Kevin Cosby

The Gospel Beyond the Grave

Theology

“The formerly enslaved Baptist leader William J. Simmons, the eponym of Simmons College of Kentucky (HBCU), described American slavery as the ‘sum of human villainies.’ Slavery was not merely one injustice among many—it was the ultimate manifestation of moral evil and depravity, sustained by its brutal offspring: racial segregation, lynching, economic exploitation, and systemic exclusion. Does the claim that God is equally for both the enslaved and the enslaver render God internally divided? Does the insistence that both the oppressor and the oppressed will ultimately be saved endorse a blind and problematic form of universalism? To dismiss these questions as irrelevant is to retreat into a solipsistic denial of suffering. In The Gospel Beyond the Grave: Toward a Black Theology of Hope, New Testament scholar and theologian Lewis Brogdon confronts these theological tensions head-on, offering a renewed vision of Black theodicy and suffering through an eschatological lens of hope. Not since Major Jones explored a Black theology of hope more than fifty years ago has such a seminal work been written.”