"Those who see God's coming liberation breaking into the present must live as if the future is already present in their midst. They must bear witness to humanity's liberation by freeing the present from the past and for the future. This means fighting for the inauguration of liberation in our social existence, creating new levels of human relationship in society. The struggle for liberation is the service the people of God render for all, even those who are responsible for the structure of slavery.
The assertion that liberation is for all does not mean that all will regard God's coming realm of freedom as good news. Even some oppressed people, having "made" it in the oppressors' world, will not always welcome the freedom that the liberation struggle inaugurates. Their mental enslavement to their few crumbs from the master's table often negates their desire to share in the freedom of humanity.
Therefore, though oppressed, they do not share the consciousness that arises from the dialectic of oppression and liberation in the political praxis of the people. They thus must be liberated in spite of and against themselves."
Notes
from "God of the Oppressed" by the Rev. Dr. James Hal Cone, 1997, Orbis Press, New York, p. 138-39.