James Cone Essay

In this course we learned about many different types of oppression, from the time America was first “discovered” and the discoverers began oppressing the Indians, to slavery, to the oppression of the mentally handicapped, all the way to more “modern” times in schools were students are being oppressed.

Christianity was new to most slaves who had been abducted from their native country and taken to the Americas. Some were hesitant to abandon their old traditions for the Christ their white captors taught of, but after several generations of slavery, most black slaves had succumbed to relentless preaching. However, the Christianity that took hold within the slave community was often interpreted differently, conveying different messages to pockets of slave population. The use of Christianity in slavery was a double edged sword, creating not only a tool for control, but a weapon of discontent in slave communities. Examining the works of Richard Allen and the stories of Nat Turner, create a narrative of how Christianity was applied differently to slaves.

Christianity provided African American slaves with hope, because although they were suffering as merely human instruments of work, God was watching them and all of theirs suffering would be rewarded by him. “Slavery, with all its

As blacks were treated like animals, white masters and the general white population believed their culture and beliefs to be barbaric or blasphemy in the eyes of their God. She goes on to say, “Long before Hollywood showed us images of African, Caribbean and African American wall-eyed shuffling, shrinking, superstition and assorted buffoonery, Christian missionaries and anti-slavery proponents were serving up images of black sorcery and savagery. A fair part of many white abolitionists’ reasoning was that the end of slavery would bring an end to the black pagan rites at the heart of so much rebellion and bloodthirst.” (7) Just like the anti-black imagery and propaganda during the Cuban slave revolution as shown in Ada Ferrer’s Insurgent Cuba, whites had a habit of downplaying anything that opposed their believes, especially if it involved Religion. Religion was directly or indirectly a gate way for power and influence. If Voodoo caught on in multiple plantations, it would make the white’s efforts of transculturalization much more difficult. Osbey continues to speak during her entry that in modern times, these very practices still continue, although they

James H. Cone’s God of the Oppressed is his examination of the origin, development, and significance of black theology as it relates to how he and the black Christian community view God. For Cone, in an America seemingly dominated by white theology and the white Christian community’s views of God, it is imperative to acknowledge and attentively listen to the voices of the theologies of other races and what God means to them, especially that of the black community. Cone asserts without hesitation that the God that is referred to in the Bible and black religion is a Deliver of those held captive by the bondage of oppression. Cone not only asserts this viewpoint of God as the Freer of oppressed people, but he validates this assertion through the use of Scripture, the black experience, history, and tradition. Overall, the central theme of this book is that a plethora of factors continually shape and construct a people’s theology and how that theology is significant in regards to how they see God, the world, and themselves.

In reflecting upon the images of the Black Church and the Black religious experience as seen within the film Red Hook Summer, I find the institutions of pastor, religious frenzy, and negro spiritual music as described by Dubois within the Of the Faith of the Fathers reading. These institutions (as portrayed within this film) serve as vehicles for the more nuanced messages of tradition and lived experience. This film governs a discourse on Black religion within these spaces—(tradition) institutional normality and the complex ever-blossoming lived experience of the Black worshiper. What the Church is, has been, and must be in relation to the contemporary realities of Black folk is at the heart of Red Hook Summer. More than the state of the

This lens is the framework that empowered the horde of angry white men to rape and lynch Laura Nelson and Cordella Stevenson as their “right” as white men seeking retribution for some false crime. This lens is the framework that empowered white police officers to disregard the body, cries, and life of Sandra Bland as she died under their custody. This lens is the framework that empowered the murders of Emmitt Till to torture and kill a 14 year old boy as a way to uphold the “honor” of white masculinity and the “purity” of white femininity. This lens empowered the murders of Jordan Davis and Trayvon Martin to take justice into their hands and kill these young men out of a false sense of fear and unfounded need for “protection.” Indeed, this liturgy (through embracing radical capitalism and commodifying Blackness) has created a world of hostility toward Blackness. This liturgy is the work of white supremacy through means of systemic and institutional

The oppressed are tools that the oppressors can choose from. In addition, the oppressed are kept from rising up and revolting because of disunity caused by the oppressors. The amount

Black liberation theology can be defined as a relationship between the blacks and God that ends all oppression towards them. This theology views God as a God of liberation of the oppressed from enslavement. Between the years of 1517 and 1840 it was estimated that about twenty million blacks were captured in Africa and then transferred to America, and ruthlessly enslaved. The experience faced by the Africans, and their descendants serves as the backdrop for scenery for understanding black liberation theology. During the times of slave trading days, Africans were crowded into ships and brought across the Atlantic.

Paulo Freire was one of the many theorist we covered this semester and he was one of them how refer that the oppressed had to be the oppressors. One statement he made in the reading Freire (1992) “the great humanistic and historical task of the oppressed” is to “liberate themselves and their oppressors as well.”(1). His statement is very powerful to the point where he is making us think that the only way to have humanity is that they have to act as the oppressors towards the people who are oppressing them so that they can see that it 's a problem that both groups have to transformed into a freedom. “Only power that springs from the weakness of the oppressed will be sufficiently strong to free both”(1). I also find this quote of him very important to what he means being oppressors against the group that oppresses them very important because their struggle as the oppressed group is to make others realize that it 's a problem that has to be fixed before it becomes more of a bigger deal and more violence methods erupt.

There are two types of people, the oppressors and the oppressed. Since the beginning of time oppressors have knocked down others who they believed were lesser than themselves creating inequality and alienation amongst humans. How will the oppressed overcome oppression and change their situation? The key to successfully overcoming oppression is a pedagogy with the oppressed.

find things to relate to being oppressed. Alas this is coming at a cost, a cost of logic and reason. How is this? Who can simply give us the answer?

While Latin American theology wanted to set itself apart, African theology wanted to prove its theology coincided within the Bible. In some instances African theology was viewed as different and inadequate from the ideas of Western theology. One of the documents I reflected on was by John Mbiti. He expressed, “The Bible is very much an African book, in which African Christians and theologians see themselves and their people reflected and in which they find a personal place of dignity and acceptance before God.” Unlike Latin America, theology was a deep connection in the lives of individuals in Africa. It was a personal reflection of life and a worldview they felt enhanced the Bible.

Just as power is an important aspect of classism and classist’s conduct and how it works, so is oppression almost always evident. In fact, it is suggested that an oppressor is one who keeps down another by their power to oppress and by those who consent to this act by their silence. (Power/Privilege

When digesting the theologies of Cone and other Liberation Theology types, I found myself arguing that I, as a representative of the white church, had never thought those thoughts. And suddenly, I was convicted that this theology was not for me to absorb, but for me to hear and adopt so the Church could repent and change. Two pages of three hundred and forty six pages in Justo Gonzalez’s work A History of Christian Thought contain information about “Third World Theologies.” This brevity does provide this summation of the various theologies, “…they seek to reconstruct the entirety of theology in such a way that those concerns are reflected at every point. In this they differ from earlier attempts to apply theology to various human problems and situations, and see those problems and situations rather as calls to new departures in theology.” It is in this veering where my interpretations and discoveries impact my ministry