The Cross and the Lynching Tree Author: James H. Cone | Language: English | ISBN:
B005M1ZIGI | Format: EPUB
The Cross and the Lynching Tree Description
Reconciling the gospel message of liberation with the reality of black oppression and suffering during the lynching era.
- File Size: 435 KB
- Print Length: 226 pages
- Page Numbers Source ISBN: 1570759375
- Publisher: Orbis; Reprint edition (September 1, 2011)
- Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
- Language: English
- ASIN: B005M1ZIGI
- Text-to-Speech: Enabled
X-Ray:
- Lending: Not Enabled
- Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #54,758 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
- #36
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Religion & Spirituality > Religious Studies > History - #40
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Politics & Social Sciences > Social Sciences > Special Groups > African-American Studies - #73
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Religion & Spirituality > Christianity > Church History
- #36
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Religion & Spirituality > Religious Studies > History - #40
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Politics & Social Sciences > Social Sciences > Special Groups > African-American Studies - #73
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Religion & Spirituality > Christianity > Church History
I came to this book with expectations that I now realize may have been unreasonable. I read/watched Dr. Cone's initial Harvard Divinity School lecture of the same title a few years ago and thought, "Finally, someone is going to take up this profoundly important inherently religious historical phenomenon and give it it's course." (That is of course is the cleaned up reflection on a not-so-eloquent impulse.) I waited ever so impatiently for the book, checking the internet regularly.
Finally it is here. Cone's work here is a series of essays 1.) critiquing the established white American theologians and ministers for never choosing to see this connection and 2.) offering a basic view of a would-be obvious correlation between the Cross of Christ and the lynching of black Americans. He wades through the spirituals, blues songs, literature and activism of black women and men to demonstrate that they were indeed aware of the profundity of the situation even if there had never been a sustained theological reflection save that of the likes of poet Countee Cullens' The Black Christ.
After having read Cone's book I found myself disappointed. All of this was good, but I had hoped for something much more cohesive, something more systematic. In other words, "So what?" I was hoping that Cone would partner with Rene Girard's theories of mimetic desire and the scapegoating myth. To explore the existential and historical phenomenon of lynching in its American context could be to discover something distinctive and foundational in the very mythos of the nation. How might the black body be a key to understanding America's identity formation?
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