"Any message that is not related to the liberation of the poor in a society is not Christ's message. Any theology that is indifferent to the theme of liberation is not Christian theology."
With the publication of his two early works, Black Theology & Black Power (1969) and A Black Theology of Liberation (1970), James Cone emerged as one of the most creative and provocative theological voices in North America. These books, which offered a searing indictment of white theology and society, introduced a radical reappraisal of the Christian message for our time.
Here, combining the visions of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr., Cone radically reappraises Christianity from the perspective of the oppressed black community in North America. Forty years later after its first publication,his work retains its original power, enhanced now by reflections on the evolution of his own thinking and of black theology and on the needs of the present moment.
James H. Cone is Charles A. Briggs Distinguished Professor of Systematic Theology at Union Theological Seminary, New York City. His many books include Black Theology & Black Power, God of the Oppressed, The Spirituals and the Blues, Martin & Malcolm & America: A Dream or a Nightmare and The Cross and the Lynching Tree.
