Emily begins the podcast series by giving a summary of chapter one of The Cross and the Lynching Tree by James Cone. In this chapter, Dr. Cone asks us to draw a parallel between Jesus’s death and the lynchings of more than 5,000 black people between 1880–1940. And he invites us to consider the paradox of the cross—that, in the face of a violent lynching, Christianity beckons us to consider that hope comes by way of defeat; that suffering and death don’t have the last word; and that the last shall be first, and the first shall be last. The summary is followed by two questions and time for meditation.
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