RISKS OF FAITH

These three decades— of essays on black theology from James Cone (Union Theological Seminary; A Black Theology of Liberation, 1970, etc.), one of the nation’s leading liberation theologians, chart Cone’s thinking from the late sixties to the present. He begins with an indictment of white Christians who were complicit in the oppression of their black co-religionists. But he also takes black churches to task for peddling —pie-in-the-sky-by-and-by— instead of embracing Black Power’s program of radical change here and now. His middle section pays tribute to and assesses the impact of the ministries of the Rev. Martin Luther King and Malcolm X. In Cone’s mind, King is —America’s most important theologian,— surpassing even Niebuhr and Edwards, —because of what he said and did about race from a theological point of view.— But it was Malcolm X who first inspired Cone to criticize both Christianity and the Civil Rights movement. In his final section, Cone embraces Womanist theology, and decries ecological destruction, observing that —unless we learn to live in harmony . . . with the universe we will self-destruct.— Many of these essays are dated, but readers interested in tracing the development of black liberation theology will find them invaluable.