In his reflections on God, Jesus, suffering, and liberation, James H. Cone relates the gospel message to the experience of the black community. But a wider theme of the book is the role that social and historical context plays in framing the questions we address to God as well as the mode of the answers provided.

"The introduction to this edition by Cornel West was originally published in Dwight N. Hopkins, ed., Black Faith and Public Talk: Critical Essays on James H. Cone's Black Theology & Black Power (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1999; reprinted 2007 by Baylor University Press)."

A landmark in the conversation about race and religion in America. "They put him to death by hanging him on a tree." Acts 10:39 The cross and the lynching tree are the two most emotionally charged symbols in the history of the African American community. In this powerful new work, theologian James H. Cone explores these symbols and their interconnection in the history and souls of black folk. Both the cross and the lynching tree represent the worst in human beings and at the same time a thirst for life that refuses to let the worst determine our final meaning. While the lynching tree symbolized white power and "black death," the cross symbolizes divine power and "black life" God overcoming the power of sin and death. For African Americans, the image of Jesus, hung on a tree to die, powerfully grounded their faith that God was with them, even in the suffering of the lynching era. In a work that spans social history, theology, and cultural studies, Cone explores the message of the spirituals and the power of the blues; the passion and of Emmet Till and the engaged vision of Martin Luther King, Jr.; he invokes the spirits of Billie Holliday and Langston Hughes, Fannie Lou Hamer and Ida B. Well, and the witness of black artists, writers, preachers, and fighters for justice. And he remembers the victims, especially the 5,000 who perished during the lynching period. Through their witness he contemplates the greatest challenge of any Christian theology to explain how life can be made meaningful in the face of death and injustice.

Why haven't we North American biblical scholars done such a systematic study of the words for oppression in the Bible? If the answer is that we who possess the critical skills are not ourselves oppressed or identified with communities of the oppressed, then it becomes imperative that we listen all the more carefully to these voices from the South. -- Walter Wink, Professor Emeritus of Biblical Interpretation, Auburn Theological Seminary, New York This book is a welcome addition to a growing body of evidence that the Bible is a book about social justice for the oppressed of the land and that this indeed is the good news. -- Marie Augusta Neal, SND de Namur, author of A Socio-Theology of Letting Go Elsa Tamez's book attracts our attention, not only for wrestling with a major biblical theme but also for keeping us in continuous contact with the text of the Bible. -- Carroll Stuhlmueller, CP, general editor of The Collegeville Pastoral Dictionary of Biblical Theology A careful and creative interdisciplinary study in biblical theology, Old Testament, and social ethics. Elsa Tamez's work has contributed to the church in Latin America and is now available as a readable, important resource for the English-speaking church. -- Jane Cary Peck and Carole Fontaine, Andover Newton Theological School Writing from a perspective of those oppressed by poverty and sexism, Elsa Tamez has brought us a wealth of analysis of the biblical understanding of oppression. -- Letty M. Russell, Professor Emeritus, Yale Divinity School Elsa Tamez is the author of 'Through Her Eyes' (Wipf & Stock reprint, 2006), 'Jesus and Courageous Women' (2001), and coeditor of 'The Discourse of Human Dignity' (2003).

"The classic text in black theology, with a new foreword by Peter J. Paris and a new afterword by Kelly Brown Douglas"--