Tell Union Theological Seminary to repudiate white-hating professor James Hal Cone
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This week’s action alert asks readers to demand that Union Theological Seminary (UTS) repudiate the teachings of white-hating theology professor James Hal Cone, who teaches at UTS. Cone’s theology was one of the primary inspirations of Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s incendiary sermons. Cone is a staunch defender of Malcolm X and once wrote, “Malcolm X was not far wrong when he called the white man the devil.”
Background: When you read the quotations from Cone’s work that I have placed in the body of the e-mail, I believe you will be as shocked as I was that a man who writes such things is employed as “Distinguished Professor of Systematic Theology” at a reputable seminary. UTS has posted a response to the Jeremiah Wright affair on its website. The response contains not a word of criticism of either Wright or Cone and links to an article about Wright that praises him as a modern-day prophet.
Below I’ve placed instructions on how to send the e-mail below to the UTS President of the Faculty and the UTS contact address. Thanks for doing your part.
Subject: Repudiate James Hal Cone and Jeremiah Wright!
Body: The theology of UTS professor James Hal Cone has gotten much attention recently, since Rev. Jeremiah Wright has named Cone’s works one of the inspirations for his religion of anti-white paranoia. To remind you, Wright preached that the US government invented AIDS to kill off non-whites and once called his country the “US of KKKA.”
When I read the writings of Cone, I was shocked to discover that there were professors employed at reputable institutions of higher learning who unabashedly promoted hatred of whites and urged blacks to commit violence against them. Cone has defended Malcolm X’s view that whites are the devil and that blacks are within their rights to assault and even kill whites in the name of black liberation. When I visited the Union Theological Seminary website, it sickened me to see that your only response to the Wright affair has been to post a link to Melissa Harris-Lacewell’s uncritical apology for the minister’s galling words.
Cone’s writings are responsible for Wright’s libels on whites. It is incumbent on UTS, as a Christian institution, to publicly repudiate Cone’s words, as well as those of his wild-eyed followers.
Here are some quotations from Cone’s 1968 book Black Theology and Black Power that outraged me:
“Theologically, Malcolm X was not far wrong when he called the white man the devil.”
“Whiteness, as revealed in the history of America, is the expression of what is wrong with man. It is a symbol of man’s depravity. God cannot be white even though white churches have portrayed him as white. When we look at what whiteness has done to the minds of men in this country, we can see clearly what the New Testament meant when it spoke of the principalities and powers… The coming of Christ means a denial of what we thought we were. It means destroying the white devil in us.”
“Black theology will accept only the love of God which participates in the destruction of the white enemy.”
In the 1975 essay “Revolution, Violence, and Reconciliation,” Cone legitimated black violence against whites: “The divine election of the oppressed means that black people are given the power of judgment over the high and mighty whites.”
Cone never apologized for these writings. In fact, his militant anti-white attitudes continued into the era of affirmative action and the welfare state, when whites spent trillions to rescue blacks from poverty and bring them into the American mainstream. His 1992 book Martin & Malcolm & America is an uncritical glorification of Malcolm X. Cone whitewashes Malcolm X’s incitements to violence against whites as a “commitment to [black] self-defense.” Cone also says that Malcolm X “complemented and corrected” Martin Luther King’s philosophy of non-violence.
Surely one of the crucial tasks of Christians is to work towards racial reconciliation. I can guarantee you, however, that there will be no such reconciliation as long as preachers of hate like Cone and Wright are dignified with the titles of “professor” and “reverend.”
Sincerely,
Instructions for sending: Click here to open an e-mail message addressed both to Prof. Joseph C. Hough, Jr., the UTS President of the Faculty (jhough@uts.columbia.edu), and to the UTS contact address (contactus@uts.columbia.edu). If you cannot open an e-mail message by clicking a link, open it manually and paste the addresses in. Then paste the message above into the subject line and the body section of the e-mail message, edit as you like, and send.
If this is the first time you are acting on an Inverted World action alert, it is crucial that you either leave a comment below or send me a private e-mail telling me you sent the message. I need to know how many people are sending these messages to gauge interest.
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I sent it. I don’t know if you still want us to notify you if we are repeat senders here. FYI, I pledge to send an action alert from Inverted World whenever I see one.
Also, I would suggest that, becuase these institutions/contacts will be receiving several messages at once, we keep this in mind when drafting the Action Alerts. Saying “When I read the writings of Cone…” might seem a little disingenuous if this same message is obviously being mass mailed to the address. Honestly, I have not read the writings of Cone, and others sending the message might not have either. The recipients will be well aware of this. Just a thought.
Thanks again for the regular opportunity to contribute, even if in a small way, to our cause.
By on 3/28/08 at 12:39 pm
Black Theology is one of the most relevant theologies of our time. In a society where the poor, widows, children, and the suffering are oppressed it speaks to the condition of a nation that has ignored it citizens along lives of color, creed, and race. America deserves to be a Promised Land for all of its citizens. Black Theology tells the truth of this oppression and suffering…Thank You Dr. Cone!
Dr. Wright called for damnation [God damn America]and says America is guilty of various atrocities and acts of long term suffering and oppression against its citizens. In excerpts from this 2003 sermon he argues that the founding fathers of this country regardless of their politics, well understood that the cornerstone of America, is “…one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.” However, the history of America has actually fallen short of liberty and justice for all. Rev. Wright isn’t just speaking historically, but also of current events of separatism, discrimination, racism, suffering and oppression.
If America believes as a Promised Land-in God We Trust-our destiny being justified by our actions, then a critical realignment of our moral compass is required and divine damnation is the guardian. It is not possible to understand redemption (Ex. 12:29-30; Mt.20:28; Eph.1:7) if we cannot understand damnation. In fact salvation presupposes damnation.
In classical theology redemption is always from damnation, which is a universal consequence of the fall. In the modern era theology has allowed damnation to disappear and with that too so has the wrath of God, as many theologians and churches deny its possibility as a consequence of the victory of Christ over sin and death. However, how can we really know Christ apart from the works of the consequences of sin and its ultimate just condemnation, as we all have fallen short of the glory of God (Rom. 3:23)?
God’s justice and his mercy balance one another. It is that justice which keeps mercy from becoming cheap grace, while mercy restrains justice from its mighty weight and crushing everything with divine punishment. Justice and mercy serve a higher aim for both display God and evoke the glory that God rightly deserves. Salvation and damnation balance each other and both work to display the Divine (John 12:44-50a).
The crucifixion of Christ is redemption from apocalyptic damnation that is inseparable from the eternity of Hell (Rev.1:17-18). Predestination to Heaven and to Hell are essential to each other (Ex.19:5-6; Eph.1:11-14; Jude 1:5-7), as Satan’s expulsion from heaven and the fall of man preclude Christ’s crucifixion are polarities, each essential to each other-each is unreal without the other. In the loss of understanding of damnation in our modern world, our deeper imagination is far more possessed by things of evil than any previous worldview as horrors of our century have deepened and we are more socially indifferent to the struggles, suffering and oppression of our fellow man as the bearers of the image of God (Gen. 1:27 NIV).
To quote Alister McGrath: “Suffering is part of a greater whole. It is the link between our present state of lowliness and our future state of glory. Theology allows us to see suffering as a window into the presence of God. We see through it and beyond it, and catch a glimpse of the glory and presence of God which lies through its gateway.”
Rev. Wright targets this “oppression and suffering” as that which is maldistributed, enormous, dehumanizing, and transgenerational - excessive, above and beyond what is inherent in the human condition as inflicted on various racial and ethnic groups in America and calls for this country’s “damnation”. Damn and damnation, theologically “are words synonymous with condemn and condemnation taken to denote the final and eternal punishment for the ungodly.
The modern witness of the Church is to hold that God’s justice is seen in his righteous reversal of the oppression and suffering of the unjust as image bearers, who remains the high-point of God’s creative design for the world and for history. God is concerned about our condition and social justice is relevant to his cause (Psa 9:9; 10:17-18; 103:6; 146:6-8; Dan. 4:27; Neh. 9:26-27; Isa. 10:1-3). God is just; calling into account those who perpetrate injustice and in this proclamation that forgiveness of sins is available through Jesus. Forgiveness is available through Jesus because he satisfied God’s justice in his death on the cross. Thus, this requires an America as God’s chosen people that repent of the social injustices it inflicts on its people and worldly neighbors. The failure of America as to address these sins of injustice, will lead to its damnation. The Church’s primary mission of evangelization is the fundamental aspiration to develop a society truly worthy of the human person’s dignity under God’s morality.
WDWILLIAMS
By on 5/3/08 at 3:07 am
The theology that WD Williams subscribes to – the Black Theology of Dr Cone – may be a “theology”, but it is certainly not Christian. The prime message of Christianity is that God is God and man is man – in other words that man is made in God’s image not vice versa. Man must become more like God, not God like man. Bible-based Christian theology teaches man how this is to be accomplished and is focussed on heaven (i.e. it accepts that God’s order is the source of all order).
Black (or Liberation, or Liberal) theology takes the opposite tack and attempts to remake God in man’s image. Man calls the shots and can make his own heaven, must in fact make his own order or Utopia here on earth. This is the complete opposite of the whole thrust of the Bible, and is heresy, plain and simple. Many modern mainstream Christian denominations have been infected with this heresy to a lesser or greater extent, which is why the Church generally has become so irrelevant in the modern world.
To summarise: Christian theology teaches the worship of God, while Leftist theology teaches the worship of man. What is so important about all this? Well for one thing the first mindset gave rise to Western Civilisation, while the second mindset is going to destroy it. Why? Because the rejection of God and his standard, also entails the loss of justice. The very idea of justice is corrupted – eventually it becomes injustice – and there is no authority to back anything up. Liberals try to make “equality” (the new god) the standard of their “order”, but as we’ve seen from Robespierre to Soviet Russia, to “Politically Correct” America and the EUSSR, all this does is open the way to the totalitarian tyranny of uniformity.
Leftist theology (Black/ Liberation/ Liberal), then, is imprisoned in a secular liberal mindset, which has made the idea of “equality” the alpha and omega of everything, and consequently distorts reality. Thus it is that context is ignored and,
“…one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.”
is now interpreted to mean universal egalitarianism and “non-discrimination”. But while the legal fiction of equality (so that the law is universally and consistently applied) is necessary for justice, actual equality IS NOT – is forever unobtainable, and moreover would be unjust if ever it could be enforced.
Blinded by their idolization of equality, leftists make extreme and sweeping statements about the state of their world:
“…in a society where the poor, widows, children, and the suffering are oppressed it speaks to the condition of a nation that has ignored it citizens along lives of color, creed, and race. America deserves to be a Promised Land for all of its citizens.”
I am not an American, and I see many imperfections in America, but leftists need to get a grip on reality – America is still one of the richest and freest places on earth for all her citizens (including black citizens) and to castigate her for her treatment of her poor and oppressed is insane. Maybe in their blind faith, they really believe this:
“Rev. Wright targets this “oppression and suffering” as that which is maldistributed, enormous, dehumanizing, and transgenerational - excessive, above and beyond what is inherent in the human condition as inflicted on various racial and ethnic groups in America and calls for this country’s “damnation”.”
However there are places in the world that actually merit that condemnation, that “damnation” (all of black Africa for example), but somehow I don’t think the Rev. Wright will manage to see that.
Leftist theology, in WD Williams’s words, has it exactly wrong:
“The Church’s primary mission of evangelization is the fundamental aspiration to develop a society truly worthy of the human person’s dignity under God’s morality.”
Not the dignity of fallen man, but God’s “dignity” – his integrity and holiness – is the concern of the gospel. The Church’s “primary mission of evangelisation” is to acquaint each man with his failure to meet God’s perfect standard, and that this sinfulness means death. That what God wants is to give man the gift of Christ’s perfection and life, if he acknowledges his need and will accept it.
So the truly Christian way is not to insist on the enforcement of unattainable liberal universal “equality”, but to recognise that discrimination is inherent to intelligence and is the essence of justice, if exercised under the authority of the Supreme Intelligence, the Creator of the universe.
By on 5/3/08 at 4:34 pm
I sent the message.
By Jewish Racial Conservative on 3/24/08 at 11:39 pm