James Cone’s theological work, entitled The Cross and the Lynching Tree, is the result of almost 50 years of theological reflection on the intersection of religion, race, and culture and is thus considered to be one of his most mature and developed works. A Methodist minister and seminary professor, Cone was one of America’s most unique and qualified voices on race and theology. In this work, Cone draws a direct link between the symbolism of the lynching tree in America’s troubled history of racist violence and the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth, an innocent victim tortured and put to death by being hung from a tree.

Content Warning: The source material features depictions of sexual assault and graphic, racially motivated violence and abuse. Additionally, the source material includes racial slurs and bigoted language intended to convey the historical reality of the period and the topic the book addresses. They are replicated in this study guide only in direct quotations of the source material.

Summary

In the first chapter, Cone argues it is surprising that the link between the cross and the lynching tree hasn’t gained greater traction in the religious imagination of American Christianity, seeing how they are practically symbolic clones in meaning, separated merely by time and cultural era. The cross was the first century’s lynching tree, a public means of execution meant to brutalize the victim and strike fear into the hearts of onlookers. Centuries later, the experience of the lynching tree enabled Black people to find solidarity in the imagery of the cross, empathizing with Jesus as one who entered into the suffering of the poor and oppressed; Black Christians identified with Jesus as the innocent victim of oppression and hatred.

In the second and third chapters, Cone examines two major influences on his own life and thought: Reinhold Niebuhr and Martin Luther King Jr. In Chapter 2, Cone considers renowned American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, comparing and contrasting the positive aspects of his theological achievement—especially as seen in his writing on the cross and the value of redemptive suffering—with the negative aspects of areas in his work in which there was a serious deficiency: Niebuhr’s inability to deal with the real issues of racism and racially motivated violence and exclusion present in white American Christianity. The third chapter examines the influence of Martin Luther King Jr., who was the primary force behind the American civil rights movement and who exercised an enormous influence over the young author as he grew into adulthood and went on to a career in academia and became a public figure in his own right.

The chapter on Martin Luther King Jr. also reflects on the catalyst for many of the initial protest movements, the lynching of 14-year-old Emmett Till. In reflecting on this atrocity, Cone shows the importance of Emmett’s mother’s decision to hold an open-casket wake before the funeral so that everyone might be able to look at the violence that had been visited upon a young, innocent boy, seeing in the loss of her only son a link to the sacrifice of Jesus, the “only son” of the gospels. This leads directly to the topic of the fourth chapter, which explores the artistic depiction of the crucifixion by Black artists, authors, and performers, and the imaginative link many drew between the cross and the lynching tree. Asking why it was that Black preachers and theologians missed this connection while so many artists saw it very clearly, Cone concludes that the horror of the parallel seems to be too much to bear at times and that only a very great, very deep imagination is capable of making the connection.

The book’s final chapter draws the various threads of the argument together while adding the extra note of a feminist perspective to the terror and sorrow experienced by the Black community during the lynching era. While the vast majority of lynching victims were men (up to 98% of cases by some measures), the women did not go unaffected. While some women were lynched themselves, usually in retaliation for some slight or perceived sexual sins, the women were often left behind to pick up the shattered pieces of the family after the murder of their fathers, sons, husbands, and brothers. In looking to the Christian image of Mary and the child Jesus, Black women saw their reflection in the tale of a mother who loses her only child to senseless violence and oppression. In bringing his book to a close, Cone discusses his experience as a young Black boy growing up under dangerous and anxiety-inducing circumstances in the segregated South. In struggling to come to grips with what it meant to be a Black Christian in the face of so many white Christians who practiced bigotry, hypocrisy, and hatred, Cone had to wrestle with what it meant to stay faithful and filled with hope in the eschatological promises of the Christian faith and a crucified Savior. This study guide was written using the e-book edition of The Cross and the Lynching Tree, published by Orbis Books in 2011.