James H. Cone Quotes

24 Sourced Quotes

Testimony is an integral part of the Black religious tradition. It is the occasion where the believer stands before the community of faith in order to give account of the hope that is in him or her.

James H. Cone
The revolution which Black Theology advocates … [means] confronting white racists and saying: 'If it's a fight you want, I am prepared to oblige you.' This is what the black revolution means.

James H. Cone
Any theology that is indifferent to the theme of liberation is not Christian theology.

James H. Cone
God is black.... There is no place in black theology for a colorless God in a society where human beings suffer precisely because of their color. The blackness of God means that God has made the oppressed condition God's own condition.

James H. Cone
The acid test of any truth is found in whether it aids victims in their struggle to overcome victimisation.

James H. Cone
By focusing on Scripture, theology is granted the freedom to take seriously its social and political situation without being determined by it. Thus the question is not whether we take seriously our social existence but how and In what way we take It seriously. Whose social situation does our theology represent? For whom do we speak?... We are forced by Scripture itself to focus on our social existence, but not merely in terms of our own interests.... There can be no Christian speech about God which does not represent the interest of the victims in our society.

James H. Cone
Whether the American system is beyond redemption we will have to wait and see. But we can be certain that black patience has run out, and unless white America responds positively to the theory and activity of Black Power, then a bloody, protracted civil war is inevitable.

James H. Cone
'People should love each other' sounds like Riis Park at sundown. It has very little meaning to the world at large.

James H. Cone
Any talk about God that fails to make God's liberation of the oppressed its starting point is not Christian.

James H. Cone
We cannot solve ethical questions of the twentieth century by looking at what Jesus did in the first. Our choices are not the same as his. Being Christians does not mean following 'in his steps.'

James H. Cone
Black Power seeks not understanding but conflict; addresses blacks and not whites; seeks to develop black support, but not white good will.

James H. Cone
Unless God is participating in this holy activity, we must reject his love.

James H. Cone
If the church... does not make God's liberation of the oppressed central in its mission and proclamation, how can it rest easy with a condemned criminal as the dominant symbol of its message?

James H. Cone
To be Christian is to be one of those whom God has chosen. God has chosen black people!

James H. Cone
Racism is a complete denial of the Incarnation and thus of Christianity.... If there is any contemporary meaning of the Antichrist (or "the principalities and powers"), the white church seems to be a manifestation of it. It was the white "Christian" church which took the lead in establishing slavery as an institution and segregation as a pattern in society by sanctioning all-white congregations.

James H. Cone
Anger and humor are like the left and right arm. They complement each other. Anger empowers the poor to declare their uncompromising opposition to oppression, and humor prevents them from being consumed by their fury.

James H. Cone
By becoming poor and entrusting divine revelation to a carpenter from Nazareth, God makes clear where one has to be in order to hear the divine word and experience divine presence.

James H. Cone
Therefore, simply to say that Jesus did not use violence is no evidence relevant to the condition of black people as they decide on what to do about white oppression.

James H. Cone
As ambassadors of Jesus Christ, Christians have no choice but to join the movement of liberation on the side of the poor, fighting against the structures of injustice. Faith in Jesus Christ, therefore, is not only an affirmation that we utter in Sunday worship and at other church gatherings. Faith is a commitment, a deeply felt experience of being called by the Spirit of Christ to bear witness to God's coming liberation by fighting for the freedom of the poor now.

James H. Cone
Being black in America has little to do with skin color. Being black means that your heart, your soul, your mind, and your body are where the dispossessed are.

James H. Cone
The Christian does not decide between violence and nonviolence, evil and good. He decides between the less and the greater evil.

James H. Cone
The black theologian must reject any conception of God which stifles black self-determination by picturing God as a God of all peoples. Either God is identified with the oppressed to the point that their experience becomes God's experience, or God is a God of racism.... The blackness of God means that God has made the oppressed condition God's own condition. This is the essence of the Biblical revelation. By electing Israelite slaves as the people of God and by becoming the Oppressed One in Jesus Christ, the human race is made to understand that God is known where human beings experience humiliation and suffering... Liberation is not an afterthought, but the very essence of divine activity.

James H. Cone
Preaching the gospel is not easy in a church defined by the denominational interests of status-seeking clergy and laypersons. Doing Christian theology is difficult in a seminary or university determined by the academic interests of privileged professors and students. Speaking the truth can be politically dangerous in a society defined according to the socio-economic interests of the rich. Preaching the gospel, doing Christian theology, and speaking the truth are interrelated, and neither can be correctly understood apart from the liberation struggles of the poor and marginalized.

James H. Cone
Indeed our survival and liberation depend upon our recognition of the truth when it is spoken and lived by the people. If we cannot recognize the truth, then it cannot liberate us from untruth. To know the truth is to appropriate it, for it is not mainly reflection and theory. Truth is divine action entering our lives and creating the human action of liberation.

James H. Cone