scholarly journals James Cone’s Liberative Pedagogy

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 97-100
Author(s):  
Jason Wyman
Keyword(s):  
Liberation Theology ◽  
Black People ◽  
Effective Teacher ◽  
Theological Seminary ◽  
Traditional Methods ◽  
Black Liberation ◽  
Black Liberation Theology ◽  
The World ◽  
The Common ◽  
Theological Study

James Cone is known primarily as the founder of Black liberation theology. Yet for those who were his students, his teaching was equally as powerful. Cone managed to mentor people, create dialogue, and foster collaboration, all around the common collective task of seeking justice and liberation through theological study and construction. These things made Cone such an effective teacher. His work existed on a continuum, in which the liberation of Black people, of all the oppressed, was a non-negotiable baseline. While he used “traditional” methods, primarily lecture and seminar formats, the purpose behind his teaching wasn’t traditional at all. And as a result, he has put in place a network of clergy, academics, and of many other vocations, who in one way or another are promulgating that commitment to liberation and justice quite literally throughout the world. This is one of several short essays presented by recent students at a public forum at Union Theological Seminary after his death in 2018.  

scholarly journals Sort etik med transkontekstuel inspiration

2018 ◽  
Vol 76 (3) ◽  
pp. 21-39
Author(s):  
Carsten Elmelund Petersen
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Liberation Theology ◽  
Black People ◽  
Martin Luther ◽  
Malcolm X ◽  
Black Consciousness ◽  
Black Liberation ◽  
Black Liberation Theology ◽  
Martin Luther King

Allan Boesak developed a black liberation theology in SouthAfrica in the time of apartheid. He was studying the thinking of four afro-americans in USA, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Albert Cleage,and James Cone. Boesak does not argue that his ethics is universal, becausethe validity of his black ethics is only in the contexts where thereis oppression. Black ethics is contextual, Boesak says. But this articleargues that according to Boesak, ethics has validity in all the contextswhere there is oppression. The liberation ethic is, therefore, transcontextual.Another foundational element in Boesaks ethics is “the Black”:It is the black consciousness that gives black people a sense of belongingwhen they are oppressed. The Black consciousness is transcontextual.He uses the inspiration from USA, which is his original context, intothe South Africa apartheid situation, the application context.

Growing Black food on sacred land: Using Black liberation theology to imagine an alternative Black agrarian future

2021 ◽  
pp. 026377582110329
Author(s):  
Priscilla McCutcheon
Keyword(s):  
Liberation Theology ◽  
Black People ◽  
Black Body ◽  
The United States ◽  
Present Moment ◽  
Black Liberation ◽  
Black Liberation Theology ◽  
Food And Agriculture ◽  
Sacred Land ◽  
The Individual

This article uses Black liberation theology (BLIBT) as a framework to theorize “the spirit” in the alternative food and sustainable agriculture movement. While BLIBT was formally named by theologian James Cone, it was born of the struggles of Black people in the United States who believed that God called Black people to be free, and God called Black preachers to preach Black liberation. I argue that Black liberation is a grounded vantage point to understand how some Black people might find freedom through food and agriculture. In the first potion of the paper, I make a claim for the importance of studying spirituality in agrarian and food spaces, whether or not a researcher is spiritually inclined. In the second portion of the paper, I delve deeper into Cone’s articulation of BLIBT, and explore how we might begin to theorize it as an agrarian mandate including: a call for an urgent food source, liberation of the individual Black body, community ownership of land, the spirit of Black religious spaces, an emphasis on land reparations, and the freedom to dream. I conclude with a call for why an attention to BLIBT is called for in our present moment.

scholarly journals Introduction to the Forum on Dr. James H. Cone as Teacher and Mentor

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 79-80
Author(s):  
Pui-lan Kwok
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
Doctoral Students ◽  
Liberation Theology ◽  
York City ◽  
Theological Seminary ◽  
Black Liberation ◽  
Black Liberation Theology ◽  
Du Bois ◽  
Transformative Impact

Dr. James H. Cone (1938-2018) is widely considered the founder of black liberation theology. He had a transformative impact on generations of his students at Union Theological Seminary in New York City. In the semester following his death in Spring 2018, six of his current and recent doctoral students were gathered to share brief reflections on their experience of Dr. Cone as an inspirational teacher. This Forum collects their edited presentations in six short essays by: Nkosi Du Bois Anderson, Adam Clark, Isaac Sharp, Colleen Wessel-McCoy, Thurman Todd Willison, and Jason Wyman.

scholarly journals Looking Back at the Evolution of James Cone’s Theological Anthropology: A Brief Commentary

Religions ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (11) ◽  
pp. 596
Author(s):  
Sekhmet Ra Em Kht Maat
Keyword(s):  
Liberation Theology ◽  
Theological Anthropology ◽  
Doctoral Dissertation ◽  
Black Theology ◽  
Karl Barth ◽  
Theological Seminary ◽  
Church Dogmatics ◽  
Black Liberation ◽  
Black Liberation Theology ◽  
Swiss German

Reverend Dr. James Hal Cone has unquestionably been a key architect in defining Black liberation theology. Trained in the Western theological tradition at Garrett Theological Seminary, Cone became an expert on the theology of Twentieth-century Swiss-German theologian Karl Barth. Cone’s study of Barth led to his 1965 doctoral dissertation, “The Doctrine of Man in the Theology of Karl Barth,” where he critically examined Barth’s Epistle to the Romans and Church Dogmatics. His contemporaries and more recent African American theologians and religious scholars have questioned the extent to which Karl Barth’s ideas shaped Cone’s Black theology. The purpose of this brief commentary is to review the major ideas in “The Doctrine of Man” and Black Theology and Black Power, his first book, to explore which theological concepts Cone borrows from Barth, if any, and how Cone utilizes them within his articulation of a Black theological anthropology and Black liberation theology.

scholarly journals Cone's Consistency: Reflections from a Teaching Assistant

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 85-88
Author(s):  
Thurman Todd Willison
Keyword(s):  
Liberation Theology ◽  
Student Perspective ◽  
Theological Seminary ◽  
Student Voices ◽  
Black Liberation ◽  
Black Liberation Theology ◽  
Home Institution ◽  
Union Theological Seminary ◽  
Personal Level ◽  
The Church

Beyond his academic contribution of Black Liberation Theology to the church and academy at large, James Cone should be remembered on a personal level as one who prioritized the task of teaching his students, placed the student perspective and the development of independent student voices at the center of his pedagogy, pushed his students to take classroom learning out into the world, maintained exemplary standards of consistency in his theological work and moral character, and contributed to the legacy of his home institution Union Theological Seminary in immeasurable ways. This is one of several short essays presented by recent students at a public forum at Union Theological Seminary after his death in 2018.  

scholarly journals Malcolm X’s the ballot or the bullet speech? Its implications for Black Liberation Theology in present-day South Africa

2015 ◽  
Vol 71 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rothney S. Tshaka
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Liberation Theology ◽  
Black People ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Malcolm X ◽  
Black Liberation ◽  
Black Liberation Theology ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Masses

This article attempts to bring one of the greatest speeches of Malcolm X back to life in the current South Africa – the year 2015. It is a year of growing frustration and extreme dissatisfaction with basic living conditions amongst the greater part of black people in the country. Recounting the influences that Malcolm X had on Black Liberation Theology in South Africa, the article proposes that Black Liberation Theology in South Africa moves away from being an inward-looking critical theology to one that identifies with the basic concerns of the most vulnerable in society. It criticises both the political and the economic hegemonies that are currently perceived to perpetuate much of apartheid’s grave social ills in democratic South Africa. It calls attention to party politics that floods society with propaganda but in reality seems to have little real interest in the social well-being of the masses. In the article, the question as to what Malcolm X would have said about the current South African socio-economic context is asked. It is clear that both structural apartheid residues as well as the pure selfish interests of the current political rulers gang up against the chances of black people ever experiencing social justice in the near future.

scholarly journals The black church as the womb of black liberation theology?: Why the Uniting Reformed Church in Southern Africa (URCSA) is not a genuine black church?

2015 ◽  
Vol 71 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rothney S. Tshaka
Keyword(s):  
Southern Africa ◽  
Black Church ◽  
Black People ◽  
Black Theology ◽  
Dutch Reformed ◽  
Black Liberation ◽  
Black Liberation Theology ◽  
Reformed Church ◽  
Critical Theology ◽  
Dutch Reformed Church

This article sets forth a controversial thesis which suggests that the Uniting Reformed Church in Southern Africa, although considered a black church, is in fact not a black church in the sense in which a radical black church is traditionally understood. A black church, it is argued, is perceived to be one that is a self-determined church which supports initiatives of ameliorating the depressive situations in which black people find themselves. References are made to black theology as a critical theology which was never accepted in the black church due to the dependency syndrome which was brought about by the white benevolence of the Dutch Reformed Church. This, it is argued, had become innate in the Uniting Reformed Church in Southern Africa which still considers itself as a so-called daughter church of the white Dutch Reformed Church.

An Ethic of Responsibility

2020 ◽  
pp. 113-142
Author(s):  
Kristopher Norris
Keyword(s):  
Liberation Theology ◽  
Original Sin ◽  
Wicked Problem ◽  
Body Of Christ ◽  
Dietrich Bonhoeffer ◽  
Racial Reconciliation ◽  
New Approach ◽  
Black Liberation ◽  
Black Liberation Theology

This chapter begins the constructive turn in the book and outlines the contours and substance of an ethic of responsibility. The chapter begins by noting the impotence of efforts at “racial reconciliation” and offers the idea of “original sin” as a more accurate lens for addressing whiteness. The failure of white churches and theologians to reckon with the power of whiteness suggests the need for a new approach: an ethic of responsibility built upon the shared commitments of Cone and Hauerwas, and their mutual appeal to Dietrich Bonhoeffer, as well as the criticisms and corrections that black liberation theology directs at white theology. As a process of formation, an ethic of responsibility promotes radical, communal action to confront through material practices the wicked problem of whiteness, while also recognizing the lingering challenges of whiteness within a broken and wounded body of Christ.

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