Biography of Dr. James Cone:

Reared in the small community of Bearden, Arkansas, during the age of Jim Crow, Cone experienced the social contradictions of white Christian racism and segregation on the one hand, and of black Christian community on the other. His childhood recognition of Sunday as the most segregated day of the week led early on to questions of theological integrity and Christian devotion. His questions, however, were not easily answered as he encountered what he terms "an uncritical faith in many black churches." After graduating with a B.A. degree from Philander Smith College, Cone brought together his faith with the value of education and knowledge-taught to him by his parents-leading him to obtain a B. D. degree from Garrett Theological Seminary, an M.A. degree from Northwestern University in 1963, and a Ph.D. degree in Systematic Theology from Northwestern in 1965. With the rise in the Civil Rights Movement, however, came a critical insight fur Cone's understanding of Christianity.  Even though he had both a seminary and doctoral education in theology, neither curriculum had provided a theology that was capable of speaking to the struggle and oppression of the black community. Dr. Cone then began searching for, in his words, a "Christian theology out of the black experience of slavery, segregation, and the struggle for a just society." This would be no small feat since Christians had for generations practiced and defended not just slavery, but the hatred and demise of anything black or African.  Cone's mission was to bring blackness and Christianity together. Having begun his Christian ministry as a teenager, he states,

the turn to blackness was an even deeper conversion-experience than the

turn to Jesus. Blackness opened my eyes to see African-American history

and culture as one of the most insightful sources for knowing about God.

After teaching two years in Arkansas, Dr. Cone moved to Adrian College in Michigan and was again confronted with racism, and with its depth and complexity as practiced in the North. It was in the aftermath of the 1967 riots in Detroit that Cone started writing his race critique. With the book Black Theology and Black Power (1969), Dr. Cone began naming and identifying the racism in theology and the Church in order to bring about liberation and empowerment for African Americans. Soon after, he wrote the influential manuscript for  A Black Theology of Liberatjon (1970). Though he had just accepted a position at Union Theological Seminary in New York (where he continues today as the Charles A. Briggs Distinguished Professor of Systematic theology), Dr. Cone courageously addressed in this book the problems of white theology and the academy. Cone's critique of racism was not limited to the white establishment. In Black Theology and Black Power, he also critiqued the post-Civil War Black Church for its indifference toward the Black Power movement.  Recognizing the theological dilemma faced by the Black Church of either "rejecting Black Power as a contradiction of Christian love (and thereby joining the white church in its condemnation)" or of "accepting Black Power as a sociopolitical expression of the truth of the gospel…(and appearing to separate from Martin Luther King, Jr.), "Cone articulately presented the complexity of the Black Church's situation. Out of this context, the term Black Theology was created, identifying a "theology of black liberation" that had its roots in the first rejection of slavery by virtue of Christianity, and this phrase has been associated with Dr. Cone's name-ever since its inception.

Dr. James Cone continues to envision the actuality of equality among people, challenging white and black churches alike to recognize U.S. capitalism's oppressive character through- out the world. In a timely question first written in 1977, but as effectively appropriate today, Cone asked, "What does black theology have to say about the fact that two-thirds of humanity is poor and that this poverty arises from the exploitation of poor nations by rich nations?" Influenced by a broad range of social critics and womanist theologians, Dr. Cone has expanded his race critique by asking pressing questions regarding the relationship of racism with not only classicism, but with sexism and ecological destruction as well.

Recognized as an international leader and authority on black theology, Dr. Cone has lectured at over 800 universities and organizations throughout the world. As example, he has spoken in places such as Tanzania, Jamaica, at the World Council of Churches in Switzerland, in Ghana, Japan, Kenya, Australia, India, and Namibia, to name a few.  His latest book, Risks of Faith, brings together his international experiences and expertise through his critique of theological belief and social practice. Furthermore, he has been awarded such academic honors as the American Black Achievement Award in Religion given by Ebony Magazine; the Theological Scholarship and Research Award from the Association of Theological Schools; and the Fund fur Theological Education Award for contributions to theological education and scholarship.

Perhaps the best summary of the work of Dr. Cone was offered by the late Dr. C. Eric Lincoln himself, who was James Cone's mentor. "James Hal Cone has almost single- handedly reshaped western theological thought to make it racially inclusive by demythologizing the conventional myths and shibboleths that kept it a white spiritual and philosophical preserve for centuries."