Rev. Dr. Kenyatta R. Gilbert is a nationally recognized scholar on African American preaching. Currently serving as Dean and Professor of Homiletics at Howard University School of Divinity, Dr. Gilbert has garnered national recognition for his academic expertise. His journey towards his esteemed position begins with his bachelor's degree in political science from Baylor University in 1996. Driven by a profound calling, he pursued further education at Princeton Theological Seminary, where he earned both his Master of Divinity and Doctor of Philosophy degrees in Practical Theology, specializing in homiletics.
As an ordained Baptist minister, Dr. Gilbert has enriched congregations across various regions including Texas, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, and Kenya. In 2006, he found his professional home at Howard University, where he continues to inspire and educate future generations of ministers and scholars.
Dr. Gilbert's scholarly contributions extend beyond the classroom, as evidenced by his prolific writing and public engagements. He is the author of four influential
books: Exodus Preaching: Crafting Sermons about Justice and Hope, A Pursued Justice: Black Preaching from the Great Migration to Civil Rights, The Journey and Promise of African American Preaching, and Just Living: Meditations for Engaging our Life and Times. His insights on Black preaching, civil rights, and social justice have been featured in various esteemed platforms including PBS NewsHour, Sojourners, Word & Way, Religion Dispatches, and The Conversation.
In 2011, Dr. Gilbert founded The Preaching Project, a transformative ministry dedicated to empowering ministers for effective service within African American churches and communities. Furthermore, he served as the Black Congregations Resource Center’s founding director at Howard University. In 2024, his inaugural year as dean, Dr. Gilbert was awarded a $1.25 million Compelling Preaching Initiative grant to launch programs on African American preaching at Howard and a $60,000 technology grant from the Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning in Theology and Religion to upgrade classrooms for HyFlex online learning. He is the General Editor for the forthcoming Preaching, Theology, and Culture book series by Fortress Press, and is a board member of the Association of Theological Schools. Additionally, Dr. Gilbert is a respected member of the editorial board of Homiletic, a peer-reviewed journal sponsored by the Academy of Homiletics, and Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc.
In recognition of his outstanding contributions to academia and social justice, Dr. Gilbert was honored with induction into the Martin Luther King Jr. International Collegium of Scholars at Morehouse College in 2022 and a recipient of the Diamond Award for Excellence in Leadership from the Not Alone Foundation, Inc. Most recently, Dr. Gilbert was named the 2024 McClendon Scholar-in-Residence at New York Avenue Presbyterian in Washington, DC and Baylor University Alumni Alliance’s Robert L. Gilbert Distinguished Alumni Award. Through his multifaceted roles as a scholar, preacher, educator, and community leader, Dr. Kenyatta R. Gilbert exemplifies a commitment to excellence, equity, and empowerment.
Ph.D.
Princeton Theological Seminary
2007
M.Div.
Princeton Theological Seminary
1999
B.A.
Baylor University
1996
Read: The Washington Informer | Howard University School of Divinity Welcomes Gilbert as New Dean
Read: 25 News KXXV | First Black graduate of Baylor used his influence to institute change within university, Waco
Read: The Washington Post | Howard University investigating break-in posted on social media
John Lewis and the masks Black preachers wear on the public stage
How a Heritage of Black Preaching Shaped MLK's Voice in Calling for Justice
Just Living: Meditations for Engaging our Life and Times, Vol. 1
Just Living Volume 1 provides devotional readers thirteen meditations divided into three sections: (1) Distressing the Comfortable, (2) End of the White Throne, and (3) The Life-Giving of a Debt-Canceling God. Each meditation concludes with a prayer and personal reflective questions. This short volume is used for daily personal meditation, journaling, Bible discussion groups, and one-on-one discussion with religiously disaffected persons.
Exodus Preaching: Crafting Sermons on Justice and Hope
This work details, distinctively, the symbolic significance African American preachers have invested in the Exodus story, the messianic witness of Jesus, and the prophetic literature for developing and shaping sermons. Included in the book are dozens of practical suggestions and five practical exercises to equip the reader for preaching in new ways and in new environments.
A Pursued Justice: Black Preaching from the Great Migration to Civil Rights
This book monograph profiles three ecclesiastically inventive clerics of the first half of the twentieth century whose strident voices gave birth to a distinctive form of prophetic preaching. Their radical response to injustice and suffering, both in and out of the Black church, not only captured the hopeful imaginations of participants in the largest internal mass migration in American history but inspired the homiletical vision of Martin L. King, Jr. and subsequent generations of preachers of civil disobedience.
The Journey and Promise of African American Preaching
This homiletics text analyzes the biblical, theological, and sociocultural elements appearing in African American preaching in North America. Apart from its critique of contemporary homiletics, this book asserts that the survival of both Black churches and African America at large is tied to preachers recovering a trivocal approach to preaching that incorporates the scriptural voices of prophet, priest, andsage: three distinctive hallmarks of the African American pulpit. This first volume is a constructive effort to examine the historical contributions of African American preaching, the challenges it faces today, and how it might become a renewed source of healing and strength for at-risk communities and churches.
Homiletical Peonage: The Pedagogical Dilemma Whiteness Creates
This article revisits a key theme in retired Princeton Seminary homiletics professor James F. Kay’s work, preaching as a promissory-kerygmatic saving event. Kay calls for a disciplinary turn in theoretical focus in homiletics, lamenting homiletics’ over-reliance on theories of rhetoric to account for its distinctiveness and argues that theological analysis of preaching leads us to a better understanding of preaching’s essential core and function as Christian proclamation. After briefly summarizing Kay’s proposal on this topic, I bring to bear upon it a central criterion of Black preaching theory and praxis: groundedness in the concrete experience and ongoing legacies of racial injustice. This article’s fundamental question is, “In view of its European developmental origins, does promissory kerygmatics offer a theological theorization of preaching adequate to the demands of Black preaching pedagogy and praxis today?”
From King to Common: Exodus Imagery and Sermonic Lyricism in the Age of Hip-Hop
The paper explores the significance of the Exodus narrative in shaping African American faith and identity, highlighting its appropriation by historical figures such as Martin Luther King Jr. and contemporary hip-hop artists. It analyzes the rhetorical strategies and sermonic styles employed by these figures to address themes of social injustice, hope, and collective identity, emphasizing the continuity of the Exodus motif in Afro-Atlantic discourse. The work underscores the interplay between historical context and contemporary expression in the development of a unique African American cultural and spiritual lexicon.
“Hidden Figures: Black Prophets Before and Beyond King,” Aggie Agora Friday Lecture Series, Texas A&M College of Liberal Arts, College Station, TX (September 27, 2017)
Lecture, “Black in America,” Central Texas Association of Black Social Workers, September 15, 2021
The African American Legacy Preaching Series of Christian Theological Seminary presents “A Conversation with Rev. Dr. Kenyatta Gilbert hosted by Dr. Courtney Buggs. Rev. Dr. Kenyatta Gilbert is a nationally recognized expert on African American preaching and Dean of the School of Divinity at Howard University.
The two chat about prophets and prophetic hope in 2017.
'Remember history rightly': Baylor unveils monument to first Black graduates
On April 4, 2023, Baylor University dedicated bronze statues crafted by renown sculptor Benjamin Victor to honor its first Black graduates, Mrs. Barbara Walker and the late Rev. Robert Gilbert. These remarkable individuals graduated in the same ceremony in 1967 and went on to live lives of leadership and service – Rev. Gilbert as a minister and community leader; Mrs. Gilbert as a caring and committed social worker. Hear their stories and highlights from the ceremony in this video.
