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Oppressed and oppressors cannot possibly mean the same thing when they speak of God. The God of the oppressed is a God of revolution who breaks the chains of slavery. The oppressors' God is a God of slavery and must be destroyed along with the oppressors.

— James H. Cone A Black Theology of Liberation (1970)

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More quotes by James H. Cone

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.

Black Theology and Black Power (1969)

By becoming poor and entrusting divine revelation to a carpenter from Nazareth, God makes clear where one has to be in order to hear the divine word and experience divine presence.

Speaking the Truth: Ecumenism, Liberation, and Black Theology (1986)

If the church ... does not make God's liberation of the oppressed central in its mission and proclamation, how can it rest easy with a condemned criminal as the dominant symbol of its message?

Speaking the Truth: Ecumenism, Liberation, and Black Theology (1986)

A man is free when he sees clearly the fulfillment of his being and is thus capable of making the envisioned self a reality.

Black Theology and Black Power (1969)

Black Power seeks not understanding but conflict; addresses blacks and not whites; seeks to develop black support, but not white good will.

Black Theology and Black Power (1969)

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Most intellectual people do not believe in God, but they fear him just the same.

Wilhelm Reich Philosophy : An Introduction to the Art of Wondering (2005)

When the mind is not dissipated upon extraneous things, nor diffused over the world about us through the senses, it withdraws within itself, and of its own accord ascends to the contemplation of God.

Basil of Caesarea

Once you accept the existence of God — however you define him, however you explain your relationship to him — then you are caught forever with his presence in the center of all things.

Morris West The Clowns of God (1981)

God seeks comrades and claims love,
the Devil seeks slaves and claims obedience.

Rabindranath Tagore Fireflies (1928)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: James H. Cone (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.