James Cone Black Rage

My research continues to be steady as I find new ways to explore black rage and how it can influence the imago dei. The tension is finding those places where black rage is present in the work of James Baldwin, James Cone and Ta-Nehisi Coates, while seeing how they engage God. All of their work is well written but it takes time to find how it all connects. The fact that I have a research question has helped tremendously as I read through the book and articles. The next step for me is to develop a good definition for black rage. It is in the defining of that term that will help me move to the next phase of my research. I have found many articles, books and doctoral dissertations that deal with the theological components in the works of Cone, Baldwin and Coates. Through their work it is clear …show more content…
James Cone speaks very clearly about how his experiences with racism and racist systems caused him to rethink how he interacted with theology. As I read God of the Oppressed it became evident that Cone has a black rage that “forces” him to revisit some of the work of previous theologians that never had to deal with issues such as lynching. It was through this particular lens that Cone begins to understand that theology is influenced by experience. Cone’s existential reality captures the tension of what it feels like to love God but wrestle with blackness. In Baldwin’s work it is hidden in the lines of his phenomenal written. As it writes about his black rage, it is hidden in the rage against his father. In his work such as Notes of Native Son, Baldwin locates his anger with his father but appears to aim it toward God. Baldwin writes, “It seemed to me that God himself had devised, to mark my father’s end, the most sustained