Between Malcolm and Martin: James Cone's Black Theology as Pragmatic Ideological Alternative

Abstract

The pioneering work of theologian James Cone is examined for political insights. Cone's Black Theology is identified as a distinct political ideology capable of providing guidance in the struggle for Black liberation. Black Theology is not merely orthodox Black nationalism coated with a veneer of Christianity. It is a pragmatic, organic response in the struggle against oppression. Black Theology is also distinguished from Black nationalism and Black liberalism in its ideational dimension. Its simultaneous embrace of competing tendencies from these ideologies and its unique answer to the foundational question “What is Blackness?” warrant its treatment as an independent ideological expression.

Keywords:

• Black ideology
• Black liberalism
• Black nationalism
• Blackness
• Black theology

Notes

James H. Cone, Black Theology and Black Power (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1997).

Michael C. Dawson, Black Visions: The Roots of Contemporary African-American Political Ideologies (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001); John T. McCartney, Black Power Ideologies: An Essay in African-American Political Thought (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1992).

Anthony Gill, “Rendering Unto Caesar? Religious Competition and Catholic Political Strategy in Latin America, 1926–1979,” American Journal of Political Science 38, no. 2 (May 1994): 403–425; H. Mark Roelofs, “Liberation Theology: The Recovery of Biblical Radicalism,” American Political Science Review 82, no. 2 (June 1988): 549–566.

Allison Calhoun-Brown, “The Image of God: Black Theology and Racial Empowerment in the African-American Community,” Review of Religious Research 40 (1999): 197–212; Eric L. McDaniel and Todd C. Shaw, “‘Whosoever Will': Black Theology, Homosexuality, and the Black Political Church,” National Political Science Review 11 (2007): 137–155; Laura A. Reese and Ronald E. Brown, “The Effects of Religious Messages on Racial Identity and System Blame Among African Americans,” Journal of Politics 57, no. 1 (February 1995): 24–43; Richard Allen, Michael Dawson, and Ronald Brown, “A Schema-based Approach to Modeling an African-American Racial Belief System,” American Political Science Review 83, no. 2 (June 1989): 421–441.

J. Deotis Roberts, A Black Political Theology (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1974); Roberts, Black Theology in Dialogue (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1987).

Albert B. Cleage Jr., The Black Messiah (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1969).

Cecil W. Cone, “From a Contemporary Perspective: A Black Theology of Liberation: An African American Interpretation of the Christian Faith, Part II,” A.M.E. Church Review 120, no. 393 (January–March 2004): 76–84; Dwight N. Hopkins, Introducing Black Theology of Liberation (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1999).

Cone, Black Theology and Black Power, 35.

Ibid., 36.

James H. Cone, A Black Theology of Liberation (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1970), 24.

Ibid., 23.

Cone, Black Theology and Black Power, 121.

James H. Cone, For My People: Black Theology and the Black Church (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1984); Cone, Black Theology and Black Power; God of the Oppressed, rev. ed. (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1997); Cone, A Black Theology of Liberation.

Cone, God of the Oppressed, 77.

Roberts, Black Theology in Dialogue.

Iain McLean, The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997).

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship (New York: Touchstone, 1959); Reinhold Niebuhr, Moral Man and Immoral Society: A Study in Ethics and Politics (New York: Scribner's, 1932).

Joel D. Aberbach and Jack L. Walker, “The Meanings of Black Power: A Comparison of White and Black Interpretations of a Political Slogan,” American Political Science Review 64, no. 2 (June 1970): 367–388.

Albert B. Cleage Jr., Black Christian Nationalism: New Directions for the Black Church (New York: Morrow Quill, 1972).

Fredrick C. Harris, “Something Within: Religion as a Mobilizer of African-American Political Activism,” Journal of Politics 56, no. 1 (February 1994): 42–68.

Mary Pattillo-McCoy, “Church Culture as a Strategy of Action in the Black Community,” American Sociological Review 63, no. 6 (December 1998): 767–784.

Gary Marx, Protest and Prejudice (New York: Harper & Row, 1967).

Makungu M. Akinyela, “Battling the Serpent: Nat Turner, Africanized Christianity, and a Black Ethos,” Journal of Black Studies 33, no. 3 (January 2003): 255–280; Jeffrey O. G. Ogbar, “Prophet Nat and God's Children of Darkness: Black Religious Nationalism,” Journal of Religious Thought 53–54, nos. 1–2 (1997): 51–71.

David Walker, David Walker's Appeal, Third and Final Edition (Baltimore: Black Classic Press, 1993).

Edward J. Blum, “‘There Won't Be Any Rich People In Heaven': The Black Christ, White Hypocrisy, and the Gospel According to W. E. B. DuBois,” Journal of African American History 90, no. 4 (Fall 2005): 368–386.

Ogbar, “Prophet Nat and God's Children of Darkness.”

Taylor Branch, Parting the Waters: American in the King Years, 1954–63 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1988); Aldon D. Morris, The Origins of the Civil Rights Movement (New York: Free Press, 1984).

E. Franklin Frazier and C. Eric Lincoln, The Negro Church in America/The Black Church Since Frazier (New York: Schocken Books, 1974).

Marimba Ani, Yurugu: An African-Centered Critique of European Cultural Thought and Behavior (Trenton, N.J.: Africa World Press, 1994); James H. Cone, Risks of Faith: The Emergence of a Black Theology of Liberation, 1968–1998 (Boston: Beacon Press, 1999); Cone, For My People.

Scot Brown, Fighting for US: Maulana Karenga, the US Organization, and Black Cultural Nationalism (New York: New York University Press, 2003); M. Ron Karenga, “Kawaida and Its Critics: A Sociohistorical Analysis,” Journal of Black Studies 8, no. 2 (December 1977): 125–148; C. Eric Lincoln, The Black Muslims in America (Boston: Beacon Press, 1961).

Dean E. Robinson, Black Nationalism in American Politics and Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001).

Cone, For My People, 5–53.

Ibid.

Jerry K. Frye, “The ‘Black Manifesto’ and the Tactic of Objectification,” Journal of Black Studies 5, no. 1 (September 1974): 65–76.

Cone, A Black Theology of Liberation, 28.

Ibid.; Cone, Black Theology and Black Power; Cone, God of the Oppressed.

Cleage, The Black Messiah; Cleage, Black Christian Nationalism.

Cone, A Black Theology of Liberation, 218–219.

Cone, Black Theology and Black Power, 18.

Cone, A Black Theology of Liberation.

Cone, God of the Oppressed, x.

James H. Cone, The Spirituals and the Blues: An Interpretation (New York: Seabury Press, 1972).

Cone, God of the Oppressed, 7.

Sterling Stuckey, Slave Culture: Nationalist Theory and the Foundations of Black America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987).

Sterling Stuckey, Risks of Faith: The Emergence of a Black Theology of Liberation, 1968–1998 (Boston: Beacon Press, 1999).

Molefi Kete Asante, Afrocentricity, rev. ed. (Trenton, N.J.: Africa World Press, 1988); Cecil Conteen Gray, Afrocentric Thought Through Praxis: An Intellectual History (Trenton, N.J.: Africa World Press, 2001).

Cone, Black Theology and Black Power.

Ibid., 23–24.

Michael C. Dawson, Black Visions: The Roots of Contemporary African-American Political Ideologies (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001).

Cone, God of the Oppressed, 191.

Cone, A Black Theology of Liberation, 33.

Ibid., 179–180.

Ibid.; Cone, For My People.

James H. Cone, Risks of Faith: The Emergence of a Black Theology of Liberation, 1968–1998 (Boston: Beacon Press, 1999), 28–39.

Graham Huggan, “The Postcolonial Exotic,” Transition 64 (1994): 22–29.

Victor Anderson, Beyond Ontological Blackness: An Essay on African American Religious and Cultural Criticism (New York: Continuum, 1995).

Cone, A Black Theology of Liberation.

Howard Thurman, Jesus and the Disinherited (New York: Abingdon-Cokesbury Press, 1949).

David Howarth and Yannis Stavrakakis, “Introducing Discourse Theory and Political Analysis,” in Discourse Theory and Political Analysis: Identities, Hegemonies, and Social Change, ed. David Howarth, Aletta J. Norval, and Yannis Stavrakakis, 1–23 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2001).

Cone, A Black Theology of Liberation, 28.

Ibid., 29.

Ibid., 32.

Cone, God of the Oppressed, 222.

Ibid., 221.

Ibid.

Ibid.

Ibid.

Ibid.

Martin Luther King Jr., Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community? (Boston: Beacon Press, 1968).

K. Anthony Appiah, Color Conscious: The Political Morality of Race (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1996).

John T. McCartney, Black Power Ideologies: An Essay in African-American Political Thought (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1992); Dean E. Robinson, Black Nationalism in American Politics and Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001).

Jessica Harris, “Revolutionary Black Nationalism: The Black Panther Party,” Journal of Negro History 86, no. 3 (Summer 2001): 409–421.

Jeffrey O. G. Ogbar, Black Power: Radical Politics and African American Identity (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004).

Cone, Black Theology and Black Power, 151.

Cone, A Black Theology of Liberation, 26.

Victor Anderson, Beyond Ontological Blackness: An Essay on African American Religious and Cultural Criticism (New York: Continuum, 1995).

James H. Cone, Martin & Malcolm & America: A Dream or a Nightmare (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1991); Cone, Risks of Faith.