To be Christian is to be one of those whom God has chosen. God has chosen black people! - James H. Cone

Since most professional theologians are the descendants of the advantaged class and thus often represent the consciousness of the class, it is difficult not to conclude that their theologies are in fact a bourgeois exercise in intellectual masturbation.

By focusing on Scripture, theology is granted the freedom to take seriously its social and political situation without being determined by it. Thus the question is not whether we take seriously our social existence but how and In what way we take It seriously. Whose social situation does our theology represent? For whom do we speak? ... We are forced by Scripture itself to focus on our social existence, but not merely in terms of our own interests. ... There can be no Christian speech about God which does not represent the interest of the victims in our society.

Being black in America has little to do with skin color. Being black means that your heart, your soul, your mind, and your body are where the dispossessed are.