Race and liberation theology

CNN has an interesting story about the formative years of theologian James Cone and his views of the relationship between race and theology. Cone is widely regarded as the father of black liberation theology, giving birth to the movement with the publication of Black Theology and Black Power (1969) and A Black Theology of Liberation (1970). These works focused on God's love for the oppressed as both a source of pride for the African American community and a warning to the white community, particularly religious leaders. The common thread in Exodus, the prophets (e.g., Isaiah, Jeremiah), and the New Testament is that God champions the oppressed and will eventually punish the oppressors. Black liberation theology is an valuable component of a larger campaign of empowerment - spiritually, emotionally, economically, culturally, and politically. Cone was addressing the moral foundation of the civil rights movement after the assassination of Dr. King and the riots that followed.

There are several things that caught my eye about the CNN story on Cone. One is the discussion of theologian Reinhold Niebuhr and his failure to speak out about segregation, discrimination, and lynching of African Americans as injustices that need correction. Cone, while having great admiration for Niebuhr's work, is critical of Niebuhr's silence. Note the defensive reaction of a Niebuhr scholar:

Cone’s criticism of Niebuhr baffles at least one well-known Niebuhr scholar. Charles Lemert, author of “Why Niebuhr Matters,” said King often cited Niebuhr as an inspiration. He said he’d never heard that Niebuhr rejected a petition request from King. “It would be so remote from everything the man was. 

Lemert said Niebuhr had established a long record of speaking out against racism, beginning when he became a pastor in Detroit. Niebuhr may not have spoken out against lynching and other forms of racism later on because of another reason, Lemert said. 

“He had a debilitating stroke in 1951,” Lemert said. “By the time the civil rights movement was full blown, he was retired and getting ill.”

Lemert defends Niebuhr by saying he had a severe stroke in 1951 and was only a ghost of his former self after it. That absolves Niebuhr from not taking an active role in the civil rights movement, but it does not address his silence from 1920 to 1950 about the racial injustices that were too common and prominent to have been overlooked. It is not good enough to talk about the reality of evil in the larger world while saying too little about the oppression of African Americans. His theology of pragmatism found a way to accommodate segregation while nominally opposing racial injustice. With the separate but equal doctrine, Niebuhr set a bad example for white religious leaders instead of calling them to action.

Cone was especially critical of the fascination of white theologians with ethereal spirituality and the afterlife. People with too little to eat, too few opportunities to escape poverty, and too much pain from racism have a hard time caring about abstract spiritual ideas. It is why Cone labeled himself as the "angriest theologian," especially since his own father was a victim of a lynch mob. There needed to be a theology grounded in the black experience to counteract the pretense that Jesus was a man with white skin and light colored hair that came to lift gauzy white souls to heaven.

An excellent case for the continuing relevance of black liberation theology comes from the more than 2000 comments to the CNN article. One common theme in the comments is it is racist to bring up lynchings and other racial injustices from long ago. Bringing up these atrocities of the past is viewed as nothing more than an attempt to make white people feel guilty for the sins of previous generations. How dare this black man whose own father was lynched speak about the horrors of the past. Another theme is that CNN is playing the race card to inflame racial tensions in the aftermath of the Trayvon Martin murder and the first black president running for re-election. Judging from the volume of comments, the white power movement is indeed alive and well.

Finally, Cone questions the direction of churches in the African American community in recent years. Many of these churches have fallen prey to the gospel of prosperity, the disease that has become epidemic among white evangelicals. Churches should force people to wrestle with their conscience rather than providing assurances that greed is good and your sins are minor as long as you keep your genitals clean, all set against a backdrop of soothing music.

It sounds like Cone's new memoir, The Cross and the Lynching Tree, is a must read.