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<h1 style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-align: left; color: rgb(0, 61, 74); line-height: 100%; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 34px; font-weight: normal; display: block;">On
Spending the Day with Amos,
i.e. Professor James H. Cone</h1>
<div>So much of Christianity is
a delusion, built as it is
around power images and
institutional claims to
possess either an infallible
Pope or an inerrant Bible.
The Christian Church also
traditionally operates out
of a definition of life as
something evil, fallen and
corrupted by original sin,
which it has used to enhance
guilt and fear in the
service of controlling
behavior. From the days of
the Emperor Constantine in
the Fourth century, the
Christian Church has
frequently been a tool of
the state enforcing cultural
conformity. Drunk with its
own claims to possess
ultimate truth, the church
has become a primary source
in the dehumanization of men
and women.</div>
<div>Our victims through the
centuries were first the
Jews. Anti-Semitism is a
Christian gift to the world.
One finds evidence of this
in the New Testament, in the
church “fathers,” in the
Inquisition, in the leaders
of the Reformation and
ultimately when we
Christians watched benignly
as these seeds of violence,
long nurtured in the
Christian bosom, erupted in
the murderous violence that
we call the Holocaust, when
six million Jews, along with
others defined by the Nazi
regime as sub-human, were
exterminated in Hitler’s
ovens.</div>
<div>Later in Christian history,
Muslims felt the pain of
Christian hostility.
Vatican-sponsored and
supported wars called “The
Crusades” in the 11th, 12th
and 13th centuries put
Muslims to death with
impunity. The Crusades also
planted in our world the
hatred that today has given
birth to an Islamic
hostility toward the
“Christian West,” expressed
in the rising tide of
terrorism in which we now
live. How could a religious
system, based on the
teachings of Jesus, who
called us to “love our
enemies,” wind up doing
these things? Must something
in our humanity have to die
to make this behavior
possible?</div>
<div>Other victims of a
dehumanizing Christianity
throughout our history have
been women, who were judged
and defined as inadequate,
dependent human beings; and
gay and lesbian people, who,
in our ignorance, were
defined as either mentally
sick or morally depraved
people. The dominant members
of Western civilization, who
were overwhelmingly
Christian, passed laws,
designed both to control and
to dehumanize those members
of our society that they
thought were either less
than fully human or deviant.</div>
<div>We need to recall that the
leadership of the Christian
Church also led the way in
the oppression of people of
color. The Pope has owned
slaves. It was in the Bible
belt of the South that
African enslavement was most
enthusiastically practiced
and defended with the blood
of white southerners on the
battlefields of Gettysburg,
Antietam and Appomattox.
When slavery finally died,
segregation was born to
replace it. In 1876
Republican Rutherford B.
Hayes became president
because of a deal worked out
with the white leaders of
four Southern states. They
agreed to throw to him their
state’s disputed electoral
votes in exchange for his
commitment to withdraw Union
forces from the South and to
allow the white South to
make segregation legal and
binding. Blacks were
disenfranchised in that act
and the lynching of black
people without fear of
retaliation became the
activity of choice to keep
the black population of the
South under control. So many
black people were hanged by
mobs on southern trees that
their bodies were referred
to in black music as
“strange fruit.” White
Christian leaders
participated in this reign
of terror. Somehow Jesus was
quoted by them as blessing
this horror. The Christian
life that Paul had once
extolled as “the glorious
liberty of the children of
God” was now used by these
followers of Jesus as the
agent of a life-destroying
hostility and oppression.</div>
<div>Through the centuries
Christian theology, while
making claims to triumphal
power has remained
insensitive to the victims
of its own violence.
Christians have been willing
participants in oppression
and generally have been
unwilling to face the
results of our own
distortions. We have rather
perfumed our violence so
that it did not smell as bad
as it was.</div>
<div>All of these things were
forced into my consciousness
just recently when I spent
the day with James H. Cone,
the Charles A. Briggs
Distinguished Professor of
Systematic Theology at Union
Seminary in New York City.
His most recent book is
entitled, <em>The Cross and
the Lynching Tree</em>.
This book asks why the white
church remained silent while
thousands of black citizens
were lynched in the
religious South and none of
these murderers was ever
arrested or convicted for
these crimes. His earlier
books, which included such
titles as <em>Black
Theology and Black Power;
God of the Oppressed</em>,
and <em>Martin and Malcolm</em>,
had propelled him into the
ranks of the premier
theologians of our time.
Professor Cone rooted his
theological work in the
lives of the victims of our
society. He read the same
Bible as his white
oppressors, but his focus
was on the biblical stories
of the plight of the
marginalized. God, he
noticed, had been on the
side of the slaves, not the
Egyptians. He read Jesus’
parable of the judgment, in
which the ultimate test of
the Christian life was not
what one believed, but how
one acted. Christianity,
that parable proclaims, is
present when love is
unhindered toward those
defined as “the least of
these,” those whom society
defines as lacking in
ultimate value. Instead of
debating the morality of
birth control and abortion,
he wanted Christians to be
aware of how those who are
already born are treated. He
listened to the parable of
the Good Samaritan, which
defined the “neighbor” we
are commanded to love to
include those who elicit
from us our deepest
prejudices and our most
virulent fears. Though well
trained in classical
theology (his PhD
dissertation at Northwestern
University was on the work
of Karl Barth), James Cone
began to ask questions that
classical theology had never
thought to ask, and in the
process he forced classical
theology to face its own
irrelevance. “What could
Karl Barth possibly mean for
black students,” Dr. Cone
asked, “who had come from
the cotton fields of
Arkansas, Louisiana and
Mississippi, seeking to
change the structure of
their lives in a society
that had defined blacks as
non-beings?”</div>
<div>So the starting place for
his theology came out of his
own biography. He was born
in 1938 in Fordyce,
Arkansas. He was raised in a
rural, segregated part of
that state, which defined
people of color as inferior,
even calling them less than
human. He lived in the fear
that powerless people always
experience. The deck was
stacked against him. When
violated, he could not
defend himself; when
rejected by the symbols of a
society that circumscribed
what he was allowed to do
within very limited
boundaries, his only
recourse was to absorb it.
Public water fountains,
public restrooms, public
libraries, public parks and
public schools were not
available to him. If he
dared to challenge any of
these practices the law
would not defend him.
Attempts to change his world
were met with vigilante
administered “justice.” His
segregated school
compromised his ability to
learn, stocked, as it was,
with inferior books and
teachers trained in inferior
colleges. His one bulwark
against this
culturally-imposed,
debilitating self-image was
his parents, who placed a
cocoon of love around him.
This cocoon was also
supported by his attendance
at the Macedonia African
Methodist-Episcopal (AME)
Church, which proclaimed to
him the infinite love of God
and defined him as a
precious child of God.</div>
<div>Nonetheless in his
inadequate school, he
exhibited an intelligence
and ability to learn that
set him apart. For college
he attended Philander Smith,
a small, “black only” Little
Rock institution, graduating
in 1958. Then, seeking a
career as a pastor, he
gained admission to
Garrett-Evangelical
Theological Seminary in
Illinois from which he
received his divinity degree
in 1961. Seminary was his
first step out of his
oppressive society. Having
gained recognition as one
with significant
intellectual gifts, he went
on to Northwestern
University to achieve a
Master’s degree in 1963 and
a PhD in 1965. His ability
to write was hampered, he
said, by his lack of
training in proper grammar,
proper punctuation and the
extensive vocabulary that
comes with expanded
experience. Segregation was
still preventing him from
communicating what he
grasped intellectually quite
well. Armed with his new
PhD, he discovered that his
teaching opportunities were
still circumscribed by the
same forces that had always
defined him as inferior. His
only job offer was to teach
at Philander Smith. In 1970,
he moved away a second time
to teach in Adrian College
in Michigan. From there
Union Seminary, in an act of
brilliance, reached into
this tiny midwestern school
to tap him for its chair in
Systematic Theology.</div>
<div>At Union Seminary, James
Cone turned the theological
paradigm upside down. He
began his work, not with
some obscure doctrine of
God, but with the life he
had lived as a victim inside
the Christian world. He
listened to the anger in the
Civil Rights Movement; it
was his anger. He sought to
understand the insights of a
black leader like Malcolm X,
who articulated that anger.
He was not impressed with
theologians as eminent as
Reinhold Niebuhr, who never
seemed to see the black
struggle as a Christian
concern or even to engage
the reality of lynching. He
stated that Malcolm X was
not far wrong when he called
the white man “the devil.”
He had little time for this
false Christianity of
oppression and proceeded to
develop his call for the
Christian Church to place
itself, humbly and
obediently at the side of
those who had heretofore
been its victims. He
confronted institutional
Christianity, which placed
its own wealth and status
ahead of challenging a
debilitating racism. Above
all, he dared to be a
prophetic voice of judgment
within Christianity whenever
it put its institutional
well-being ahead of its duty
to break the bonds of
oppression. In doing these
things, he revealed a new
vision of God.</div>
<div>One cannot hide inside
religious clichés in the
presence of this man of God.
Like the prophet Amos, he is
an uncomfortable presence to
the religious establishment,
but his message is correct.
He cannot be dismissed in
the language of the 1960’s,
as a “communist” or a
liberal as people sought to
do. James Cone is the voice
of authentic Christianity,
calling us into a Christian
future. We will fail to
listen to him at our own
peril.</div>
<div>~John Shelby Spong</div>
<div>Read the essay online <a style="color: rgb(68, 135, 207); font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline;" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb232418480&id=d69b5c994a&e=0471473479" target="_blank">here</a>.</div>
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<h2 style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-align: left; color: rgb(68, 135, 207); line-height: 100%; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 30px; font-weight: normal; display: block;">Question
& Answer</h2>
<div>William P. Wright, Jr., via
the Internet, writes:</div>
<h4 style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-align: left; color: rgb(68, 135, 207); line-height: 100%; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 22px; font-weight: normal; display: block;">Question:</h4>
<div>It is a great relief to
find you in today's world
and to know someone else
feels as I do about many
things. You have helped me
to see that real
Christianity need not die to
accommodate the reality in
which the human race finds
itself living today. Since I
was born, some 80 years ago,
I have been attending the
First Baptist Church in my
home town, first as a child
and now as a mature
(hopefully not yet senile)
adult. I have seen pastors
come and go, sung the hymns
and spoken the words of the
first century many times and
wondered if I were the only
person who was grasping to
emulate Christ in my life
amid a confusing and
contradictory belief system.
It came to a head when I was
asked to dedicate a private
cemetery on a Texas ranch
for dear friends. How do you
speak with integrity of
belief when your audience is
seemingly traditional and
literal? This is what I
said:
</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>“We are gathered here to
consecrate this ground; this
special place; a place for
meditation, inspiration and
for remembrance. Years ago,
I was walking in the place
here they called the orchard
because that was what it
was, an apple orchard tended
by my friend’s grandfather.
The apples he grew, he
peddled far and wide to
support his family during
hard times. My wife was with
me that day and she bent and
picked up a piece of flint
that her ever watchful eyes
had observed. It was proof
of the presence of human
activity at this place
hundreds, perhaps thousands
of years before.
</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>“More recently, the name of
that mountain south of us,
Mitre Peak, marked this as a
special place. It suggested
the passage of Spanish
explorers for whom it was
both a symbol of a bishop’s
hat and of the church which
served as a guide for the
journey. Another reason that
this is a special place is
that behind us is a spring
that produces hundreds of
gallons of water in this
Chihuahuan Desert. Water is
life. There is no life
without it. So for these
thousands of years the
spring has been there and,
because it was, life was
here also and still is.
</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>“Today, however, we are
reminded that there is also
death here. Death is
everywhere. We think of
death because it is part of
life and those of us
gathered here are alive.
Mountains, however, also
die. Mitre Peak, which looks
so strong and eternal, is in
the midst of its life cycle
just as we are. Millennia
from now it will be
dissolved by the inexorable
forces of erosion, wind,
rain, changes of temperature
and other processes will
carry its bulk to the sea
where it will be
reconstituted as the sea
bed. Perhaps someday it will
once again become a
mountain. That is the
eternal cycle of existence
of which we are but a
miniscule yet important
part.
</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>“It is fitting that we
think upon these things as
we visit this place where
our friends and relatives,
have passed this life and
have begun another phase in
this cycle of existence.
They still exist, but in
ways our limited
intelligence cannot imagine.
Even as their bodies are
re-constituted into their
original minerals and
elements and then again into
plants and animals they are
still with us when we come
here.
</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>“We meditate on their lives
and on the lives of those we
did not know who came before
us. It is in hallowed ground
like this that history is
recorded and endures. We
feel the unbroken chain that
ties our earliest ancestors
to us for all time. We
relive the joys of our
association with them in
life and we honor those
lives with our remembrance.
We can learn from their
successes and be warned by
their failures and just as
those ancient travelers, who
established their location
from sighting Mitre Peak, we
can recast our own
directions by reflecting on
the lives of those who are
buried here.
</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>“God, we know you as the
great architect of this
universe. Your energy is
transformed in your
laboratory of stars into the
elements that make visible
the world we see and know.
Understand that, we know you
are with us in every nook
and cranny of existence, in
the cells of our body, in
the dirt beneath our feet,
in the birds and animals and
in everything that is. In a
very real way, we are made
from your energy - therefore
in your image.
</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>“Let us leave today with
that knowledge and with the
assurance that we, just as
those who are honored here,
are eternal. As we visit
this place let us be
reminded of that and let it
give us peace and direction
for our lives.”
</div>
<div>
</div>
<div> </div>
<h4 style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-align: left; color: rgb(68, 135, 207); line-height: 100%; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 22px; font-weight: normal; display: block;">Answer:</h4>
<div>Dear Bill,
</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>Thank you for sending me
your words at the dedication
of a cemetery. You have
rightly discerned the fact
of human connectedness, not
only with those we love, but
with those who have formed
the chain of life that has
bridged the years of human
history.
</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>You have also plumbed the
depths of human meaning and
discovered anew that life is
much more than simply the
passage of time.
</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>My study of human origins
informs me that the universe
is somewhere between 13.7
and 13.8 billion years old.
It tells me that everything
is made of star dust. It
tells me that out of matter
life has flowed and out of
life consciousness has
emerged. The miracle of
humanity is discovered when
we recognize that out of
consciousness,
self-consciousness has
appeared.
</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>Everything that I know
about evolution tells me
that it is an ongoing, never
ending process. For out of
self-consciousness, a
universal consciousness is
being born today and human
divisions are being
transcended. For Paul that
was the very nature of the
Christ experience. “In
Christ,” he noted, “there is
neither Jew nor Greek, male
nor female, bond nor free.”
Human oneness continues as
we realize that in Christ
there is also neither black
nor white, Catholic nor
Protestant, gay nor
straight, Jew nor Muslim,
capitalist nor communist. To
see barriers fade is scary
to some people because
barriers protect us from
fear. As the universal
consciousness enfolds us,
however, the barriers will
inevitably disappear and
oneness - both human oneness
and the oneness of the human
with the natural world will
become clear.
</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>Ultimately, this will also
cause us to redefine God.
God will no longer be
understood as a supernatural
being, who invades the world
miraculously from somewhere
outside it. God will rather
be perceived as the Source
of Life calling us to live
fully, the Source of Love
freeing us to love
wastefully and as the Ground
of Being empowering us to be
all that each of us can be.
That is the God presence
that I find in Jesus and
that is why he calls me to
step beyond even the
boundaries of religion.
Increasingly, God is for me
a verb to be lived and not a
noun to be defined.
</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>You seem to be on a similar
journey. I feel privileged
to have you as a fellow
pilgrim. Walk in faith!
</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>~John Shelby Spong</div>
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