Editor’s Note: James Cone may not be known to many readers of Christian Ethics Today, but he should be. I first encountered his writings about the time I discovered Maryknoll and Orbis Press, and writers like Gustavo Gutiérrez and Juan Luis Segundo. The liberation theology body of literature has had a tremendous influence in my life and work. James Cone recently passed away; the following excerpts from the enormous number of tributes to his Christian witness perhaps will spur a new interest in his writings beginning with his 1969 book, A Black Theology of Liberation and culminating his 2011 book The Cross and the Lynching Tree.
Tributes to James Cone
James Cone, the Cross, and the Lynching Memorial
By Jemar Tisby
On April 26 America received its first-ever memorial dedicated to the more than 4,000 victims of lynching in this country. Two days later, James Cone, the acclaimed author of “The Cross and the Lynching Tree,” died.
…The memorial reminds visitors that lynching victims are real people, not simply anonymous figures from history. They have heart-wrenching stories such as Luther Holbert who was forced to watch as a white mob burned his wife, Mary, alive before they killed him. Others lynched Elizabeth Lawrence for telling white children not to throw rocks at black children. Lynchers killed Mary Turner, eight months pregnant, for protesting the lynching of her own husband, Hazel Turner. The voyeuristic and violent deaths of these individuals plus thousands more represent the heinous apotheosis of American racism.
…Christianity as practiced by white racists and segregationists merely compromised with the status quo. But James Cone refused to assign any authenticity to a religion that claimed to be Christian but did not address the liberation of black people from white supremacy. Cone wrote The Cross and the Lynching Tree as a theological response to the extrajudicial murders of black people due to racism.
…[I]n 2011, Cone wrote The Cross and the Lynching Tree, and…he traces the parallels between Christ’s crucifixion and the persecution of black people in America. For Cone, the lynching tree is a visual and historic representation of white racist tyranny. Juxtaposed with the cross of Jesus Christ, lynching becomes a kind of crucifixion for black people.
Just as the religious and political leaders of his day lifted Jesus up on a cross to remove his threat to an oppressive hegemony, white supremacists lifted up black people in brutal lynchings designed to preserve the racial hierarchy.
“Both Jesus and blacks were ‘strange fruit’,” Cone explains. “Theologically speaking, Jesus was the ‘first lynchee,’ who foreshadowed all the lynched black bodies on American soil.”
“The cross helped me to deal with the brutal legacy of the lynching tree, and the lynching tree helped me to understand the tragic meaning of the cross,” Cone writes.
Yet Jesus did not remain on the cross. The resurrection represents hope out of despair and life out of death. “It is the cross that points in the direction of hope, the confidence that there is a dimension to life beyond the reach of the oppressor,” Cone writes. It is to the cross — as the triumph of liberty over lynching — that black people must cling in order to make sense of their plight in America.
…James Cone has laid down his cross to take up his eternal rest. The lynching memorial in Montgomery challenges a new generation to take up the cross of justice today and continue with the struggle for black liberation.
Full text found in Religion News Service, | April 30, 2018. Jemar Tisby is the president of The Witness: A Black Christian Collective. He is a Ph.D. student in history at the University of Mississippi. His book, The Color of Compromise: The Truth about the American Church’s Complicity in Racism is forthcoming from Zondervan. Follow him on Twitter: @JemarTisby.
James Cone and Becoming Black With God
By Amy Butler
“…In his lovely, gentle way, he was professionally pissed off, never fully comprehending how anyone could ever imagine a God who was not an advocate for the oppressed. Always. He is famous for writing, “We must become black with God,” which was not so much a comment on phenotypes and skin color but rather an unyielding declaration of the truth that God is always, always on the side of the oppressed. After this famous line, Cone goes on to say, “To receive God’s revelation is to become black with God by joining God in the work of liberation.”
…James Cone faithfully and rigorously maintained the voice of the oppressed. And he would always smile, and talk to my kids, and laugh at my jokes. In short, he was a living embodiment of the gospel — the radical, unrelenting, justice-seeking gospel….”
Amy Butler is pastor of Riverside Church in New York City. This was published by Baptist News Global, May 1, 2018.
“Writing is the way I fight”: Remembering James H. Cone
By Robert Ellsberg
“I worked with James Cone for over 30 years. For at least 20 of those years, I am not sure that he really trusted me.
My predecessor as editor-in-chief at Orbis Books made what turned out to be an incredibly wise investment in reprinting several of James’s early books…
…There came a low point in our relationship when he told me that I was “the most difficult white man” he had ever worked with. If I recall that unhappy history, it is because it is important for understanding how much it meant to me, over time, to earn his trust and respect.
After a lull of a couple of years, we warily resumed our regular meetings. He was working on a new book, though he was coy about whether he would offer it to Orbis. “We’ll see about that,” was all he would say. Finally, he showed me the first draft of “Strange Fruit,” which became The Cross and the Lynching Tree.
…The topic of our conversations over a period of decades was largely focused on his educating me about where he came from, what was important to him, what were the sources and influences and experiences that had shaped him and his theology. It was a running seminar on the general theme of “the making of a black theologian.”
I learned about the influence of his parents and the confidence and courage they had instilled in him: “I always knew that I was loved.” The influence of teachers who had encouraged him and recognized his talents… The skeptics… The mentors…The impact of Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X…James Baldwin…the birth of black theology, an irresistible force that could not be contained, forged out of anger, sorrow and a pain too deep for words…the impact of his engagement with liberation theologians from around the world. The ways his theology had continued to evolve in response to criticism and the signs of the times…tempered by concern lest this become just another academic pursuit, detached from the real-life experience and ongoing struggles of people in the streets.
…Before I started editing the manuscript that became The Cross and the Lynching Tree, we met many times for the purpose of his explaining to me “why I had to write this book.” He talked of Bearden, Ark., and the community and family that had nurtured him in the midst of a terrible time, his sense of accountability to his roots, to be a voice for those, like his parents, who had no voice. It was important for him to tell me that this was not just an academic project. I assured him that I got it.
It was also important for him to make sure I understood that his theology did not just come out of sorrow and anger. It also came out of love and celebration of the spirit of resistance and black pride, the music, the funk and soul of black religion and culture, the faith that asserted the sacredness of black lives in a culture that denied it, the faith that would not let violence and hatred have the last word. And it was important that I understood that his theology was heir to a long tradition of enslaved and oppressed black people who recognized the life-affirming and liberation-affirming message of the cross, even in the face of white “Christians” who ignored and desecrated its meaning.
…James did not easily let people into his personal life. Our meetings continued to be marked by certain professional boundaries: usually a meeting in his apartment to discuss business, followed by a walk to his favorite restaurant for informal conversation over lunch, which often concluded with a piece of his favorite coconut cake.
…James was incredibly moved by the reception to The Cross and the Lynching Tree. In many talks he would say that this was his favorite among all his books—truly the culmination of his career. Through it, he found a new audience in the era of Black Lives Matter…But he had more to say.
A couple of years ago we began talking about what he felt—even then—would be his last book. He delivered it to me early this year. It was obvious from his appearance that something was the matter. “Are you O.K.?” I asked. “Well, I have cancer,” he said matter-of-factly. At that time, it was unclear just how serious this would be. But it added a sense of urgency—and sacredness—to this project. I commenced work and sent him edited chapters as fast as I could. “I am a very happy man,” he wrote after looking at one of these chapters. “I trust you with my book.”
Through the privilege of working with this great soul, I had been enabled, as a white man, to do more than anything else I could imagine to fight white supremacy.
Said I Wasn’t Gonna Tell Nobody will be published this fall…The last piece he sent me was the conclusion. It was obviously written with his last ounce of blood, sweat and tears. I tried to read it aloud but couldn’t get through it for my own tears. He had said: “This is the last thing I will write.” He had left it all on the page. There was nothing left to say.
He wrote: “I write because writing is the way I fight. Teaching is the way I resist, doing what I can to subvert white supremacy.”
…God bless you, James: author, teacher, wrestling partner, spiritual godfather, beloved friend…As we parted for the last time, he said, “I’ve enjoyed our conversations, Robert.”
Robert Ellsberg is the editor in chief and publisher of Orbis Books. He is the author of Blessed Among Us: Day by Day with Saintly Witnesses (Liturgical Press). The full essay can be found at American Magazine, April 30, 2018.
