This book was a journey through despair, to faith, through doubt, back to faith, through crucifixion, to resurrection. What does the Black Christ really mean?į&L: What does resurrection hope look like, then? But Black death was being sanctified and became necessary. In the midst of the pandemic and the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and others, what did it matter that Christ identified with us? And what I realized is that I was stuck on the cross and this Christ that was Black was dying with us. But he was asking a question of theodicy. My son grew up in the church and grew up with the notion of the Black Christ. And so the many different ways in which he asked that question, and sometimes directly, is what pushed me into this journey through this book. If Black lives are never going to matter, then that promise of God is a false promise, so we cannot trust him.

And it also cut to the core of my faith, because that question - “Will Black lives ever really matter?” - was really the question, “Can we really trust in the promise of God for a more just future?” That question cut to the core for me, what it meant for me to be a mother and my concern for my son and his future and the future of his kids. And my son kept asking me a question in 2020 that I could not turn away from: “Will Black lives ever really matter?”

The black christ kelly brown douglas