“Flourishing for All?: Chosenness and Divine Election in James Cone and Karl Barth”

ABSTRACT Unreflective notions of chosenness and divine election have been (mis)used to defend racist and colonial abuses. Reading together James Cone’s understanding of the Oppressed as the Elect and Karl Barth’s understanding of all humanity as elect in the Elect One, Jesus Christ, generates an understanding of how the flourishing of all peoples is possible when the particular, specific contexts of all peoples are addressed. Instead of abusing notions of chosenness and divine election to justify oppression, a rehabilitated understanding of chosenness and universal election can be a tool of antiracist, anticolonial theologies. Cone and Barth sought to communicate hope in their specific contexts through appeals to God’s gracious favour. Such hope remains possible today.