The Crucified People and The Lynching Tree

Abstract

The thesis focuses on two historical forms of oppression: economic and racial, as well as two attempts to theologize these phenomena: one by Jon Sobrino, an author writing from the perspective of El Salvador and Latin America, and the other by James H. Cone, the founder of black liberation theology. Both theologians construct a link between the contemporary oppressed and the theological categories of cross and salvation. In Cone's and Sobrino's view, the perspective of historical victims allows for a better understanding of the biblical account of Jesus' death and resurrection. At the same time, the reality of oppression itself can only be fully understood in the light of Jesus' story, which creates a specific hermeneutical loop. At the center of this thesis lies the category of the crucified people, essential to Sobrino's theology, and the analogy between the cross and the lynching tree introduced by Cone. The proposed analysis juxtaposes some key elements of the two authors' writings and the historical contexts of their reflections. It shows where their interpretations meet, in what elements they differ, and how they can aid each other in constructing the perspective of historical soteriology.