The firestorm of controversy around the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, senior pastor of Barack Obama’s church in Chicago, continues unabated. This morning, James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal, in his “Best of the Web” column, picks up an item from an Asia Times columnist who goes by the nom de cyber of “Spengler.” It is a quote from James Cone, professor at Union Theological Seminary in New York and probably the world’s foremost proponent of “black theology.” Come has been read on the subject by thousands of ministerial students for at least a couple of decades now, and his popularity in mainline seminaries makes this quote all the more shocking:
Black theology refuses to accept a God who is not identified totally with the goals of the black community. If God is not for us and against white people, then he is a murderer, and we had better kill him. The task of black theology is to kill Gods who do not belong to the black community … Black theology will accept only the love of God which participates in the destruction of the white enemy. What we need is the divine love as expressed in Black Power, which is the power of black people to destroy their oppressors here and now by any means at their disposal. Unless God is participating in this holy activity, we must reject his love.
A footnote on the Asia Times piece indicates that this comes from a William R. Jones essay entitled “Divine Racism: The Unacknowledged Threshold Issue for Black Theology,” found in African-American Religious Thought: An Anthology, edited by Cornel West and Eddie Glaube (Westminster John Knox Press). You can find this book for yourself at Google Books, though the essay is not present in its entirety, and unfortunately the footnote that would provide a source for Cone’s quote isn’t present.
Taken on its own, this quote is a testimony to both racism and heresy. The racism is in the claim that God, to be for black people, must stand against white people and help blacks to destroy their white enemies. The heresy is in the rejection of the New Testament’s declaration that in Christ, the walls between people have collapsed, and that now there is “neither Jew nor Greek,” which is to say that race and ethnicity no longer separate humanity into hostile camps, because Christ has overcome those hostilities in His triumph over sin and all that opposes God.
But given Cone’s stature as a theologian, it’s important to avoid using isolated quotes. I’d like to ask if any Reformed Pastor readers have this book, and can provide a citation for this quote; if so, e-mail me or put it in a comment. Even better, if you can provide this original article or book from which it came, that would be very helpful. I’d like to know whether James Cone is the racist and heretic that he seems to be in this quote, or if this was wrenched out of context by Jones and then passed along in the popular press. Getting a better picture of Cone may help in getting a better picture of Wright, and that in turn may tell us a lot about a man who might be the next president of the United States.
UPDATE: No word yet on the source for Spengler’s quote. But this came in via the comments:
For white people, God’s reconciliation in Jesus Christ means that God has made black people a beautiful people; and if they are going to be in relationship with God, they must enter by means of their black brothers, who are a manifestation of God’s presence on earth. The assumption that one can know God without knowing blackness is the basic heresy of the white churches. They want God without blackness, Christ without obedience, love without death. What they fail to realize is that in Amereica, God’s revelation on earth has always been black, red, or some other shocking shade, but never white. Whiteness, as revealed in the history of America, is the expression of what is wrong with man. It is a symbol of man’s depravity. God cannot be white even though white churches have portrayed him as white. When we look at what whiteness has done to the minds of men in this country, we can see clearly what the New Testament meant when it spoke of the principalities and powers. To speak of Satan and his powers becomes not just a way of speaking but a fact of reality. When we can see a people who are controlled by an ideology of whiteness, then we know what reconciliation must mean. The coming of Christ means a denial of what we thought we were. It means destroying the white devil in us. Reconciliation to God means that white people are prepared to deny themselves (whiteness), take up the cross (blackness) and follow Christ (black ghetto).
That’s from James Cone (Black Theology and Black Power) and is quoted in The Decline of African American Theology: From Biblical Faith to Cultural Captivity by Thabiti M. Anyabwile (Orbis), page 150. Once again, racism and heresy combined.
The Reformed Pastor 
March 18, 2008 at 12:53 pm
I have to read both West and Cone for my Church and Society class in seminary.
March 18, 2008 at 2:14 pm
David,
I thought I had one of Cone’s books but I don’t I will have to order. Anyway there are a lot of Cone quotes in a very good book I am reading, by a Black Pastor in the Cayman Islands. He is Reformed. Here is one very long quote of Cone’s.
“For white people, God’s reconciliation in Jesus Christ means that God has made black people a beautiful people; and if they are going to be in relationship with God, they must enter by means of their black brothers, who are a manifestation of God’s presence on earth. The assumption that one can know God without knowing blackness is the basic heresy of the white churches. They want God without blackness, Christ without obedience, love without death. What they fail to realize is that in Amereica, God’s revelation on earth has always been black, red, or some other shocking shade, but never white. Whiteness, as revealed in the history of America, is the expression of what is wrong with man. It is a symbol of man’s depravity. God cannot be white even though white churches have portrayed him as white. When we look at what whiteness has done to the minds of men in this country, we can see clearly what the New Testament meant when it spoke of the principalities and powers. To speak of Satan and his powers becomes not just a way of speaking but a fact of reality. When we can see a people who are controlled by an ideology of whiteness, then we know what reconciliation must mean. The coming of Christ means a denial of what we thought we were. It means destroying the white devil in us. Reconciliation to God means that white people are prepared to deny themselves (whiteness), take up the cross (blackness) and follow Christ (black ghetto).”
That is from Cone, Black Theology and Black Power , Orbis, p. 150–found in The Decline of African American Theology: From Biblical Faith to Cultural Captivity.
I fear we may be experiencing the rise of Black fascism
March 18, 2008 at 2:42 pm
This is one of the real conundrums of liberal theology. They are the ones who seem to talk most often about transcending divisions and working for unity as if it’s the highest goal of humanity and religion. And yet, they are also the ones who still seem obsessed with seeing everything atomistically, and carving people (and perspectives) up by race, gender, economic condition, political stripe, etc.
Unity through balkanization is a non-sequitir. But it just doesn’t seem like they’ve figured this out.
March 18, 2008 at 9:03 pm
This fellow is actually taken seriously? Studied in real seminaries?
March 18, 2008 at 9:13 pm
Just about every mainline seminary in the country, and probably in Canada, too.
March 19, 2008 at 6:57 am
You know, everybody I know who has been through the Anglican seminary in Ottawa says that it is a place that kills faith. And people wonder why parishes are leaving for ANiC (or in your case, the EPC). Things are getting, um, interesting in that regard up here. We are still in our building, anyway…
March 19, 2008 at 6:57 am
Oh, that virtual bubblewrap thing? Some computer programmer had Way Too Much Time On His Hands…. (it’s fun, though).
March 19, 2008 at 7:58 am
What you say Kate is very true. I have seen several peoples faith’s destroyed by Liberal theology here at seminary.
March 19, 2008 at 9:49 am
Last night, because I am writing a paper on black theology, I looked up fascism. It seems that fascism makes the state everything while on the other hand Nazism was more toward pushing culture , religion and race. Hmmm if I say that more wolves will come out to howl.
March 20, 2008 at 12:00 pm
It seems to me that liberation theology serves to excuse bad behavior on the part of politically-approved groups, such as the Palestinian Arabs, African-Americans, etc. So if an African-American preacher shrieks in rage against white Americans, that is excused at least to an extent because he belongs to the group defined as oppressed. And the same goes in even more extreme measure for Palestinian Arabs. Few people will say they are right when they shoot up seminaries or commit other acts of suicidal violence, but since they are the oppressed people, the REAL issue is Israel, the powerful and thus oppressive party.
Thus. liberation theology sanctifies violence.
March 22, 2008 at 10:11 pm
Cone wrote during the civil rights era when black people were still struggling for equal rights and opportunity in this country. The signs that separated where black people could go from where white people could go (signs that were placed by white people) where just getting removed from public places. This was a very racist context which no one who has contibuted here thus far seems to appreciate. It is not only ignorant but basically stupid not to appreciate this context when evaluating either Cone or Wright. Failure to appreciate this context just go to show the kind of education that children receives from schools today. To read Cone’s book as if it were written today is simply stupid. This is not a conservative or a liberal issue. Cone himself pointed out that the first place to begin when reading a book is the date of publication.
April 2, 2008 at 1:13 pm
Dear dvd, Sooo let me understand you. Racism camoflaged in Theology was ok in the 60’s but now it’s not ok? Rev. Cone is a racist. Rev. Cone actually believes that God is exclusively black. Not one single (credible) white person believes that God is white. The pictures of Jesus Rev. Cones refers to are poor examples of a cultural ideom. I have been to the Caribbean and seen pictures of the “black” Jesus. God the Father is Raceless. He is all races and no races. For the Rev. Cone to even imply for the sake of illustration that God is black and that He hates whites, can only be understood one way. Rev. Cone is a racist. White Christians need be very afraid. If God hates whites, will the next step will be a black Jihad against whites in America?
May 4, 2008 at 1:50 am
Wow, James Cone is a black fascist, and I suppose racial segregation and racial murder at the level of racial violence never happened either, not to mention systematic structural and institutional violence against people because of the color of their skin. How stupid this that? More stupid because many of the people involved were related. Time folks to understand history, and the strange fact it just will not go away. Time to end violence in all its forms.
May 4, 2008 at 1:53 am
I must have got carried away in a fit of righteousness perhaps. Should have written: How stupid is that?
May 28, 2008 at 2:53 pm
Goodness, it is people like James Cone that keep me in church. Ignorant and irresponsible statements like, “James Cone is a fascist” are what makes me want to runaway. Go read James Cone, find out what he actually means when he says that “Jesus is black.” But in order to fully understand what he means by that you will also have to do some serious study on the construction of race and racism.
June 29, 2008 at 11:32 pm
With all due respect to the apologists for James Cone ,I am an educated African-American who feels that Cone is a racist and a modern day heretic.
June 30, 2008 at 9:14 am
Thanks, Carol, for your perspective. I would hope that Christians of whatever race would be able to see what you see so clearly. It’s sad that such is not the case.
August 26, 2009 at 10:46 am
I think you fail to follow the meaning
The last piece and the First piece are an Inclusive statement and taken out of order it seems. Taken that GOD is indeed ALL things all hues all colors and Ideals and not the purity professed by whiteness. We give GOD all attributes of human nature when it suits us, so lets assume that GOD has indeed Suffered though the eyes of his Children under slavery, under Oppression of any kind. The Assertion that White churches seem to have turned a blind eye to the Centuries of slavery , and the continued degradation of any of HIS children by another , is manifest of THAT Church’s Interpretation of GOD. And that is what is being REJECTED a single CANON of GOD as BLUE-EYED and FAIR skinned (in a land of Brown / Black Skin and Dark colored eyes) what is rejected is that assumption that because of this similarity, is what allows those who follow these bastardized and All to Human re writings of the teachings of Jesus Christ, to act with such Indifference to his fellow man, what he calls “white” GOD. And that GOD is all shades and colors of the oppressed and down Trodden , From the Jews in Egypt , to the Hindu Under British Colonization, the Blacks under slavery , and so many other examples of “MANIFEST Destiny” That is what should be Rejected and that a God that identifies with the Blackness of his children (not the literal blackness) but the oppressed history and Feelings of shame and less worth , is the only god that can see them .
At least that is what I get from it.
August 26, 2009 at 10:53 am
Now this does not mean that Those of means, and of power are exempt from GOD love, just that they should be the most receptive of the teaching that GOD is neither “JEW, Nor ROman nor Greek ” that the wealth you possess maybe made by your own hands and enterprise but do not forget what made your hands, and the hands of your patrons.
October 19, 2016 at 6:59 pm
but where is Scripture in what everyone is saying here? can anyone back up a word that is being stated here? Does scripture not remind us, “Beloved, do not believe every Spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world……” all of 1 John 4
They are from the world; therefore they speak as from the world…..