Book Notes
Transfiguring a Theologia Crucis through James Cone by Brach Jennings
Jennings, Brach S. Transfiguring a Theologia Crucis through James Cone. Dogmatik in der Moderne 48. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2023.
Greetings from the Center for Barth Studies at Princeton Theological Seminary! We're excited to bring you another edition of Book Notes for God: Here and Now—our monthly roundup of thoughtful, timely, and theologically rich reflections on recently published works at the intersection of faith, ethics, and public life.
Whether you’re a seasoned theologian, a curious student, or a seeker drawn to deep questions about God and the world, this space is for you. Each month, we spotlight new books that challenge and inspire us, always asking: What does it mean to think theologically—here and now?
In this April edition, as spring unfolds and the Church journeys through Eastertide, we reflect on theological works that grapple with resurrection hope in the midst of contemporary suffering, prompting us toward deeper engagement with the God who is always present and always speaking.
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There are few theological themes more haunting—and more contested—than the theologia crucis, or theology of the cross. Born in Luther’s paradox-laced Heidelberg Disputation of 1518, it remains a jagged theological inheritance. For centuries, the cross has been interpreted as a sign of divine love or judgment, a symbol of power that has been inverted or abused. But what if the cross—and the theology it provokes—could be not only reinterpreted, but transfigured?
That’s precisely the claim of Brach S. Jennings in his remarkable study, Transfiguring a Theologia Crucis through James Cone (2023). This isn’t just a historical-theological reflection on Luther’s legacy. It’s a bold, constructive theology that moves across centuries—from the Augustinian monk to the Black liberation theologian—and insists that Christian theology cannot remain neutral in the face of white supremacy, racial violence, and systemic oppression. It must choose. And Cone, Jennings argues, helps us make the right choices.
At its core, Jennings’s book contends that the theologia crucis is not merely a doctrinal claim about divine hiddenness or justification. It is an epistemology, a way of knowing rooted in suffering, solidarity, and resistance. “The goal here,” as Reggie Williams writes in his forward to the book, “is not simply to acknowledge the suffering of God in the world, but to act in opposition to it” (ix). That vision, unmistakably political and theological, permeates the book.
Drawing on Luther’s early writings, Jennings identifies the classic markers of theologia crucis: divine self-revelation in weakness, the reversal of human expectations, and the utter dependency of the sinner on grace (25–38). But Jennings refuses to romanticize suffering. Instead, he reads Luther with and through Cone, showing how Luther’s theological grammar can be transformed into a prophetic ethic of liberation. As Cone himself insisted, “Any theology that is indifferent to the theme of liberation is not Christian theology” (quoted in Jennings, 203).
What makes this book so vital is its method. Jennings doesn’t simply place Cone in dialogue with Luther. He stages a theological drama across multiple generations: Luther’s theology is first “transformed” through Karl Barth’s doctrine of election, then refined by Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Stellvertretung (vicarious representation), and radicalized by Jürgen Moltmann’s Crucified God, before being finally transfigured in Cone’s theology of Black suffering (11–12, 167–203).
This transfiguration is not metaphorical alone. For Cone, the lynching tree—not just the cross—is the theological symbol of America’s crucifixion of Black bodies. Jennings underscores how Cone “identifies Christ with the oppressed not as a pious abstraction but as a concrete ethical imperative for the church” (245). The theological claim is urgent: if Christ was crucified in solidarity with the outcast, then Christ is found today not in the empire’s cathedrals, but in prison cells, protest marches, and impoverished neighborhoods.
The book culminates in a poignant theological insight: that a true theologia crucis in our time must be, as Jennings says, “a sapiential wisdom born from suffering that leads not to resignation but to resistance” (7). In this, Cone’s voice becomes both a prophet and a priest, lamenting the enduring crucifixions of Black life while insisting on resurrection hope rooted in embodied liberation.
To read Jennings is to be reminded that theology, at its best, is never merely academic. It is a way of seeing, and of standing with the wounded Christ and the crucified peoples of the world.
If you’ve ever wondered whether classical theology can speak to contemporary injustice, Jennings’s answer is resounding: not only can it, but it must. And Cone shows us how.
