James Hal Cone

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James Hal Cone (August 5, 1938 - ) is an African-American Christian theologian in the Methodist tradition. He is one of America's best known architects of Black theology, a form of Liberation theology. He is currently the Charles Augustus Briggs Distinguished Professor of Systematic Theology at Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York.

Cone was born and raised in Arkansas and received a B.A. degree from Philander Smith College in Arkansas in 1958, a B.D. degree from Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary in 1961, and M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Northwestern University in 1963 and 1965, respectively. He taught theology and religion at Philander Smith College, Adrian College in Michigan, and beginning in 1970 at Union Theological Seminary in New York City, where he was awarded the distinguished Charles A. Briggs Chair in systematic theology in 1977.

James Cone was the first person to create a systematic Black theology. He felt that Black Christians in Northern America should not follow the "white Church", as it had failed to support them in their struggle for equal rights. Though this theme runs throughout Cone's work, his early books (Black Theology and Black Power and A Black Theology of Liberation) draw heavily on mainstream white theologians like Karl Barth (on whom Cone had written his doctoral thesis) and Paul Tillich.

In response to criticism from other black theologians (including his brother, Cecil), Cone began to make greater use of resources native to the African American Christian community for his theological work, including slave spirituals, the blues, and the writings of prominent African American thinkers like David Walker, Henry McNeal Turner, and W. E. B. Du Bois. Critiques by black women also led Cone to make consideration of gender issues more prominent in his later writings, thus paving the way for Womanist theology. His theology has also been heavily influenced by Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr.

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