A starting point for understanding James Cone: A primer for White readers

Some preliminary thoughts on the meaning of “White”

Important to keep in mind is that the bulk of Cone’s work was completed prior to the advent of modern concepts of the construction of race, critical race theory, or clear understandings of intersectionality. Cone, therefore, freely uses terms like “Black” and “White” with very little nuance. Also, although Cone was familiar with global context, he did not distinguish between White North Americans and Europeans and those of European ancestry in global contexts outside the West who might identify more readily with their countries of birth than their countries of ancestry. Though Cone can be excused for failing to understand nuances, leaving various terms undefined is not possible in contemporary discourse, particularly as they apply to a broader global audience. For that reason, a few words are in order regarding the use in this article of the term “White.”

What is intended by “White,” either in reference to society, the Church, or theologians, is limited to those who are both geographically located in North America and Europe and who are of European ancestry. Though the case is certainly to be made that persons of European ancestry in other parts of the world could be subject to Cone’s critique, the nuance required to distinguish such groups from Whites in the global North would be beyond the scope of what is envisioned here. It is possible to understand Africans of European ancestry, in some global sense, as lacking the privilege of Europeans and North Americans while at the same time recognizing that they themselves have been oppressors in their own contexts. ¹ Such distinctions require the use of theories of intersectionality that fall outside the scope of this article. Likewise, others are left to define, via critical race theory, the degree to which categories like “White” and “Black” can be applied to various people at various times. In the interest of reading Cone vis-à-vis Cone, the social construction of racial categories is left for others to pursue. As Cone himself states, “The vagueness of the terms ‘black’ and ‘white’ is intentional, and I think necessary.” ² Therefore “White” is applied to Cone’s original North American and European audience, with those outside these geographical boundaries given leave to address the degree to which such categories can be said to apply in their contexts.

Cone’s agenda

Some scholars have misinterpreted the directness and clarity of Cone’s agenda as evidence that his work is not theological but ideological. ³ It must be recognized that Cone presents his theological work in an ideological tone because he is committed to the proposition that the theologian’s experience in the world implicitly and explicitly governs his theology. For Cone, identifying these influences clearly from the beginning of theological discourse is a matter of intellectual integrity. ⁴ Cone’s intellectual agenda informs and directs all of his theological writing. Cone may restate, reengage, and re-envision certain aspects of his theology, but throughout his theological corpus he remains faithful to two parallel commitments. The first is his fight to end White supremacy, which includes its manifestations in White society, the White Church, and White theology. The second is his effort to create an apologetic for a uniquely Black theology. Cone works out the latter as an answer to Black Nationalism, historians of Black religion, the prevailing myth of a universal theology, and the development of an outline for a uniquely “Black” theology. Cone maintains both his fight against White supremacy and his apologetic for a Black theology, beginning with his publication in 1969 of Black Theology and Black Power and culminating in the posthumous publication of Said I Wasn’t Gonna Tell Nobody: The Making of a Black Theologian in 2018. Because of their enduring nature, both of these agenda items require further consideration.

The fight against White supremacy

To assume that Cone has nothing to say to White society is easy. He is, after all, the founder of Black theology. Cone’s critics often set up an image of Cone as a Black Nationalist who has no time or intention of addressing White society. For two reasons, this image of Cone should be dismissed. First, Black theologians who have critiqued Cone’s work see a definite attempt on Cone’s part to reach back and address White audiences. They are critical of Cone’s use of White theologians, ⁵ his use of White systematic schema and neo-orthodox methodology, ⁶ and, per Black historians of religion and Black Nationalists, his too adamant defense of Christianity as a Black religion.

Secondly, Cone himself affirms that he is attempting to address White society. In the introduction to Black Theology and Black Power, Cone states, “This is a word to the oppressor, a word to Whitey, not in hopes he will listen (after King’s death who can hope?) but in the expectation that my own experience can be clarified.” ⁷

Both the recognition on the part of Cone’s critics that he continues to speak to White audiences, and Cone’s affirmation, in much of his early work, that he is addressing White society, affirm that Cone was not doing work limited solely to the Black community, but that he had hopes of transforming White society as well. He remained skeptical, however, about having any positive effect in this regard. Regardless, Cone continued to call White society to see the detrimental effects of White supremacy on both the White supremacist and the oppressed Black community. What is critical here is to recognize that Cone did have something to say to White society and therefore cannot be ignored by White society on the grounds that he only has relevance to Black Americans.

Not only did Cone address his attack on White supremacy to White society at large, he also challenged White supremacy within the White Church. Cone identifies the White Church as the “antichrist.” ⁸ He proves his point by highlighting deficiencies within the White Church in the areas of ecclesiological, ethical, and historical praxis. Before moving to Cone’s broader argument, defining how Cone views the designation “antichrist” is important because of how consistently the concept is misunderstood. ⁹

Cone defines antichrist as any institution that “is the enemy of Christ,” and equates it loosely with the biblical concept of “the principalities and powers.” ¹⁰ Cone’s use of the term is not too distinct from its use by the early reformers such as Calvin, Luther, and the Anabaptists. ¹¹ What is of note is that it has a distinctly non-eschatological meaning for Cone.

Cone further defines what justifies one as an “enemy of Christ.” He works to equate Christ’s position as a suffering Jew as hermeneutically equivalent to the oppression of Black people. By way of this distinction, Cone is then able to identify Christ, and by extension Christ’s Church, as ontologically Black. If Christ is Black and His Church is Black, then the White Church’s racism identifies it as an “enemy of Christ.” This assertion justifies, at least within Cone’s logical framework, applying the label “antichrist” to the White Church. ¹²

Understanding Cone’s application of the term “antichrist” makes it easier to understand how he can argue that the White Church has an errant ecclesiology, ethics, and history. All three of these categories serve to further Cone’s critique of White supremacy in the White Church.

Cone defines the Church as:

the people of God, whose primary task is that of being Christ to the world by proclaiming the message of the gospel (Kerygma), by rendering services of liberation (diakonia), and by being itself a manifestation of the nature of the new society (koinonia). ¹³

In subsequent discussions, Cone identifies the way in which the White Church violates each of the functional criteria of his definition.

First, the White Church fails in its efforts to proclaim the true message of the Gospel. Cone understands the kerygma of the Church to be the preaching of Christus Victor: Christ victorious over the old evil powers that oppressed the world. Thus he sees a requirement on the part of the Church to preach “freedom” to the oppressed and to proclaim that “the old powers of white racism are writhing in final agony.” ¹⁴ Further, “Preaching in its truest sense tells the world about Christ’s victory and thus invites people to act as if God has won the battle over racism.” ¹⁵ Cone sees the failure of the White Church as resulting both from its periodic preaching that supports White supremacy and its continued silence on the question of racism. ¹⁶ Preaching, for Cone, must require that its hearers “take a side;” there can be no room for equivocation on issues of justice if the message is truly kerygmatic. ¹⁷

Second, the White Church fails in its service. Diakonia, as defined by Cone, consists in the Church “joining Christ in his work of liberation.” ¹⁸ Cone leans heavily here on his understanding of atonement. Christ as victorious over evil in His death on the cross is significant as an act of liberation for those who suffer from the evil of oppression. If Jesus focuses his work on liberation, then the Church’s necessary service must mirror Christ’s in its act of liberating the oppressed from the old evil powers. The Church’s contemporary context must assume that the central evil power at work is racism arising from White supremacy. Thus, the diakonia the Church must render to the world is service that attacks racism at its source and places the Church in solidarity with the oppressed Black community. This service is made all the more important by the fact that, though Christ’s defeat of evil is decisive, the war against evil continues to rage. ¹⁹ Cone points to the “Death of God” movement’s declaration that the White Church is irrelevant on issues of social justice, the lack of involvement in ministries directly to the poor, and the Church’s overemphasis on resolutions and talk instead of action as crucial indicators of its failure to render proper service. ²⁰

Finally, the White Church fails in its fellowship. Cone envisions koinonia as the Church projecting in its fellowship what it proclaims to do, and “what it hopes to accomplish,” in the world. For Cone, “the Church’s preaching and service are meaningful only insofar as the Church itself is a manifestation of the preached Word.” ²¹ Therefore, for a church to be the true Church, it must ensure the holiness of all its members. His definition of “holy” is “a community that has accepted Christ’s acceptance of us.” ²² By this, Cone implies a church that can accept all people, which is evident from his previous identification of the Church as “not bounded by standards of race, class, or occupation . . . Rather the Church is God’s suffering people.” ²³ For the Church to be the Church, it must contain in its fellowship the oppressed and those who have found solidarity with the oppressed. The need to maintain the holiness of this fellowship requires the church to ask, “Who in the community does not live according to the Spirit of Christ?” ²⁴ At this point, Cone identifies the failure of the White Church. In its application of church discipline, the White Church has too quickly defined unholy acts in terms of legalistic moral standards, but seldom ever defines them in terms of racism. For Cone, the continued existence of racists in White congregations means that the White Church is tainted by the unholiness of racist members and its own refusal to deal with them. ²⁵ Thus, Cone finds the White Church in violation of all three functions required for identification as a true Church.

Cone furthers his argument by asserting that the White Church is also lacking at the point of ethical and historical praxis. Ethically the White Church has “enshrined immorality” in both its defense of racism and its silence about racism. Cone places a heavy emphasis on both ethical praxis and latent racism in his assessment that the White Church has failed to exercise “moral leadership and moral example” beyond the passing of a few resolutions. The White Church also has such a long history of racism that immoral practices have become latent within its ecclesial structures. Thus, Cone concurs with and quotes Kyle Haselden: “We must ask whether our morality is itself immoral, whether our codes of righteousness are, when applied to the Negro [sic, here and below], a violation and distortion of the Christian ethic.” ²⁶

The latent nature of racism and ethical immorality within the contemporary White Church are a direct result of a pattern of White supremacy throughout the history of the White Church. Here Cone mounts his fullest assault. He points out that White churchmen wrote books in defense of slavery and that, even in abolitionist churches in the North, opposing slavery did not mean that the Church accepted Blacks as equal with Whites either socially or under the law. He also points to the fact that many of the Church’s early preachers and missionaries owned slaves. The churches during the civil rights era were little better, preferring gradualism and status quo arguments to supporting Martin Luther King, Jr. early in the fight for civil rights. Those who did join the movement did so belatedly. While many White churches eventually came around to King, they did so only after the emergence of the Black Power Movement. At the time that Cone was writing Black Theology and Black Power, the White Church continued its opposition to Black freedom in its condemnation of the violence of rioters in Detroit and Los Angeles without any sustained criticism of the violence Whites had perpetrated against Blacks during slavery, Jim Crow, the long reign of lynching laws in the South, and the abject poverty and ghetto culture that housing discrimination and city policies imposed on Blacks in the North. Cone contends that this continued pattern of support for the rule of law, calls for gradualism, or direct participation in racist acts has become so ingrained in the DNA of the White Church that it fails to recognize it for what it is: a form of anti-Christ-like behavior. ²⁷

By way of his analysis of the White Church’s deficiencies in ecclesiology, ethics, and historical practice, Cone can conclude that the White Church “is a chaplaincy to sick middle-class egos. It stands (or sits) condemned by its very whiteness.” ²⁸ Cone, therefore, has built a case that not only is society racist, but also the very essence of the contemporary White Church is racist. He does not stop there, however. Cone, as an academic theologian, takes his fight against White supremacy beyond the confines of civil law and church practice to find racism rooted at the core of White theology and its doctrinal formulations.

Cone’s first reason for believing that White theology reflects White supremacy is that White theologians remain silent in their writing on issues of race. This silence is a result of at least four realities. First, White theologians can practice their profession without having to deal with race either in their work or their lives. Second, dealing with race often stirs up uncomfortable feelings of guilt in White theologians. Third, Cone believes that many White theologians will not engage race because they are uncomfortable dealing with “Black Rage.” Finally, most White theologians are not ready for the radical “redistribution of wealth and power” that an honest theological engagement with racism would demand. ²⁹ Ultimately for Cone, the issue of silence on the question of race is the most egregious error found in White theological discourse. ³⁰ If faithful theology speaks to the Church regarding the practices of the Church in contemporary society, then White theology cannot be described as faithful theology when it is silent on the question of race. ³¹

White theology’s close identity with the structures of society is another reason that Cone offers for the embedded nature of White supremacy in White theology. ³² He cites both the correlation of religious morality with political law and order and the compartmentalization of American theology as key features for a commitment to the social status quo. In regards to the former, Cone asserts that “in a culture which rewards ‘patriots’ and punishes ‘dissenters,’ it is difficult to be prophetic and easy to perform one’s duties in the light of the objectives of the nation as a whole.” ³³ As regards the latter, he argues that the primary reason White theologians compartmentalize and avoid contemporary political issues is their anxiety about appearing to be dissenters. If they can find a way to justify focusing on the latest philosophical-theological “trend” from Europe, they can justify “race” as unrelated to contemporary theological pursuits. ³⁴

Another reason for claiming that White theologians are perpetuating racist systems is the inconsistency of those White theologians who do, on occasion, deal with race. This inconsistency is particularly true of those theologians whose work includes a call for gradualism. ³⁵ As a group, theologians who address the question of race tend toward compromised solutions or paternalistic pity. Cone lists James Herzog as “a prominent exception” to the rule; in general, however, his critique of White theologians at this point hardened over time. ³⁶

Cone is also clear that White theology remains beholden to White supremacy because it has failed to engage with Black theologians, the Black Church, and Black culture as a whole in the writing of theology. Cone despairs, “There are almost no references to Black scholars or other people of color in any of the writings of major White theologians” and, as an example, he points to Reinhold Niebuhr, who “did occasionally talk about race” but who does not cite Black intellectuals in his discussion. Cone does not ask White theologians to agree always with Black scholars, but he does insist on a consideration of Black intellectuals in the discussion. Doing so, he seems to suggest, would cause a greater empathy for both the arguments of Black intellectuals and the suffering of the Black poor. ³⁷

Focus is another key area that has caused White theologians to continue to resist the urge to critique and overcome the embeddedness of racism in their theological discourses. White theologians who have an interest in the oppressed have pointed their critique at questions of class and economics and away from race. They have tended to prefer conversations with Latin American Liberation theologians to an engagement with Black theology. As a result, they often miss the racist elements of their theological traditions, because they are focused on other issues that may intersect with, but do not fully uncover, the latent racism in White theology. ³⁸

A definite undertone is present in most of Cone’s work against the tendency of White theology to lean toward philosophical abstraction and away from concrete contemporary issues. He mentions as an example the obsession of White theology with questions of “the Death of God” in the 1960s and 1970s and its almost total disregard for the question of race during the same period. He also disparages White theology’s insistence on splitting the disciplines of theology and ethics in a way that would indicate that ethical discourse is not theology, thus subscribing theology to abstraction and ethics to a lower level of intellectual respectability. ³⁹

Finally, Cone sees a lack of praxis-focused theology, or a misdirected praxis-focused theology, as central to the problem of racism in White theology. With regard to the former, Cone asserts that a new White theology must come out of “a hard hitting anti-racist theology.” ⁴⁰ He envisions theology moving toward a praxis that engages the theologian in the world of the oppressed for whom, and on behalf of whom, they are “doing” theology. Cone sees in White theology’s insistence on universal theology, and objections to a particular theology of oppressed Black people, as symptomatic of the racist afflictions of contemporary White theologians. As regards universal theology, Cone critiques the many times White theology has abandoned its historic commitment to objectivity in order to use theological and doctrinal rhetoric in defense of racist acts. These acts stand in condemnation of the location of White theology on the side of the oppressor, the hypocrisy of White theology’s claims to objectivity, and its opposition to theology derived from a politically-focused praxis.

This assessment points to two critical failures on the part of White theology. First, it has failed to realize and rid itself of the embedded racism that has emerged from both its past silence and its past explicit defense of racist practices within the Church and society. Secondly, it has failed to generate an “anti-racist” theology that stands as a sharp corrective of its past errors. On this last point, Cone asserts, “The development of a hard-hitting antiracist theology by White religion scholars is long overdue.” ⁴¹ In this way, Cone both fights White supremacy in White theology and calls on White theologians to engage with his work toward the development of this “anti-racist” theology. Since Cone does not distinguish between White theologians, implicating liberal, evangelical, and every conceivable denomination, White Baptist theologians must take seriously Cone’s critique as directed at White Baptist theology. Thus, if Cone’s critique is found to be correct, Baptist theology must, at the very least, engage with its silence on race, its historical acquiescence to the use of doctrine to support racist stances, and the degree to which Baptist doctrine can so easily be used to create a racist ecclesiological praxis, while also asking to what degree an anti-racist agenda should inform the broader Baptist theological enterprise.

The latter point challenges Baptist theologians to examine doctrine in light of questions of power, privilege, and White supremacy, and calls Baptists to at least reexamine our doctrinal formula in accord with past misuse for racist purposes and the ways it has produced churches that do not personify an “antiracist” theology or praxis.

Kevin Vanhoozer says that theology:

. . . is more than an exegetical techne, just as it is more than a theoretical episteme. Each of these species of reason has its moment in a biblically oriented theology, but the greatest of these is phronesis: practical reason. Phronesis is reason oriented to action and is thus an appropriate help to a sapiential theology that seeks to live out the knowledge of God. ⁴²

Likewise, Anthony Thiselton asserts:

Only in those less characteristic or later instances when faith begins to address ‘freestanding problems’ rather than ‘questions that arise’ does doctrine risk losing its contingent, temporal, narrative, life-related, dispositional character. In some respects it then begins to move toward a more abstract system. ⁴³

Thiselton’s primary thesis is that doctrine, to be functional, must be considered from the standpoint of “questions that arise” and is therefore primarily a hermeneutical task. If Vanhoozer and Thiselton are correct in stressing the importance of the connections between doctrine and its applications “in life,” then it might be suggested that doctrinal statements that are able to be directed toward racist ends might either lack a proper language flowing out of particular “questions that arise” or may in fact not have the proper articulation, internal focus, or necessary systematic distinctions that would generate an “antiracist theology.” This being the case, a further exploration of both Cone’s assumptions about the connections between White theology and racism and of the ways Baptist doctrine might be better articulated, systematized, and applied to point toward a practice that clearly excludes racist and White supremacist praxis is not only helpful but necessary.

By way of conclusion, the proceeding analysis should make clear that Cone opposes White supremacy in White society, in the White Church, and in White theology. Thus the fight against White supremacy is part of the overall agenda of Cone’s total body of theological work. This critique certainly has potential value in a reexamination of Baptist doctrine. Fighting White supremacy, however, is not the only thing Cone is attempting to accomplish. A second component of Cone’s work is his effort to create an apologetic for a truly Black Christianity.

An apologetic for a truly Black Christianity

What can be missed is Cone’s attempt to preserve Black Christianity for a new generation of Black Americans. The Black Power Movement, along with other countercultural movements of the 1960s and 1970s, launched a direct attack on Christianity and the Church. The Black Church during this time faced a similar problem to its White counterparts. Both struggled with how to avoid the loss of a new generation that was gravitating increasingly toward either atheism or other forms of religious expression. Some elements of the White Church engaged the 1960s drug culture and participated in the emergence of the Jesus People Movement which was embodied in the founding of Calvary Chapel and led to the emergence of the contemporary megachurch movement within North American evangelicalism. Cone, following the lead of the National Conference of Colored Churchmen, launched an apologetic theological project that asserted a truly Black Christianity against the Black Power Movement’s insistence that Christianity was “the white man’s religion.” He did so in conversation with Black nationalists, historians of Black religion, and in opposition to Black self-hate.

In answer to Black Nationalism

As Cone began his work to affirm the Christian nature of Black Power, he was immediately confronted with the vehement opposition of Black Nationalists to Christianity. Those within the Black Power Movement saw leaving Christianity behind as a prerequisite to the revolution. The rhetoric of early antecedents to the movement, such as Franz Fanon, Malcolm X, and its later popularizers like Stokely Carmichael, the Black Panther Party, and the Black Arts Movement, were unanimous in their opposition to Christianity. Malcolm X followed this belief into the Nation of Islam, while Fanon and many of the Black Panthers embraced socialist Marxism. Those in the Black Arts Movement often preferred a recovery of African religions and moved ultimately toward Pan-Africanism. By the time Cone wrote Black Theology and Black Power in 1969, the Black Power Movement was eclipsing the mostly Christian church-based Civil Rights Movement as the new strategy for Black liberation, and it was doing so while rejecting both the Civil Rights Movement and its connections to organized Christianity.

The sentiments of the Black Power Movement are captured succinctly by Don Lee in a work of Black literary criticism. Lee’s Dynamite Voices: Black Poets of the 1960s showcases the work of emerging Black poets and illustrates their connection to the contemporary concerns of young Blacks who saw themselves as part of a revolutionary struggle for Black liberation. Quoting Lee at length will give a clear sense of just what Cone had to work against to commend Christianity to the next generation of disillusioned young Blacks. Addressing the work of Norman Jordan, Lee states:

“No Hiding Place” reflects the poet’s thought on the castration of the Black man which took place while he prayed to an alien God:

I Kneeled

to pray

and split

the seam

in the rear

of my pants

Letting God see

The blood stain

In the crotch

Of my

God-Damn shorts.

And, again, “Sinner” says something about the puritanical, protestant ethic fostered by whites and accepted and adhered to by Blacks:

I started

talking to

the Bible

and it kept

telling me

to die. ⁴⁴

Lee sums up the common opinion of the Black Power Movement:

Traditionally, Blacks have looked to the “living Word” for hope and consolation, while the man used it as proof that “whatever is, is right.” Blacks have been admonished to absolve themselves of all evil—What evil? Whose evil? We all know what adherence to this philosophy led to: Christianization, then enslavement and death. ⁴⁵

While arguing that this is just poetic hyperbole might be tempting, not only poets expressed discontent with Christianity. Franz Fanon, an early anti-colonialist writer, read by many of the leaders of the Black Power Movement, describes the process whereby the colonizer subdues the colonized subject:

The colonized subject also manages to lose sight of the colonist through religion. Fatalism relieves the oppressor of all responsibility since the cause of wrong-doing, poverty, and the inevitable can be attributed to God. The individual thus accepts the devastation decreed by God, grovels in front of the colonist, bows to the hand of fate, and mentally readjusts to acquire the serenity of stone. ⁴⁶

This emerging anti-Christian element in Black Nationalism led Cone to develop an apologetic defending the role of Christianity in the Black struggle for freedom. His approach was to accept without argument all of the social strategies and nationalistic philosophies of the Black Power Movement while arguing that the liberation of Black people is central to a uniquely Black Christianity and that this Black Christianity has a uniquely Black theology. He bases his argument on the historical development of Black Christianity, the identification of a theology “from below,” and an insistence on the particularity of theology.

Cone’s historiography sees the unique context of slavery and Jim Crow segregation as critical for understanding the distinctiveness between Black and White forms of Christianity. Cone’s primary assertion is that as Blacks encountered the Gospel, they interpreted it in a way that was unique to their circumstances. Oppressed Black slaves rightly understood the Gospel as a gospel of liberation. White Christians, situated as they were in the role of oppressor, missed this essential element in Christianity. Black Christianity is in this way distinct from White Christianity. Christianity, therefore, as understood by the Black Church, cannot be viewed as the “white man’s religion” and is consistent with the Black Power Movement.

Cone further argues that, as a methodology, the recovery of theology as a theology “from below” is essential to the task of the theologian. ⁴⁷ The argument of a theology “from below” was a critical move in defeating the idea that Black Christianity was an outgrowth of White American and European professional “theologies of power.” Many thought the Black Church lacked a theology and was either purely a folk religion ⁴⁸ or had adopted White European theology without question or variation. Cone argues that theology is often embedded in the ecclesial practices of communities of faith and thus a unique theology can be recovered from the music, poetry, art, sermons, and speeches of the Black Church, independent of and distinguishable from White theology. Through this move, Cone then posits a truly Black theology that is not dependent on White theology and thus subverts the argument that the Black Church is enslaved to an oppressive White theological system.

As a final assault on the idea of a borrowed theology within Black Christianity, Cone pushes against the commonly held notion of a universal theology. He directly attacks the myth of theological universalism in favor of an unavoidable particularity. Cone argues that what has been called “theology” and assumed to apply to all of Christianity, regardless of race or culture, is in fact the particular theology of White Americans and Europeans. The implication is to deny White theology any privileged status as “the” universal, objective expression of Christianity that must, therefore, be “the” theology of both the Black and White Church. Both Black and White theologies are thus indebted to the particularity of their racial and cultural backgrounds and form distinct theologies. Far from insisting that this makes both true relative to their context, Cone contends that Black theology is closer to the truth of the Gospel than White theology because the Bible itself records the life of an oppressed people delivered by an oppressed Savior. Thus, true theology must come from oppressed communities. Cone, in this way, counters the arguments of Black nationalists by asserting that the particular theology of the Black Church is distinct from “universal theology” because of the particular location and interpretation of the oppressed Black community. Black theology is real, distinct, and true and is therefore capable of moving forward the Black Power Movement and the liberation of Black people. ⁴⁹

This apologetic was not merely an intellectual exercise for Cone but was worked out in actual dialogue with Black nationalists within the Black Power Movement. He met with members of the Black Panther Party and, at the request of LeRoi Jones (Amari Baraka), led a workshop on religion at the Congress of African Peoples. ⁵⁰ Though Cone was vigilant in presenting his apologetic for a uniquely Black Christianity, most Black nationalists remained unconvinced.

In answer to the historians of Black religion

If Black nationalists remained unconvinced, seemingly so did Black historians of religion who were part of the Society for the Study of Black Religion, including the society’s preeminent founder, Charles H. Long. Cone summarizes Long’s criticism: “Theology is a Western concept, created by Europeans to dominate and denigrate non-Western peoples”; Long continues, “. . . and is completely alien to the black religious experience.” ⁵¹ Cone sees this position as shared by other members of the society, including J. Deotis Roberts and Gayraud Wilmore.

Cone’s main rebuttal to Long and others in the Society is that Black theology differs from White theology in its methodology. He affirms that “Black theology is a language about God that comes out of Black experience, and its meaning is found in its style. This marks the difference from white methodology.” ⁵² In this way, Cone can argue that Black theology is unique in privileging Black experience and Black forms of speech and in its use of a style of writing that is unique to Black culture. Out of the latter, Cone will develop the idea that form equals content. Thus, both in its style and content, Black theology is methodologically distinct and owes nothing to European theology. Additionally, Cone criticizes Black historians of religion for focusing too intently on esoteric definitions of theology and religion and forgetting the subjects of their study: the oppressed Black community. ⁵³

As an answer to Black self-hate

Cone’s apologetic is broader than the advocates of the Black Power Movement or scholars of religion; it also extends to the whole of the Black community. Cone suggests that he developed Black theology to attack self-hate within the Black community: “I wasn’t writing for rational reasons based on library research.” He continues, “I was writing out of my experience, speaking for the dignity of black people in a white supremacist world. I was on a mission to transform self-loathing Negro Christians into black-loving revolutionary disciples of the Black Christ.” ⁵⁴

Cone’s attack on Black “self-loathing” begins by assuring Blacks that they do not need to aspire to be White in order to be genuinely Christian. ⁵⁵ He also affirms that God privileges the oppressed Black community over that of White oppressors and therefore loves Black people because of, not despite, their blackness. ⁵⁶

Further, not only does God love Black people but has intentionally, through the suffering of Jesus, identified with the suffering of Black people, and in this way Jesus and God have become ontologically Black. ⁵⁷ Cone attempts to break the prevailing imagery of a White God who must privilege whiteness over blackness and to give the Black community a way of seeing God that fully affirms who they are in their blackness.

Conclusions on Cone’s agenda

These apologetic elements of Cone’s theology are often missed by White theologians, who fail to understand that at least some of what they are opposing in Cone’s theology was necessary to preserve Christianity for a future generation of young Black leaders and to help Blacks take pride in both their blackness and their Christianity. As such, they are similar to the efforts of some Baptists to defend Baptist beliefs against both secular humanism and liberal Christianity, as well as their attempts to build an argument for a distinct Christian worldview to encourage Baptists to continue in their faith against the attacks of outside groups. Seen in this way, White Baptists should at least be sympathetic with Cone’s apologetic agenda, if not the actual content of that apologetic.

The fact that Cone’s apologetic was necessary also requires White Baptist theologians to reflect on the ways that White Baptist theology may have encouraged at least the perceived connections between Christianity and White oppression among Black radicals. White Baptist theologians might at a minimum consider how their theological work is able to present an alternative view of Christianity that clearly separates White theology from the oppression of Black people. This reflection could lead to a direct consideration of other elements of Cone’s theology that are pertinent to addressing these concerns.

Having identified Cone’s primary theological agenda as directed at fighting White supremacy and creating an apologetic for a uniquely Black Christianity, one further matter of style is critical to understanding Cone’s work. Cone’s readers must understand that Cone intentionally employs a rhetorical persona in the execution of his theological project.

Cone’s rhetorical persona

Andre Johnson is the only scholar to directly take up the question of Cone’s rhetorical persona. ⁵⁸ A rhetorician by discipline, Johnson identifies Cone’s rhetoric as being directly connected to a prophetic rhetorical style within the Black prophetic tradition. Thus, for Johnson, Cone takes on the persona of a prophet. Johnson’s definition of prophetic rhetoric is worth considering. He states:

What I mean by prophetic rhetoric is discourse grounded in the sacred, rooted in a community experience that offers a critique of existing communities and traditions by charging and challenging society to live up to the ideals they espoused, while offering celebration, encouragement and hope for a brighter future. ⁵⁹

Johnson’s assessment of Cone does, however, fall short in two important ways. First, if prophetic rhetoric is directed at critiquing an “existing community,” then this definition would only be half true of Cone’s work. Cone is, no doubt, launching an attack on the White community and White supremacists, and perhaps his work in that way is prophetic. The White community is not his only audience, however. To see how Cone’s work could be said to be prophetic for the Black community is difficult. Cone’s work has no sustained critique of the Black community and, therefore, his prophetic persona would only emerge if his work is read as primarily directed at the White community. Cone’s persona must be found, if it exists at all, in a character that can both critique White society and liberate the Black community.

Secondly, Johnson deals with rhetorical patterns but does not give a clear definition of what is meant by “persona.” Thus, it might be possible to say that Cone’s pattern of argumentation fits a prophetic rhetorical style but misses entirely a particular persona assumed by Cone that functions beyond the purpose of specific arguments. This seems to be exactly the case with Cone. Arguing that Cone does not fit at least some of Johnson’s prophetic criteria is difficult; however, demonstrating that these few touchpoints translate into a clearly prophetic persona is also difficult. For Johnson’s work to hold up, it would need to include a formal framework for determining the use of persona, which it does not.

Though not dealing with Cone at all in their work, B. L. Ware and William A. Linkugel do give a formalistic definition of what constitutes a rhetorical persona and are able to use it successfully to demonstrate that Marcus Garvey utilized the persona of Moses to advance his Black Nationalist campaign. ⁶⁰ The argument here is that their categories, when applied to Cone, suggest not a prophetic persona but a revolutionary persona.

Ware and Linkugel define rhetorical persona as consisting of two main forms, the immanent and the transcendent, from which the persona arises. The immanent forms are ways in which the person or their actions can be said to “be like something else” by way of normal comparison. It fits in a particular category shared by the persona it portrays. The transcendent form is the way in which the persona attempts to bring to mind or identify itself with a particular archetypal image. Beyond the comparative nature of the forms are the “particulars” of speech and argumentation that are part of the way the persona is accessed. These particulars may be phrases, words, idioms, or actions that relate the actor to the character and allow the actor to be subsumed and the character to be animated. Finally, “participation” is the way in which the actor uses the forms and the particulars to bring the character to life and to enact it in the body of their rhetorical work. This understanding makes possible the suggestion of ways Cone uses a “revolutionary” persona to advance his rhetorical style.

If the immanent form requires first that the “actor,” in this case Cone, be identifiable in some concrete way as being “like” the thing they wish to personify, then initially an academic theologian might seem as far away from a “revolutionary” as anyone could get. ⁶¹ This assumption would fail to understand, however, the various ways in which individuals participated in the Black revolution at the time Cone begins to merge his theology with the politics of the Black Power Movement.

Peniel E. Joseph has assessed the current state of research into the Black Power Movement and Black revolutionary nationalism in the late 1960s and 1970s. ⁶² Joseph recognizes a growing consensus that Black revolutionary nationalism was a far more diverse movement than previously recognized and that various ways of identifying and being identified with the movement existed. The most prominent distinctions were among activist/political revolutionary movements like the Black Panthers and cultural revolutionary groups like the Black Arts Movement. The former created programs and took offensive actions that asserted Black Power and Black self-determination. The Panthers’ breakfast programs, Black consciousness educational classes, and political actions, including the carrying of guns into the California State House, were examples of this type of Black revolutionary.

Black cultural revolutionaries, on the other hand, attempted to create specific Black spaces within various cultural disciplines to reclaim those spaces. James T. Stewart makes the case for the revolutionary nature of Black cultural nationalism. Stewart writes:

The point of the whole thing is that we must emancipate our minds from Western values and standards. We must rid our minds of these values . . . We must try to shape the thinking of our people. We must goad our people by every means, remembering as Ossie Davis stated: that the task of the Negro writer is revolutionary by definition. He must view his role vis-à-vis white Western civilization, and from this starting point in his estrangement begin to make new definitions founded on his own culture—on definite black values. ⁶³

Don Lee also affirms the Black Arts Movement’s attempt to carve out a separatist space for Black Americans. Lee asserts:

The Black man who writes is a new definition. We’ve always had writers who happened to be Black, but the Sixties brought a new and universal definition of the Black man who chooses words as part of his lifestyle. Lifestyle is essentially what the new writers are about, a quest to legitimize and define their own place and space. ⁶⁴

Both Lee and Stewart highlight the degree to which Black cultural nationalism was both separatist and revolutionary. The artists who were a part of the Black Arts Movement saw themselves as revolutionaries who were very much a part of the Black Power revolution.

If one understands the revolutionary nature of cultural Black Nationalism, one can then see that Cone’s efforts to create a Black theology might be viewed akin to the efforts of Black artists to create revolutionary Black poetry, theater, music, and literature. Cone is contemporaneous with a cultural movement that viewed its participants as revolutionaries. If theology, philosophy, and other liberal arts form a part of the culture, then Cone’s efforts in theology are like LeRoi Jones’s and Don Lee’s efforts in poetry. What both Jones and Lee did in carving out separate Black spaces in poetry, Cone emulated in creating a separate Black space in theology. In this way, Cone meets the criteria of a participant in the immanent form of a Black “revolutionary.”

If Cone fits the definition of the immanent persona, does he then connect with the transcendent/archetypal notion of a revolutionary? Cone engages the transcendent image of the revolutionary through his connections with two sources that could be said to define the archetype of the rebel in Cone’s day. These include Franz Fanon’s image of the anti-colonial revolutionary and Camus’s The Rebel. Cone quotes both Fanon and Camus. Fanon ties Cone into a literature of rebellion that was central to both the political and cultural arms of the Black Power movement. Pan-Africanism, African movements of liberation, and Fanon’s writing formed the central image of what rebellion could be in America, as well as in Africa. Cone’s use of Fanon in his writing had the effect of tying Cone directly to the image of Pan-African revolution in the same way visions of Fanon tied the Black Panthers, Malcolm X, and other Black revolutionaries to actual revolutionary action in Africa. In summoning Fanon into their cultural canon, American Black revolutionaries, including Cone, were able to participate in the revolutionary archetype of the Black African freedom fighter.

Camus, on the other hand, provides the very definition of a rebel in his work by the same name. Cone’s use of Camus’s definition of a rebel in his assertion that the Black man must rebel and that Black theology must support this rebellion places him squarely in a list of intellectual rebels that appear throughout Camus’s lengthy literary treatise on revolt. Cone’s use of Camus, like his use of Fanon, places Cone in the archetypal role not of the prophet, but of the rebel who in Camus’s words

. . . experiences a feeling of revulsion at the infringement of his rights and a complete and spontaneous loyalty to certain aspects of himself. Thus, he implicitly brings into play a standard of values so far from being gratuitous that he is prepared to support it no matter what the risks. ⁶⁵

Camus’s words could easily be appropriated for Cone and, to the extent that Cone’s living into the archetypal image of the rebel can be shown, Cone can be said to be embracing the persona of a revolutionary. This assertion brings us to the question of how Cone’s persona fits the particulars of a revolutionary, albeit the cultural revolutionary type identified above.

To suggest that Cone exhibits both immanent and transcendent forms of the revolutionary persona requires that he also exhibits particular forms that identify him with the persona. Camus’s definition, along with some assistance from Fanon, helps identify the basic categories of the revolutionary persona. Camus suggests that three essential elements create a rebel. First, rebels are indignant at the violation of their rights. Secondly, they achieve a self-awareness that overcomes a false image of self that has previously allowed their oppression. Finally, they form an alternative image of life beyond their oppressed state that allows for the use of all necessary means to achieve this new vision. Thus, the categories that typify the rebel archetype for Camus are righteous indignation, self-consciousness, and a violent break from the present system toward self-determination.

The last category is better understood for Cone’s time and audience through the work of Franz Fanon. While the fight against the indignities of racism in the United States was part of a long history of Black resistance and while the fight for a Black self-consciousness in the US is best located in the work of Malcom X and Stokely Carmichael, the form of Black revolutionary nationalism is better understood in the context of Fanon’s work and its subsequent popularization in Pan-African liberation movements of the 1960s and 1970s. Fanon’s vision was passed on genetically through the reading and appropriation of his work by the Black Power Movement in the United States. His vision therefore shapes, in specific ways, Camus’s general rule that the revolutionary envisions a future that is different from the present. For Cone’s generation, the revolutionary vision is Fanon’s. That vision is encapsulated in the conclusion to The Wretched of the Earth: “For Europe, for ourselves and for humanity, comrades, we must make a new start, develop a new way of thinking, and endeavor to create a new [person].” Fanon implores and then further suggests that the task is nothing short of “starting over a new history of [humanity].” ⁶⁶ For Cone’s audience, the revolutionary was that person who completely rejected the status quo and offered instead a new “history of [humanity]”—a “new way of thinking.” The revolutionary was also willing to achieve this new way “by any means necessary.”

How, then, does Cone fit the particulars of the revolutionary archetype? First, the vast majority of Cone’s work identifies his anger and revulsion at White supremacy and racism. This theme is the defining and unifying one of his entire intellectual corpus. Secondly, Cone’s work engages with both the awakening of his own Black consciousness and the need to build the self-consciousness of the entire Black community. Finally, Cone’s demarcation of a Black theology that is wholly independent of either a shared history or a shared theological vision with White European theology is consistent with Fanon’s call to create completely new systems of thinking. ⁶⁷

If these particulars are accepted, how does Cone participate in each of them? What are either the indicators of clear intentionality or actual argumentation that lead one to believe that Cone is in fact cognizant of playing this particular role? While working through each of Cone’s writings to identify his participation in these categories is possible, the space constraints of this article will not allow it. Instead, Cone’s assessment of his own theological legacy in Said I Wasn’t Gonna Tell Nobody creates a window into Cone’s thoughts on this matter. ⁶⁸

Cone is clear about his participation in the first two categories that shape the revolutionary persona. The righteous indignation/revulsion is recounted early in his autobiography. Cone recalls:

Then Detroit exploded and so did I. My explosion shook me at the core of my racial identity, killing the ‘Negro’ in me and resurrecting my black self. I felt a black fire burning inside me, so hot I couldn’t control it any longer. ⁶⁹

He also clearly articulates the outgrowth of this explosive energy using language that elicits Black revolution and his particular role in the revolution:

I knew that Black Power advocates, like Stokely Carmichael, and militant black ministers, like Albert Cleage, had no interest in debating white religious scholars or well-schooled white ministers. But I did! It was time for me to join my black brothers and sisters in the fight for justice using what I’d learned in graduate school. It was time to turn white man’s theology against him and make it speak for the liberation of black people. Militant Negro ministers needed a theology that could liberate their minds from any dependence on white theology. ⁷⁰

Cone seems to mimic Camus’s understanding of what makes a rebel. His sense of being “fed up,” his anger, and his sense that he had to “join my black brothers and sisters” in the revolution all fit Camus’s definition of what creates a rebel.

Cone’s entire first chapter also displays a keen understanding of Camus’s second category: self-consciousness and the pursuit of others’ self-consciousness. The chapter is entitled “Removing My Mask,” a likely allusion to Fanon’s Black Skins, White Masks. ⁷¹ In the chapter, Cone references his emergence from someone who was playing the role expected of him by the White academic world, to someone who was motivated by the riots of Detroit and the writings of Malcom X and Stokely Carmichael to take pride in his blackness. He also recognized his responsibility for instilling Black consciousness in the Black community as a whole. “Now with Black Power,” he writes, “everything was at stake—the affirmation of black humanity in a white supremacist world. I was ready to die for black dignity.” ⁷² Camus’s definition of the fully self-conscious and self-affirming rebel is clearly a part of Cone’s rhetorical rapporteur.

The final category, a complete remaking of the system that oppressed the rebel, is clarified by Cone as well: “I was not interested in making an academic point about theology; rather, I was issuing a manifesto against whiteness and for blackness in an effort to liberate Christians from white supremacy.” ⁷³ Cone’s primary interest in Black theology was to create a theological space, adrift from White European theology, that would recast the Gospel in the image of the Black Church and create a mirror for White Christians to see the embedded nature of White supremacy within the White Church. Cone used the language of “antichrist,” claimed a salvation that only came through the oppressed, envisioned a Black Christ, and condemned White theologians for racism even while using their arguments to his advantage. Whether critics accept that Black theology represents a uniquely separatist space within theological discourse is inconsequential because Cone’s intent is clearly to portray it as such. Cone’s Black theology holds a similar strategic place to that of the Black Arts Movement in its ability to carve out space for Black thought to dominate and White supremacy to be suppressed. In this way, Cone embodies the final movement of a rebel. He is creating a new world, “a new humanity” and a “new way of thinking” that reverses the power structures at play in academic theology and creates a place where White theologians cannot dominate either the discourse or the methods. ⁷⁴

If these categories are still in doubt, perhaps Cone’s own words add to the argument:

It is incumbent upon us as black people to become ‘revolutionaries for blackness,’ rebelling against all who enslave us. With Marcus Garvey, we say: ‘any sane man, race or nation that desires freedom must first of all think in terms of blood.’ ⁷⁵

That Cone would self-identify as a prophet is unlikely, but his work completely reiterates both his support of and his place in the Black cultural revolution. Using Ware and Linkugel’s formalistic approach to persona, Cone is readily identified as a revolutionary in both immanent and transcendent forms, and in the particulars of the rebel archetype as articulated in Camus and Fanon, as well as in his direct participation in these particulars in his theological writing.

The question then remains: how is Cone’s revolutionary persona important to White Baptist theologians? It is critically important for White Baptist theologians to understand that Cone’s language and participation in revolutionary rhetoric and movements was part of a nuanced perspective that is often missed. It served both an apologetic and a practical purpose. Its apologetic purpose was to salvage the Christian faith within the emerging Black Power Culture. The practical purpose was to isolate White supremacy within the White Church and to hold up an alternative model within the Black Church. It also intended in a very real way to speak to the lies of Black inferiority within the Black community.

These perspectives challenge White Baptist theology in several directions. Beyond the obvious call to recognize how White supremacy has operated in White theological systems, it also calls White Baptists to recognize the ways their theological systems fail to express themselves in directions that have real meaning in the Black community. The very fact that Christianity was identified negatively with White oppression by the Black Power Movement requires that some weight be given to Cone’s argument that this objection is more substantive than rhetorical. The further assumption that White Christianity is intertwined with oppressive power structures might call for a critical assessment by White Baptist theologians of the intersections of power and theology and the implications of such a theology for ecclesiological praxis.

Cone’s critique points to the critical identification of the White Church, and by implication the White Baptist Church, with the oppression of the Black community. This critique, if found to be valid, suggests that White Baptist theologians need to ask in what ways Baptist theology can be said to have contributed to this assessment on the part of the Black community in the United States. If Cone’s critique is in fact found to be true, then White Baptists must ask how to prioritize Black theology in a reassessment of Baptist doctrine.

Conclusion

This article has attempted to suggest ways of reading and understanding Cone that are helpful for White Baptists. It has focused on two areas of particular misunderstanding: Cone’s theological agenda that included fighting White supremacy and creating an apologetic for a truly Black theology that was focused on the Black community. Secondly, it has attempted to show that Cone intentionally assumed a revolutionary persona consistent with others within the cultural revolutionary arm of the Black Power movement in the United States in the 1960s and 1970s. This persona explains the way Cone spoke about theology generally and about the White Church particularly. Along the way, the article raised questions as to how Baptist theology might react in ways that allow Cone’s agenda and persona to speak into Baptist theology as opposed to ostracizing Cone fully from White Baptist theological dialogue.