"The introduction to this edition by Cornel West was originally published in Dwight N. Hopkins, ed., Black Faith and Public Talk: Critical Essays on James H. Cone's Black Theology & Black Power (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1999; reprinted 2007 by Baylor University Press)."
While we acknowledge that all expressions of liberation theology are not identical, we must protest very strongly against the false divisions that some make: between black theology in South Africa and black theology in the United States, between black theology and African theology, and between black theology and Latin American liberation theology. But moving away from the illusioned universality of western theology to the contextuality of liberation theology is a risky business; one that cannot be done innocently. In the search for theological and human authenticity in its own situation, black theology does not stand alone. It is but one expression of this search going on within many different contexts. Until now, the Christian church had chosen to move through history with a bland kind of innocence, hiding the painful truths of oppression behind a facade of myths and real or imagined anxieties. This is no longer possible. The oppressed who believe in God, the Father of Jesus Christ, no longer want to believe in the myths created to subjugate them. It is no longer possible to innocently accept history "as it happens," silently hoping that God would take the responsibility for human failure. The theology of liberation spells out this realization. For the Christian church it constitutes, in no uncertain terms, farewell to innocence.
Black Theology emerged in the 1960s as a response to black consciousness. In South Africa it is a critique of power; in the UK it is a political theology of black culture. The dominant form of Black Theology has been in the USA, originally influenced by Black Power and the critique of white racism. Since then it claims to have broadened its perspective to include oppression on the grounds of race, gender and class. In this book the author contests this claim, especially by Womanist (black women) Theology. Black and Womanist Theologies present inadequate analyses of race and gender and no account at all of class (economic) oppression. With a few notable exceptions Black Theology in the USA repeats the mantras of the 1970s, the discourse of modernity. Content with American capitalism it fails to address the source of the impoverishment of black Americans at home. Content with a romantic imaginaire of Africa, this 'African-American' movement fails to defend contemporary Africa against predatory American global ambitions.
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. Combining the visions of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr., Cone radically reappraised Christianity from the perspective of the oppressed black community in North America. Forty years later, 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.
Risks of Faith offers for the first time the best of noted theologian James H. Cone's essays, including several new pieces. Representing the breadth of his life's work, this collection opens with the birth of black theology, explores its relationship to issues of violence, the developing world, and the theological touchstone embodied in African-American spirituals. Also included here is Cone's seminal work on the theology of Martin Luther King, Jr., and the philosophy of Malcolm X, and a compelling examination of their contribution to the roots of black theology. Far-reaching and provocative, Risks of Faith is a must-read for anyone interesting in religion and its political and social impact on our time.