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It is unthinkable that the oppressors could identify with oppressed existence and thus say something relevant about God's liberation of the oppressed. In order to be Christian theology, white theology must cease being white theology and become black theology by denying whiteness as an acceptable form of human existence and affirming blackness as God's intention for humanity. (James H. Cone, A Black Theology of Liberation. Twentieth Anniversary Edition. Orbis: 2006, p. 9.) Julie Clawson, on her blog One Hand Clapping, has written eloquently on this difficult truth. She writes in response to those of us who argue that Christians today owe no apologies for injustices committed by Christians yesterday. Many of us attempt to evade culpability for our predecessor's sins by denying the authenticity of their religion, or by appealing to some principle of individual responsibility. But Julie Clawson incisively displays the ignorance underwriting the belief that we do not share in the guilt of the Crusaders. Beyond the fact that just the act of denying responsibility for Christianity’s evils appears as self-centered toxic Christianity to many, most Christians today are living the benefits of Christendom - benefits that came at the expense of others. American Christians are living with the wealth and resources of “Christian” operations like Manifest Destiny and attempts to “Christianize and civilize” other nations (mostly as an excuse to rape their land of it’s resources). The denominations and doctrines we bicker about exist because they were the ones willing to slaughter and torture dissenting viewpoints. Ministries and churches are built (and get rich) on messages of hatred - give money to help Israel kill those Palestinians, or to make sure our students don’t know gay people exist, or to support the IRA, or even fund corrupt dictators and conflict diamond schemes in Africa. It’s hard to be an American Christian and not be connected to some group involved in such things. So even if you have never Bible-bashed, manipulated someone to say a prayer, or burned someone at the stake, most Christians are receiving the benefits of toxic Christianity. There is no out of sight out of mind excuse than can work. The connection to wrongdoing is there and if we have compassion at all for those we have hurt, we will take responsibility to apologize if not make amends. Read the whole story here. Labels: James Cone, Julie Clawson, Liberation Theology, Social Justice
 
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18 Comments:
I think there is a solid biblical demand for identifying with "black." When Christ said to invite the poor and oppressed to our banquets instead of the rich, this principle is put in place. I say this is more than just an invitation to a meal because in the culture of that day sharing a meal was an invitation to a deeper relationship, and an identification with this person as an equal.
"the ignorance underwriting the belief that we do not share in the guilt of the Crusaders
I haven't read Julie Clawson's post yet, and perhaps I should have, but I am curious to know who the "we" in that sentence is, and why?
At first glance that looks like the most pernicious variety of racism I have ever seen, but I suppose I'd better go and read Julie's post to make sure.
Good idea.
I realize it is difficult for those who have not read in its context the passage from James Cone I (not Julie Clawson) cited, but I'd like to take the opportunity opened up by Steve Hayes to ask you all what you make of what Cone is saying.
Is he being hyperbolic or literal? Is he speaking contextually or universally? If contextually, what is he saying, and how does it relate (or does it not?) to what Julie Clawson has said? Furthermore, how does it relate to us? And, finally, as Steve has rightly asked, who is the "we" to which this relates in the first place?
James Cone has often been accused of disseminating violence. Those who read him sympathetically are adamant that he does nothing of the kind. I intentionally selected this quotation because it stands right there on that line. Is this gospel or "pernicious racism"?
Taken at face value, I would say that it is just as pernicious racism as white theology. Two wrongs don't make a right. I've never read James Cone, but I don't believe in any theology that promotes one race over another. There is no Jew or Greek ... we are all one. Far easier said than done, yes, but still part of our heritage and part of the dream set forth for Peter.
The Crusades, the Inquisition, slavery in the Western hemisphere, racism, patriarchalism (among many others) are all ugly blots on the history of Christendom that must be atoned for and accounted for. Replacing one form of violence for another does not help anyone. It does no good for the oppressed or the oppressors, it merely continues the evil.
Reading just Cone's quote above, it seems as if he is begging the question. What is his definition of oppression? It appears (on the surface) to be far too constricting. Are white people not oppressed in their own (often times more spiritually debilitating) different ways? Is oppression only owned by North American blacks (again, I am arguing partly from ignorance since I'm not familiar with the scope of his argument)? Is it equitable to make all of the problems of oppression, injustice, and poverty in this world the white man's burden? Is it intellectually honest to reduce these issues down to mere race? Further, does it build up the body of Christ to even talk about white vs. black theology? I agree with the fact that we must own the mistakes and oppressions of the past even if we were not personally responsible. That is part of the burden of being a part of a family. But should our goal be to sow discord and bring those mighty evil oppressors down and in the process feel perpetually miserable about our skin (as if our own misery and guilt is somehow an acceptable penance)? Or should our goal be to humble ourselves and lift others up? I see little that is redemptive in his words.
By the way, the comment from Clausen just sounds absurd to me: Ministries and churches are built (and get rich) on messages of hatred - give money to help Israel kill those Palestinians, or to make sure our students don’t know gay people exist, or to support the IRA, or even fund corrupt dictators and conflict diamond schemes in Africa.
What church is she going to? Or is she just constructing some church made of straw that she can feel comfortable beating up on? Because I'm not really sure the last time we had a conflict diamond capital campaign at my church.
Without having read Cone I have a hard time offering a full evaluation of anything he's said, but I'll throw a few thoughts out there anyway. I think this kind of attitude is a mistake. I think that Jesus' call to love one's enemies (etc) demands a more nuanced and deeper response to oppression and violence. I agree in principle to some degree of corporate culpability, but while that should change our posture toward the descendants of those whom our ancestors oppressed, it doesn't change the truth of Christian theology.
I don't really like the way I ended that statement, so let me come from another angle. If all he meant by exchanging white theology for black theology was exchanging theology from the seats of cultural power to theology from the seats of cultural marginalization, then I'd be fine with that. It would be a colorful way of calling for a rejection of Christendom or Constantianism. But I'm not sure that's all he means. I cannot accept as "Christian" (leaving aside for the moment what all that descriptor might entail, which I recognize is in some way the the real crux of this whole debate) the idea that we must deny "whiteness as an acceptable form of human existence and [affirm] blackness as God's intention for humanity." Then again, if he means by "whiteness" and "blackness" something more like Constantinian and non-Constantinian (or whatever tags you want to use that carry this idea) then perhaps I would be more okay with it.
So it boils down to your question about whether he's speaking hyperbolically or literally, as well as in what precise (or imprecise) ways he's employing the metaphors of blackness and whiteness. Because I don't know the answers to these question, I don't know what to say by way of evaluation. I do think, from this perspective of not-knowing, that his statement, when taken out of context, has the potential to do more harm than good, because it sounds more like seeking to eliminate one's enemies than actually loving them. And that is antithetical to the way of life and theology called forth by the gospel of Jesus.
As for the comments by Julie, I have mixed feelings. Part of me feels like Chad, wanting to ask if she's serious (or just a little pissed off and speaking hyperbolically). At the very least she's grossly oversimplifying issues, for instance when she boils down doctrinal controversies to who was willing to torture whom. On the other hand, she's making one specific point, and I won't begrudge her that. But what happens when I admit that I have benefited at the expense of others, albeit indirectly? What am I supposed to do now? I apologize, and I'd like to make amends wherever by doing so I won't be enabling further dehumanization. Are we being called to a corporate posture of apology? Are we being asked to simply be ready to make amends in one-to-one interactions? To put it simply, taking her point for what I hear her to be saying (which, again, I think is a bit one-sided), what actual differences does or should it make in my life and the life of my church?
Hope something in there make sense...
There is a lot of misunderstanding about the whole issue. This is especially acute when taken out of its cultural and historic context.
It is not about race. "black" and "white" are replacements for "Israel" and "Egypt" or "Babylon." The black culture adopted the language of exile early on, and we see this a lot when they speak of "Egypt" or when Bob Marley sings of "Babylon."
If we were Babylonian or Egyptian would be just as offended of this language as when we're white? This is why it's hard for us to swallow, because we are Egypt and we don't want to face the reality of the situation.
The blacks look at their being stole away from Africa and brought to America as their exile. You can see where the corollaries are here plainly. So the "God of Israel" is the "God of black" and the godless Babylon is "godless white." This is where Cone then says the God of the oppressors is not the God of the oppressed, and the god of the oppressors must be killed.
This is inflammatory, sure. It's about as inflammatory as when evangelicals say the God of Ismail is not the God of Issac.
Some might say the oppression of the 19th Century is not the same as the 21st Century, but I think we're just blind to this reality.
I recommend this article: http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2008/04/symbolic-racism-and-the-us-of-kkk-a/
Cone is not a racist. He was writing in the aftermath of MLK, Jr.'s assassination. His critique of traditional white theology )which thinks it is actually neutral and universal) is a powerful one. However, Cone, like many in the Black Power movement at the time, failed to understand 2 things: 1)Many whites were looking for an excuse to NOT deal with their racism and being able to point to the anger of the Black Power folk as "reverse hate" or similar claims gave them that excuse. On the other hand, (2) the whites who had risked family and friends, jobs, and sometimes even life and limb to be part of the Freedom Movement already thought of themselves as guilty of white privilege. When the Black Power folk (and Cone) told them to "go home, we don't want you, nothing is as useless as a white liberal, etc." they upped the guilt level. And, trapped in guilt-feelings, such whites stopped trying to reach beyond their own selfishness, etc.
The Bible is full of jeremiads--harsh critiques against injustice. Jesus and the prophets were quick to use very harsh language--as harsh as Cone's. But, there is also the language that invites to repentance, that says, "you can do better, follow me and we will create something new--the Rule of God." The Jesus Movement was a liberation movement that also fostered radical reconciliation: including between Zealots like Simon (and maybe Judas Iscariot and the "Sons of Thunder") and traitorous tax collectors like Levi/Matthew.
The African-American theologian, J. Deotis Roberts, in my view, got it better than Cone did. Cone contended, at least in his early work like Black Theology and Black Power and A Black Theology of Liberation that there could be no racial reconciliation until AFTER the liberation of oppressed racial minorities was achieved. In Liberation and Reconciliation: A Black Theology, J. Deotis Roberts contended to the contrary that both liberation and reconciliation were equally central biblical themes--and must be worked on simultaneously.
In my view, Cone stumbled and Roberts recovered.
But when I was teaching theology, especially with classes that were mostly white, I always assigned at least something by Cone. We need to learn to hear critiques--even when we don't agree with all aspects of the critique. Angry voices are difficult to hear but can teach us things. Even our enemies can teach us.
White middle class evangelicals, especially males, in the U.S. are very bad at listening for the voice of God in the voice of harsh critics. It is something that we need desperately to learn.
On the other hand, as Martin Luther King, Jr., J. Deotis Roberts, and, yes, Barack Obama have tried to articulate: necessary critiques can be heard better if one also tries to affirm what is good about the one needing the critique. Whites are not devils as the early Malcolm X thought. Men are not automatically sexist and rapists just because born with a penis. Straights, even straights who do not approve of gay marriage, are not automatically to be equated with homophobic heterosexists.
Most of us are both oppressed and oppressor. Few of us are pure. Cone has much to teach--but the tone of the early Cone was so self-righteous, so lacking in any humility, as to be very difficult for even the most sympathetic whites to hear. I understand the historical context that contributed to this tone--but that does it make it any easier to hear.
Just wanted to say thanks to the last two commenters. Your words are extremely helpful; I figured something like that was going on, but I wasn't aware of the specifics. Thanks very much.
In South Africa there has just been a row over a white journalist, David Bullard, who was fired for writing in his column that blacks yould be ifnorant savages if it weren't for white colonialism (that's an oversimplified generalisation, but it gives the gist of the objections as well as what he said).
A black commentator compared this with the whole "apologise" thing -- because both Bullard's point and the "apologise" thing are based on the same assumption -- if one is like that, then "they" are all like that. If their putative ancestors did such things, then the descendants must do those things today, or if they don't do them right now, they will "revert to type" at any moment.
This is the principle of the blood feud, which persists to some extent in Albania, though it may not be as strong as it was a century ago. If someone kills a member of my family, even accidentally, then I must kill a member of their family, even if it is an 8-year-old third cousin twice removed of the killer. Neithr civil law nor religious morality is allowed to stand in the way of the blood code, which is stronger.
AQnd this is why the idea that "we" (who are "we") should apologise for the crusades is the most pernicious racism.
I see that in my previous comment I said nothing about James Cone, which is what Thom was asking for comments on.
I see the quote from Cone as contextual, and needing to be read in context. For me it is another time, another place. But it sounds similar to some of the things said by Paolo Freire, from south America, which is yet another context.
But I think I can sympathise with Cone, and with what I think he is saying. You can't liberate the oppressed while you are an oppressor. In order to liberate the oppressed, or take part in a struggle for liberation of the oppressed, you need to stop thinking like an oppressor.
To take a different example: people something stalk of the church's ministry to the poor, and when they talk about it, they talk as if the church were on one side, and the poor on the opther. But the people who talk like that, by the very fact of talking like that, excommunicate the poor. The poor become a "them": "we" are the church, and "they" are not the church, they are "the poor".
That if why I ask who the "we" refers to.
Lone Ranger: "Tonto, looks like we're surrounded."
Tonto: "What do you mean, 'we', white man?"
I think "destroy:Ideas" and westmoreland make a good interpretations of what Cone is saying, but I haven't really read Cone, so I'm as lost as anyone else. My initial reading of Cone's excerpt was indignation. I felt like accusing him of reverse racism. I would have liked to check it out from the library, but our library (of mostly white students) doesn't have it. I do, however, think that his opening line is key to what he is saying,
"It is unthinkable that the oppressors could identify with oppressed existence and thus say something relevant about God's liberation of the oppressed."
If by this he means that is unthinkable for an oppressor to continue as an oppressor while "identifying" with oppressed then I think he is profoundly correct and that I am in trouble. For all my talk about peace and justice I live a pretty oppressing existence, though I am trying to change. So, my existence as an oppressor precludes me from really preaching the gospel. If this is what he means than here we have a profound truth. I know that some seminaries offer degrees in contextualized hermeneutics. Basically students live in 3rd world countries (for extended periods of time) while doing their Bible classes. The idea is that the experience forces them into a world more like Jesus'. Living in a situation of oppression provides a context to understand the gospel otherwise unattainable. I also think of Paul’s words in Philippians 3.7–9,
“7 Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. 8 More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through the faithfulness of Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith.”
It would be interesting to hear from an oppressed person on this particular issue, someone who had actually suffered the loss of all things. The sad thing is that since none of us are oppressed were guilty of Cone's objection. It might be similar to saying that someone who has never been persecuted has never really witnessed. Despite his helpful observation it doesn’t seem like his language is actually helpful to bring about change. On the one hand, Reconciliation between oppressor and the oppressed cannot take place, as Cone might say, by allowing the two to get along under the same conditions. The oppressor must change. On the other hand, reconciliation certainly will not take place by elevating the oppressed to the level of oppressor. Cone’s suggestion that theology cannot be white but must be black is itself oppressing and not helpful to actually bring about reconciliation or liberation.
I have a little less respect for Clawson's excerpt. I would like to know what role she plays in "Christianity" today. I read her entire post and I entirely agree with her overall sentiment. Christians should be the first to apologize for the sins of our past before God and the world. With that said, I think she completely oversteps her bounds by portraying Christianity as wholesale “toxic.” If she is actually involved and serving at a church I will try to hear her, but if she stands on the outside throwing stones condemning the ignorant little Christians then I have little respect for her.
Amen, Tyler.
After some reflection on Cone's thoughts (as limited as they are on this post), I have become more and more indignant. Frankly, the context of his statements mean very little to me. He says what he says and it is racist. There is no other way around it. Cone is a "face-taker." His statements are the typical grandstanding and all-or-nothing rhetoric that unfortunately we find in far too much theological discourse.
What a simple world it would be if we could easily label the oppressed and oppressor with labels like black and white or rich and poor.
Rags, you will see what you want to see but it's not racist at all, as explained earlier. It's your indifference to see the context and meaning behind the words that makes it racist.
I'm going to respond to everyone's thought-provoking and/or thought-precluding comments within a week. I'm still waiting for Solomon Burchfield to comment, as promised, and I have just a few more final exams to take. My comprehensive response will probably be in a new post, to which I'll link here in the comments.
Thanks for your contributions so far!
In brief response to the comment above, let me post an edited portion of an email I recently sent to Thom on this very issue...
I will concede that Cone is likely speaking using figurative language. I will also concede that this quote doesn't capture the full nuance of his argument or his historical context. However, my point is actually very simple - this quote is unhelpful to creating unity in the body of Christ and it reflects a deep-seeded animosity towards people who are a different color than him - which is racism by any definition. I'm not saying that the animosity at the time wasn't justified or that a certain amount of animosity in the present is not justified based on abuses or prejudicial treatment. It just seems to me to be sinful and unhelpful for a professed follower of Christ to make distinctions or blanket assumptions based on race (Acts 10:34-35). And this is true even if the language was intended to be metaphorical. In the quote above he connects oppression in a totalizing sort of way with whiteness. Further, he says that whiteness as an unacceptable form of existence. What world am I living in if these thoughts aren't racist? If I talked about the problem of fathers abandoning their children and referred to it in a totalizing way as the "blackness" of our society would you not rightly call me a racist? What is even more surprising is that this sort of rhetoric comes from those advocating peace, nonviolence, and reconciliation. Is it not an important part of the pacifist agenda to mend conflict and broker peace? How do such quotes accomplish that other than to produce a purposeless sense of self-justification on one side and a non-redemptive and inescapable sense of guilt on the other?
Rags, blanket statements are always made, especially in metaphor. Your argument doesn't hold weight in the historic record of metaphor and oppression in general.
Clearly not every Egyptian was holding the Hebrew in slavery, yet it's not unjustifiable to refer to oppression as "Egypt." I would continue but I have trust in your own mental capacities to extend this example to every instance of oppression throughout history.
Your father example is only valid if you said we used the metaphor of "father" as oppressor and "child" as oppressed because that would make sense, drawing it to race doesn't not connect. This is because oppression in the States and Colonies was based on race, and fatherlessness is not a racially based phenomenon.
Let's use a metaphor Jesus used: the world. He says the world hates us. Clearly not every worldly person hates us, rather it is the underlying systems, institutions and consciousness within the world that hates us. In the same way, this metaphor by Cone is used. It is the "white" systems, institutions and political consciousness that has oppressed "black" and is still unjust in its dealings with that race.
So while Jesus says to hate the world, he also calls us to the ministry of reconciliation with the world.
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