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"I didn't discard European theology but black theology began with deconstruction—that is, dismantling the oppressive, white theologies I was taught.... theologies that not only ignored black people but blinded me to the rich treasure in the black religious tradition."
—James Cone
—James Cone
"I had to deconstruct white theologies to destroy their effects on my mind so that I would be opened to listen to the black voices from slavery, emerging from the ashes of the black holocaust. I had to look back and recover the black heritage that gave birth to me."
—James Cone
—James Cone
"Although European thinkers helped me to get started in theology, the idea of liberation and freedom did not come from them. Already free, they did not need to advocate historical liberation. In their theologies, freedom was an abstract and philosophical principle."
—James Cone
—James Cone
"I had to bring them down to earth, to the ghetto, and compel their work to serve the black struggle for justice. Their theologies were not written for the African people Europe colonized; they wrote for the colonizers."
—James Cone
—James Cone
"The appearance of black theology on the American scene then is due primarily to the failure of white religionists to relate the gospel of Jesus to the pain of being black in a white racist society. It arises from the need of blacks to liberate themselves.”
—James Cone
—James Cone
"Black theology is Christian theology because it centers on Jesus Christ. Unlike white theology, which tends to make the Jesus-event an abstract, unembodied idea, black theology believes that the black community itself is precisely where Jesus Christ is at work."
—James Cone
—James Cone
"Black nationalists urged me to denounce Christianity as the white man's religion. I stood my ground and responded that Jesus was not white but a dark-skinned Hebrew who died fighting for the freedom for his people. We could learn a lot from Jesus."
—James Cone
—James Cone
"The black church, despite its failures, gives black people a sense of worth. They know they are somebody because God loves them and Jesus died for them. No matter what white people do to them, they cannot take their worth away."
—James Cone
—James Cone
“The gospel of Jesus is not a rational concept to be explained..but a story about God’s presence in Jesus’ solidarity with the oppressed, which led to his death on the cross. What is redemptive is the faith that God snatches victory out of defeat.”
—James Cone
—James Cone
“Let us hope, through God's grace and our struggle together, that we will be able to overcome our prejudices and the hate that separates us, and thereby empower people...to become the one people God created us to be.”
—James Cone
Let us remember and honor the work of James Cone.
—James Cone
Let us remember and honor the work of James Cone.
