Returning to the Gospel · Session 7
A Scripture-centered teaching study. Read it here, or download the full manuscript below.
Scripture does not deny that people are oppressed. But it identifies humanity’s deepest division not as oppressor against oppressed, but as being in Adam or in Christ, under sin or under grace. The Gospel that reconciles sinners to God is the only power that finally reconciles them to one another.
Sessions 3 through 5 traced the Social Gospel, and Session 6 followed the divide it created inside the church, ending in the conflict between Martin Luther King Jr. and Joseph H. Jackson. Out of that world and that generation came James H. Cone, the father of Black Liberation Theology.
This session does two things. First, it presents liberation theology fairly, and especially Cone, in his own words. Second, it tests that theology by Scripture. The aim is not to deny that oppression is real or that God cares about it. The aim is to ask where the Bible locates the deepest human problem, and where it locates salvation.
A clear word at the start. To question Black Liberation Theology is not to deny racial injustice, and it is certainly not to defend it. The question is narrower and deeper: does his framework correctly name humanity’s deepest division, provide a solution, and does it rightly define the Gospel?
Before leading this session, read and meditate on:
Pray for honesty, compassion, and courage. Affirm what is true about the reality of oppression before testing the framework built on it. Handle a painful subject without caricature and without flinching from Scripture.
Represent Cone and Gutiérrez accurately, from their own writings, before evaluating them.
Distinguish the fact of oppression, which is real, from the framework that makes liberation from oppression the gospel itself.
Keep Scripture central. Test every claim by the text, not by political instinct.
Affirm that God hates injustice while refusing to let injustice redefine salvation.
In Session 6 we examined the divide between Martin Luther King Jr. and Joseph H. Jackson over the central mission of the church. King embraced the Social Gospel and theological liberalism and made the transformation of society central. Jackson held that the church’s first work is the Gospel, with justice pursued lawfully as its fruit. Cone himself said that King gave Black theology its Christian identity. That divide is the soil from which Black liberation theology grew.
Ask the group: What is the deepest division in the human race? Is it between oppressor and oppressed, or between the sinner and a holy God?
Then ask: Which one does Scripture treat as ultimate, and what difference does the answer make for what the Gospel actually is?
Liberation theology reads salvation primarily as liberation from social, economic, and political oppression, and reads the Bible from the standpoint of the oppressed. Scripture affirms that God hears the oppressed and hates injustice, but it defines the deepest bondage as slavery to sin and defines salvation as reconciliation to God through the death and resurrection of Christ.
Gustavo Gutiérrez (born 1928) is the Latin American root of the movement. A Peruvian Catholic priest, his 1971 book A Theology of Liberation gave liberation theology its name. Writing out of the poverty of Latin America, he defined theology as critical reflection on praxis and argued for a preferential option for the poor. He drew on Marxist social analysis to describe structures of oppression and understood salvation as including, though he said not reduced to, liberation from unjust social conditions.
James H. Cone (1938 to 2018) is the central figure of this session. A theologian in the African Methodist Episcopal tradition, he wrote in the aftermath of the civil rights movement, the assassination of King, and the rise of Black Power. His major works are Black Theology and Black Power (1969), A Black Theology of Liberation (1970), and God of the Oppressed (1975).
Cone’s central claim was that God, in Christ, identifies with the oppressed, and that in the American context the oppressed are Black. He was shaped by Karl Barth, the subject of his doctoral study, by Paul Tillich, from whom he borrowed the language of symbol, and increasingly by Malcolm X alongside King. Cone described his own task as holding together the Christianity he learned in the Black church and the Black consciousness he learned from Malcolm. We will let Cone speak in his own words below, then test his claims by Scripture. The quotations are from A Black Theology of Liberation (1970), cited by page.
Have someone read the passage aloud.
Paul has spent two chapters showing that both Jew and Gentile stand guilty before God. He now draws the conclusion: we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin. There is none righteous, no, not one. And then the leveling word: for there is no difference, for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.
This speaks directly to the oppressor and oppressed framework. Scripture does not deny that some people sin against others, and it does not say the powerful and the powerless are the same in their circumstances. It says that on the deepest axis, before a holy God, there is no difference. The fundamental division in the human race is not between groups of people but between every sinner and the God he has offended. Cone makes the division between oppressor and oppressed ultimate. Paul makes the division between the sinner and God ultimate, and on that line all are on the same side until grace intervenes.
Scripture does not say oppression is unreal. It says the deepest bondage is one every human being shares: sin. A framework that locates the ultimate division between groups misses the division the cross was given to heal.
Have someone read the passage aloud.
Paul writes: ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. Paul names the great dividing lines of the ancient world, ethnic, social, and sexual, and says that in Christ they do not determine standing before God or membership in His people.
Identity is in Christ Jesus. This confronts a theology that takes a racial or class identity as the starting point and lens of all theology. The Gospel creates one new people across the very lines the world treats as ultimate.
Unity in Christ is not the denial of injustice. It is the deeper reality the Gospel establishes, a single people gathered from every group that the world keeps apart.
Have someone read the passage aloud.
Paul says that God hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son: in whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins. He goes on: having made peace through the blood of his cross, and describes those once alienated and enemies in their mind by wicked works as now reconciled in the body of his flesh through death.
Notice what the deliverance is from and how it comes. It is deliverance from the power of darkness, and the reconciliation is accomplished through the blood of his cross. The enmity that most needs healing is enmity with God. Cone, by contrast, writes that “salvation primarily has to do with earthly reality and the injustice inflicted on those who are helpless and poor. To see the salvation of God is to see this people rise up against it’s oppressors, demanding that justice become a reality now, not tomorrow.” (p. 128).
We can honor real concern for the poor and still see that Paul defines redemption as the forgiveness of sins secured by Christ’s blood. Liberation language is biblical, but the Bible’s liberation is first from the dominion of darkness and the guilt of sin.
The Bible does use the language of rescue and liberation. But the deepest rescue it announces is from the power of darkness and the guilt of sin, secured not by social struggle but by the cross.
Have someone read the passage aloud.
Paul writes: henceforth know we no man after the flesh. If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. And he describes the church’s commission: God hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation. God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them. Therefore we are ambassadors, praying others in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God.
To know no man after the flesh cuts directly against reading people first by their group identity, any worldly standards, or unspiritual categories. The ministry God gives the church is reconciliation, first to God and then to one another. Cone’s framework makes permanent the very categories Paul says we no longer regard, and writes, “We have had too much of white love, the love that tells blacks to turn the other cheek and go the second mile. What we need is the divine love as expressed in black power, which is the power of blacks to destroy their oppressors, here and now, by any means at their disposal. Unless God is participating in this holy activity, we must reject God’s love.” (p. 70). The Gospel does not ignore division. It ends hostility at the root by reconciling enemies to God and making them a new creation.
A theology of permanent enmity cannot produce the reconciliation Christ died to accomplish. The Gospel heals division by reconciling sinners to God and then to each other.
We can now set the two accounts side by side. The point is not to caricature Cone but to let his own words stand next to Scripture. The contrast is not at the margins. It runs through the core of who God is, what is wrong with us, and how we are saved.
| Question | Biblical Christianity | Liberation / Black Liberation Theology |
|---|---|---|
| The core human problem | Sin against a holy God; all are under sin (Rom. 3:9-23) | Oppression of the weak by the powerful; unjust structures |
| The deepest division | Between the sinner and God; in Adam or in Christ | Between oppressor and oppressed |
| Nature of salvation | Reconciliation to God, forgiveness of sins through Christ’s blood, new creation | Liberation from social and political oppression; “primarily… earthly reality” (p. 128) |
| Identity of Christ | Eternal Son, incarnate Jewish Messiah, Savior of all who believe | “The black Christ”; “if Jesus Christ is white… we must kill him” (p. 111) |
| Source of liberation | The cross and resurrection; the Gospel is the power of God unto salvation | The struggle of the oppressed, “by any means at their disposal” (p. 70) |
| Who is addressed | All nations; one new people in Christ (Gal. 3:28) | The oppressed in particular; “unqualified commitment to the black community” (p. 10) |
| Final hope | New creation, reconciliation, resurrection | Earthly justice and freedom |
We should affirm what is true. Oppression is real. God hears the cry of the oppressed, from the groaning of Israel in Egypt to the cry against injustice in Amos. Cone was responding to something that was once genuinely evil, but we are to regard no one according to the flesh.
But Cone does not merely add a concern for justice to the Gospel. By his own words he redefines God, Christ, sin, and salvation. He subordinates God’s love to black power and says that unless God participates in it we must reject God’s love (p. 70). He makes blackness the starting point of the doctrine of God (p. 63). He defines salvation as primarily earthly (p. 128). That is not the Gospel sharpened; it is, in Paul’s words, another gospel (Galatians 1:6-9). Scripture locates the deepest division in Adam or in Christ, defines salvation as reconciliation to God through the cross, and makes the church’s work the ministry of reconciliation rather than permanent enmity.
God hates injustice and hears the cry of the oppressed.
Racial injustice was and is real sin.
The Gospel produces justice and mercy as its genuine fruit.
Beware any theology that makes liberation from social oppression the gospel itself.
Beware locating salvation in a race or a class rather than in Christ.
Beware redefining God and Christ around a human category.
Beware replacing the ministry of reconciliation with permanent group enmity.
Beware reacting against the framework by dismissing the reality of injustice it responds to.
Readings:
Optional memory verse: 2 Corinthians 5:17 or Galatians 3:28.
Liberation and Black liberation theology rightly insist that God is not indifferent to oppression. But Scripture names the deepest division as being in Adam or in Christ, defines salvation as reconciliation to God through the blood of the cross, and gives the church the ministry of reconciliation. The cross is the only liberation that reaches the root. We take injustice seriously precisely because we take sin and the Gospel seriously, and the next session asks how a church that has drifted toward another gospel can return to this one.
This session touches race, justice, and politics, and it names a figure many people respect. Lead with honesty and care.
Affirm the reality of racial injustice, past and present. Testing Cone’s theology is not defending injustice.
Quote Cone in his own words so no one can fairly say he was caricatured, and let the contrast with Scripture do the work.
Do not let the session become a political argument. Keep returning to the text.
The goal is not to win an argument about one man but to see clearly what the Gospel is, so the church can return to it.
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