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Martin Luther King, Jr.,
Black Theology--Black Church
By James H. Cone
"Even though there are important differences between King and me, I think that they can best be understood from within the context of the black church rather than in the context of white liberal and neo-orthodox theologies of North America and Europe. Such views as represented by King and me, as well as many others, can be found throughout the black religious tradition. There is no need to turn to while Western theology for an explanation."
NOT much has been written about Martin Luther King, Jr., and the relation of his theology to the black church and the rise of black theology during the late 1960s. Many assume that the black church made no decisive impact upon his intellectual life. To explain his theology, most interpreters turn to his teachers at Crozer Theological Seminary and Boston University.1 The implication of this procedure is that his theological perspective was defined exclusively by the intellectual impact of white Western theology and philosophy rather than the black church. While I do not deny the influence of his seminary and university teachers, I think the influence of the black church was much more decisive in shaping his theological perspective.
James H. Cone is Professor of Theology at
Union Theological Seminary, New York. Beginning with his book, Black Theology
and Black Power (1969), Dr. Cone has become a widely recognized interpreter
of various aspects of the black experience. Here he provides a fresh examination
of the sources behind the unique leadership and moving speeches of Martin Luther
King, Jr., finding the primary clue in the black church tradition rather than
in white liberal theology. In the process, Dr. Cone's own distinctive position
is clarified, as we sense the difference between religious faith and theological
discussion, or what Walter Ong would call the difference between "orality" and
"literacy.
1 See especially Kenneth L. Smith and Ira G. Zepp, Jr., Search
for the Beloved Community. The Thinking of Martin Luther King, Jr. (Valley
Forge: Judson Press, 1975) and John J. Ansbro, The Mind of Martin Luther
King, Jr. (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis 1992). King's biographers make a similar
assumption. See especially David L. Lewis, King: A Critical Biography (Baltimore:
Penguin Books, 1970). Martin King himself is partly responsible for this one-sided
interpretation of his thinking because he seldom refers to the black church
as the source of his theology. See especially his "Pilgrimage to Nonviolence"
in Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story (New York: Harper, 1958),
pp. 90-107.
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Because many misunderstand the origin of King's theology in the black church, they also misunderstand his relation to black theology. Many assume that black theology and Martin Luther King, Jr. have completely different theological and political perspectives. Persons who hold this viewpoint often explain the difference by saying that King was concerned primarily with love, non-violence, and the reconciliation between blacks and whites. But black theology, in contrast to King, seldom mentions love or reconciliation between blacks and whites and explicitly rejects non-violence with its endorsement of Malcolm X's contention that blacks should achieve their freedom "by any means necessary." Some claim that black theology is a separatist and an extremist interpretation of the Christian faith. But King was an integrationist and a moderate who believed that whites can and should be redeemed.
During a decade of writing and teaching Black Theology, the most frequent question that has been addressed to me, publically and privately, by blacks and especially whites, has been: "How do you reconcile the separatist and violent orientation of black theology with Martin Luther King's emphasis on integration, love, and non-violence?" I have always found it difficult to respond to this question because those who ask it seem unaware of the interrelations between King, black theology, and the black church.
While it is not my primary intention to compare King and black theology, I do hope that an explication of his theology in the context of the black church will show, for those interested in a comparison, that black theology and King are not nearly as far apart as some persons might be inclined to think.
I
Martin Luther King, Jr. was a product of the black church. When the question is asked, "Who is Martin King?" or "What is his theology?" neither question can be answered properly without giving major attention to the context of King's origin, which is the black church.
Martin King was the son of a Baptist preacher, and he entered the ministry during his student years at Morehouse College. While he was deeply influenced by his teachers at Crozer Theological Seminary and Boston University, the black church was much more decisive in determining his theology, even though he seldom referred to it when he attempted to explain the course of his intellectual development. When asked about the sources of his theological perspective, he referred to such persons as Henry David Thoreau, Mahatma Gandhi, Reinhold Niebuhr, Walter Rauschenbusch, L. Harold DeWolf, and Edgar Sheffield Brightman.
I think it is unquestionably true that these philosophers and theologians, as well as other writers and teachers whom King encountered in graduate school, had a profound effect upon the content, shape, and depth of his theological perspective. They provided the intellectual
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structure for him to express his ideas about love, non-violence, the value of the human person, and the existence of a moral order in the universe. When King was asked to give an explanation for an action or belief, the question usually came from the white community, and he almost always answered the question by appealing to intellectual sources that were regarded as persuasive authorities in the community from which the questions were derived. Martin King seldom had to defend his perspective to black people, and when he was required, as with the advocates of Black Power,2 white intellectual resources were never mentioned, because that would have been a sure way to lose the argument.
References to the intellectual tradition of Western philosophy and theology were primarily for the benefit of the white public so that King could demonstrate to them that he could think as well or better than any other seminary or university graduate. Furthermore, King knew that he could not receive substantial support from the white community until he explained to their satisfaction what he believed and why. If he had appealed directly to the black church tradition as the primary source of his theological and political perspective, no one in the white community would have taken him seriously, since the black church is usually not thought of as being the origin of intellectual ideas regarding theology or social change.
But I contend that King's failure to refer directly to the black church as the chief source for his theological perspective does not mean that it is not, in fact, the chief source. What then is the evidence for my claim regarding the primacy of the black church in Martin King's theology? It is difficult to answer this question, because we are accustomed to looking for evidence in printed sources and also from people who knew him personally. While the evidence for my claim does not necessarily contradict what King said about himself or what others say about him, it is not primarily dependent upon their testimonies. My evidence is indirect, and it can only be understood by people who believe that there is an interplay between their social context and the ideas they promote.
To contend that King's graduate teachers and the books he read in graduate school accounted for the whole of his theological perspective is to discount completely his early home and church context and thereby suggest that he arrived at Crozer Seminary and Boston University with a blank mind. Even if we do not hold with Karl Marx's contention that "consciousness is from the beginning a social product," we cannot claim the opposite, that is, that "life is determined by consciousness," and still appropriately account for the whole of a person's perspective. We must say with Marx "that circumstances make men just as much as men make circumstances."3 If circumstances are relevant in the assessment of a person's ideas and actions, we must then inquire about Martin
2 See especially his response to Black Power
radicals in Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community (Boston: Beacon,
1967), Chap. II.
3 Marx, "The German Ideology," in Robert C. Tucker (ed.), The
Marx-Engels Reader, Second Edition (New York: Norton, 1978), pp. 158, 165.
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King's circumstances so that we can understand properly the distinctive contribution of his theology.
Using Boston University and Crozer Theological Seminary as the primary resources for understanding King's ideas and actions ignores the enormous impact of the black church upon his life and thought. It is like using the theology of John Wesley as the primary determinant for explaining who Richard Allen was, and why he founded the African Methodist Episcopal Church. We know that such an explanation may be useful in a dialogue with white United Methodists or British Methodists but not in explaining the historical and theological significance of Richard Allen or of the church he founded. To understand Richard Allen and the significance of his church, it is necessary to know something of his slave circumstances, and what that meant for African people in North America during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.4 A similar observation can and should be made regarding Martin King's theology.
II
What were the circumstances that determined the perspective of King's theology and politics? The most significant circumstances that shaped King's theology, in my judgment, were the oppression of black people and the liberating message of the black church. These two realities the oppression of blacks and the black church's liberating message of the Gospel provided King with the intellectual challenge to develop a theology that was Christian and also relevant for the social and political needs of black people. That was why he entered the ministry while a student at Morehouse and later accepted a call to be pastor of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, rather than seeking a teaching post at a white seminary or university. In fact, King turned down many teaching offers at major white universities and seminaries, and he also refused several invitations to pastor white churches, because of his primary commitment to the black church and its message of liberation for black people.
The black church was also the context out of which Martin King accepted the call to be the leader of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. After his success in Montgomery, King founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) which received its support primarily from black preachers and their churches. In order to keep his identity firmly tied to the black church as he served as the president of SCLC, he became the co-pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. Martin King's close ties with the black church in preference over the alternatives indicate that his primary commitment was to that community. Anyone, therefore, who wishes to understand his life and thought must make the black church the primary source for the analysis.
4 For information regarding Richard Allen and the African Methodist Episcopal Church, see Carol V. R. George, Segregated Sabbaths: Richard Allen and the Rise of Independent Black Churches, 1760-1840 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1973).
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The best way of deciding what was primary for King's life and thought is to ask, "What tradition did he turn to in moments of crisis during his ministry?" Where one turns when one's back is up against the wall and when everything seems hopeless will tell us far more about our theology than what is often printed in articles and books. When King encountered the harsh contradictions of white violence and when he had run out of rational alternatives on how best to defeat it non-violently, where did he turn for insight, courage and hope that things can and will be otherwise? Did he turn to Brightman, DeWolf, Niebuhr, or Gandhi? Of course not. None of these intellectual resources were useful to him in the context of crisis.
In moments of crisis when despair was about to destroy the possibility of making a new future for the poor, King turned to the faith contained in the tradition of the black church. Whether one speaks of Montgomery, Albany, Birmingham, Selma, or Chicago, the crises arising from his struggle to implement justice never produced despair in his theological and political consciousness. The reason is not found in his intellectual grasp and exposition of white liberal theology but in the faith and life of the black church. With the resources of this religious tradition, he had a foundation that could sustain him in his struggle for justice. Had not his people been struggling for freedom for over three hundred and fifty years, and despite many disappointments and apparent defeats? Does not the faith of the black church empower black Christians to "keep on keeping on" even though the odds might be against them?
This is the context for understanding the often beard faith claim, "I ain't no ways tired." This affirmation of faith is not derived from the faith of middle class blacks or whites and their capitalistic orientation. Rather this faith is derived from the meeting of God in the pains and struggles of poor blacks who refuse to accept despair as the logical consequence of their oppression, because they firmly believe that "God can make a way out of no way."
It was Martin King's identity with the tradition of this black faith that enabled him to overcome crisis moments during his fight for justice. While he was not always sure how to make this faith intellectually convincing to his friends and supporters in the white community, he knew that his own people were already aware of the inability of white concepts to explain the certainty of black faith. That was why it was so easy for him to get a little carried away when speaking in a black church. Their enthusiastic responses to his sermons on justice and non-violence, saying "amen," "right-on," "speak the truth," let him know that they were in solidarity with him, and that they would follow him wherever he led them. They had already demonstrated their presence with him in Montgomery, Birmingham, and Selma. Furthermore, King also knew that their belief in him was in no way dependent upon his theological perspective as defined by white theological resources. Black people followed King, because he embodied in word and deed the faith of the black church which has always claimed that oppression and the Gospel of Jesus do not go together.
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III
The white public and also many white scholars have misunderstood King, because they know so little about the black church community, ignoring its effect upon his life and thought. An example of this misguided interpretation are the books by Kenneth Smith and Ira Zepp, Jr., Search for the Beloved Community: The Thinking of Martin Luther King, Jr. (Judson, 1974), and John Ansbro, The Mind of Martin Luther King, Jr. (Orbis, 1982). These authors analyze the thought of Martin King as if the black church community had no decisive impact on him, indeed as if thought itself is limited to the white intellectual community. While these books are useful in telling us what King learned in graduate school and what intellectual resources he used in communicating his ideas to the white community, they are not helpful in identifying the heart of King's theology and faith that sustained him in his fight for justice.
When one uses exclusively the perspectives of white theologians to interpret Martin King, it is difficult to explain the consistency of his thinking and actions. How is it possible for King to reconcile his use of the neo-orthodox theology of Reinhold Niebuhr and the Boston Personalism of Edgar S. Brightman? King appeals to so many resources for his ideas that it is conceptually impossible to reconcile them into one coherent whole when these white philosophers and theologians are used as the primary source of their origin and analysis. That is why many of King's interpreters find it nearly impossible to explain the whole of his theological perspective in a consistent and wholistic manner.
What is true for the interpreters of Martin King is also true for many interpreters of my own perspective on black theology. As King used evangelical liberalism and Boston Personalism in defining his theology, many of my interpreters claim that I use the so-called neo-orthodox theology of Karl Barth. When I also begin to use Tillich, Marx, Bonhoeffer, and other white interpreters for the presentation of my ideas, my interpreters get a little confused in explicating the consistency of my perspective, because the different ideas I use for interpreting black theology do not belong in the same theological school of thought.
What is most interesting is that even I myself used to think that the sources for explaining my theology were Barth, Bonhoeffer, and Tillich, because these were the theologians who made the most conscious intellectual impact on me during my seminary days. When I graduated from Garrett Theological Seminary and Northwestern University after writing a Ph.D. dissertation on Karl Barth's anthropology, I naturally turned to him for communicating my deepest feelings about the theological implications of the black struggle for freedom. At that time, Barth and others like him were the only intellectual resources at my command for explicating the theological meaning of the black struggle, even though the truth of it did not arise from the experience of white neo-orthodox theologians.
Since the publication of Black Theology and Black Power (1969), I
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have come to realize the limitation of this procedure and have attempted to correct it as much as possible, while not denying the usefulness of ideas from all cultures. I now know that even though I may not have recognized it, the black church was and still is the most dominant element for a proper understanding of my own theological perspective. While I do not rule out other influences, they are not in any way decisive. I can discard Barth and Tillich as easily as I can choose to use them. They, as well as others, are merely instrumental in giving conceptual structure to a primary commitment determined by the black church community.
IV
With the black church community in mind, one can then understand both the similarities and differences between King's theology and my own perspective on black theology. Although our differences on violence versus non-violence, love and reconciliation, and the possibility of change in the white community are real, they are differences between two persons who are deeply committed to the same faith of the black church. Our differences are not so great as is usually believed. They are more semantic than substantive, and can best be understood by investigating our different circumstances in the black community and the audiences to which we address our viewpoints.
King was not nearly as non-violent as many claimed, and his faith in whites and the accomplishment of his movement was not uncritical. For example, when he spoke about black progress in the area of Civil Rights, he knew that all was not as well as whites liked to think and that for the masses of blacks the movement had left their situation of oppression untouched. In a 1965 interview with Alex Haley, King said:
"Though many would prefer not to, we must face the fact that progress for the Negro--to which white moderators like to point in justifying gradualism--has been relatively insignificant, particularly in terms of the Negro masses. What little progress has been made--and that includes the Civil Rights Act--has applied primarily to the middle-class Negro. Among the masses, especially in the Northern ghettoes, the situation remains the same, and for some it is worse."5
Speaking about his disappointment regarding Southern white ministers, King said:
"The most pervasive mistake I have made was in believing that because our cause was just, we could be sure that the white ministers of the South, once their Christian consciences were challenged, would rise to our aid…. I ended up, of course, chastened and disillusioned."6
Both of these quotations show that Martin King did face the failure of the Civil Rights movement to reach the masses of black people. He also realized that whites, even liberal clergy, could not always be counted on
5 Alex Haley, "Playboy Interview with Martin
Luther King," Playboy, XII, Jan. 1965, pp. 70-71.
6 Ibid., p. 66.
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to act out in life what they claim in their confessions of faith or in their theological textbooks.
My own perspective on black theology, unlike Martin King, begins with the assumption that the people who benefit from the unjust social, political, and economic order are not likely to be the ones who will change it radically. I do not make this claim because I think that whites are by nature more evil than any other group of people. I make this claim because of the Christian doctrine of sin which says that individuals or groups will claim more than what they ought to, if they can get away with it. I think that the reality of sin has already been validated by history. I do not believe that any group of people will do right, because of the demands of faith alone.
As Reinhold Niebuhr forcefully demonstrated in his Moral Man and Immoral Society, individuals may stand outside of themselves and therefore act against their interests as defined by the existing social arrangements. But groups seldom, if ever, can transcend their interests for the sake of another. Martin King was certainly aware of Niebuhr's analysis, but it apparently made little impact on his theological consciousness, since his optimism regarding whites could not be shaken radically. King's optimism, however, is not derived primarily from the theological liberalism of Bostonian Personalism or of the Social Gospel movement.
I think King received this faith in whites from the black church tradition which has always extended its openness to reconciliation to the white community. What is most amazing about the black community as a whole and the black church in particular is their willingness to forgive whites regarding their brutality during slavery, lynching, and even oppression today in the ghettoes of the urban cities. But despite our willingness to extend the right hand of fellowship, whites continue their massive assault upon the humanity of our people, and get angry with us if we say we don't like it. It seems that whites have been allowed to do what they wish to us so long that they regard such inhumane invasion of black humanity as synonymous with their freedom.
With regard to what black people can expect from white people in our struggle for freedom, there are some genuine differences between King and me. I do not believe that whites or any other group holding power will voluntarily empower those who are powerless. Freedom is not a gift but must be taken. While the Gospel of God can and does empower people to change sides in the struggle for freedom, we must realize that many people publicly testify that they are for the poor but are in fact against them.
Even though there are important differences between King and me, I think that they can best be understood from within the context of the black church rather than in the context of white liberal and neoorthodox theologies of North America and Europe, Such views are represented by King and me, as well as many others, can be found throughout the black religious tradition. There is no need to turn to white Western theology for an explanation. King's perspective has its
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antecedents in Frederick Douglass, while my view is partly found in the life and writings of Henry Highland Garnet, both of whom were contemporaries in the nineteenth century and stressed somewhat different views regarding the place of whites in the black struggle of freedom.7
V
What was the main content of King's thought which he derived from the black church tradition? This question is not easy to answer because the black church has not done much systematic reflection in the area of theology. Our theologies have been presented in the forms of sermons, songs, prayers, testimonies, and stories of slavery and oppression. In these sources we have given our views of God and the world, and how each may be understood in relation to our struggle for freedom. We did not write essays on Christian doctrine because our descendants came as slaves from Africa and not as free people from Europe. Many blacks were prevented from learning to read and write either by the circumstances of our birth or by the legal restrictions defined by the Government. Therefore, we had to do theology in other forms than rational reflections. We sang and preached our theology in worship and other sacred contexts. The central meaning disclosed in these non-rational sources is found in both their form and content and is identical with freedom and hope.
The influence of the black church and its central theme of freedom and hope can be seen in the language of King's speaking and writing. Everything he said and wrote sounds like a black sermon and not rational reflection. To be sure, King finished first in his class at Crozer and also wrote a Ph.D. dissertation at Boston on Henry Nelson Wieman's and Paul Tillich's conceptions of God. But it is significant to note that he did not adopt the style of theological presentation from any of his white theological mentors. He may have referred to white theologians and philosophers when he needed to explain his views to a white public, but the style of his presentation was unmistakably from the tradition of black preaching.
Like his predecessors and contemporaries in the black church, King preached his theology, because the theme of freedom and hope had to be reflected in the movement and rhythm of his voice, if he expected a black congregation to take his message seriously. The eschatological hope of freedom is not only an idea to be analyzed in the conceptual language of white theologians and philosophers. It is primarily an event to be experienced when God's word of freedom breaks into the lives of the gathered community through the vehicle of the sermon's oration. No one
7 For an interpretation of nationalism and integration in the history of black religious thought, see Gayraud S. Wilmore, Black Religion and Black Radicalism, Second Edition (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1983); see also Francis L. Broderick, "The Gnawing Dilemma: Separatism and Integration, 1865-1925," in Nathan Huggins, Martin Kilson, and Daniel Fox (eds.), Key Issues in the Afro-American Experience, Vol.II (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1971).
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understood the relationship between style and meaning in the context of the black church any better than Martin King.
In the black church, the meaning is found not primarily in the intellectual content of the spoken word but in the way the word is spoken and its effect upon those who hear it. That was why King could speak on Plato, Augustine, or even Boston Personalism, about which most blacks know nothing and care even less, and still move the congregation to tears and shouts of praise, even though they did not understand the content of his discourse. What they understood was the appropriate tone and movement of his speech which the people believe is the instrument for the coming presence of God's spirit, thereby empowering them with the hope for freedom. The people believe that freedom is coming because a foretaste of it is given in the sermon event itself. When King spoke of his dream at the 1963 March on Washington, and when he spoke the night before his assassination in Memphis of his hope that we will reach the Promised Land, black people did not believe him because of the cogency of his logic but rather because of the spirit of empowerment generated by the style of his sermon oration. The people believed him because they contended that they experienced in their hearts the Spirit of God's liberating presence.
I think style is important in doing theology, and I try to reflect it in my own theology. How can black theology claim to be derived from the black community if it does not reflect in its style the language of the people? If black people do not recognize themselves in the language of theology, how can theology really claim blackness as its identity? For any theology to be truly black, its blackness must be expressed in the form in which it is written. This point was impressed on my own theological consciousness by the black critics of my early books, Black Theology and Black Power (1969) and A Black Theology of Liberation (1970). With the publication of The Spirituals and the Blues (1972), God of the Oppressed (1975), My Soul Looks Back (1982), and other subsequent writings, I have tried to incorporate not only the content of liberation in theology but also in the very form of the language itself. Martin King has been helpful in the accomplishment of this task.
VI
In addition to the style of King's theology pointing toward freedom and hope, the same theme is also found in the content of his message. The influence of the black church on the content of King's theology is not easy to demonstrate. Anyone can easily notice the influence of the black church on his sermonic delivery and in the form of his writings. But that is not the case with the content of his message, since he does not explicitly refer to the black church. What is clear, however, is that the central theme of freedom and hope do define the content of King's life and message. It is summarized in his March on Washington speech:
"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the
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content of their character…. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day."
The words were spoken in 1963, but few of us today can speak with the confidence of Martin King, because events since that time are difficult to reconcile with his optimism. Between 1965 and 1968, even King bad to move away from the optimism defined in the 1963 Washington speech, because his sermons and speeches did not dislodge the entrenchment of white power as he appeared to think. But despite the failure of his sermons and speeches to move whites to change the social, political, and economic situation, the content of his message of freedom and hope did move blacks to action. Without the response of the black church people, King would have had his hope for freedom destroyed, because even liberal whites seemed incapable of embodying the hope and freedom about which he preached.
In the black church, King knew that the people had a hope that stretched back to the beginnings of the black Christian community in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. All he had to do was restate that hope for freedom in the songs and language of the people and they would respond to the content of the message. That was why King used the language of the so-called "Negro Spirituals" in his sermons in black churches. His sermons always contained the hope for freedom, and he always related it to his current struggles to attain freedom in this world. But when it seemed as if freedom was difficult to realize in this world, Martin King did not despair but moved its meaning to an eschatological realm as defined by the black church's claim that "the Lord will make a way somehow." The night before he was assassinated, King, in a black church worship service, restated that hope with the passion and certainty so typical of the black preacher: "I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the promised land…. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord."
King's emphasis on the eschatological hope of freedom as defined by "the coming of the Lord" was not derived from white theologians and philosophers, but from his own religious tradition. These words of faith and hope were derived from the black tradition as defined by our pain and suffering. People who have not lived in the context of hundreds of years of slavery and suffering are not likely to express an eschatological hope of freedom. Hope in God's coming eschatological freedom is always derived from the suffering of people who are seeking to establish freedom on earth but have failed to achieve it. In their failure to establish freedom in their existing present, black people prevented despair from becoming the defining characteristic of their lives by looking forward to God's coming, eschatological freedom.
As with King, black theology, and the black church generally, we
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blacks do not deny that trouble is present in black life. What we deny is that it has the last word, for we believe, in the words of Charles Tindley, that "we will understand it better by and by."
Trials dark on every hand, and we cannot understand.
All the ways that God would lead us to the Blessed Promised Land
But he guides us with his eye and we'll follow till we die.
For we'll understand it better by and by.
By and by, when the morning comes,
All the saints of God are gathered home
We'll tell the story how we overcome
For we'll understand it better by and by.