In loving memory of Dr. James H. Cone
August 5, 1938 – April 28, 2018
“That’s Black liberation theology!”
People often mean it to be offensive. Dismissive.
It’s a charge that some of our more reformed brethren of the caucasian persuasion often levy in order to warn people that someone’s theology cannot be trusted. The Black Liberation Theologian is not being objective. They’re really just marxists with Bibles. It’s not real theology. It’s *black liberation* theology.
I usually dismiss those critiques, because I don’t really care what most of those people think. They don’t really have the ability to impact my life in any meaningful way. Most of the people I’ve been called to minister to aren’t looking to the Wokebusters for judgement on who is and is not a reliable narrator. I just keep mindin’ my Black-owned business. They gon’ have to stay mad. I will not spend my life defending my right to think thoughts about God to people who can’t do a thing about it but be mad.
This week, the volume got turned up a bit, though. You see, my debut book (Theologizin’ Bigger) just dropped. And it became an Amazon bestseller in the Christian Liberation Theology category. A book I wrote. Sittin’ right there on the charts with Dr. James Cone, the father of Black liberation theology! Ain’t that somethin?! So of course, the people who are definitely not racist (they had a Black President and Thomas Sowell is a genius) felt many feelings about me minding my Black-owned business and writing a book a couple of people wanted to read.
I’m a lover though. I wanna see everybody whole.
So today, during this 18th day of Black History Month EveMonth, I’m here to honor some of their heroes.
This piece is dedicated to the fathers of White Liberation Theology.
BUCKLE UP!
The Forerunner:
Theology never happens in a vacuum. We build on the precepts we’ve inherited. While James Cone is often regarded as the father of Black liberation theology, many of his ideas were built on the work of those before him, like Martin Luther King, Jr., Howard Thurman, and Bishop Henry McNeal Turner.
Likewise, long before white people were really a thing (once upon a time, people were Germanic, Norse, Saxon, etc.—but no one really thought about grouping them into one category), a monk and cleric by the name of Anselm of Canterbury laid the groundwork for what would eventually become White Liberation Theology. He was a devoted Catholic (much like Gustavo Gutiérrez, widely regarded as the father of Latin American liberation theology), but he wasn’t afraid of no smoke.
Anselm had beef in the 11th century with William II, the King of England. William tried to shake Anselm down and exert English control over the Catholic Church. Anselm said naw, went off to do monk things, and wrote Cur Deus Homo, which provided the first articulation of what is now known as the satisfaction theory of atonement (that’ll be important for us later).
The Fathers:
Just like Black liberation theology doesn’t really get rolling until James Cone takes it to another level in the 1970’s, White Liberation Theology didn’t really get to rolling until around the 16th century. October 31, 1517, to be specific.
On that day, a Roman Catholic priest named Martin Luther decided he’d had enough of the waywardness of the (Catholic) Church. He didn’t plan on leaving his religion. He wanted to call them to account. They kicked him out and he did his own thing.
He was responding to a very real injustice. The Church was selling salvation. They weren’t leading people to repentance & transformation. They would sell you a ticket to heaven. He ain’t think that was right. They called him a heretic for that. (Probably because that wasn’t entirely accurate.)
One of the theologies that developed in response to this built on Anselm’s work in Cur Deus Homo. But where Anselm suggested that Jesus made satisfaction for humanity’s disobedience through his own obedience, Martin Luther put some real rockets on this theory. You see, it wasn’t just that people were disobedient. We were in really bad shape. And the church wasn’t calling people to repentance! We were in danger of incurring the full wrath of God. Hellfire. And a renegade Church was leaving people enslaved to this wicked condition. God was NOT pleased. But luckily, God sends Himself in Jesus to pay the penalty that a just God MUST dole out for such depravity.
The theology that Martin Luther develops regarding the cross is now known as penal substitutionary atonement (PSA). Jesus is the ultimate sacrifice, taking on the penalty that we deserve. An inescapable conclusion of PSA is that we deserve to be flogged, tortured, brutalized, and publicly displayed until we breathe our last breath.
But, remember how I said the idea of “white” people didn’t really exist at the time of Anselm? Well, the idea of “white” people starts to take shape right around the time of Luther’s Reformation. Because at the same time the Church is selling indulgences, (Catholic) Portugal begins the transatlantic slave trade. The protestant reformation and the idea of race were developed in the same 16th century Christian climate.
A french theologian named John Calvin got into the reformation game as well. The PSA view of the cross that Luther develops plays a key role in his theology too. They differed on some points, but they agreed that we were all pretty terrible and deserved to be tortured by God. That God decided to torture the Son of God in our place (and that the Son willingly submitted to that plan) is supposed to be the Good News of a loving God. Penal Substitutionary Atonement quickly becomes a central tenet of White Liberation Theology
Martin Luther and John Calvin are (rightly) regarded as theological giants. Their theological descendants outnumber the stars in the sky. The majority of professing Christians in the Western world who are not Catholic can thank these gentlemen for their work. We call them the reformers. Their theology is widely known as “reformed” theology.
Which is sorta unfair. Because James Cone doesn’t get to be called a reformer or a reformed theologian. He was a Black man who did theology in response to his lived experience and cultural context. He’s often regarded as a heretic for providing different readings of scripture (and the Christian faith). Despite the fact that he was a reformer who provided volumes of serious theological work until his dying days, he is (accurately, I might add) described as a “Black liberation theologian”.
And so, we should be exactly as dedicated to specificity when we talk about Martin Luther and John Calvin. Those were men who did theology in response to their lived experience and cultural contexts (one of them was actually condemned as a heretic for it). The same context in which European Christians recognized injustice from the church with regards to its European members while remaining fairly silent about the church leading colonization and human trafficking operations in West Africa, by the way. We should (accurately, I might add) regard Martin Luther and John Calvin as “White liberation theologians.”
(If you are uncomfortable with that label, now might be a fine time to ask yourself if you carry the same discomfort around labeling people as “Black liberation theologians.” If you are fine with calling all sorts of Black people who do theology “Black liberation theologians,” but uncomfortable with calling the reformers and their adherents “White liberation theologians”… it might because you are only comfortable racializing people who are not white. But I digress.)
The Torch Bearers:
To keep my imaginary lawyer’s blood pressure down, I will refrain from identifying the torchbearers by name. (Because many of them are tiki torch bearers who like throwing the word “slander” around.)
However, there is an entire conservative, evangelical complex (TV networks, blogs, publishing houses, radio syndicates, etc.) built around presenting the theologies of Martin Luther and John Calvin as incontrovertible gospel truth, despite their relatively late arrival to the game.
Many people proudly identify as “reformed” Christians.
But, if we insist on (fairly, I might add) describing my work as Black Liberation Theology… I must insist that we are consistent. These people are doing White Liberation Theology.
When we fail to call White Liberation Theologians by their name, we rob ourselves of the opportunity to bring the assumptions they carry to the forefront. We just assume they’re the default. That how they’ve done it is how it’s always been done. Everyone else is somehow making stuff up, except for them.
And it doesn’t have to be that way.
Black Liberation Theology suggests that God is on the side of the oppressed (materially and spiritually), lovingly working for their freedom in Christ Jesus. White Liberation Theology suggests that we deserve the worst sort of punishment and that somebody has to get it, but that God lovingly took it upon Godself in Christ Jesus.
Those are both logically consistent articulations of the gospel material.
People are free to weigh them on their own merits.
I will not run from the label of “black liberation theology.”
Neither should anyone else run from the label of “white liberation theology.”
There is freedom in truth telling.
Theologizin’ Bigger is available everywhere now.
*An earlier version of this post inaccurately and unfairly represented indulgences to “selling salvation”. This post has been updated to reflect the nature of that mischaracterization.
Oh my goodness, Trey. I relished this read. The history. The reversal of phrase to reveal the bias of white as the default. The summary of PSA as *a* hermeneutic rather than *the* hermeneutic (fairly, I might add). The spicy captions. This was delicious.
"We just assume they're the default." Love this essay, and I'm so grateful for voices like yours!