James H. Cone Quotes & Sayings

While the rich reap most of the benefits of technological development, the poor bear an unequal burden of dealing with the consequences of the resulting increased pollution. The poor continue to live in greatest proximity to the sources of pollution, the infrastructure and machinery of industry. They work in the most polluted and physically dangerous workplaces. And these same individuals, living and working closest to the sources of environmental catastrophe, are also the ones most lacking decent health care. — James H. Cone

Any theology that is indifferent to the theme of liberation is not Christian theology. — James H. Cone

It is ironic that America, with its history of injustice to the poor, especially the black man and the Indian, prides itself on being a Christian nation. — James H. Cone

Anger and humor are like the left and right arm. They complement each other. Anger empowers the poor to declare their uncompromising opposition to oppression, and humor prevents them from being consumed by their fury. — James H. Cone

Unless God is participating in this holy activity, we must reject his love. — James H. Cone

Anger and humour are like the left and right arm. They complement each other. — James H. Cone

Black racism is a myth created by whites to ease their guilt feelings. As long as whites can be assured that blacks are racists, they can find reasons to justify their own oppression of' black people. — James H. Cone

Indeed our survival and liberation depend upon our recognition of the truth when it is spoken and lived by the people. If we cannot recognize the truth, then it cannot liberate us from untruth. To know the truth is to appropriate it, for it is not mainly reflection and theory. Truth is divine action entering our lives and creating the human action of liberation. — James H. Cone

To sing about freedom and to pray for its coming is not enough. Freedom must be actualized in history by oppressed peoples who accept the intellectual challenge to analyze the world for the purpose of changing it. — James H. Cone

Patrick Cheng's Radical Love is not only an excellent introduction to LGBT theology but an important contribution to the discipline of theology and the life of the church. It is a must read for anyone who cares about the health of the church and theology today. — James H. Cone

The coming of Christ means a denial of what we thought we were. It means destroying the white devil in us. Reconciliation to God means that white people are prepared to deny themselves (whiteness), take up the cross (blackness) and follow Christ (black ghetto). — James H. Cone

In the act of worship itself, the experience of liberation becomes a constituent of the community's being ... It is the power of God's Spirit invading the lives of the people, "building them up where they are torn down and propping them up on every leaning side". — James H. Cone

If we save the planet and have a society of inequality, we wouldn't have saved much. — James H. Cone

Black churches are very powerful forces in the African American community and always have been. Because religion has been that one place where you have an imagination that no one can control. And so, as long as you know that you are a human being and nobody can take that away from you, then God is that reality in your life that enables you to know that. — James H. Cone

The truth about injustice always sounds outrageous. — James H. Cone

To be Christian is to be one of those whom God has chosen. God has chosen black people! — James H. Cone

The belief that the soul continues its existence after the dissolution of the body is a matter of philosophical or theological speculation rather than of simple faith, and is accordingly nowhere expressly taught in Holy Scripture — James H. Cone

The acid test of any truth is found in whether it aids victims in their struggle to overcome victimisation. — James H. Cone

One can lynch a person without a rope or tree. — James H. Cone

The Christian community, therefore, is that community that freely becomes oppressed, because they know that Jesus himself has defined humanity's liberation in the context of what happens to the little ones. Christians join the cause of the oppressed in the fight for justice not because of some philosophical principle of "the Good" or because of a religious feeling of sympathy for people in prison. Sympathy does not change the structures of injustice. The authentic identity of Christians with the poor is found in the claim which the Jesus-encounter lays upon their own life-style, a claim that connects the word "Christian" with the liberation of the poor. Christians fight not for humanity in general but for themselves and out of their love for concrete human beings. — James H. Cone