I was fortunate enough to sit in the classroom during seminary with James Cone.
Both men command our attention, especially today.
Watch and then react.
Showing posts with label James Cone. Show all posts
Showing posts with label James Cone. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
Dr. King's fight for economic justice--Taylor Branch and James Cone
Taylor Branch's books about the American Civil Rights Movement are classics.
I was fortunate enough to sit in the classroom during seminary with James Cone.
Both men command our attention, especially today.
Watch and then react.
I was fortunate enough to sit in the classroom during seminary with James Cone.
Both men command our attention, especially today.
Watch and then react.
Monday, December 03, 2007
Bill Moyers interviews James Cone
Last Friday I posted a link to a speech James Cone delivered at Harvard University.I'm not quite ready to drop the subject.
Cone's work has had a profound impact on my thinking across the years.
Everyone who claims to be a Christian needs to watch Bill Moyers' interview with James Cone.
The subject?
Again, it's the cross and the lynching tree.
Here's the link: ttp://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/11232007/watch.html.
I'd like to get some feedback on this subject and on this surprising connection. What do you think?
Friday, November 30, 2007
James Cone: the Cross and the lynching tree
Last year on October 19, Harvard Divinity School hosted James Cone, Charles A. Briggs Distinguished Professor of Systematic Theology at Union Theological Seminary in New York City, to present the 2006 Ingersoll Lecture.
What follows is an essay based on the speech Cone delivered. His subject was provocative, as is typical with Cone: the cross and the lynching tree. The link to watch the video and get the entire, amazing message can be found at:
http://www.hds.harvard.edu/news/events_online/ingersoll_2006.html.
When I was in seminary, I had the wonderful opportunity to enroll in a summer school class with Dr. Cone. He has had a profound influence on my life and thinking.
Watch and read. Don't miss what he says.
One has to have a powerful religious imagination to see redemption in the cross, to discover life in death and hope in tragedy. “Christianity,” Reinhold Niebuhr wrote, “is a faith which takes us through tragedy to beyond tragedy, by way of the cross to victory in the cross.” What kind of salvation is that? To understand what the cross means in America, we need to take a good long look at the lynching tree in this nation’s history — “the bulging eyes and twisted mouth,” that “strange fruit” that Billie Holiday sang about, “blood on the leaves and blood at the root.” The lynched black victim experienced the same fate as the crucified Christ.
The cross and the lynching tree interpret each other. Both were public spectacles, usually reserved for hardened criminals, rebellious slaves, and rebels against the Roman state and falsely accused militant blacks who were often called “black beasts” and “monsters in human form” for their audacity to challenge white supremacy in America. Any genuine theology and any genuine preaching must be measured against the test of the scandal of the cross and the lynching tree. “Jesus did not die a gentle death like Socrates, with his cup of hemlock…. Rather, he died like a [lynched black victim] or a common [black] criminal in torment, on the tree of shame” (Hengel). The crowd’s shout, “Crucify him! (Mark 15:14), anticipated the white mob’s shout, “Lynch him!” Jesus’ agonizing final cry from the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34) was similar to the Georgia lynching victim Sam Hose’s awful scream, as he drew his last breath, “Oh my God! Oh, Jesus.” In each case, it was a cruel, agonizing, and contemptible death.
The cross and the lynching tree need each other: the lynching tree can liberate the cross from the false pieties of well-meaning Christians. The crucifixion was a first-century lynching. The cross can redeem the lynching tree, and thereby bestow upon lynched black bodies an eschatological meaning for their ultimate existence. The cross can also redeem white lynchers, and their descendants, too, but not without profound cost, not without the revelation of the wrath and justice of God, which executes divine judgment, with the demand for repentance and reparation, as a presupposition of divine mercy and forgiveness. Most whites want mercy and forgiveness, but not justice and reparations; they want reconciliation without liberation, the resurrection without the cross.
As preachers and theologians, we must demonstrate the truth of our proclamation and theological reflection in the face of the cross and the lynched black victims in America’s past and present. When we encounter the crucified Christ today, he is a humiliated black Christ, a lynched black body. Christ is black not because black theology said it. Christ is made black through God’s loving solidarity with lynched black bodies and divine judgment against the demonic forces of white supremacy. Like a black naked body swinging on a lynching tree, the cross of Christ was “an utterly offensive affair,” “obscene in the original sense of the word,” “subjecting the victim to the utmost indignity.”
— In a penetrating essay, Reinhold Niebuhr wrote about “the terrible beauty of the cross.” “Only a tragic and a suffering love can be an adequate symbol of what we believe to be at the heart of reality itself.” The cross prevents God’s love from sinking into sentimentality and romanticism. “Life is too brutal and the cosmic facts are too indifferent to our moral ventures to make faith in any but a suffering God tenable.” The gospel of Jesus is not a beautiful Hollywood story. It is an ugly story, the story of God snatching victory out of defeat, finding life in death, transforming burning black bodies into transcendent windows for seeing the love and beauty of God.
— The church’s most vexing problem today is how to define itself by the gospel of Jesus’ cross as revealed through lynched black bodies in American history. Where is the gospel of Jesus’ cross revealed today? Where are black bodies being lynched today? The lynching of black America is taking place in the criminal justice system where nearly one-third of black men between the ages of 18 and 28 are in prisons and jails, on parole, or waiting for their day in court. One-half of the two million people in prisons are black. That is one million black people behind bars, more than in colleges. Through private prisons, whites have turned the brutality of their racist legal system into a profit-making venture for dying white towns and cities throughout America. One can lynch a person without a rope or tree.
The civil rights movement did not end lynching. It struck a mighty blow to the most obvious brutalities, like the lynching of Emmett Till and the violence of the Ku Klux Klan. But whenever society treats a people as if they have no rights or dignity or worth, as the government did to blacks during the Katrina storm, they are being lynched covertly. Whenever people are denied jobs, health care, housing, and the basic necessities of life, they are being lynched. There are a lot of ways to lynch a people. Whenever a people cry out to be recognized as human beings and society ignores them, they are being lynched.
— People who have never been lynched by another group usually find it difficult to understand why blacks want whites to remember lynching atrocities. Why bring that up? That was a long time ago! Is it not best forgotten? Absolutely not! The lynching tree is a metaphor for race in America, a symbol of America’s crucifixion of black people. It is the window that best reveals the theological meaning of the cross in this land. In this sense, black people are Christ-figures, not because we want to be but because we had no choice about being lynched, just as Jesus had no choice in his journey to Calvary. Jesus did not want to die on the cross, and blacks did not want to swing from the lynching tree. But the evil forces of the Roman State and white supremacy in America willed it. Yet God took the evil of the cross and the lynching tree upon the divine self and transformed both into the triumphant beauty of the divine. If America has the courage to confront the great sin and ongoing legacy of white supremacy, with repentance and reparation, there is hope beyond the tragedy — hope for whites, blacks, and all humankind — hope beyond the lynching tree.
What follows is an essay based on the speech Cone delivered. His subject was provocative, as is typical with Cone: the cross and the lynching tree. The link to watch the video and get the entire, amazing message can be found at:
http://www.hds.harvard.edu/news/events_online/ingersoll_2006.html.
When I was in seminary, I had the wonderful opportunity to enroll in a summer school class with Dr. Cone. He has had a profound influence on my life and thinking.
Watch and read. Don't miss what he says.
________________________________
One has to have a powerful religious imagination to see redemption in the cross, to discover life in death and hope in tragedy. “Christianity,” Reinhold Niebuhr wrote, “is a faith which takes us through tragedy to beyond tragedy, by way of the cross to victory in the cross.” What kind of salvation is that? To understand what the cross means in America, we need to take a good long look at the lynching tree in this nation’s history — “the bulging eyes and twisted mouth,” that “strange fruit” that Billie Holiday sang about, “blood on the leaves and blood at the root.” The lynched black victim experienced the same fate as the crucified Christ.
The cross and the lynching tree interpret each other. Both were public spectacles, usually reserved for hardened criminals, rebellious slaves, and rebels against the Roman state and falsely accused militant blacks who were often called “black beasts” and “monsters in human form” for their audacity to challenge white supremacy in America. Any genuine theology and any genuine preaching must be measured against the test of the scandal of the cross and the lynching tree. “Jesus did not die a gentle death like Socrates, with his cup of hemlock…. Rather, he died like a [lynched black victim] or a common [black] criminal in torment, on the tree of shame” (Hengel). The crowd’s shout, “Crucify him! (Mark 15:14), anticipated the white mob’s shout, “Lynch him!” Jesus’ agonizing final cry from the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34) was similar to the Georgia lynching victim Sam Hose’s awful scream, as he drew his last breath, “Oh my God! Oh, Jesus.” In each case, it was a cruel, agonizing, and contemptible death.
The cross and the lynching tree need each other: the lynching tree can liberate the cross from the false pieties of well-meaning Christians. The crucifixion was a first-century lynching. The cross can redeem the lynching tree, and thereby bestow upon lynched black bodies an eschatological meaning for their ultimate existence. The cross can also redeem white lynchers, and their descendants, too, but not without profound cost, not without the revelation of the wrath and justice of God, which executes divine judgment, with the demand for repentance and reparation, as a presupposition of divine mercy and forgiveness. Most whites want mercy and forgiveness, but not justice and reparations; they want reconciliation without liberation, the resurrection without the cross.
As preachers and theologians, we must demonstrate the truth of our proclamation and theological reflection in the face of the cross and the lynched black victims in America’s past and present. When we encounter the crucified Christ today, he is a humiliated black Christ, a lynched black body. Christ is black not because black theology said it. Christ is made black through God’s loving solidarity with lynched black bodies and divine judgment against the demonic forces of white supremacy. Like a black naked body swinging on a lynching tree, the cross of Christ was “an utterly offensive affair,” “obscene in the original sense of the word,” “subjecting the victim to the utmost indignity.”
— In a penetrating essay, Reinhold Niebuhr wrote about “the terrible beauty of the cross.” “Only a tragic and a suffering love can be an adequate symbol of what we believe to be at the heart of reality itself.” The cross prevents God’s love from sinking into sentimentality and romanticism. “Life is too brutal and the cosmic facts are too indifferent to our moral ventures to make faith in any but a suffering God tenable.” The gospel of Jesus is not a beautiful Hollywood story. It is an ugly story, the story of God snatching victory out of defeat, finding life in death, transforming burning black bodies into transcendent windows for seeing the love and beauty of God.
— The church’s most vexing problem today is how to define itself by the gospel of Jesus’ cross as revealed through lynched black bodies in American history. Where is the gospel of Jesus’ cross revealed today? Where are black bodies being lynched today? The lynching of black America is taking place in the criminal justice system where nearly one-third of black men between the ages of 18 and 28 are in prisons and jails, on parole, or waiting for their day in court. One-half of the two million people in prisons are black. That is one million black people behind bars, more than in colleges. Through private prisons, whites have turned the brutality of their racist legal system into a profit-making venture for dying white towns and cities throughout America. One can lynch a person without a rope or tree.
The civil rights movement did not end lynching. It struck a mighty blow to the most obvious brutalities, like the lynching of Emmett Till and the violence of the Ku Klux Klan. But whenever society treats a people as if they have no rights or dignity or worth, as the government did to blacks during the Katrina storm, they are being lynched covertly. Whenever people are denied jobs, health care, housing, and the basic necessities of life, they are being lynched. There are a lot of ways to lynch a people. Whenever a people cry out to be recognized as human beings and society ignores them, they are being lynched.
— People who have never been lynched by another group usually find it difficult to understand why blacks want whites to remember lynching atrocities. Why bring that up? That was a long time ago! Is it not best forgotten? Absolutely not! The lynching tree is a metaphor for race in America, a symbol of America’s crucifixion of black people. It is the window that best reveals the theological meaning of the cross in this land. In this sense, black people are Christ-figures, not because we want to be but because we had no choice about being lynched, just as Jesus had no choice in his journey to Calvary. Jesus did not want to die on the cross, and blacks did not want to swing from the lynching tree. But the evil forces of the Roman State and white supremacy in America willed it. Yet God took the evil of the cross and the lynching tree upon the divine self and transformed both into the triumphant beauty of the divine. If America has the courage to confront the great sin and ongoing legacy of white supremacy, with repentance and reparation, there is hope beyond the tragedy — hope for whites, blacks, and all humankind — hope beyond the lynching tree.
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Let me buy you lunch!
I would like to invite you join me for lunch on Thursday, August 2.As is the case on each first Thursday of the month, Central Dallas Ministries will host its "Urban Engagement Book Club" again this week. We've been doing this every month for three years now.
At each meeting we discuss a book relating to poverty, justice, community and economic development or some other topic that strikes close to the heart of our work, and thus, of our concerns.
Our August meeting will be a bit unique.
Simply put: We don't normally do theology!
As a matter of fact, we've never done serious theology... until now!
Consider this your personal invitation to join me at noon this Thursday in Room 386 of the Highland Park United Methodist Church, our hosts.
For more information, please visit http://www.urbanengagement.org/.
Here's what will happen:
1) I'll buy your lunch--it won't be too elaborate, but the heart will be in it!
2) You will hear our friend Randy Mayeux share an extremely helpful synopsis-no need to read the book beforehand-of James Cone's classic volume, God of the Oppressed.
3) Following the "content dump," we'll wrestle over the message in a time of profitable conversation. This "follow on" time, as we call it, will be facilitated by Rev. Gerald Britt and Rev. E. D. Charles, both seasoned inner-city leaders and community developers!
4) You'll be out and on your way--unless you want to hang around and talk more-no later than 1:15 p.m.
Sound like a plan?
You can help us prepare for lunch by sending your RSVP to Lisa Goolsby (at 214-823-8710 ext. 138 or lgoolsby@CentralDallasMinistries.org) right now!
Spread the word among your friends, associates and anyone else interested in doing theology!
Hope to see you on August 2.
Sunday, July 08, 2007
A theology for the street
Across the years, people have given me strange looks when I confess that my faith has been shaped significantly by reading liberation theology. I do what I do in large part because of what I have discovered while exploring this very rich school of thought.
Years ago, while in seminary, I enjoyed the good fortune of sitting in a summer school class with Dr. James Cone from Union Theological Seminary in New York City. Cone's course, Black Liberation Theology, provided me with hope, courage and even healing. I found him even more amazing in person than in print, which is saying a lot!
I suppose what I find most attractive about the thought of writers like Cone and Gustavo Gutierrez is the fact that everything is rooted deeply in the here-and-now.
Everything is practical.
Action in the real world is the key to every expression of faith.
Instead of becoming lost in the past or distracted by a future that will be experienced on a completely different plane of existence, thinkers like Gutierrez and Cone keep calling me back to the street and its reality.
In a system of thought like this, it becomes almost impossible for middle class types like me to rationalize my failure to engage the pain, injustice, suffering and oppression of my world.
My responsibility in this day happens to be this world or, better, that part of the world where I will find myself living today.
There is not much time for dwelling on the past, except as precursor for the present that is currently "in my face."
There is little reason to focus much on the future, it will take care of itself.
My call is to live and to act in faith for the transformation of the world as I find it.
Liberation thought demands an entering into the life of the world. To put it theologically, it calls for radical incarnation. I must enter the pain and the struggle of this world for the sake of and alongside the poor, the marginalized and the oppressed.
There is no way to heaven but through the earth.
My responsibility is the life and the world in which I find myself. In community with others, I am called to live out my faith from a street level perspective.
The old hymn, "This World Is Not My Home," might be true; but this world is without a doubt my current assignment, it is where I am rooted by faith, and I dare not "pass through" without thought, sacrifice and focused attention. It is what I have been given and called to engage.
Maintaining this very real, practical and "down-to-earth" focus keeps me on track. And, in this regard, I find reading Cone, Gutierrez and other liberationists to be most helpful.
They bring my faith to life and into my world.
Years ago, while in seminary, I enjoyed the good fortune of sitting in a summer school class with Dr. James Cone from Union Theological Seminary in New York City. Cone's course, Black Liberation Theology, provided me with hope, courage and even healing. I found him even more amazing in person than in print, which is saying a lot!
I suppose what I find most attractive about the thought of writers like Cone and Gustavo Gutierrez is the fact that everything is rooted deeply in the here-and-now.
Everything is practical.
Action in the real world is the key to every expression of faith.
Instead of becoming lost in the past or distracted by a future that will be experienced on a completely different plane of existence, thinkers like Gutierrez and Cone keep calling me back to the street and its reality.
In a system of thought like this, it becomes almost impossible for middle class types like me to rationalize my failure to engage the pain, injustice, suffering and oppression of my world.
My responsibility in this day happens to be this world or, better, that part of the world where I will find myself living today.
There is not much time for dwelling on the past, except as precursor for the present that is currently "in my face."
There is little reason to focus much on the future, it will take care of itself.
My call is to live and to act in faith for the transformation of the world as I find it.
Liberation thought demands an entering into the life of the world. To put it theologically, it calls for radical incarnation. I must enter the pain and the struggle of this world for the sake of and alongside the poor, the marginalized and the oppressed.
There is no way to heaven but through the earth.
My responsibility is the life and the world in which I find myself. In community with others, I am called to live out my faith from a street level perspective.
The old hymn, "This World Is Not My Home," might be true; but this world is without a doubt my current assignment, it is where I am rooted by faith, and I dare not "pass through" without thought, sacrifice and focused attention. It is what I have been given and called to engage.
Maintaining this very real, practical and "down-to-earth" focus keeps me on track. And, in this regard, I find reading Cone, Gutierrez and other liberationists to be most helpful.
They bring my faith to life and into my world.
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