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Theologian James Cone to Speak at Trinity Church This Saturday

Theologian James Cone
Cone

Renowned theologian, teacher and author James Cone will talk about his latest book, `The Cross and the Lynching Tree’, at Trinity Church in Princeton this Saturday at 6 p.m. The event at the Mercer Street church is free and open to the public. A reception will follow the talk.

Cone, regarded as the father of black liberation theology, is the author of the 1969 classic `Black Theology and Black Power’. The book transformed the way generations of theologians and pastors think about theology and the American experience. In the book, Cone articulated the distinctiveness of the black church’s theology within the historical context of slavery and oppression.

In `The Cross and the Lynching Tree’, Cone explores two of the most emotionally charged symbols in the history of the African American community within the framework of social history, theology and black cultural studies. Cone examines the messages of spirituals and the blues and looks at the lives of lynching victims and civil rights activists while reflecting theologically on how life can be meaningful in the face of injustice and death.

Retired Princeton University Professor Cornel West, who now teaches at Union Seminary in New York where Cone has been a professor for many years, has described Cone’s latest work as “a powerful and painful song of hope in our dance with mortality.”