Book

A Black Theology of Liberation

James H. Cone · 1970

A foundational systematic theology arguing that Christian theology's content is the liberation of the oppressed, grounded in biblical Exodus and Jesus's ministry, with particular focus on Black liberation from American racial oppression. Cone's scholarly work challenges Western theology for neglecting the oppressed and calls all Christians to identify with the Black struggle for justice.

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Context1970research_analysis

What this book knows

God's nature is liberation itself, and Black experience in America is the primary site of authentic Christian theology.

Sex: Absent
Work: Absent
Learning: Present
Religion: Primary

self-and-identityobedience-and-authorityfaith-and-doubt

self-and-identity

It is not enough to say that God's revelation is a Christ-event; it is a black-event—black persons expressing their being in spite of three hundred and fifty years of white oppression.
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To be oppressed is to be defined, located, or set aside according to another's perspective. If blacks clearly understood the meaning of their spirituality, from their own vantage point, they would not be oppressed.
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faith-and-doubt

Liberation is not an afterthought, but the essence of divine activity. The blackness of God means that the essence of the nature of God is to be found in the concept of liberation.
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What good are golden crowns, slippers, white robes, or even eternal life, if it means that we have to turn our backs on the pain and suffering of our own children?
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obedience-and-authority

White American theology has served oppressors well, becoming a theology of white oppressors, serving as a divine sanction for criminal acts committed against black people.
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When the oppressed affirm their freedom by refusing to behave according to the masters' rules, they not only liberate themselves but also liberate oppressors from enslavement to their illusions.
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Illuminates

6 published passages · book excerpt · research analysis

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