Review: The Cross and the Lynching Tree

The Cross and the Lynching Tree by James H. Cone

Lynching is a sinful stain on American history and yet it’s something very few Americans even realize happened. Many that do remember this history think lynching was something done at the end of a rope to punish criminals. And there’s some truth to that recollection, but very limitedly so.

Lynching was a mob tactic to punish the Black race and keep them fearful. Lynching wasn’t done until after the slaves were freed. It wasn’t just done at the end of a rope, but included all kinds of torture and death. It continued past the civil rights movement and into the present day. James Byrd was lynched in 1998 by being chained to a car and dragged to his death. Ahmaud Arbery died just a couple years ago at the hands of several men attempting vigilantly justice.

The victims of these lynchings were often mutilated with knives, beaten by the crowds (including white children) and pieces of their ears and fingers cut off as souvenirs. They were black men, women, and children. Some were guilty of crimes, but the crowds didn’t care if they were guilty at all. Many times if the guilty person could not be found, the first Black they did find would be lynched instead.

Like black men, they [black women] were tortured, beaten and scarred, mutilated and hanged, burned and shot, tarred and feathered, stabbed and dragged, whipped and raped by angry white mobs.

James H. Cone, page 122

Lynchings were often advertised in advance. Photos were taken of the families and the community smiling while black bodies hung or burned in the background. And the next day the paper would publish a story saying a lynching was performed at the hands of persons unknown.

This intolerable evil was performed at the hands of white folks in all of the states (north and south).

James Cone takes this history and shows us how it is very similar to the death of Jesus. He too was killed at the hands of an angry mob.

The cross and the lynching tree are separated by nearly 2,000 years. One is the universal symbol of Christian faith; the other is the quintessential symbol of black oppression in America. Though both are symbols of death, one represents a message of hope and salvation, while the other signifies the negation of that message by white supremacy.

James H. Cone, page xiii

This book explores the history of lynching, how one of the greatest theologians of the time during the height of lynching missed the obvious parallel between the cross and lynching, Martin Luther’s approach to lynching and the cross, and how black women played an important role in stopping lynching.

For all of us that grew up sheltered from the realities of the lynchings of our Black brothers and sisters, this book is a must-read. It gives an overview of lynching and what it was like to grow up under that hatred and fear. And it helps give a glimpse into what they are still experiencing and wrestling with today. It shows the power of the cross in a way that our theological tradition misses, and all the while your stomach will be in knots as you think about the horrors done to our fellow image-bearers in the name of Christ.

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Overall I give this book 5 stars.

Up Next: Murder by Other Means by John Scalzi