A little over two weeks ago I traveled to Union Theological
Seminary in New York City to participate in the Synod of the Northeast's
"Summit on Race." During the morning
session, we had the opportunity to listen to a lecture by Dr. James Cone. Cone
became well known - and quite controversial - with the publication in 1969 of
his first book, Black Theology and Black
Power. Although he views that book
as pivotal for him, he feels that his most recent book is the most important
book he has written. He believes that he
has been working on this book all of his life, and it took him 20 drafts to get
it to its final form. His book, which
participants in the Summit read beforehand, is entitled The Cross and The Lynching Tree.
His contention is that Christians, especially white Christians in this
country, cannot look at Jesus hanging on the cross without seeing the parallels
with all of the black Americans who were hung on trees from the Civil War well
into the 20th century.
Cone believes that the true power of the Christian gospel is
its unambiguous call of liberation from oppression. Until we can see the cross and the lynching
tree together, until we can identify Christ with the re-crucified black body
hanging from the lynching tree, there can be no deliverance from the brutal
legacy of slavery and white supremacy.
Just as the German people have had to work hard to come to grips with
what happened during the rise of the Nazis, just as both black and white South
Africans have had to work hard to come to grips with what happened during
apartheid, so our country will never be healed from the legacy of slavery and
lynchings until we work hard ourselves to acknowledge this terrible heritage
and to address continuing vestiges of racism in this country. (For example, there are more black people in
prison in this country today than there were slaves in 1850!)
There were nearly 5,000 African American men, women, and
children who were lynched since the time of the Civil War. Many descendants of those people still
wrestle with the implications of what happened to their family members. And it is in the cross that so many African
Americans have found hope and salvation.
After all, the cross inverts the dominant value system, demonstrating
that hope comes by way of defeat, that suffering and death do not have the last
word. The cross is God's defeat of
power, of white power, of powerless love that snatches victory out of defeat.
We are in the middle of Lent. The cross is our focus. So what do we see when we see the cross? It has been too easy for us to turn the cross
into an ornate carving hanging in our sanctuaries. It has been too easy for us to turn the cross
into beautiful pieces of jewelry. But if
that's all we see, we miss the message and we sell short the power - and the
challenge - of the cross of Jesus. The
cross stands tall in our world, shouting to all who would hear that the powers
of this world are defeated... that the powers of domination are overcome by
this symbol of weakness... that the powers of oppression are shattered by this
symbol of suffering... that the power of sin in our lives is vanquished by the
love that calls us, claims us, and envelopes us from the cross.
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