Shifting Paradigms: Repentance Paradigmatix

Program’s Mission: Stimulate critical thought in order to realistically redefine our narrative and positively reshape our reality through dialogue and with self-determination.

Dedication: Dr. James Cone – called the most important theologian of his time, he was known as the founder of black liberation theology, was the Bill and Judith Moyers Distinguished Professor of Systematic Theology at Union Theological Seminary. He attended Shorter College (1954-56) and held a B.A. degree from Philander Smith College (1958). In 1961, he received a Master of Divinity degree from Garrett Theological Seminary and later earned an M.A. (1963) and Ph.D. (1965) from Northwestern University. Dr. Cone was conferred thirteen (13) honorary degrees, including an honoris causa from the Institut Protestant de Théologie in Paris, France. Dr. Cone was best known for his ground-breaking works, Black Theology & Black Power (1969) and A Black Theology of Liberation (1970); he was also the author of the highly acclaimed God of the Oppressed (1975), and of Martin & Malcolm & America: A Dream or a Nightmare? (1991); all of which works have been translated into nine languages.  His research and teaching were in Christian theology, with special attention to black liberation theology and the liberation theologies of Africa, Asia, and Latin America. He also taught 19th & 20th century European-American theologies. His 2012 book, The Cross and the Lynching Tree, received the 2012 Nautilus Silver Award in Religion/Spirituality-Western Traditions. It was an Amazon.com #1 best seller in religion in February 2012. Naming it one of the top religion books of 2011, Huffington Post editors said: “One of the great theologians of the late 20th century, Cone forces us to look hard at suffering, oppression and, ultimately, redemption.”

Perspective: To be in sin has nothing to do with disobeying laws that are alien to the community’s existence. Quite contrary, failure to destroy the powers that seek to enforce alien laws on the community is to be in a state of sin. It is incumbent on all members of the community to define their existence according to the community’s essence and to defend the community against that which seeks to destroy it. To be in sin, then, is to deny the values that make the community what it is. It is living according to one’s private interests and not according to the goals of the community. It is believing that one can live independently of the source that is responsible for the community’s existence. For Israel sin meant alienation from the covenant of YaH as grounded in YaH’s liberating activity at the exodus. If the meaning of Israel’s existence is defined by the exodus and the covenant, then all other ways of living in the world must be termed a violation of its existence as the people of YaH. Sin in the community of Israel is nothing but a refusal to acknowledge the significance of the exodus and the covenant as Elohim’s liberating activity. It means grounding one’s being on some loyalty other than YaH. It is counting YaH’s activity as secondary by refusing to define the community in terms of divine liberation…To see the kingdom is to see a happening, and we are thus placed in a situation of decision – we say either yes or no to the liberation struggle. The kingdom is not an attainment of material security, nor is it mystical communion with the divine. It has to do with the quality of one’s existence in which a person realizes that persons are more important than property. For [Yeshua], repentance is a precondition for entrance into the kingdom. But it should be pointed out that repentance has nothing to do with morality or religious piety in the white sense. To repent…is to lay hold on the salvation that is already at hand, and to give up everything for it. It means recognizing the importance of the kingdom-event and casting one’s lot with it. The kingdom is what Elohim does and repentance arises solely as a response to Elohim’s liberation. The event of the kingdom today is the liberation struggle in the black community. It is where persons are suffering and dying for want of human dignity. It is thus incumbent upon all to see the event for what it is – Elohim’s kingdom. This is what conversion means. Blacks being converted because they see in the events around them the coming of YaH, and will not be scared into closing their eyes to it…

Black Liberation Theology by James Cone. pgs. 104 & 124

Repentance: The full meaning of repentance, according to [Israelite] doctrine, is clearly indicated in the term “teshubah” (lit. “return”; from the verb ). This implies: (1) All transgression and sin are the natural and inevitable consequence of man’s straying from [Elohim] and His laws. (2) It is man’s destiny, and therefore his duty, to be with [Elohim] as [Elohim] is with him. (3) It is within the power of every man to redeem himself from sin by resolutely breaking away from it and turning to [Elohim], whose loving-kindness is ever extended to the returning sinner. “Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto [YHWH], and he will have mercy upon him; and to our [Elohim], for he will abundantly pardon.” (4) Because “there is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not,” every mortal stands in need of this insistence on his “return” to [Elohim]. Other manifestations of repentance mentioned in the Bible are: pouring out water; prayer; self-affliction, as fasting, tearing the upper garment, and wearing sackcloth; sitting and sleeping on the ground; The Prophets disparaged all such outer manifestations of repentance, insisting rather on a complete change of the sinner’s mental and spiritual attitude. They demanded a regeneration of the heart, i.e., a determined turning from sinand returning to God by striving after righteousness. “O Israel, return unto the Lord thy God; for thou hast fallen by thine iniquity. Take with you words, and return unto the Lord: say unto him, Take away all iniquity, and accept us graciously: so will we render as bullocks the offerings of our lips.” “Rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the Lord your God: for he is gracious and full of compassion, slow to anger and plenteous in mercy, and repenteth him of the evil.” “Cast away from you all your transgressions whereby ye have transgressed; and make you a new heart and a new spirit: for why will ye die, O house of Israel?”  (Jewish Encyclopedia). 

> Thesis: Our liberation and deliverance, or salvation, from oppression and immorality for the establishment of a self-determined reality is based on our national collective repentance,

• Attempts have been made politically (i.e., voting, activism, elected officials, joining or creating political parties), economically (i.e., boycotts, economic initiatives for empowerment, entrepreneurialism, establishment of institutions), and socially (civic clubs, fraternal orders, various movements, assimilation, etc.).

• None of these efforts have brought forth a qualitative change in our socio-economic and political milieu.

• What remains is a return to our cultural consciousness which serves a cohesive bond that unifies our ideology, provides us with an egalitarian social structure, collective consciousness, and sets objective standards and principles by which we are to apply to pragmatically. 

What is sin: Everyone who keeps sinning is violating Torah — indeed, sin is violation of Torah. 1 John 3.4

Five Stages of Repentance

1. Acknowledgement: For I know my crimes, my sin confronts me all the time. Psalm 51.3

2. Remorse: See, Adonai, how distressed I am! Everything in me is churning! My heart turns over inside me, because I have been so rebellious. Lamentations 1.20

3. Confession: When I acknowledged my sin to you, when I stopped concealing my guilt, and said, “I will confess my offenses to Adonai”; then you, you forgave the guilt of my sin. Psalm 32.5

4. Turn away from sin: He who conceals his sins will not succeed; he who confesses and abandons them will gain mercy.  Proverbs 28.13

5. Keeping the commandments: He raised up a testimony in Ya‘akov and established a Torah in Isra’el. He commanded our ancestors to make this known to their children, so that the next generation would know it, the children not yet born, who would themselves arise and tell their own children, who could then put their confidence in God, not forgetting God’s deeds, but obeying his mitzvot. Psalm 78.5-7

Isaiah 1.16-20

Hebrews 4.12-17

1 Kings 8.44-53

Ezekiel 18.20-32