Review: The Cross and the Lynching Tree

The Cross and the Lynching Tree by James H. Cone
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book has been sitting on my wife's work theological shelf (I'm sure she's read it- just not me) for a while and the title has always intrigued me. It is a striking juxtaposition and, of course, the subject of the essays within combine a robust theology of the cross with an equally robust remembrance of the practice of lynching which was the Black experience in the US for several generations after the Civil War. It is a striking and painful contrast.

Cone's main thesis in the several essays has two threads. The first, is the Black recognition of the parallel between Jesus' death of the cross and the practice of lynching Black men, women and children perpetrated by the white community. Cone draws out that parallel clearly in the words of the victims themselves, their religious leaders, activists, artists. The recognition of that parallel fed the Black community through all those years of lynchings and explains many things about the vitality of the Black church and its reliance on Jesus through this time.

The second theme is the incomprehension of the white liberals or white Christians in seeing this parallel. This is true both of those sympathetic to the lynchers and those who were not. It is, as Cone suggests, an indictment on both white liberals and white Christians that we missed this and that we didn't push harder against lynching, insisting on, if anything, a gradualist approach at a time that people were dying. As someone who does try to take a moderate stance on many issues, it is a clear warning that there are times and places where moderation is not called for, but rather a cry for justice is what is needed.

This is a brilliant book and well worth reading. It does and should make the reader uncomfortable, especially if they're white. But that discomfort is a good thing.

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