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Renowned Reverend Dr. James H. Cone penned some final thoughts in The Cross and the Lynching Tree. The Black Liberation theologian upheld that the cross and tree were symbols of suffering, oppression, and death—intertwining experiences of Black Americans and Jesus Christ.

Cone recalled his childhood in segregated Arkansas: “The violent crosses of the Ku Klux Klan were a familiar reality . . . racists preached a dehumanizing, segregated gospel in the name of Jesus’s cross every Sunday.” Yet Cone heard a radically different gospel in Black churches: “preachers proclaimed the message of the suffering Jesus and salvation accomplished in the death on the cross.” Cone upheld this gospel truth about freedom: the true message of Christ is that salvation is meant for, and validates all humans.

Jesus had set the record straight with Jewish leaders identifying themselves as “Abraham’s descendants [who] have never been slaves to anyone” (John 8:33). Had they forgotten the Israelites’ Egyptian enslavement and Babylonian bondage? Perhaps they were hearkening back to their lineage to Noah’s son Shem, blessed by God, (Genesis 9:26), and not cursed to slavery as were the children of Noah’s son Ham (Genesis 9:18–27)?

Jesus denounced falsehoods that salvation could be obtained (or denied) by birthright, proclaiming: “Everyone who sins is a slave to sin . . . so if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed” (John 8:34–36). Salvation depends on Jesus’s sacrifice alone. -Tondra Loder-Jackson