“The difference in the form of black and white religious thought…”
This is just fantastic. I think James Cone hits the mark with laser precision here, particularly the differing philosophical epistemologies. Thoughts?
The difference in the form of black and white religious thought is on the one hand sociological. Since blacks were slaves and had to work from sun-up to nightfall, they did not have time for the art of philosophical and theological discourse. They, therefore, did not know about the systems of Augustine, Calvin, or Edwards. And if Ernst Bloch is correct in his contention that “need is the mother of thought,”1 then it can be said that black slaves did not need to know about Anselm’s ontological argument, Descartes Cogito, ergo sum, and Kant’s Ding an sich. Such were not their philosophical and theological problems as defined by their social reality.
Blacks did not ask whether God existed or whether divine existence can be rationally demonstrated. Divine existence was taken for granted, because God was the point of departure for their faith. The divine question which they addressed was whether God was with them in their struggle for liberation. Neither did blacks ask about the general status of their personal existence or that of the physical world. The brutal presence of white people did not allow that sort of philosophical skepticism to enter their consciousness. Therefore the classical philosophical debate about the priority of concepts versus things, which motivated Kant and his predecessors’ reflective endeavors, did not interest black people. What was “real” was the presence of oppression and the historical need to strive against it. They perhaps intuitively perceived that the problem of the auction block and slave drivers would not be solved through philosophical debate. The problem had to be handled at the level of concrete history as that history was defined by the presence of slavemasters. Slaves, therefore, had to devise a language commensurate with their social situation. That was why they told stories. Through the medium of stories, black slaves created concrete and vivid pictures of their past and present existence, using the historical images of God’s dealings with his people and thus breaking open a future for the oppressed not known to ordinary historical observation.
The difference between black and white thought is also theological. Black people did not devise various philosophical arguments for God’s existence, because the God of black experience was not a metaphysical idea. He was the God of history, the Liberator of the oppressed from bondage. Jesus was not an abstract Word of God, but God’s Word made flesh who came to set the prisoner free. He was the “Lamb of God” that was born in Bethlehem and was slain on Golgotha’s hill. He was also “the Risen Lord” and “the King of Kings.” He was their Alpha and Omega, the One who had come to make the first last and the last first.
James Cone, “The Story Context of Black Theology,” Theology Today 32, no. 2 (July 1975).
Theology Today – Vol 32, No. 2 – July 1975 – ARTICLE – The Story Context OF Black Theology.
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Let’s see, how do I say this… He makes it sound like liberation theology a) was a product of the the black experience b) does not owe an enormous debt to the western philosophical tradition. Both questionable points in my mind. Still, an eloquent critique thumb-twiddling theology!
Thumb-twiddling… that wasn’t the best way of saying it. What I’m saying is agree with Cone’s basic emphasis!
Yes, yes, and yes again