A Black Theology of Liberation Photo: book cover
A Black Theology of Liberation by James Cone
Author: James Cone. Review by Mark Russ.
Every now and again I encounter a book that gives me such a jolt it demands to be talked about. This book was first published in 1970 but I read it recently and it has stirred me up. James H Cone’s work has been much discussed within the black theological community. I’m yet to familiarise myself with this conversation but I hope a record of my own learning process might help the learning process of other white Quakers. I found it exciting and disturbing, and it presents several challenges:
A challenge to inward spirituality and universals
Within white liberal Quakerism there’s an emphasis on the spiritual experience of the individual. This stress on the interior life, and individual expression, is accompanied by a focus on universals: that which is at the heart of all religious experience and which all people share. This has perhaps led to white liberal Quakers spending a lot time debating the existence of God, and the boundaries of Quaker belief. For Cone, a focus on inward spirituality does not serve the cause of black liberation: ‘The black experience should not be identified with inwardness… It is not an introspection in which one contemplates one’s own ego. Blacks are not afforded the luxury of navel gazing.’ Cone does not see God’s work as generally centred in the individual. Instead, he states that God is at work specifically in the community of the oppressed. In Cone’s US context, that means God’s presence is to be found in black bodies and their liberation. God is so identified with the oppressed that we can say God is black. This may be a difficult concept for white people to grasp. Cone is not saying God literally has black skin. Cone is saying that black and white are categories created by whites in order to oppress blacks. Black and white stand for unjust power relationships: ‘The focus on blackness does not mean that only blacks suffer as victims in a racist society, but that blackness is an ontological symbol and a visible reality which best describes what oppression means.’ Because God is the God of the oppressed, God is black.
Cone is also suspicious of appeals to ‘universal humanity’ because that can lead to the ignoring of specific injustices. Whites can believe we love humanity yet still uphold racist structures. We can have loving feelings for black people in general while being racist to individuals, or avoiding contact with black people altogether.
A particularly stinging critique comes from Cone’s dismissal of ‘death of God’ theology, which could be applied to the white liberal Quaker discussion of theological diversity: ‘Questions like “How do we find meaning and purpose in a world in which God is absent?” are questions of an affluent society.’
A challenge to the ahistorical ‘eternal now’
We might ask: ‘How do we know God is the God of the oppressed?’ For white liberal Quakers knowledge of God comes primarily through individual experience, and the experience of the contemporary faith community. We don’t generally value tradition beyond a selective understanding of British Quaker history. We are increasingly detached from the Christian tradition, and knowledge of the Bible is not required. Because of this loose relationship with tradition, white liberal Quakerism could be called ahistorical. We emphasise an experience of the ‘eternal now’, rather than participation in a larger story with a past and a future. This means we do not have a sense of God at work in history.
For Cone, it is because of God’s work in history that we know God is the God of the oppressed. The Christian God is revealed through God’s action in the history of a community, Israel and the life of Jesus: ‘The basic mistake of our white opponents is their failure to see that God did not become a universal human being but an oppressed Jew, thereby disclosing to us that both human nature and divine nature are inseparable from oppression and liberation.’ God’s involvement in history is a sign that God is not indifferent or neutral. ‘If God is not involved in human history, then all theology is useless, and Christianity itself is a mockery, a hollow, meaningless diversion.’
So a God who is revealed in history is a challenge to the white liberal Quaker emphasis on the individual, and universals. Cone repeatedly stresses the primacy of community. We only know who we are through our relationship with others. Knowing where we have come from allows us to understand who we are now, and so for black people an understanding of their history is of paramount importance for their survival. If the past tells us who we are, the future is what gives us hope. In Christianity, this hope is founded on the resurrection of Jesus (a part of the Jesus story that has been sidelined by white liberal Quakerism). This is not about hoping for a reward from heaven, and ignoring present injustice. This is about having a vision of the future that energises us to act for justice now: ‘To grasp for the future of God is to know that those who die for freedom have not died in vain; they will see the kingdom of God.’
There is one particular thing that troubles me about the white liberal Quaker disconnection from the Bible and its history of God as God of the oppressed. In Britain we revise our book of discipline every generation, drawing overwhelmingly from UK and US Quaker writings. This means that, without the Bible, our ‘canon’ consists of almost exclusively white voices, dramatically limiting our understanding of God.
A challenge to our understandings of equality and nonviolence
White liberal Quakers pride ourselves on our reputation as peacemakers and mediators. We often aim to listen to all sides. We tend to seek a middle-way where all voices are heard. For Cone, this attitude cannot be applied to the liberation of black people. This is not about whites and blacks learning to get along. Black was created in opposition to white. Therefore white is synonymous with oppression. Cone writes that whites need to learn to hate and abandon their whiteness. This isn’t about changing skin colour, this is about privileges and dis-privileges that are associated with skin colour. God is not a peacemaker between whites and blacks. God is black: ‘Knowing God means being on the side of the oppressed, becoming one with them, and participating in the goal of liberation. We must become black with God.’ God takes sides: ‘The black theologian must reject any conception of God which stifles black self-determination by picturing God as a God of all peoples. Either God is identified with the oppressed to the point that their experience becomes God’s experience, or God is a God of racism.’
Our understanding of nonviolence is challenged here too. How can whites who do not know the daily threat of violence speak to black people of the need for nonviolence and loving the enemy? ‘Those who oppress others are in no position to define what love is. How could white [people] know that love means turning the other cheek? They have never had to do so… No black person will ever be good enough in the eyes of whites to merit equality. Therefore, if blacks are to have freedom, they must take it, by any means necessary.’ Can white liberal Quakers maintain an absolutist position on nonviolence in the face of such criticism?
A challenge to our understanding of God’s love and human goodness
We are comfortable speaking of God as Love, but rarely speak of God’s wrath or judgement. We also speak of the inherent goodness of humanity, and not of sin. For Cone, these are serious omissions. If God is the God of the oppressed, then God’s love is experienced as wrath by white oppressors. God’s love can only mean ‘the righteous condemnation of everything racist’. God cannot be both a liberating God and a God without wrath.
We must take a hard look at our claims to inherent goodness. How much of what white people call progress has been built on exploitation? White people are used to thinking of themselves as individuals, free from the sins of the past, free from the history of colonialism. For Cone, this claim to moral independence is precisely what sin is: ‘To be in sin, then, is to deny the values that make the community what it is. It is living according to one’s private interests and not according to the goals of the community. It is believing that one can live independently of the source that is responsible for the community’s existence.’
This white liberal sidelining of God’s wrath and our own sin is to be expected. Our whiteness hinders our ability to see things correctly. Our detachment from the oppressed prevents us from recognising God at work in the world. White Christians ‘fail to realize that their analysis of Christianity is inseparable from their oppressor-mentality, which shapes everything they say about God’. If God is the God of the oppressed, then our privilege actively works against our ability to discern God’s will. This has important implications for the white liberal Quaker understanding of discernment.
Cone’s challenges leave white liberal Quakers with some difficult questions to answer. We need to start thinking about them now.
Mark is a tutor at Woodbrooke and blogs at https://jollyquaker.com, where this article first appeared. Readers can consider some of Mark’s specific questions there.
