In-person November Annual Meeting 2025 Program Book

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The theology of Karl Barth was influential for both Paul L. Lehmann (1906–1994) and James Cone (1938–2018). These two theological contemporaries remained committed to the revolutionary character Barth’s theology offered, both politically and racially. This paper revisits a crucial period in American theology and religious life, turning to two significant events in the 1970s. The convergence and divergence of Lehmann and Cone’s theological program gleaned from these events will be used to discern their constructive output based in their christological commitments, both in heavy dependence on Karl Barth.

Through the examination of these two contextually situated events, significant theological insight is gleaned, shining particular light on current discussions of the revolutionary character of theology and the promulgation of the concerns of Black and liberation theology. The conclusions drawn in the paper will focus on what Lehmann called the “revolutionary movement” of Barth’s theology. In so doing, these two barthian theologians shed new light on contemporary conversations surrounding race, theology, and philosophies of revolution.

This paper aims to buck a disturbing trend among Black liberation theologians, namely, that they hastily jettison engagement with Karl Barth's thought. It argues that James H. Cone, the pioneering member of Black liberation theology, was right to draw on Barth, and in so doing, the early Cone alerts readers to an often-unnoticed liberative potential of Barth’s theology. Despite his shortcomings, this paper argues that Barth proves useful for Black queer liberative ends. But this paper is not merely an apologia although it is indeed that. By drawing insights from queer theorist Sara Ahmed and theologian Hanna Reichel, this paper aims to tease out what makes Karl Barth—or any thinker for that matter—useful along with the affordances Barth’s Christological perspectives offer Black queer theological reflection.