So this is dovetailing with the civil rights movement, the black power movement.
Exactly. Actually, in 1966, the National Committee of Negro Churchmen, a group of African-American clergy, published a full-page ad in the New York Times, defining and supporting the black power movement. It was a theological manifesto, articulating the Gospel message of Jesus in relationship to the black community's need for power. And that became what animated and informed Cone's first book, "Black Theology and Black Power." It's not simply about deliverance. It's also about acquiring political and socioeconomic power for African-Americans.
What are the Christian principles, the Gospel principles that they were relying on, that would seem familiar to someone who's not familiar with black liberation theology but is familiar with Christianity?
Luke 4:18 -- "Preach the Gospel to the poor, heal the brokenhearted, set the captives free, offer sight to the blind and liberate those who are oppressed" is one verse that is central to the black theology of liberation. Another one is Matthew 25:40 -- "As you have done unto the least of these, you have done it unto me."
Can you discuss the meaning of some excerpts from Cone's writing, such as when he refers to whiteness as a "a symbol of man's depravity"? Is it fair, in your view, for Cone's critics to characterize those statements as racist? If not, how would you characterize them and what do they mean?
James Cone believed that the New Testament revealed Jesus as one who identified with those suffering under oppression, the socially marginalized and the cultural outcasts. And since the socially constructed categories of race in America (i.e., whiteness and blackness) had come to culturally signify dominance (whiteness) and oppression (blackness), from a theological perspective, Cone argued that Jesus reveals himself as black in order to disrupt and dismantle white oppression.
Now it is important to remember how culturally loaded the terms "whiteness" and "blackness" are as racial categories. Martin Luther King Jr. argued in his final book, "Where Do We Go From Here?": "The job of arousing humanity within a people that have been taught for so many centuries that they are nobody is not easy. Even semantics have conspired to make that which is black seem ugly and degrading."
Cone also said that Malcolm X was "not far wrong" when he called the white man "the devil," and "if God is not for us and against white people, then he is a murderer, and we had better kill him."
When Cone employed the terms "whiteness" and "blackness" in his theological interpretation of the Gospel narratives according to the lived realities of African-Americans in the American context, he was referring to them not as a physical descriptive category but as a cultural notion and spiritual concepts, [such as] when Cone says that "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." So for Cone to say that Malcolm X was not "far from wrong when he called the white man the devil," Cone is not talking about white persons as innately evil. He is referring to the "white consciousness," of which many whites have embraced, which perpetuates white supremacy and power. For Cone, white supremacy is akin to what the New Testament refers to as "principalities and powers."
When Cone wrote that "if God is not for us and against white people, then he is a murderer, and we had better kill him," for Cone, "white people" signifies the "white consciousness" that is constructed upon black marginalization.
Now it is only fair to say that the black theology of liberation as an academic project cannot be reduced to James Cone. There are many variants and multiple trajectories of thought by an abundance of scholars that build upon, move beyond, critique and expand Cone's early writings. And, naturally, Cone's thought has even developed over the course of the past 40 years. Black theology of liberation is not static. As the condition of blacks in America has changed since 1969, so has black theology of liberation.
Would you consider Wright to be one of the more visible adherents to black liberation theology?
I consider him to be the most visible adherent.
Not just because of what has happened over the past few weeks.
The most prominent, before all this controversy started.
How prevalent is the black liberation theology in black churches? Can you find it in other denominations than Wright's United Church of Christ?
I'm not saying that the vast majority of African-American preachers have a copy of James Cone's "Black Theology and Black Power," but that doesn't mean that they don't preach, proclaim and live out on a regular basis Luke 4:18. So they may not have the academic, technical jargon for it, but that doesn't mean that the message itself doesn't resonate with their ministries. I really mean that; I say that strongly.
In the academy, in seminaries, black liberation theology is just one other strand of Christianity in America, right?
That's my point about its not being new or radical. If you contact the leading seminaries across this country, black theology of liberation is in all of their curriculums.
Because of this whole media firestorm around Wright, do you think that black liberation theology is being misunderstood as a result of the media treatment?
I would have to take one out of Jeremiah Wright, what he said on Bill Moyers' show. I don't think that it's being misunderstood, because I think it's being purposely manipulated by particular people. It's about balkanizing and browning Obama's post-racial body. He presents himself as the post-racial candidate, and this is a way to racialize him, to derail the mythology of this post-racial, post-political messianic figure. How do they do that? By presenting and packaging him in a way where he becomes the black or brown body that "mainstream America" is familiar with, yet is still largely scared of. He's aligned with the angry black man Jeremiah Wright. I don't, like Jeremiah Wright, say this is an attack on the black church. People don't care anything about that. Jeremiah Wright will go down in history somewhere next to Gennifer Flowers, Willie Horton and Donna Rice. His name will go down in infamy somewhere beside [them] as a historical marker of this presidential election.
Let's talk about some of the comments that did get spliced into the YouTube snippets. The "God damn America" comment, Rev. Wright explained it on Bill Moyers' program through the notion of God's blessings and curses. That's a common and familiar thread in conservative strands of Christianity, like when Jerry Falwell said after 9/11 that God was punishing America for secularism and homosexuality and abortion. Is that how you saw Wright's "God damn America" comment, as talking about God's blessings and curses on a country for the sins of its government, in waging war and killing innocents?
Yeah, sure.
Next page: What about Wright's statement about the U.S. government putting AIDS in the black community?