Black liberation theologian James Cone wins 2018 Grawemeyer Award in religion
The award honors his book The Cross and the Lynching Tree, which shows how white supremacy has affected dominant views in the church.
James Cone, one of the most powerful voices shaping black liberation theology, won the 2018 Grawemeyer Award in Religion for his book The Cross and the Lynching Tree.
In that work Cone, professor of systematic theology at Union Theological Seminary in New York City, draws on the history of the public murders of African Americans from the post-Reconstruction era through the civil rights era.
“The crucifixion was clearly a first-century lynching,” Cone said in a statement. “Both are symbols of the death of the innocent, mob hysteria, humiliation, and terror. They both also reveal a thirst for life that refuses to let the worst determine our final meaning and demonstrate that God can transform ugliness into beauty, into God’s liberating presence.”
