Automatically Under Suspicion
July 21, 2008

“You can’t make me do nothing but die! That is the key to an understanding of Black Power. Any advice from whites to blacks on how to deal with white oppression is automatically under suspicion as a clever device to further enslavement.”

The above words come from Dr. James H. Cone’s book Black Theology and Black Power. When Reverend Jeremiah Wright of Trinity United Church of Christ appeared on FOX News’ Hannity and Colmes he asked Sean Hannity, “How many books by Cone have you read?” He implied that Hannity had no right to question him on a subject which Hannity was not informed. Having read the first of Dr. Cone’s books allows this author to question black liberation theology in light of Black Power. Although it will be denied by black liberation theologians, Dr. Cone’s teaching points to separatism regardless the statements of Jeremiah Wright. Black liberation theology is a racist theology.

Dr. Cone’s biography is impressive as are his oratory skills. One can visit Union Theological Seminary’s website and read about the distinguished professor and even watch some of his lectures. Dr. Cone’s work in Black Theology and Black Power is well written and extensively researched and footnoted. Dr. Cone should by no means be discounted as just an angry black man or biblical heretic, although he admits to the former and is guilty in part of the latter. It is his systematic theology that is flawed.

Dr. Cone writes that “Black Power is the most important development in American life in this century [20th]” and Dr. Cone believes “there is a need to begin to analyze it from a theological perspective.” Dr. Cone is of the opinion that Black Power is “Christ’s central message to twentieth-century America.” Dr. Cone acknowledges that most theologians will view Black Power and Christianity as irreconcilable and attributes it to American churches’ failure “to recognize their contribution to the ghetto condition through permissive silence…and through their co-tenancy of a dehumanizing social structure whose existence depends on the continued enslavement of black people.”

Dr. Cone writes that his work “is written with a definite attitude, the attitude of an angry black man, disgusted with the oppression of black people in America and with the scholarly demand to be ‘objective’ about it.” He justifies this anger by comparing it to the anger of the prophets and Jesus Christ Himself. However what Dr. Cone either fails to realize or take into account is biblical anger has three elements: focus, control, and improvement as displayed by Jesus when He cleared the Temple of the money changers. Black Power brings none of those elements.

Dr. Cone tries to dispel the accusation that Black Power is black racism and the definition he uses does defend his position. However, he leaves out one of the three definitions provided and if it was not present when he wrote the book in 1969, then what would be his response to this third definition? Random House Unabridged Dictionary provides the two examples Dr. Cone uses and offers this last one: “hatred or intolerance of another race or other races.” Dr. Cone writes that “black hatred is the black man’s strong aversion to white society. No black man living in white America can escape it.”

Dr. Cone further states that “white people should not even expect blacks to love them, and to ask for it merely adds insult to injury.” This flies in the face of Jesus’ teaching in John 15:12, “This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” The only way Dr. Cone can reconcile his statement is to admit that he is not including Christians, regardless of race.

Dr. Cone’s fixation on race is prevalent throughout his book. Even the white liberal is not spared condemnation: “But he is still white to the very core of his being. What he fails to realize is that there is no place for him in this war of survival. Blacks do not want his patronizing, condescending words of sympathy. They do not need his concern, his ‘love,’ his money.” After watching Alan Colmes’ interview of Reverend Wright one wonders what the Reverend was really thinking of Alan Colmes.

In his chapter titled “The Gospel of Jesus, Black People, and Black Power” Cone writes “I have even suggested that if Christ is present among the oppressed, as he promised, he must be working through the activity of Black Power. This alone is my thesis.” Dr. Cone goes on to say the difficulty in reconciling Black Power with Christian love is that “we still use, for the most part, traditional religious language which really was created for a different age and, to a large degree, for the Western white society.”

Sound biblical systematic theology does not shape the Scriptures to fit a certain belief system, it discovers the meaning of a particular biblical passage and finds the universal principle and its application to present day circumstances. While Dr. Cone argues that he is not describing Western Christianity theology as not useful for black people, he does write that because of black suffering “there will always be this barrier between Black Power and Christian love.” That statement alone damages the premise of Black Power and Black Theology.

Dr. Cone does not see much hope that the white church will stand against black oppression. He writes that “if theology fails to re-evaluate its task in the light of Black Power, the emphasis on the death of God will not add the needed dimension. This will mean that the white church and white theology are dead, not God.” Dr. Cone’s lack of hope in the white church leads him to the conclusion that “it is indeed possible that the only redemptive forces left in the denominational churches are to be found in the segregated black churches” (emphasis added).

Dr. Cone believes “in twentieth-century America, Christ means Black Power!” His anger toward White America in general and white churches specifically brings him to the racist opinion that “the white American Church has no history of obedience; and without it, it is unlikely that it will ever know what radical obedience to Christ means.”

Dr. Cone has no confidence in the white church and opines “the black church, then, is probably the only hope for renewal or, more appropriately, revolution in organized Christianity. It alone has attempted to be recognizably Christian in a hostile environment.”

What advice does Dr. Cone offer black churches in light of Black Power and black theology? He states, “If it is to be relevant, it must no longer admonish its people to be ‘nice’ to white society. It cannot condemn the rioters. It must make an unqualified identification with the ‘looters’ and ‘rioters,’ recognizing that this stance leads to condemnation by the state as law-breakers.” That’s right; Dr. Cone is advising black churches to identify with criminals.

If that is not blasphemous enough, Dr. Cone ravages black churches by saying, “Its ministers have condemned the helpless and have mimicked the values of whites. For this reason most Black Power people bypass the churches as irrelevant to their objectives. Today we enter a new era, the era of Black Power. It is an age of rebellion and revolution. Blacks are no longer prepared to turn the other cheek; instead, they are turning the gun…It is time for the black churches to change their style and join the suffering of the black masses, proclaiming the gospel of the black Christ.”

In a final condemnation of both white and black churches, Dr. Cone finishes his chapter titled “The Black Church and Black Power” thusly, “Neither is it a fit instrument of revolution. In such a situation the idea of ‘renewal’ seems futile…The white church in America, though occasionally speaking well and even more rarely acting well, generally has been and is the embodiment of what is wrong with the society. It is racism in ecclesiastical robes…For this reason; renewal in any ordinary sense seems out of the question.”

Space does not allow further exposing of this racist theology but allow one more illustration from Dr. Cone’s book. On page 111 he writes, “The fight against injustice is never over until all men, regardless of physical characteristics, are recognized and treated as human beings.” Six pages later in his chapter titled “Some Perspectives of Black Theology” Dr. Cone writes, “The purpose of Black Theology is to analyze the nature of the Christian faith in such a way that black people can say Yes to blackness and No to whiteness and mean it.”

Dr. Cone does not care if whites understand or accept Black Theology because it “is not dependent upon white perception…Black Theology is Christian theology precisely because it has the black predicament as its point of departure…The event of Christ tells us that the oppressed blacks are his people because, and only because, they represent who he is.”

The Apostle Paul taught in Galatians 3:26-29, “For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.”

When the Apostle Paul wrote this passage he was addressing the racial division (Jew nor Greek), the social division (slave nor free), and the sex division (male nor female) of his time and proclaimed that Jesus sees no spiritual separation.

Dr. Cone commits biblical heresy in his insistence that “Black Theology knows no authority more binding than the experience of oppression itself. This alone must be the ultimate authority in religious matters.” After reading Dr. Cone’s book this conclusion is required because it fails in the light of Scripture. The authority of Scripture must be usurped for the benefit of Black Theology.

Dr. Cone tries to cover his heresy in saying “this does not mean Black Theology makes the experience of Christ secondary to the experience of black oppression.” This statement is completely contradictory to his preceding statement that experiencing oppression is “the ultimate authority in religious matters.” One cannot have it both ways; either experiencing Christ is the ultimate authority or experiencing black oppression is the ultimate authority. After reading Dr. Cone’s book one easily comes to the conclusion that is it the latter with Black Theology.

The Apostle John wrote of the “Christian” saying he hated his fellow brother, “Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates his brother is still in the darkness. Whoever loves his brother lives in the light, and there is nothing in him to make him stumble. But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness; he does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded him.”