Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Cone and Wright

Everybody seems to be writing about Wright. This is an interesting take on the prophetic aspects of his work.

I picked up a book by Cone from the library, and am trying to get through it.

It isn't easy.

I am a physicist in academia, and get some of the letters that any scientist with visibility gets. I actually try to read them. It isn't easy--the writers generally use words like "energy" in novel and incomprehensible ways, hide assumptions, move conclusions valid in one setting to completely different ones, complain of conspiracies by mysterious elites, and only rarely say anything of worth.

The first chapter of Cone's book is like that--but dripping with hatred as well. Perhaps the hatred is understandable--it was written right after King's assassination--but it doesn't bode well for the theology part, which I haven't gotten to yet. And "understandable" anger does not mean the work is going to be valuable or accurate or even "authentic."

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