In turn, Liberation Theology came to be an influence on Black Theology in the USA and elsewhere.
The phrase ‘Black Theology’ actually describes a movement that concerns itself with ensuring that the realities of the black experience are represented at the theological level. It became especially significant in the United States during the 1960’s and 70’s but the scope of its influence has extended to Africa and the Caribbean.
The first significant publication within the movement was Joseph Washington’s Black Religion. Dating from 1964, Washington’s book emphasized the need for the integration and assimilation of black theological insights into mainstream Protestantism. However, although this dovetailed with the racial integration that had been assumed by Martin Luther King and others to be the goal of the struggle for civil rights, alternative inspiration for Black Theology was provided by Malcolm X and the advent of the ‘Black Power’ movement.
As a result of the influence of the Nation of Islam, the Black Panthers and the Black Power Movement, younger blacks either started to leave the churches and some (like Muhammad Ali) went on to join the Nation of Islam, thus rejecting a Christianity that was assumed to be part of the white power structure. Black church leaders therefore faced a dilemma. Many did not want to go against Martin Luther King. Moreover whites, and some blacks, were made uneasy by the cry for black power. Some whites who felt that they had been allies in the civil rights struggle now felt snubbed. There were warnings that black power could endanger the ‘gains’ made in civil rights. Addressing some of these anxieties, in July 1966 the National Committee of Negro Churchmen issued a statement in support of the concept of black power.
Then, in 1968, Albert Cleage’s book Black Messiah urged black people to liberate themselves from white theological oppression. Though he had initially believed in integration – some of the churches he served were racially mixed – Bishop Cleage eventually came to despair of the hope that whites would ever willingly help blacks advance. He also befriended Malcolm X, the Black Muslim leader, who had Michigan roots. Arguing that scripture was written by black Jews, Cleage claimed that the gospel of a black Messiah had been perverted by St Paul in his attempt to make the Christian faith more acceptable to Europeans.
According to an obituary in the New York Times, Cleage split with both the white power structure and more moderate black leaders, and began to emphasize black separatism in economics, politics and religion. As he put it:
”The basic problem facing black people is their powerlessness,” he said. ”You can’t integrate power and powerlessness.”
Trying to counter what he saw as white domination of religion, like the Nation of Islam, Cleage promoted a gospel of black nationalism. He installed a larger-than-life painting of a black Madonna holding a black baby Jesus that was radical for its time, and preached that Jesus was a black revolutionary whose identity as such had been obscured by whites.
Subsequently, in 1969, the National Committee of Black Churchmen produced a statement on Black Theology in which it was described as follows:
Black theology is a theology of black liberation. It seeks to plumb the black condition in the light of God’s revelation in Jesus Christ, so that the black community can see that the Gospel is commensurate with the achievements of black humanity. Black theology is a theology of “blackness.” It is the affirmation of black humanity that emancipates black people from white racism, thus providing authentic freedom for both white and black people.
The most significant writer within the movement is generally agreed to be the recently deceased James Cone. Cone took it upon himself to reform Christianity along lines that allowed it to be part of black emancipation rather than an implement of white oppression. He wrote:
‘For me, the burning theological question was, how can I reconcile Christianity and Black Power, Martin Luther King, Jr.’s idea of nonviolence, and Malcolm X’s “by any means necessary philosophy?”‘
James Cone, Preface to Black Theology and Black Power
Cone’s first book, Black Theology and Black Power was published in 1969 and was quickly followed by A Black Theology of Liberation in 1970. Since then he has written many books on black theology. Among these God of the Oppressed (1975) is probably one of his best known works and The Cross and the Lynching Tree (2011) is his most recent.
Cone’s theology can be summarised as follows.
First of all, he argues that all theology is contextual:
‘Theology is not universal language about God. Rather, it is human speech informed by historical and theological traditions and written for particular times and places. Theology is contextual language – that is, defined by the human situation that give birth to it.’
Cone A Black Theology of Liberation
For Cone, theology is therefore also dialectical. It comes about through a dialogue or conversation between scripture and experience. Since Cone believed that God is revealed in history as well as in the Bible, the experiences of people themselves become a relevant basis for theology. He encouraged people to ‘read the Bible through the lens of the black tradition’ and rejected the idea that it could be viewed as the objective word of God. By making use of older African religious traditions and by drawing on more recent experiences Cone thinks that it is possible to create ‘a black religious tradition unique to North America’.
Most central to Cone’s theology is the idea of the Black Messiah.
Cone argued that if you read the gospels, the overwhelming impression is that Jesus sided with the weak and the oppressed. In fact, he did not just side with them he was one of them. Born to an unmarried mother in a working class family he became a wandering homeless traveller. Criticised by the religious elite (the Pharisees) he was eventually rounded up, tried by a biased court, humiliated and abused by his captors and ultimately put to death by those in power as a victim of hate and mob violence.
For Cone, the significance of this is that if Jesus was God incarnate (Cone said ‘He is the Revelation, the special disclosure of God to man…In short, Chris is the essence of Christianity’) then this means that God chose to become oppressed. God chose to become incarnate not as a rich person with privileges but as one of the underclass.
Much like Gutierrez, Cone thought that God is not impartial when faced with injustice. God does not ignore injustice but sides with the oppressed. For Cone, in his own environment and situation, this meant that God was not colour blind. God’s willingness to side with the oppressed against the oppressor means that God sides with the blacks against the whites.
Consequently, Cone things that Jesus can be described as symbolically black. Cone uses the term ‘ontologically black’ which means that in his essence – in his inner being – Jesus is black. This does not mean that, like Cleage, Cone thought that Jesus was actually literally black (though he did point out that Jesus would not have been the blue eyed Caucasian that western Christians tend to depict him as). The point is not Jesus’ literal colour, but what he stood for. By choosing to enter into the world in such a way that he himself experienced oppression, God chose to identify with black people. This means that their struggles are his struggles and – importantly – his eventual triumph will be their triumph.
Cone draws parallels in particular between Jesus’ crucifixion and the types of violence experienced by black Americans in the twentieth century. Between the end of the nineteenth century and the mid years of the twentieth century around 3,500 black Americans had been lynched in America – mostly in southern states. Jesus’ crucifixion, whilst done at the hands of the Roman authorities, has some similarities with a lynching. Supposedly the crowds chanted ‘crucify him, crucify him’ forcing the Roman governor Pilate to accept their demands or face a riot.
If the method of his means of death reinforces his status as one of the oppressed then his resurrection is a promise of hope for a better future. For Cone, part of the significance of the resurrection is that the oppressed one triumphs.
That is why Cone has arguably added a new Christological title to the range given in the New Testament. Not only is Jesus the Son of God or the Son of David, he is also Black Messiah. Historically Jesus is ‘black’ because he sides with the oppressed (by being baptised he acknowledges his place with sinners) but as the Black Christ, the Church preaches and recognises that his resurrection marks the triumph of justice over oppression. Black theology argues the necessity of combining the Jesus of history and the Christ of Faith.
For Cone, the Jesus of history represents the basis for belief. His life becomes the standard for evaluating Christological beliefs. The Christ of white Western Theology (a meek pacifist teaching people to turn the other cheek and encouraging the oppressed to patiently accept their suffering) fails the authenticity test when compared to the Jesus of History (as found in the Gospels).
One of the most controversial elements of Cone’s teaching is that he believed that liberation should be sought through ‘any means necessary’. He justified this on the basis that black people exist within a society which is geared against them (he compared their situation to that of Jews in Nazi Germany). He said ‘white appeals to “wait and talk it over” are irrelevant when children are dying and men and women are being tortured.’ Whilst his contemporary and fellow Christian black activist Martin Luther King advocated non-violent methods, Cone associated himself with the Black Power movement which was willing to use violence to achieve its goals.
Any white/black reconciliation which was possible was to be done on black terms. White people needed to ask for forgiveness and ‘become black’ – i.e. identify with the oppressed and experience oppression before reconciliation could be achieved. Cone was exceedingly critical of white churches which had not done enough to oppose racism and segregation. He argued that their lack of action meant that they were unchristian as they had failed to stand up for what Jesus really stood for. He described white churches as the antichrist and wrote:
‘Racism is a complete denial of the Incarnation and thus of Christianity. Therefore, the white denominational churches are unchristian.’
‘The most common misperception about Martin King is that he was nonviolent in the sense of being passive. That is incorrect and he would have rejected it absolutely. In fact, Martin King would say that if nonviolence means being passive, he would rather advocate violence. Nonviolence for him meant direct action, not passivity in the face of violence, so the world would understand how brutal the system is upon those who are poor and weak.
The most common misunderstanding of Malcolm X is that he advocated violence. Malcolm did not advocate violence but rather self-defence. He did not believe that oppressed people could gain their dignity as human beings by being passive in the face of violence. There was some tension between Malcolm and Martin largely because they tended to accept these perceptions of [each other]. But what is revealing is that Martin King came to realize that Malcolm did not really advocate violence in the same way as, [for example,] the Ku Klux Klan did. Even though he could not go along with self-defence as a form of social change, Martin King did advocate self-defence in terms of individuals who protect their home, their children, and their loved ones [from] people who would hurt them. Malcolm X came to see that Martin King’s idea of nonviolence was not passive. Actually, he wanted to join up with the civil rights movement and Martin King largely because [he saw] that nonviolent activists actually created more fear and more change than some of people within the Muslim movement. So he came to see Martin King in a much more positive light than is generally understood.’
End of Part 2.
