‘Christ’s Blackness Is Both Literal and Symbolic’: God of the Oppressed, Part 6

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5

Moving to Chapter 6 of his classic book God of the Oppressed (1975), James Cone asks: “Who is Jesus Christ for us today?”

That is, since Jesus is the truth of the Christian story – the ground that keeps theology from becoming ideology and the ultimate evidence of God’s interest in the liberation of the oppressed – how is that truth relevant in modern America?

“If twent[y-first] century Christians are to speak the truth for their sociohistorical situation, they cannot merely repeat the story of what Jesus did and said in Palestine, as if it were self-interpreting for us today. Truth is more than the retelling of the biblical story. Truth is the divine happening that invades our contemporary situation, revealing the meaning of the past for the present so that we are made new creatures for the future.” (p. 108)

“It is because we have encountered Christ in our historical situation and have been given the faith to struggle for truth that we are forced to inquire about the meaning of this truth for the totality of human existence. … It is therefore the people’s experience of the freedom of Christ in the context of injustice and oppression that makes them want to know more about him.” (pp. 109-110)

“The black tradition breaks down the false distinction between the sacred and the secular and invites us to look for Christ’s meaning in the spirituals and the blues, folklore and sermon. Christ’s meaning is not only expressed in formal church doctrine but also in the rhythm, the beat, and the swing of life, as the people respond to the vision that stamps dignity upon their personhood.” (pp. 114-115)

‘The Values of White Culture Are Antithetical to Biblical Revelation’: God of the Oppressed, Part 5

Part 1 | Part 2| Part 3 | Part 4

In God of the Oppressed (1975), James Cone first laid the groundwork for his arguments that 1) theology cannot be separated from the social context of the theologian, and 2) God is revealed in historical events like the Exodus and the life and death of Jesus as the Liberator of the oppressed.

The problem then becomes: How do we make sure the things we say about God are actually true, and not just what we want them to be? If theology is contingent and God’s revelation is historical, how do we guard against lapsing into creating God in our image – a common critique of belief since Feuerbach.

Or, as Cone himself puts it, “To what extent is the God of Black Theology limited to the biological origin of its advocates?” (p. 84)

‘There Is No Christian Theology that Is Not Social and Political’: God of the Oppressed, Part 4

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

Having discussed the inextricable connection between God-talk and the social context out of which such talk arises, James Cone in God of the Oppressed (1975) turns his argument to the nature of divine revelation – arguing that God reveals Godself in social contexts. So just as theology can’t be separated from the real-world circumstances of the theologian, so understanding God cannot be separated from the real-world circumstances in which God is revealed.

I think this is the key chapter of the book, the foundation on which the rest of it builds:

‘The God of Black Experience Was Not a Metaphysical Idea’: God of the Oppressed, Part 3

After introducing his argument and discussing the sources for theological truth, James Cone in God of the Oppressed (1975) turns in Chapter 3 to “The Social Context of Theology” – in other words, all words about God are necessarily limited by the culture of those speaking those words.

“What people think about God cannot be divorced from their place and time in a definite history and culture. While God may exist in some heavenly city beyond time and space, human beings cannot transcend history. … Theology is subjective speech about God, a speech that tells us far more about the hopes and dreams of certain God-talkers than about the Maker and Creator of heaven and earth.” (p. 41)

“A serious encounter with Marx will make theologians confess their limitations, their inability to say anything about God which is not at the same time a statement about the social context of their own existence. … [N]ot only the questions which theologians ask but the answers given in their discourse about the gospel are limited by their social perceptions and thus largely a reflection of the material conditions of a given society. Theology arises out of life and thus reflects a people’s struggle to create meaning in life.” (p. 43)

So does that mean we can’t say anything true about God? No. Cone is simply dethroning centuries of White-centered theology that has pretended to universality while sidelining black speech about God:

‘White Definitions of Black Humanity Were Lies’: God of the Oppressed, Part 2

As I mentioned in Part 1 of this series, I’m working through James Cone’s classic work of Black liberation theology, God of the Oppressed, in this somewhat public way in an effort to push voices of color to center stage in this moment where we need more than ever to be listening to what they have (or had) to say.

In Chapter 2, “Speaking the Truth,” Cone begins his project by exploring the sources and nature of theology, ultimately coming to the conclusion that Black theology, in addition to being based on Scripture and divine revelation, is also based on the Black experience:

‘I Am a Black Theologian!’: James Cone’s God of the Oppressed, Part 1

In light of the current moment in America, where more White people than ever are recognizing what Black people have known for centuries about the nature of the nation’s stubborn acceptance of racism, I’ve been reading James Cone’s God of the Oppressed, the classic 1975 work of Black liberation theology.

I’m not convinced the world needs the voice of another quasi-enlightened White guy to talk about racism, except to affirm that Black lives matter and recognize publicly that racism remains a scourge in both my heart and the systems that benefit me economically, politically and socially.

So in an effort to do what does not come naturally to me and step to the side, I’m working through God of the Oppressed with minimal exposition, simply posting quotes to my Facebook feed chapter by chapter. In that spirit, I’ll do the same here, although acknowledging that this still ends up putting a White filter between you the reader and Cone’s arguments. So I hope this will encourage you to read his powerful, compelling and convicting arguments for yourself.

Easter in the Age of COVID-19

This Easter was bittersweet.

Easter in a liturgical tradition like the Episcopal Church is a beautifully joyous experience – the white cloth draped over the cross, the return of “alleluias” to the liturgy, the choir singing “Chris the Lord Is Risen Today” and “Crown Him With Many Crowns” and the Hallelujah Chorus – and, well, it’s just not the same watching a livestream on TV.

In many ways, it feels like Easter hasn’t really arrived yet, like we’re still in the interminable Saturday. All of us are trapped inside, through no fault of our own, awaiting our own resurrection of sorts.

But of course Easter has arrived; it arrived 1,990 years ago, give or take a few dozen months. It’s stronger than coronavirus, stronger than stay-at-home orders, stronger than conspiracy theories, toilet paper shortages or smelling your own bad breath while your glasses fog up every time you exhale behind an ill-fitting mask.

Jesus is risen. He is risen indeed. Alleluia.

Many priests, preachers and pastors said as much last Sunday, in thousands of languages across hundreds of countries. They said it over microphones in drive-in theaters, over livestreamed feeds in empty sanctuaries, on rooftops, in truck beds, straddling road center lines.

I loved this Atlantic slideshow of Easter in an era of social distancing. I’ve pulled a few photos from it and included them with this post.

To me, they provide proof of the ultimate triumph of Easter.No matter how pulled apart we are, no matter how fallible churches and their leaders are, no matter how wrapped up in our own traditions and doctrines and comforts and certainties we are, God’s Spirit moves across the world, affirming over and over again: Jesus is alive. And so, therefore, are we. Truly alive, no matter what happens.

I wish we could have celebrated that fact in a bright room with a soaring A-frame roof, beautiful stained glass and a huge empty cross draped in white while a chorus rains down hallelujahs and we take communion as the ultimate sign of our unity with each other and with the risen Christ.

But that’s the thing about Easter: It doesn’t need our trappings.Resurrection from the dead has always required tremendous faith; if it requires a little more this year, separated as we are from the emotional props to which we are accustomed, then we are merely joining a long line of people for whom Easter has always been something to cling to rather than something to feast over.

If Saturday feels especially long and especially dark this year, Sunday is coming.

Because Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again.

Creationism, the Rapture, and Impeachment

In recent weeks, former Bush speechwriter David Frum and Vox founder Ezra Klein have taken their stabs at answering an oft-asked question since November 2016, namely: How did it come to this?

More specifically, how does a narcissistic, quasi-fascist authoritarian who openly flouts the most basic standards of human decency and traditional morality still command the unwavering and nearly unanimous loyalty of the Republican Party and its base of evangelical Christians?

Using those articles as a springboard, combined with some reading I’ve been doing on the side, here’s my answer: Because supporting Trump is the natural extension of the same habits of thought evangelicals have developed for much of the past century.

In his article on Devin Nunes’ uncritical embrace of nonsensical conspiracy theories to defend Trump during the House Intelligence Committee’s impeachment hearings, former Bush speechwriter David Frum described the “closed knowledge system” that dominates modern conservative political thought.

“The prisoners and victims of this system live in a dreamworld of lies,” he writes. “Yet it would not quite be accurate to describe them as uninformed. They are disinformed, and on a huge scale.”

This may be something new for Frum to witness in the conservative political world (perhaps because he was the beneficiary of it while working in the Bush administration), but for those of us who grew up in the conservative religious world, reliance on a “closed knowledge system” that leaves its inhabitants not uninformed but very much disinformed is quite familiar.

A Meditation on Luke 10

Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus.

“Teacher,” he said, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

Jesus said to him, “What is written in the law? What do you read there?” 

He answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.”

And Jesus said to him, “You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.”

But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” 

Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. 

Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. 

So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 

But a Samaritan while traveling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity. 

He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. 

The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, ‘Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.’

Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?”

He said, “The one who showed him mercy.”

Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”

The Fizzling of the Cambrian – and Creationism

You may or may not be aware that one of my research interests is the response of Evangelical and Fundamentalist Christians to the theory of evolution. It was actually my whole master’s thesis.

So in studying how Christians have tended to oppose the teaching of Darwinian evolution (in which all living species are descended from a single common ancestor through natural selection and genetic mutation, among other processes) over the past century, one of the key arguments they’ve used against it is the existence of the Cambrian Explosion.

The argument is typically made this way: “Darwinism argues that all of life has gradually evolved from a single common ancestor, but they can’t explain the Cambrian Explosion, where the fossil record goes from basically no living species to an incredible amount of diversity in a very short time.”

This argument had two prongs: One was negative – the explosion is something evolution cannot explain; therefore, it chips at the foundation of support for the theory – and one was positive: The explosion is the fossil record’s evidence of God’s special creation of a limited number of “kinds” that then evolved to the current diversity of life. This idea, let’s call it young earth evolutionism, is still propagated by Ken Ham, founder of the Creation Museum and Ark Experience, as scientific creationism.

Here are some examples from my research: