or psychologically and politically in empathy with the dispossessed, does not deliver one into the experience of blackness any more than putting on a blindfold delivers one into the experience of being blind (Wilmore, 218).
In retrospect, however, Cone had only done in developing his thesis what white church fathers had done for centuries in borrowing upon the constructs and languages of other disciplines. The church fathers had done it in using philosophy to explain Christianity. Delores S. Williams made reference to the fact with regard to the atonement in her book Sisters In the Wilderness: The Challenge of Womanist God-Talk. Williams wrote, “…theologians since the time of Ireanaeus and Origen have been trying to make the Christian idea of atonement believable by shaping theories about it in the language and thought of the people of a particular time….(Williams, p. 162)


Furthermore, Cone did lay an African American foundation when he wrote, "Nat Turner, Gabriel Prosser, and Denmark Vesey are examples of free persons. They realized that freedom and death were inseparable. The mythic value of their existence for the black community is incalculable, because they represent the personification of the possibility of being in the midst of nonbeing – the ability to be black in the presence of whiteness (Cone, A Black Theology of Liberation, p. 102). "


The significant contribution of theologian James Cone to systematic theology has been his efforts in legitimizing black theology. The preponderance of what has been written over the past 39 years on black theology recognizes his contributions in this area. Cone borrowed upon the motifs of Black Nationalist Malcolm X and others in developing black theology “by any means necessary.” Since his fight was against the Euro-centric Christian establishment, he used the foundations of that establishment, in the writings of Protestant theologians and church fathers, to say that black theology deserved its rightful place with the halls of academia.


Cone did not mix words in A Black Theology of Liberation, nor in his others works for that matter, in communicating the horrific role Euro-centric institutions and religion played in supporting white racism and oppressing people of color. Cone was extremely militant for example in saying Jesus was black. I agree with Gayraud Wilmore that perhaps Cone should have drawn more upon the poor black community, ancestors like W.E.B. DuBois, David Walker, Richard Allen, Sojourner Truth, and others, and our African heritage in pouring the foundation for his two-story building of faith and reason. His critics, like Henry H. Mitchell, failed to come up with solutions that eclipsed Cone’s efforts. So, to the extent that black liberation theology is currently studied in most major American universities, Christian colleges, and historically black colleges and universities, Cone’s strategy worked brilliantly.
--------------
A research paper excerpt. This paper originally written to satisfy requirements for a Christian Theology class at Simmons College of Kentucky, Fall 2007.

Jesus Saves Ministries Blog: James Cone And the Legitmizing of Black Theology

So in gist this is saying that christianity and the white man are the cause of the world's problems. And it would seem that Islam is the solution.

Is this true?

Informative thread Abdurratin. Thanks for sharing.

did I get it right abd?

I was walking by a "prosperous" Black church a few years ago and noticed a rectangle painted on the asphalt in front of the church saying "reserved for the minister" in the space. When I was coming back a few hours later I noticed what most people would regard as a "nice" car parked in the space. It was probably a Cadillac but I don't recall since I didn't pay that close attention because I regard all cars as JUNK.

But my point is that liberation theology in the Black community seems to be about liberating parishioners of their money by people pretending they know more about God than everyone else. Isn't that what religion has always been mostly about?

How can you have a Black theology unless God is Black?

um

No. The main point of theology from an African perspective is to get us to see that prophesy is here to help the poor, and oppressed of humanity. You may recall that there is a liberation theology in Latin America and other parts of the world. So, the idea that GOD, Most Merciful, Most Gracious shows Mercy and Grace to the oppressed includes the opressed of every color from the blackest black to the whitest white.

As for Islam, Black Theology is a Christian theology, not an Islamic One. You will also notice that some of the teachers quoted above are white gentlemen, not necessarily Africans.

Do not confuse Liberation Theology with the so-called theology of prosperity. The theology of prosperity is what was invented to derail liberation theology. Thus, instaed of programs to help Africans and poor people, prosperity theology buys private jets and mansions for pimp preachers. In this regard, note that some so-called Muslims are as bad pimps as some Christians.

There are several references about being black in the Bible. For instance, in the Song of Solomon we get the verse: I am Black but beautiful... For lways keep in mind that anything refrring to race or skin color is referring to a created being. In other words, we were created as beautiful Black people. But, no pne has ever seen the Creator Supreme, Most Merciful, Most Gracious. Therefore, it is a major sin to attribute a skin color to GOD. GOD cannot be conceived of in such vulger terms. His Brillaince is more than any man can even image, much less see.