In the act of worship itself, the experience of liberation becomes a constituent of the community's being . . . It is the power of God's Spirit invading the lives of the people, "building them up where they are torn down and propping them up on every leaning side".
Interpretation
Worship fosters a communal experience of liberation through divine connection.
This quote by James H. Cone emphasizes the transformative power of worship in a community. It suggests that through collective acts of worship, individuals experience liberation and support from the divine spirit, which strengthens and uplifts their lives, especially in times of struggle or degradation.
In practice
During a church service, the pastor quoted this while discussing the importance of community support.
Indeed our survival and liberation depend upon our recognition of the truth when it is spoken and lived by the people. If we cannot recognize the truth, then it cannot liberate us from untruth. To know the truth is to appropriate it, for it is not mainly reflection and theory. Truth is divine action entering our lives and creating the human action of liberation.
The coming of Christ means a denial of what we thought we were. It means destroying the white devil in us. Reconciliation to God means that white people are prepared to deny themselves (whiteness), take up the cross (blackness) and follow Christ (black ghetto).
Black racism is a myth created by whites to ease their guilt feelings. As long as whites can be assured that blacks are racists, they can find reasons to justify their own oppression of’ black people.
To be Christian is to be one of those whom God has chosen. God has chosen black people!
In the old days, people used to risk their lives in India or in the Americas in order to bring back products which now seem to us to have been of comically little worth.
If one tries to think about history, it seems to me - it's like looking at a range of mountains. And the first time you see them, they look one way. But then time changes, the pattern of light shifts. Maybe you've moved slightly, your perspective has changed. The mountains are the same, but they look very different.
Everybody believes in something and everybody, by virtue of the fact that they believe in something, uses that something to support their own existence.
Whoso will pray, he must fast and be clean, And fat his soul, and make his body lean.
Evil is not to be traced back to the individual but to the collective behavior of humanity.
We who don't want radical Islam to spread must compete with the agents of radical Islam. I want to see what would happen if Christians, feminists and Enlightenment thinkers were to start proselytizing in the Muslim community.
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