Black Theology and Black Power

Excerpt: To be sure non-Christian thinkers have made many discoveries about the relation of the facts to one another in the universe. This is the case because they are wrong and the Bible is true in what it says about God and his relation to the world. If the world were as a matter of fact what the apostate man assumes that it is, then no man could identify himself. Then he could not even begin his process of scientific learning. In that case there would be no law or order in the universe. Man would have to make his own laws. Paul pleads with the Greeks to accept Jesus Christ as the way, the truth, and the life. If they do, and only if they do, can they have an intelligible foundation for their science and philosophy. If they do not accept Christ as the way, the truth, and the life then all the fruits of their labor will be taken from them at last and they will finally see that they had to serve Christ as slaves instead of as free men in him. In short, in Jesus Christ alone man knows who he is and what freedom means. Stand fast therefore, says Paul, in the liberty wherewith Christ has made you free.

Now what I fear is that your people are going to be led into a new form of slavery which is worse than any other slavery you have, by the unrighteousness of the white man, ever suffered. I am referring to the work of Dr. James H. Cone on Black Theology and Black Power. I speak from the conviction that what Paul said to the Greeks must be said to men today. The Greeks, together with all men fallen in Adam, were all their lifetime subject to the fear of death. They not only had not heard the gospel of Paul but they were holding under in unrighteousness the revelation of God within their own constitution and in the world about them. They had put a mask on their faces so they would not have to see, as they thought, the face of the creator-God. When they looked into a mirror they saw only the masks which they had cemented to their faces.

The philosophy to which Dr. Cone appeals in the interest of freedom is the same sort of philosophy as the philosophy of the Greeks. It is Immanuel Kant’s philosophy that has set the tone for all subsequent schools of philosophy. This is true particularly of the I-thou—I-it philosophy to which Dr. Cone appeals.

Download the Document:
Black Theology and Black Power.pdf