Theology and Ethics of James Cone
Midterm
TR 553: Theology and Ethics of James Cone
April 12, 2013
Scott Evenson
In many respects Cone’s theology is unlike anything I have ever read. Its content “deals with the social basis of theology and is concerned with, among other related matters, the problem of the particular and the universal in theological discourse”. Its central thesis “is that one’s social and historical context decides not only the questions we address to God but also the mode or form of the answers given to the questions”. Cone was born in Fordyce, Arkansas and raised 14 miles away in Bearden, “a small community with approximately eight hundred whites and four hundred blacks”. He grew up in the Macedonian African Methodist Episcopal Church (A.M.E.) and received his theological training at Garrett Theological Seminary and Northwestern University. His perspective is that of a black theologian writing in a segregated North America during the civil rights movement in the mid 1970’s. Why is this biographical information relevant to the content of his theology? The answer to this question reveals the uniqueness of Cone’s approach. “Because I have lived the Bearden experience, I cannot separate it from my theological perspective. I am a black theologian! I therefore must approach the subject of theology in the light of the black Church and what that means in a society dominated by white people.” Instead of adopting the white Euro-American approach to theology, one that has reigned and pervaded the theological landscape for centuries, Cone brazenly challenges the hubris of the status quo and its right to speak sovereignly, and adopts an approach to theology that speaks to and springs from his own experiences and concerns as a black American living under white oppression. The questions and sources traditional theology had worked with were not the same as those of non-white races and cultures. This created a tension for Cone and his particular
TR 553: Theology and Ethics of James Cone
April 12, 2013
Scott Evenson
In many respects Cone’s theology is unlike anything I have ever read. Its content “deals with the social basis of theology and is concerned with, among other related matters, the problem of the particular and the universal in theological discourse”. Its central thesis “is that one’s social and historical context decides not only the questions we address to God but also the mode or form of the answers given to the questions”. Cone was born in Fordyce, Arkansas and raised 14 miles away in Bearden, “a small community with approximately eight hundred whites and four hundred blacks”. He grew up in the Macedonian African Methodist Episcopal Church (A.M.E.) and received his theological training at Garrett Theological Seminary and Northwestern University. His perspective is that of a black theologian writing in a segregated North America during the civil rights movement in the mid 1970’s. Why is this biographical information relevant to the content of his theology? The answer to this question reveals the uniqueness of Cone’s approach. “Because I have lived the Bearden experience, I cannot separate it from my theological perspective. I am a black theologian! I therefore must approach the subject of theology in the light of the black Church and what that means in a society dominated by white people.” Instead of adopting the white Euro-American approach to theology, one that has reigned and pervaded the theological landscape for centuries, Cone brazenly challenges the hubris of the status quo and its right to speak sovereignly, and adopts an approach to theology that speaks to and springs from his own experiences and concerns as a black American living under white oppression. The questions and sources traditional theology had worked with were not the same as those of non-white races and cultures. This created a tension for Cone and his particular