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Chapter 2: “The Terrible Beauty of the Cross and the Tragedy of the Lynching Tree: A Reflection on Reinhold Niebuhr”
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ICYMI: Lacy Nguyen and Ashley Budelli debrief Reads for the Resistance with a review of Chapter 2.
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Chapter 2 Summary:
This chapter runs through much of Reinhold Niebuhr’s career as one of America’s foremost theologians. Cone laments and is obviously exasperated by the fact that Niebuhr, who is manifestly capable of understanding Black sorrow and rage, never appears to “get it” about what America’s Black population needs. Niebuhr misses numerous opportunities to dig into Black experience and pain. Repeatedly, he declines to engage in Black suffering in any sustained way. He takes his cue from Hodding Carter and William Faulkner rather than Martin Luther King and ends up with a gradualist approach to an issue that requires revolutionary change. Needless to say, Niebuhr fails to make the connection between the cross of Jesus and the lynching tree. As a consequence, Niebuhr’s otherwise influential career is marred by his mediocre response to Black issues. As Cone assumes his own teaching responsibilities at Union, he returns appreciatively to Niebuhr’s writings. Nevertheless, America’s foremost Black theologians and ethicists never make the connection between the cross and the lynching tree.
Douglas Decelle
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