James H. Cone
James H. Cone was a prominent American theologian and scholar, widely recognized as the founder of Black liberation theology. Born on August 5, 1938, in Fordyce, Arkansas, Cone's early experiences with segregation and racial injustice deeply influenced his theological perspectives. He pursued his education at several institutions, culminating in a Ph.D. from Northwestern University. His seminal work, "Black Theology and Black Power," published in 1969, argues that Christianity must address the struggles of oppressed African Americans, positing that God is inherently on the side of the marginalized.
Cone's theology emphasizes that true Christian teachings cannot be separated from the pursuit of liberation, and he contended that theology should be contextually relevant. He wrote numerous influential texts, including "A Black Theology of Liberation" and "The Cross and the Lynching Tree," which explored the intersections of faith, race, and social justice. Throughout his career, Cone advocated for practical theology that resonates with contemporary issues, significantly impacting various theological movements, including womanist and Third World theologies. He taught at the Union Theological Seminary for decades and passed away on April 28, 2018, leaving a lasting legacy in both theology and the broader conversation about race and justice in America.
Subject Terms
James H. Cone
- Born: August 5, 1938
- Birthplace: Fordyce, Arkansas
- Died: April 28, 2018
- Place of death: New York City, New York
Theologian
Cone is best known for his development of black liberation theology, which linked Christian values to the Black Power movement by arguing that God is always on the side of the oppressed. Cone’s writings made the case for theology as a practical, accessible tool that is relevant to adherents’ real-world concerns.
Area of achievement: Religion and theology
Early Life
James Hal Cone was born in Fordyce, Arkansas, on August 5, 1938. While he was still a child, his family moved to Bearden, Arkansas, where he encountered the cruel realities of segregation and injustice. His father, Charlie Cone, filed suit against the Bearden School Board to desegregate the school system during the 1950s. Despite threats of violence, his father remained vigilant against segregation and instilled in Cone a resentment of injustice. Cone’s father also taught him the importance of keeping one’s dignity and integrity, while Cone’s mother shared her African Methodist Episcopal (AME) faith with him. She also gave Cone a sense of self-worth, pride, and self-confidence.
After graduating from Ouachita County Training School in 1954, Cone enrolled in Shorter College. He studied there for two years before finishing his undergraduate work at Philander Smith College in 1958. It was there that he began to read about the work of Martin Luther King Jr., in Montgomery, Alabama. Cone himself witnessed the turmoil of the Little Rock Nine’s integration of Central High School in Little Rock. Upon completion of a bachelor of divinity degree from Garrett Biblical Institute (now called Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary) in 1961, Cone wanted to return to Arkansas to serve as pastor of an AME church. However, no positions were open and none were becoming available anytime soon, so Cone decided to go to graduate school. He received his MA (1963) and PhD (1965) from Northwestern University. He later received several honorary doctoral degrees.
As he neared the completion of his doctoral work, Cone hoped to secure a teaching position at an AME institution; however, a teaching position eluded him as well. Cone, sensing AME church politics as the reason for his inability to land a job as a pastor or professor, nevertheless managed to obtain a job with a Methodist school, Philander Smith College.
Cone came to see these difficulties in a positive light, reasoning that he could not be a true theologian of the AME church while being employed by the church. He argued that a theologian’s job is to present the critical side of the faith and serve as a barometer that helps the church be self-critical and aware of its own shortcomings.
Eventually, Cone left the AME church, joined the United Methodist Church, and later played vital roles in the Black Methodists for Church Renewal movement in 1968 and the National Congress of Black Churches in 1969. These two groups were at the forefront of the black liberation struggle, and they supported Cone as he struggled with theological concepts.
Life’s Work
Cone’s youth in segregated Arkansas and his firsthand experience with racism in graduate school had a profound impact on his scholarship. After graduating, Cone had a hard time finding contextual relevance for the theology that his professors had taught him in graduate school. After the publication of Black Religion: The Negro and Christianity in the United States (1964), in which Joseph R. Washington Jr. criticized black religion as un-Christian, Cone wanted to respond but did not know how at the time.
In 1966, Cone left Philander Smith for Adrian College in Adrian, Michigan. Frustrated with a theological viewpoint that seemed irrelevant to African Americans’ pain and suffering, Cone began to cultivate the ideas that would become black liberation theology. The riots in Detroit in the summer of 1967 ultimately persuaded Cone to act. He wrote his first essay, “Christianity and Black Power,” a manifesto that relates the Black Power movement to the gospel of Jesus. This essay was a precursor to his seminal text, Black Theology and Black Power (1969).
In Black Theology and Black Power, Cone addresses the question that had bothered him throughout his graduate studies: What does the Christian gospel have to say to powerless African Americans who are threatened daily by white power? In this volume, after defining Black Power in relation to Christianity, Cone argues that God is always on the side of the oppressed and that Jesus is the liberator who frees all people from oppression.
Cone followed Black Theology and Black Power with another seminal text, A Black Theology of Liberation (1970). In response to white critics who complained that black liberation theology was not theological enough, Cone set out to systematize his ideology. In A Black Theology of Liberation, Cone argues that Christianity essentially is a religion of liberation and that the function of theology is to demonstrate that liberation for the oppressed. He further argues that any Christian theology that is not concerned with liberation is not a true Christian theology. However, after critiques from African American theologians that he depended too much upon white theological systems to advance his arguments, Cone wrote The Spirituals and the Blues (1972) and God of the Oppressed (1975), drawing more from African and African American sources and experiences.
Cone followed these works with Black Theology: A Documentary History, 1966-1979 (1979), My Soul Looks Back (1982), For My People (1984), Speaking the Truth: Ecumenism, Liberation, and Black Theology (1986), Martin and Malcolm and America: A Dream or a Nightmare (1991), Black Theology: A Documentary History, Volume II, 1980–1992 (1993), and Risks of Faith: The Emergence of a Black Theology of Liberation, 1968–1998 (1999). In 2011, he presented a theological study of the connection between the Christian symbol of the cross and the lynchings of African Americans conducted throughout American history in The Cross and the Lynching Tree; the book earned him the 2018 Grawemeyer Award in Religion.
Having taught at the Union Theological Seminary since 1969, he was made the Bill & Judith Moyers Distinguished Professor of Systematic Theology in 2017. He died in Manhattan on April 28, 2018, at the age of seventy-nine. His memoir, Said I Wasn’t Gonna Tell Nobody, which he had finished not long before his death, was published posthumously later that year.
Significance
The publication of Black Theology and Black Power established Cone and his black liberation theology. Cone’s work influenced theological community in three primary ways. First, drawing from theologian Paul Tillich, Cone argued for a contextual reading of theology. In other words, there is no universal theology for all people, at all times, and in all places. Theology derives from context. It is this argument that others adopted to express their own brand of theology. Womanist African, Third World, Asian, and a host of other theologies owe their development to Cone. Second, Cone advanced the argument that theology also should be practical. If Christian theology did not have anything to say about oppressed people such as African Americans, he said, it was not true Christian theology. That statement, while criticized at first, slowly gained acceptance in religious circles. At Cone’s insistence, many theologians went back to the Bible and noted the numerous times that its writers spoke up for the poor. Finally, Cone offered theologians a glimpse of what came to be called “rhetorical theology.” While other authorities wrote philosophically based theology, Cone’s approach was more rhetorical. He wrote in an accessible, populist style and argued that theology must be practical and relevant to contemporary issues.
Bibliography
Burrow, Rufus. James H. Cone and Black Liberation Theology. McFarland, 2001. Examines Cone’s major writings and offers an explanation of Cone’s theological themes.
Cone, James. Black Theology and Black Power. Seabury Press, 1969. Cone’s seminal work that establishes Black Power as a Christian response.
Cone, James. A Black Theology of Liberation. Lippincott, 1970. In this follow-up to Black Theology and Black Power, Cone offers a more systematic treatment of black liberation theology.
Fortin, Jacey. "James H. Cone, a Founder of Black Liberation Theology, Dies at 79." The New York Times, 29 Apr. 2018, www.nytimes.com/2018/04/29/obituaries/james-cone-dead.html. Accessed 16 Nov. 2018.
Hopkins, Dwight, editor. Black Faith and Public Talk: Critical Essays on James H. Cone’s “Black Theology and Black Power”. Baylor UP, 2007. Essays examine various theological and philosophical aspects of Cone’s first major work, Black Theology and Black Power.