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The Identity Crisis in Black Theology
Hardcover; in Semi-Glossy Dust Jacket with color photo of author on front panel; 9 1/4 inches tall; 140 pages; gilt-stamped spine lettering.
Hardcover
Published January 1, 1975
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July 3, 2024
IS THERE A “TENSION” IN THE TWIN POLES OF BLACK THEOLOGY?
Cecil Wayne Cone (1937-2016) was a theologian, AME Pastor, lecturer, writer, and professor, who served as Dean of Jackson Theological Seminary in North Little Rock, Arkansas, President of Turner Theological Seminary at the Interdenominational Theological Center (ITC) in Atlanta, Professor of Systematic Theology at B.F. Lee Seminary in Jacksonville, Florida, Professor of Black Theology at Emory and Candler School of Theology in Atlanta, and Professor of Black Theology at Spelman College. (He was also the older brother of theologian James H. Cone.)
He wrote in the Preface of this 1975 book [which was his only book], “Since the appearance of Black Theology and Black Power, I have been both overjoyed by the birth of the black theological enterprise and bothered by the manner in which it is presented… I felt a definite tension---and irrefutable crisis of identity in the Black Theology which they presented and developed… The embryonic stage of Black Theology is over… This is a time for introspection and analysis… the black theologian must clarify… what BLACK RELIGION is. Interpreters of Black Theology must begin to ensure that the theology they present is true to the black religious experience which it purports to indicate and represent. It is hoped that the study presented here will help to point the way to such analysis and reflection.” (Pg. 5-6) Later, he adds, “In this study I shall examine the identity crisis in Black Theology as represented in the works of Joseph Washington, James cone, and J. Deotis Roberts. My concern is to analyze the nature and form which the crisis takes in their works and the methods they have used in attempts to circumvent the crisis.” (Pg. 24)
He notes, “This development of Black Theology has brought with it a number of tensions. Some of these tensions are the result of black theologians’ efforts, on the one hand, to vindicate their right to ‘sit at the roundtable of the comprehensive field of theology’… and, on the other hand, to be true to the black religious experience in their theological interpretation. The two are not easily reconcilable. Thus Black Theology as an intellectual discipline is faced with the question of whether its academic respectability … will enhance the black religious experience … or contribute to its destruction. Other tensions in Black Theology result from its eager acceptance of Black Power as a theological base, while attempting to maintain an identification with the black religious tradition.” (Pg. 17)
He continues, “The problem of identity in Black Theology therefore is located at two points: its identification with the academic structure of predominantly white seminaries and with the Black Power motif of black radicals… Black Theology… is rooted in the black religious experience; it is an analysis of black religion. Black religion is therefore its only appropriate point of departure. Whenever a black theologian starts from another place or alternates between two starting points, the result of confusion and distortion. I contend that such a result is evident in the work of the major black theologians.” (Pg. 18)
He states, “A related and more particular problem is the use of the historical critical method in Black Theology… this method has contributed to the identity crisis in Black Theology. Such tools of critical inquiry are limited in what they can discover… This method cannot investigate the essence of black religion because the later has vital elements in it that claim to transcend history. More specifically, these elements concern the object of faith. Thus Black Theology’s desire to be academically sound has included the use of a method that by its very nature cannot locate what Black Theology is trying to propound. Furthermore, the investigation of black religion for theological purposes does not raise the usual questions of historical verifiability connected with the critical method.” (Pg. 19)
He suggests, “it is commonly believed that the great importance of religion in the black community … are attributable merely to the need to cope with the social and economic frustration which blacks experienced during slavery and after reconstruction. This … is not the whole story. Interwoven in the life of black people is a deep religious concern that is quite similar to the drive that is everywhere manifested in African societies… then it is only natural that religion would be the primary means by which they would attempt to cope with their condition, as well as the weapon for opposing that condition… When the slaves were introduced to Christianity, they brought with them their African ‘pre-understanding.’ Thus it may be said that Africans were not converted to Christianity but that they converted Christianity to themselves.” (Pg. 31-32)
He points out, “Thus the slave transformed Christianity and reinterpreted the Scriptures in light of the black religious experience. He was not led to an understanding of God via the Scriptures; rather, the deepest meanings of Scriptures themselves were interpreted in the light of the slave’s African religious background, his situation of despair, and his personal meeting with God.” (Pg. 35)
He explains, “The conversion experience… opened up a level of reality formally unknown to the slave, thereby altering totally his attitude toward life. This new level of reality in turn produced a radical effect upon the interior existence of the slave; it caused the slave to experience a sense of FREEDOM in the midst of human bondage… [God] had set the slave FREE… Though the external condition of slavery was real and still powerful, the slave refused to be defined by it… This freedom… made his daily life bearable as he waited on the promise of the Lord to be realized… Far from being an opiate, the religion of the slave gave him the necessary strength to survive his present adversity so that in the future he could participate with God in its destruction.” (Pg. 47-49)
He summarizes, “The only appropriate foundation for Black Theology is black religion. Forged from African religion and biblical Christianity in the crucible of American slavery, it focuses upon the encounter with the Almighty Sovereign God and issues in conversion… Black theologians will find their professional identity in the consistent analysis of his tradition and no other. In the chapters that follow, we will see how three pioneers of modern Black Theology … fail to ground their writing consistently in the black religious tradition…” (Pg. 71-72)
He says of Joseph Washington [e.g., Black Religion; the Negro and Christianity in the United States], “[one] difficulty with Washington’s development of a Black Power Theology, is simply his logical inconsistency. He begins by establishing… that black religion’s development from its African roots is very much alive today. Then without giving sufficient explanation, he contradicts this perspective and says that black religion is dead or at least dying… It is very difficult to determine just what Washington has in mind because of his lack of clarity on the precise function of black religion.” (Pg. 90)
He says of his brother James, “Though there is not serious attempt to deal with reconciliation in Cone’s work, yet he invites white people to identify with blackness as he relates black theology dialectically to contemporary white theologians. However, the overriding motif of Cone’s work is that of liberation. Therefore, when he is in agreement with the contribution of contemporary theologians like Barth and Tillich, it is at the point where their works shed light on his chief concern: liberation.” (Pg. 92-93)
He says of J. Deotis Roberts [e.g., Liberation And Reconciliation: A Black Theology], “Because Roberts allow something other than the black religious tradition to claim his primary attention, he finds himself in a problematic relationship with that tradition and with his own stated commitment to it. Thus he fails to grasp the real meaning of Christianity as that tradition understands it. What may be more unfortunate is that Roberts espouses universalism as primary goal of Black Theology without so much as raising the question whether universalism is really a guise for specific, Euro-American categories that are in themselves alien to black religious history… his PRIOR commitment to universalism does not allow a faithful building of his Black Theology upon the foundation.” (Pg. 137)
He concludes, “What does this mean for contemporary Black Theology? First, contemporary black theologians must be brought to see that the source of the identity crisis in their attempts at a theological interpretation of black religion is related to their identification with the academic structure of white seminaries and with the Black Power motif of black radicals… they [both] cannot serve as the point of departure without at some point distorting what is intended to be analyzed, namely black religion… The second meaning … is that if black theologians expect to remain faithful to the black religious experience and thus avoid a crisis of identity, they must begin to reverse the priorities in their theological enterprise.” (Pg. 141-142)
This book will be of great interest to anyone studying Black Theology---particularly in its historical development.
Cecil Wayne Cone (1937-2016) was a theologian, AME Pastor, lecturer, writer, and professor, who served as Dean of Jackson Theological Seminary in North Little Rock, Arkansas, President of Turner Theological Seminary at the Interdenominational Theological Center (ITC) in Atlanta, Professor of Systematic Theology at B.F. Lee Seminary in Jacksonville, Florida, Professor of Black Theology at Emory and Candler School of Theology in Atlanta, and Professor of Black Theology at Spelman College. (He was also the older brother of theologian James H. Cone.)
He wrote in the Preface of this 1975 book [which was his only book], “Since the appearance of Black Theology and Black Power, I have been both overjoyed by the birth of the black theological enterprise and bothered by the manner in which it is presented… I felt a definite tension---and irrefutable crisis of identity in the Black Theology which they presented and developed… The embryonic stage of Black Theology is over… This is a time for introspection and analysis… the black theologian must clarify… what BLACK RELIGION is. Interpreters of Black Theology must begin to ensure that the theology they present is true to the black religious experience which it purports to indicate and represent. It is hoped that the study presented here will help to point the way to such analysis and reflection.” (Pg. 5-6) Later, he adds, “In this study I shall examine the identity crisis in Black Theology as represented in the works of Joseph Washington, James cone, and J. Deotis Roberts. My concern is to analyze the nature and form which the crisis takes in their works and the methods they have used in attempts to circumvent the crisis.” (Pg. 24)
He notes, “This development of Black Theology has brought with it a number of tensions. Some of these tensions are the result of black theologians’ efforts, on the one hand, to vindicate their right to ‘sit at the roundtable of the comprehensive field of theology’… and, on the other hand, to be true to the black religious experience in their theological interpretation. The two are not easily reconcilable. Thus Black Theology as an intellectual discipline is faced with the question of whether its academic respectability … will enhance the black religious experience … or contribute to its destruction. Other tensions in Black Theology result from its eager acceptance of Black Power as a theological base, while attempting to maintain an identification with the black religious tradition.” (Pg. 17)
He continues, “The problem of identity in Black Theology therefore is located at two points: its identification with the academic structure of predominantly white seminaries and with the Black Power motif of black radicals… Black Theology… is rooted in the black religious experience; it is an analysis of black religion. Black religion is therefore its only appropriate point of departure. Whenever a black theologian starts from another place or alternates between two starting points, the result of confusion and distortion. I contend that such a result is evident in the work of the major black theologians.” (Pg. 18)
He states, “A related and more particular problem is the use of the historical critical method in Black Theology… this method has contributed to the identity crisis in Black Theology. Such tools of critical inquiry are limited in what they can discover… This method cannot investigate the essence of black religion because the later has vital elements in it that claim to transcend history. More specifically, these elements concern the object of faith. Thus Black Theology’s desire to be academically sound has included the use of a method that by its very nature cannot locate what Black Theology is trying to propound. Furthermore, the investigation of black religion for theological purposes does not raise the usual questions of historical verifiability connected with the critical method.” (Pg. 19)
He suggests, “it is commonly believed that the great importance of religion in the black community … are attributable merely to the need to cope with the social and economic frustration which blacks experienced during slavery and after reconstruction. This … is not the whole story. Interwoven in the life of black people is a deep religious concern that is quite similar to the drive that is everywhere manifested in African societies… then it is only natural that religion would be the primary means by which they would attempt to cope with their condition, as well as the weapon for opposing that condition… When the slaves were introduced to Christianity, they brought with them their African ‘pre-understanding.’ Thus it may be said that Africans were not converted to Christianity but that they converted Christianity to themselves.” (Pg. 31-32)
He points out, “Thus the slave transformed Christianity and reinterpreted the Scriptures in light of the black religious experience. He was not led to an understanding of God via the Scriptures; rather, the deepest meanings of Scriptures themselves were interpreted in the light of the slave’s African religious background, his situation of despair, and his personal meeting with God.” (Pg. 35)
He explains, “The conversion experience… opened up a level of reality formally unknown to the slave, thereby altering totally his attitude toward life. This new level of reality in turn produced a radical effect upon the interior existence of the slave; it caused the slave to experience a sense of FREEDOM in the midst of human bondage… [God] had set the slave FREE… Though the external condition of slavery was real and still powerful, the slave refused to be defined by it… This freedom… made his daily life bearable as he waited on the promise of the Lord to be realized… Far from being an opiate, the religion of the slave gave him the necessary strength to survive his present adversity so that in the future he could participate with God in its destruction.” (Pg. 47-49)
He summarizes, “The only appropriate foundation for Black Theology is black religion. Forged from African religion and biblical Christianity in the crucible of American slavery, it focuses upon the encounter with the Almighty Sovereign God and issues in conversion… Black theologians will find their professional identity in the consistent analysis of his tradition and no other. In the chapters that follow, we will see how three pioneers of modern Black Theology … fail to ground their writing consistently in the black religious tradition…” (Pg. 71-72)
He says of Joseph Washington [e.g., Black Religion; the Negro and Christianity in the United States], “[one] difficulty with Washington’s development of a Black Power Theology, is simply his logical inconsistency. He begins by establishing… that black religion’s development from its African roots is very much alive today. Then without giving sufficient explanation, he contradicts this perspective and says that black religion is dead or at least dying… It is very difficult to determine just what Washington has in mind because of his lack of clarity on the precise function of black religion.” (Pg. 90)
He says of his brother James, “Though there is not serious attempt to deal with reconciliation in Cone’s work, yet he invites white people to identify with blackness as he relates black theology dialectically to contemporary white theologians. However, the overriding motif of Cone’s work is that of liberation. Therefore, when he is in agreement with the contribution of contemporary theologians like Barth and Tillich, it is at the point where their works shed light on his chief concern: liberation.” (Pg. 92-93)
He says of J. Deotis Roberts [e.g., Liberation And Reconciliation: A Black Theology], “Because Roberts allow something other than the black religious tradition to claim his primary attention, he finds himself in a problematic relationship with that tradition and with his own stated commitment to it. Thus he fails to grasp the real meaning of Christianity as that tradition understands it. What may be more unfortunate is that Roberts espouses universalism as primary goal of Black Theology without so much as raising the question whether universalism is really a guise for specific, Euro-American categories that are in themselves alien to black religious history… his PRIOR commitment to universalism does not allow a faithful building of his Black Theology upon the foundation.” (Pg. 137)
He concludes, “What does this mean for contemporary Black Theology? First, contemporary black theologians must be brought to see that the source of the identity crisis in their attempts at a theological interpretation of black religion is related to their identification with the academic structure of white seminaries and with the Black Power motif of black radicals… they [both] cannot serve as the point of departure without at some point distorting what is intended to be analyzed, namely black religion… The second meaning … is that if black theologians expect to remain faithful to the black religious experience and thus avoid a crisis of identity, they must begin to reverse the priorities in their theological enterprise.” (Pg. 141-142)
This book will be of great interest to anyone studying Black Theology---particularly in its historical development.
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