Page 9

Black theology would have even been necessary. Gayraud Wilmore said any "school of theology"
that black people would embrace must have biblical foundations.

One can search further to

see that many simply offered the idioms of biblical Christianity to masses that were not able to
tell the difference. It appears that the masses of blacks that had been raised and lived their
lives centered around the Bible-based religion of the Negro church forced the proponents of
Black Power to articulate their socio-political ideology in a manner that gave deference to the
biblical language and imagery so familiar to many blacks that, up until the mid 1960s, were
supportive of Martin Luther King and his non-violent approach to the evil of racism. Despite
the 1960s being a time of "secular religion or a religionless church,"

the Negro church, for the

most part, still held its roots in biblical Christianity even in the face of white "Christian"
complicity with their oppression.

There were other religious-related responses to the call for Black Power besides

resolutions and position papers being drafted by major denominations. In May 1969, James
Forman, affiliated with the SNCC, interrupted the service at the Riverside Church in New York
City and presented "The Black Manifesto". He rebuked white Christians and called blacks to
illegitimately use power as whites had done for so long. He used the language of "demands"
and the idea of "reparations." Finally, in good Malcolm X form, he said, "pressure by whatever
means necessary should be applied to...white churches and Jewish synagogues" (emphasis
mine).

The chief theologian and architect of formal and academic Black theology was James

H. Cone. Cone provided the most significant theological response to Black Power. "In the
summer after Martin Luther King, Jr.s death... [he] introduced the term ,,Black theology into
the religious discourse."

One must be careful not to dismiss the pain that Cone had

experienced. While one may avow or disavow his theological method, it is hard to dispute his
critique of white American and "Christian" racism. His foundational works include his 1969
Black Theology and Black Power, his 1970 A Black Theology of Liberation, and his 1975 God of
the Oppressed. Other theologians contributed to the early literature of Black theology as they
responded in various ways to Cones foundational works. He would become the lead Black
theologian and the mentor of many Ph.D. students that would expand his work.

Along with

Cone, early writers such as J. Deotis Roberts, Gayraud Wilmore, Vincent Harding, and William
R. Jones contributed significantly to the dialogue of Black theology.

Black theology sat upon socio-political foundations rather than "soli deo glori"

foundations. The Bible was merely one of six sources for doing Black theology: (1) black
experience, (2) black history, (3) black culture, (4) revelation, (5) Scripture, and (6) tradition.

Its germination took place in the call for "Black Power" in the spring of 1966 during Civil Rights
protest marches in Mississippi. Unlike many other issues that have confronted Christianity,
this issue was not born in the inner workings of church disputes. The New Testament gospel-
Judiazer issue arose in the Church, the early church councils were disputes within the
Church, the split of the Eastern and the Western church was over an "in the Church" dispute,

Theology:1966-1979, 219. Depending on ones perspective, the "Negro church" was the lifeboat of black
Christianity in the redefining and unsettling sixties.

Cone and Wilmore, Black Theology: 1966-1979, 155.

Vincent Harding, "The Religion of Black Power" in Cone and Wilmore, Black Power: 1966-1979,

41. Christianity was being assaulted from many angles during this period.

Cone and Wilmore, Black Theology: 1966-1979, 32.

Larry G. Murphy, J. Gordon Melton, and Gary L. Ward, eds., Encyclopedia of African American

Religions (New York: Garland Publishing, 1993), s.v. "James Hal Cone."

Cone and others realized the necessity of encouraging additional scholars to enhance their cause. This

author has tried to get his own denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention, to realize the necessity of
encouraging black scholars in order to enhance the cause of evangelical Christianity among black Baptists.

Cone, A Black Theology of Liberation, 53-74.