The Cross and the Lynching Tree Quotes

“Just as Martin Luther King Jr. learned much from Reinhold Niebuhr, Niebuhr could have deepened his understanding of the cross by being a student of King and the black freedom movement he led. King could have opened Niebuhr’s eyes to see the lynching tree as Jesus’ cross in America. White theologians do not normally turn to the black experience to learn about theology. But if the lynching tree is America’s cross and if the cross is the heart of the Christian gospel, perhaps Martin Luther King Jr., who endeavored to “take up his cross, and follow [Jesus]” (Mark 8:34) as did no other theologian in American history, has something to teach America about Jesus’ cross.”
― James H. Cone, The Cross and the Lynching Tree

“When he sent a manuscript of The Irony of American History to his historian friend Arthur Schlesinger Jr., Schlesinger called Niebuhr’s attention to the glaring omission of the Negro: One irony deserving comment somewhere perhaps is the relationship between our democratic and equalitarian pretensions and our treatment of the Negro. This remains, John Quincy Adams called it in 1820, “the great and foul stain upon the North American Union”; and I think you might consider mentioning it.[46] But Niebuhr did not mention it, finding it apparently not a substantial concern. This was a serious failure by an American religious leader often called this nation’s greatest theologian. How could anyone be a great theologian and not engage America’s greatest moral issue? Unfortunately, white theologians, then and since, have typically ignored the problem of race, or written and spoken about it without urgency, not regarding it as critical for theology or ethics.”
― James H. Cone, The Cross and the Lynching Tree

“If human power in history—among races, nations, and other collectives as well as individuals—is self-interested power, then “the revelation of divine goodness in history” must be weak and not strong.”
― James H. Cone, The Cross and the Lynching Tree

“Transvaluation of values,” a term derived from Nietzsche (who derided Christianity’s embrace of the weak), is the heart of Niebuhr’s perspective on the cross.”
― James H. Cone, The Cross and the Lynching Tree

“They shouted, danced, clapped their hands and stomped their feet as they bore witness to the power of Jesus’ cross which had given them an identity far more meaningful than the harm that white supremacy could do them.”
― James H. Cone, The Cross and the Lynching Tree