God of the Oppressed Quotes

“The Christian community, therefore, is that community that freely becomes oppressed, because they know that Jesus himself has defined humanity's liberation in the context of what happens to the little ones. Christians join the cause of the oppressed in the fight for justice not because of some philosophical principle of "the Good" or because of a religious feeling of sympathy for people in prison. Sympathy does not change the structures of injustice. The authentic identity of Christians with the poor is found in the claim which the Jesus-encounter lays upon their own life-style, a claim that connects the word "Christian" with the liberation of the poor. Christians fight not for humanity in general but for themselves and out of their love for concrete human beings.”
― James H. Cone, God of the Oppressed

“The scandal is that the gospel means liberation, that this liberation comes to the poor, and that it gives them the strength and the courage to break the conditions of servitude.”
― James H. Cone, God of the Oppressed

“The most sensitive whites merely said: “We deplore the riots but sympathize with the reason for the riots.” This was tantamount to saying: “Of course we raped your women, lynched your men, and ghettoized the minds of your children and you have a right to be upset; but that is no reason for you to burn our buildings. If you people keep acting like that, we will never give you your freedom.”
― James H. Cone, God of the Oppressed

“Unlike Europeans who immigrated to this land to escape from tyranny, Africans came in chains to serve a nation of tyrants.”
― James H. Cone, God of the Oppressed

“What people think about God, Jesus Christ, and the Church cannot be separated from their own social and political status in a given society.”
― James H. Cone, God of the Oppressed

“If we cannot recognize the truth, then it cannot liberate us from untruth.”
― James H. Cone, God of the Oppressed

“The acceptance of the gift of freedom transforms our perception of our social and political existence.”
― James H. Cone, God of the Oppressed

“Only the oppressed can receive liberating visions in wretched places. Only those thinking emerges in the context of the struggle against injustice can see God's freedom breaking into unfree conditions and thus granting power to the powerless to fight here and now for the freedom they know to be theirs in Jesus' cross and resurrection.”
― James H. Cone, God of the Oppressed

“any analysis of the gospel which did not begin and end with God's liberation of the oppressed was ipso facto unchristian.”
― James H. Cone, God of the Oppressed

“I do think that it is impossible to do Christian theology with integrity in America without asking the question, What has the gospel to do with the black struggle for liberation?”
― James H. Cone, God of the Oppressed

“Heresy is the refusal to speak the truth or to live the truth in the light of the One who is the Truth.”
― James H. Cone, God of the Oppressed

“Only the oppressed can receive liberating visions in wretched places. Only those thinking emerges in the context of the struggle against injustice can see God's freedom breaking into unfree conditions and thus granting power to the powerless to fight here and now for the freedom they know to be theirs in Jesus' cross and resurrection”
― James H. Cone, God of the Oppressed

“Through the reading of scripture, the people hear other stories about Jesus that enable them to move beyond the privateness of their own stories.”
― James H. Cone, God of the Oppressed

“Faith is born out of suffering, and suffering is faith's most powerful contradiction. This is the Christian dilemma. The only meaningful Christian response is to resist unjust suffering and to accept the painful consequence of that resistance.”
― James H. Cone, God of the Oppressed