WELL, WELL, WHAT DO YOU KNOW….? PART II

In my last blog I reviewed the ITC/Long fiasco, oops, mess. (Hi, brother ronde love. I stll love you). Now I’ll try to get beneath the events and analyze their meaning.

The Bigger Picture: Cone's Theology Is Not Orthodox
Yet, Cone's remarks must be evaluated in light of the broader theological spectrum. His criticism of long, though valid in context, does not emit from orthodox biblical theological convictions. His theological construct, Black Theology, deviates blatantly from the theology taught in Scripture in that it:
• is a branch of Liberation Theology which discounts individual accountability for sin to a holy and just God; elevates all oppressed peoples into a specially-favored disenfranchised class; views man's fundamental dilemma, not as original sin and practical sins resulting therefrom, but as the world's plutocracy; regards salvation as the liberation of the oppressed from the ruling classes; etc.

• has as its focus the immediate liberation of Blacks from the oppressive White man and his systems, by any means necessary.

• claims the absolute preference of God and Jesus Christ for the disenfranchised, marginalized and downtrodden.

• severely limits the immanence of God to His acts on behalf of the oppressed in this life… even in contradiction to His other attributes. It neglects the inescapable truths that God's immanence is also revealed in history by His redemptive works, especially in the Person and the work of the Incarnate Christ; in our lives in the Presence and power of the Holy Spirit; in His providential government of all His creation; etc.

• denigrates historic orthodoxy as the White man’s contextualization of truth.

• relegates the Bible to the role of a self-fulfillment manual.

• grants the oppressed special religious privileges, regardless of their relationship to Jesus Christ by faith alone.

• practically denies the biblical doctrine of original sin, especially in the lives of those listed immediately above.

• downplays the hope of the eschatological perfection when the righteous Judge will make all things right.

• de facto presses the need for a realized eschatology in this life.

• confounds such biblical categories as redemption with liberation; bondage with oppressed; sin with evil, etc. Its narrow view of oppression limits its struggle to the Black man's liberation from economic, psychological, physical and emotional subjugation. Herein lies its grand irony: just as our White oppressors’ violated the clear meaning of the biblical text to fulfill their own sinister, immediate ends, so too does Black Theology desecrate Scripture by super-imposing its agenda on it, by subjecting it to ad hoc liberation interpretations and by simultaneously presenting an absolute and false dichotomy between our needs in this world and in the one to come. In this scenario, Jesus is the grand Liberator of all the oppressed and, according to Black Theology’s interpretation of Lk 4:18-21, His mission is to release them from the shackles of poverty and from all other forms of earthly inequity.

• unbendingly insists on the Black experience as the highest binding element, the ultimate authority and the paradigmatic expression of biblical truth.

• in essence is nothing but humanism cut, tailored and dressed to fit the African-American experience. Black Theology begins with the existential circumstances of the Black man and opportunistically incorporates Scripture into its schema in order to fulfill its end -- the attainment of the Black man's dignity mainly through the efforts of self-realization but broadly, by any means necessary.


Further, ITC has historically been a supporter of Dr. Cone. His theological views are well-accepted by that institution, one of whose professors, Dr. Jacqueline Grant, Fuller E. Calloway Professor of Systematic Theology, a former student and protégé of Cone, uses his textbook on that subject. It is not difficult to determine ITC’s theological stand.


Framing The Issue
On this basis, we should not view the current imbroglio as a matter of ITC/Cone versus Long. This would be improper and incorrect. The foundational formulation should be Jesus versus ITC/Cone and Long. Why? Because, in the end they all attack the Scripture: ITC and Cone by their advocating Black Theology (and the “feminist Gospel” ??) and Long, by his promotion of prosperity and Word Faith theologies underscored by the expedient application of secular financial and business practices.


In Fact, ITC/Cone And Long Have Many Similarities
All of them would commonly admit that the chief end of (the Black) man is not, as loftily summarized in the Westminster Shorter Catechism, to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever, but to achieve Black social, economic and spiritual (whatever that may be) equality through regaining dignity and honor, by a creative use of the Bible. Their difference is not one of theology but one of methodology: Cone identifies with the oppressed in order to effect their liberation from White oppressors while Long grabs more and more from the oppressed because the more he gets, the more he is able to give back to them!! Both are grave distortions of the Gospel.

Further, both also have this in common: an inordinate concentration on the present, on the hic et nunc. Black Theology focuses overwhelmingly on reversing existing conditions, on liberation now for all oppressed, especially Blacks, at all costs and by any means necessary, and Prosperity Theology presses the expectation, the demand, and even the right, for all God's children to be financially prosperous today, now.

Both overestimate the importance of this present age, their attitudes towards which betray a misguided notion of ultimacy. For example, Black Theology despises the fact that God has delegated the power for ensuring social justice to governments whose officers will one day account to Him for all their thoughts, principles and actions. Prosperity Theology, in falsely promising a bounty of material blessings to those having the right faith, saying the right words and doing the right deeds, is in fact directing its hearers to find self-fulfillment right now. In both cases this unhealthy preoccupation with the present, the very essence of a consumer culture, ends up crippling the church by detracting it from its major role of worship, of which evangelism and discipleship are supportive means, in such a way that it de facto has no sense of the course and content of redemptive history which climaxes in the Second Coming of Christ Who will reward His servants for their suffering on earth for His Name's sake. It is this "eschatological orientation to God's promised future which establishes the context of human life" (Michael Horton's quote of Colin Gunton in Horton's Covenant And Eschatology, p. 42, emphasis ours) so that, as Horton continues, "The definitive power for Christian community is neither .. resignation to defeat nor .. "the will to power" but the Lamb who was slain for others but now is the life for others." Horton, p. 43.

Both denigrate our expectation of the Consummation because they reject God’s promises that He will bring forth His ultimate fulfillment of all things in Christ. Both deny unjust suffering for the sake of Christ as the Christian vocation, 1 Pe 2:18-21; indeed, in His suffering, He is our model, 22-25. Our unjust trials are not to take us by surprise, rather, we are to rejoice in them for it is fitting that such trials first occur with those of the household of faith, 4:12-19. Finally, both revel in a false over-realized eschatology founded on a theology of glory rather than a theology of the cross. Contrarily, our biblical eschatological hope which is to be woven into every fabric of our lives, finds its highest expression in none other than our sovereign Lord Jesus, “.. the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.” Heb 12:2.

Next issue: Christ alone is our eschatological goal. The Conclusion—A Caution to the Reformed Black Community