On Violence: James Cone and Martin Luther King Jr.

In the last post, I quoted James Cone, who had this critique of Martin Luther King Jr.’s perspectives on violence and nonviolent:

[Martin Luther King Jr's] dependence on the analysis of love found in liberal theology and his confidence that the ‘universe is on the side of justice’ seem not to take seriously white violence in America. I disagreed with his conceptual analysis of violence and nonviolence, because his distinctions between these terms did not appear to face head-on the historical and sociological complexities of human existence in a racist society. James Cone, _God of the Oppressed_, 203

Tyler asked if I’d comment further on this critique, and as it connects to some previous posts of mine on nonviolence (I, II), I thought it’d be worth lingering on this criticism. 

James Cone on the Liberation of Love

[Martin Luther King Jr's] dependence on the analysis of love found in liberal theology and his confidence that the ‘universe is on the side of justice’ seem not to take seriously white violence in America. James Cone, _God of the Oppressed_, 203

Koinonia is limited to the victims of oppression and does not include the oppressors. ibid, 189

If violence versus nonviolence is not the issue [b/c nobody can be nonviolent in an unjust society] but, rather, the creation of a new humanity, then the critical question for Christians is not whether Jesus committed violence or whether violence is theoretically consistent with love and reconciliation. We repeat: the question is not what Jesus did…but what is he doing. ibid, 204, 201

The ethic of liberation arises out of love, for ourselves and for humanity. ibid, 199

For Cone, the hesitancy to speak of love, especially love of the oppressor, arises from the temptation to treat Christ’s love as if it were “indifferent to social and political justice” (208).

James Cone on the Uses and Limits of Karl Barth

Following up on the previous few posts, here is James Cone discussing why Barth’s criticisms are helpful for oppressors but not the oppressed:

Of course, black theology is aware of the danger of identifying the word of human beings with the word of God, the danger Karl Barth persuasively warned against in the second decade of this century:

The Black Christ (James Cone)

I begin by asserting once more that Jesus was a Jew. It is on the basis of the soteriological meaning of the particularity of his Jewishness that theology must affirm the christological significance of Jesus’ present blackness. He is black because he was a Jew. James Cone, God of the Oppressed, 123.

For many, coming from a variety of theological perspectives, talk of “the Black Christ” is scandalous–and not in the sense that Gospel is a scandal. I want to unpack Cone’s defense of his claim, suggesting that what Cone should say, at the end, is: Christ is black because he is a Jew.

Why Christians Hate The “Religion” They Invented

I wanted to avoid adding another commentary to the now ubiquitous “Why I Hate Religion, but Love Jesus” video. But it keeps being posted and reposted, despite a fairly obvious objection to it: only Christians of a certain kind think “religion” means what this guy says it means.

Theology and Ideology (more thoughts on James Cone)

Theologians must continually ask: “How do we distinguish our words about God from God’s Word…our dreams and aspirations from the work of the Spirit” (Cone, God of the Oppressed, 77). Each theological movement challenges some other movement for its ideological entrapment.  For instance, Hauerwas points out the ways in which American Christianity functions ideologically as a divine blessing on American nationalism. Apocalyptic theologians then point out that the Hauerwasian idea of the church as alternative polis functions ideologically by conflating the church’s institutional life with the gospel.

James Cone offers an important challenge to every criticism of ideology. He says, 

Theology and Creativity: James Cone on the Theological Imagination

God’s Word is a poetic happening, an evocation of an indescribable reality in the lives of the people. James Cone, God of the Oppressed, p. 17.

James Cone wonderfully situates theological work within the realm of human artistic production: theology is a creative response to an active, living presence, the “event of liberation” that is Jesus Christ (32).

Viewing theology as a creative work