James Cone...on church success

A great clip, short, (7min) by James Cone of Union Theological Seminary on Tavis Smiley's "State of the Black Church."  It would be a gross injustice to not hear this message for the whole church. The gospel is far more about failure, than success. This is so very timely, especially in the context in which so many churches struggle to only survive.

 

Comments

[Al]

"Jesus did not succeed, he failed."
I expect there is a lot to be unpacked in that statement, but I really have no idea where to begin.

I think the church (as a whole, not one color or another) is both too political and not political enough. I think it's fairly obvious to a lot of thinking people that when Christian=a specific political party, something has gone terribly wrong. At the same time, it is high time that we who are the church started actually doing something about things that affect our nation.

[ron cole]

I love James Cone, I read and listen to alot of his thinking. His theological musings take time to digest, which used to frustrate me living in the reality of a fast food world. Maybe,Cone is looking at the initial reaction and reality of Jesus' death. The disciples thought it was over, they envisioned the Kingdom, and Mission completely different.A lot of disciples were heading back home like the two on the road to Emmaus. God has to completely erase everything off the hard drive what they thought Jesus was all about. God does this through the resurrection and the Holy Spirit. Jesus does't raise himself from the dead. If it were "just" Jesus, he'd still be in the tomb...end of story.I also think if one thinks of atonement/salvation as Jesus dying for "my" sin only...we might miss where Cone is going.
Anyways, I think I disagree. What do you see the church should be doing to affect the nation? What concerns me is when the church gets involved iin the political arena, is that it breeds fundamentalism. Look at any country where religion and state occupy a political space; the US with evangelical right, Jewish religion and Israel, Islamic countries...you see fundamentalism, and faith reduced to morality. Even in Canada, recent stats show the evangelical church supports the Conservative government, and sees abortion, same sex marriage as the " big " issues. Concerns around climate change, the environment, poverty do even seem to be on the radar of what much of the canadian evangelical church sees as faith issues. So although, I do believe, we who profess to be followers of Jesus need to effect change,I think we need to tread lightly in the political space. I don't think we can vote a country into becoming more christian, I think each one of us can only live a country into becoming more christian. I think that is the biggest challenge for the church now, is to live more faithfully.

[Randy Hein]

...You gotta love the funky music playing in the background.

I think we have to face the fact that Jesus was killed because he was perceived to be a political threat ("King of the Jews"). His language was more political than it was religious. His manifesto (Luke 4) was political in nature. A de-politicized gospel is no gospel at all.

But what kind of politics did Jesus practice?

Ah ... now there's a question.