“Let the wise hear and increase in learning and the one who understands obtain guidance” (Proverbs 1:5).
Education is the most empowering force in the world, it creates knowledge, builds confidence, breaks down barriers to opportunity, and It’s a key to open the door for a better life. James Cones was born in 1938. One of the African American theologians who was fortunate to obtain education and reinforce his knowledge to improve his society. In his article “The Cross And The Lynching Tree” the author started his article with a history of the lynching tree and the suffering of African Americans had to face for many years. He made a connection between the lynching tree and the cross as both have the same fate which’s the crucifixion. Both were 2,000 years apart but they’re symbolically connected. The Lynching Tree is one of the awful and painful events that every African American person is carrying this pain with them. But it shouldn’t always be related to pain, it has transferees as the symbol of the cross has changed over the years. Some of the unpleasant events could change to empowering future generations. The cross is one of those unpleasant symbols that was looked at as the worst way to die. But for the last several generations and the future generation, it’s looked upon as solidity sacrifice for the rest of humankind. Which symbolize love, freedom, hope, power, healing, etc. which’s how I see the lynching Tree will become one day.
The church is a huge part for African Americans, is not only a place to the workshop but also to create family, friends, spiritual social events, and grow together as one unite. This’s how the author started to include his perspective about theology, commencing the paragraph by saying “Empowers black people to resist the forces that seem designed to destroy every ounce of dignity in their souls and bodies. The black church community was my place of resistance, the place where I took my stand to declare theological war on white supremacy” (pg. 49) as he’s building his comfort zone before he delivers his point of view on how he interpreted the study of religion. One of the problems that Africans Americans dealt with was trust and anger toward white people, which was understandable after all the hard times they endured. It’s not surprising. “Without trust, a society cannot endure, and its culture cannot grow deep and rich” (Caners p.59) It’s amazing how far America grew and constantly trying to create equality between everyone. But there’s a lot of work needed to improve our country, one of which is equality between black vs white, men vs women, one day it will happen. Anger will not get us anything nor anywhere but with love, united, goal determination, I believe we will accomplish much more. Martin Luther King Jr was the proven of these goals in his speech “I have a dream” he stated united between white and African Americans, not under labors but by one nation together.
Cones said the word of God is also offensive, but he means how some people misinterpreted Jesus’ words over generations as “is not something we possess, as if God were an object under our control. We don’t possess God; God possesse us and transforms our lives” (pg. 51) which he stated that it’s has to involve the faith in the gospel, “Faith, and not the intellect, is the primary way to gain knowledge of the gospel”(pg. 51)a lot of questions, humankind could not comprehend it’s like unbelievable for our brain to understand, but the thing with faith that it’s makes all of the unknown answers to fade away. It becomes very easy when a person experiences God’s blessings in their life and still asks some unnecessary questions about the gospel. Of course, it’s very important to be educated and improve on your knowledge but with God present, it eases the process.
“You seek the Lord your God, you will find him if you seek him with all your heart and with all your soul.” (Deut 4:29)
Most of the things Christ was saying throughout his mission are: I am that person, follow Me, look at what I am offering you. I am the answer to your deep-seated questions. Only in Me will you find rest for your troubled soul, healing for your aching heart, and fulfillment of your inner emptiness.
Americans has to recognize the lynching tree as the central figure of the pain that lead of freedom of many Africans americans. Same as the cross of for christanity “The cross stands at the center of the gospel. Take the cross away and the gospel is no longer the gospel of the God of Jesus” (pg. 51) Out of the cross we as Christians we gain our hope and our eternal life. In the beginning, the cross was a painful figure of the physical pain that Jesus endured until he resurrected then the cross became our strength in life. Same thing with the lynching tree due to many innocent lives that were taking away at the time of slavery, but it was the catalysts for freedom after many years later. “God’s loving solidarity can transform ugliness into beauty” (pg. 54)
Another article that goes hand in hand is “From Calvary to Galilee” by the author Roberto Goizueta. The author used the part where Thomas examined Jesus’ wounds as seeing how deep Jesus’ suffering was. Goizueta used this wound as a correlation of our reflections and fears. Ignoring the suffering aspect of Christ and His Passion is most literally mortal sin. Going back to Cones metaphor the race in America, as a symbol of America’s crucifixion of black people. Goizueta makes a strong statement on why people push away those they perceive to be weaker or less important; they see the weaknesses as a danger to their moral invulnerability. Denying the history will not recover the pain, but will shine a light on the history and what one of the human race had to go through to get their freedom. This where education comes to resolve the problems, to create a mind that willingly listens and finds a solution for our next generation so they could live in a better environment and to transform the ugliness symbol to empowering figure in the history of African American community.
References:
James Cones. “The Cross And The Lynching Tree”
Roberto Goizueta. “ From Calvary to Galilee”
Tony Carnes and Ana Karpathakis. “ New York Glory” Web 8 May 1, 2001
Martin Luther King Jr. “ I have a Dream” Genius. Web 8
https://genius.com/Martin-luther-king-jr-i-have-a-dream-annotated
Clarien Nashed 
good. what would Cone’s perspective on the role of anger do you think?
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Thank you, professor!
I honestly don’t know how Cone’s will respond to my point of view. But in general, there’s always discrimination to any minority groups and it is not only in America. There’s no perfect country or a perfect place to live in and obtain full equality. Citizens of different countries face many forms of inequality. Yes, here we have inequality between black vs white and men vs women as I said in the blog. However, if we look at different countries, there are still inequalities between their citizens. They suffered so much without any acknowledge. For example, in the Middle East, there’s inequality between Muslims vs Christians. Christians face many challenges in their daily life to survive in an Islamic country. so many people died and still dying to this present moment. Or if we looked to Asia on the recent news about the concentration camp in China for Muslims. This also should be considered to be under the category of discrimination, based on the religion and race. Many other things that shouldn’t be acceptable for any cause! If we just treat people as human beings as we are all equal and there is no difference between us, it will be so much simpler. This world will become a place to be proud to leave for the next generation. But right now is not ready for this. This is again where education has to come in the picture to educate our future generation that we are all humans been that deserve to be treated as only under one category of humanity.
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