Risks of Faith CL: The Emergence of a Black Theology of Liberation, 1968-1998

Cone turned more than a few heads in 1969 with his ground-breaking book Black Theology and Black Power, in which then-young seminary professor offered a Christian defense of the black power movement. His career has been a lifelong effort to articulate what it means to be Christian (represented by Martin Luther King Jr., whom he considers American history's greatest theologian) and black (represented by Malcolm X, whom Cone considers a great ""cultural revolutionary""). A collection of Cone's most influential essays, this book is an outstanding introduction to his thought. ""White theology"" receives severe criticism, for example, for its centuries of focusing attention on the abstract ""problem of evil"" while never acknowledging the concrete historical evil of white racism. But Cone, an equal-opportunity prophet, also pulls no punches in naming the failings of the black church. Indeed, one of the ironies of Cone's career is that the black church itself has by and large skirted the more radical implications--both theological and political--of black theology. These pages give little hint of that, nor do they address the problems that the collapse of Marxism and the rise of the black middle class have created for Cone's facile, and incessant, use of such terms as ""oppressors"" and ""oppressed."" The book, however, provides stunning and vital insights into American realities and the possibilities for American theology. If some of the early essays seem tame now in comparison to the controversy they originally generated, that is simply a tribute to Cone's influence. (Nov.)