One of the things that caught my attention and encouraged me was the review’s highlighting of the fact that each of these authors reach back into pre-Enlightenment Christian tradition for resources to reformulate “race” and challenge racism.  That methodology is encouraging in its own right, but it’s all the more heartening since each of these men stand somewhat close to Cone’s school of Black Theology.  Hence the reviewer’s speculation about the emergence of a “new Black Theology.”  Such an emergence, representing a re-appropriation of classic Christian sources rather than a rejection of them (a la Cone), would be a huge move toward theological health.  I suspect there would still be tendencies and conclusions we’d all differ on at places, but re-centering Christian dogmatics and tradition significantly improves the viability of “Black Theology” as unqualified theology.

If you’re interested in thinking more along these lines, I’d encourage a read of the article/review.  Here are the final three paragraphs:

In other words, black theology is reclaiming the theological tradition as its own and, under the banner of orthodoxy, taking on all comers. By rethinking the Enlightenment’s promises of enlightenment and rearticulating racial existence in the language of the church’s most sacred doctrines, black theology is now (or once again) making a case that cannot be denied. The debate is no longer fixed on racial identity politics (a quagmire from which none can escape); rather, it takes place on the level playing field of orthodoxy.

The new theology reminds us that it was a mistake to call black theology “black theology” in the first place. Consistency at least would have required that European theology equally bear the burden of qualifications (“colonizing theology”). To be sure, patronizing name-calling allowed black theology to develop its own voice in its own time, just as the segregated black church developed its own styles, saints and stories. But because the margins were managed by white theologians, those voices were heard by whites, and when heard they were regarded as less than equal and so were not allowed to challenge white hegemony and help white theology be anything other than white theology.

Accordingly, the new black theology is best described as the new theology, no (dis)qualifying adjective necessary. In it we see Christian theology at long last incarnating the material conditions whereby the good news becomes good news.

A New “Black Theology” without the (Dis)qualifying Adjective

On April 13-14 2012, ReachLife Minsitries in Partnership with Reach Records will be hosting the 2012 Man Up Conference and Concert Finale in Atlanta, GA.

This event will be a huge opportunity for over 1000 Urban Men to attend and provide them with the knowledge, encouragement and prayer that they need to pursue biblical manhood in their lives.

Because of budget constraints, many individuals who NEED to attend are UNABLE to.

Because of this need, we have created the Man Up 116 Campaign Fund. This campaign will help us pay for those individuals who need to be at this event, regardless of their financial circumstances. We are praying that we will be able to give 500 men free admission to this conference.

Would you please help us by supporting these individuals with a donation?

For more information on the Man Up 2012 Conference and Campaign, please visit www.manup2012.com.

If you would like to create a matching grant for this campaign, please email us at manup2012@reachlife.org.

REACHLIFE MINSITRIES IS A 501(C)3. YOUR DONATION WILL BE TAX DEDUCTIBLE.

Support the Man Up! Conference

He was an ambassador for African-American history and culture and a tireless champion/mentor for healthy respect and diversity on campus.  In the 80s and 90s, Dr. Clark used to host part of the orientation for incoming freshmen.  He pioneered this slide presentation (anybody remember slides?!) called, “Who Am I?”  It was a tour de force in African and African-American history.  In my days on campus, he was part of a dynamic twosome with Dr. Gus Witherspoon, who went to be with the Lord a few years back.  Together they were good cop (Clark) and bad cop (Witherspoon) in agitating for so many good causes.  When they did “Who Am I?” together it was as if you were transported centuries into the past and walked distant shores and sands of history.  They were fierce.

Students were often in Dr. Clark’s house eating up his food, listening to him regale them with history, stories, and jokes.  He was the favorite uncle or the slightly whacky grandpa, only with serious depth.  He could call you in his office and put you back in line, too.  I’ve received that call a couple times for being “out my natural born mind.”

And he was a brother in the Lord.  I didn’t respect that at the time–too radical, too angry, too blind, a Muslim.  But he witnessed patiently and prodded gently and never rejected me.  God, I owe so much to him.  He was a dear, dear man.

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, one of the best compliments you could have paid an African-American was to call him a “race man.”  It was simply a way of saying that he was committed to the advance and progress of African-Americans.  Such a man was an example of industry, intelligence, and insistence.  He was unimpeachable in character.  Dr. Clark would be among the last of the great “race men.”  He’ll be remembered and missed.  I pray for his four children, their families, and the extended family as they mourn such a great loss.

The Last of the “Race Men”

I don’t know what I expect when I write some blog posts.  Usually I’m just in my own little head trying to get some coherent thoughts out so I can learn and think.  So, I write what I’m thinking.  Somewhere in the back of my mind I do hope it’s helpful to someone else.  But sometimes it stirs up questions and comments I didn’t anticipate.  Like the post “This Black Leader or That Black Leader.”  I suppose I knew it would stir conversation, but I didn’t anticipate being accused of furthering Black-White divides, especially when I’ve written so much to challenge the very question of “race” itself.  Outflanked on the right, I suppose.

Then there was this great question: “Where does the idea of ‘blackness’ come from anyway?”  Hmmm.  That’s a fine question.  It revealed my assumption that everybody had a working notion of “blackness” or “whiteness” and some sense of where it comes from.  I’m glad for the question for two reasons: (1) It proves not everybody does–that’s good news; and (2) it suggests real progress on this front–also good news.

But, perhaps it’s good to attempt a short answer to this question before resuming the schedule of posts I have for this week.  Perhaps answer this question will help make some sense of the previous posts and make the subsequent ones more helpful (at least understandable).  So, where does “blackness” (and for that matter, “whiteness”) come from?

Not from the Bible

First, we ought to say something about where it does not come from.  It does not come from the Bible.  As I understand the Scripture with what light the Spirit has given me, the Bible’s story line emphasizes our great continuity with one another.  To be sure there are different families, clans, nations, languages, and religions, but there is one humanity, descended from Adam, made in God’s image and likeness.  Genesis 10 tells us of the fracturing of peoples into various clans and regions.  But note that everyone there descends from one family, Noah’s.  Acts 17:26, a favorite text of early African American Christians fighting to be regarded as human, reads: “And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation” (KJV).  I suspect Paul had Gen. 3:20 and Gen. 10 in mind when he preached those words in Athens.  So, if by “whiteness” or “blackness” we mean something approaching “race” as biological other, then that idea finds no support in the Bible.

Not from Genetics

Acts 17:26 (KJV) is also interesting for another reason.  At least in terms of American views of “race,” there has been the long-standing “one drop rule.”  That’s the idea, at first social and then legal, that one drop of African blood made a person “black.”  This is why we ask insane questions like, “What color is Johnny?” or “Is Barack Obama black?”  And this is why we make the equally insane conclusion once we find out that somebody in Barack Obama’s family was black-skinned that, in fact, Barack Obama is “black.”  The one-drop rule resulted in terms like “full-blooded” (as in the case of “full-blood Cherokee”) or “half-breeds” (a pejorative if ever there was one), and “mixed-race” people.  The one-drop rule rests upon a faulty genetic premise: that there is sufficient genetic difference to constitute different “races” (read, “species”) among the peoples of the world.  The mixing of these “bloods” resulted in, it was assumed, real genetic differences between the “races.”  However, you’d be really hard-pressed to find one genetic scientist today who would argue for any genetic basis for different races.  The genetic difference between blacks, whites, browns, etc. is so marginal that we’re left to affirm Acts 17:26: “He made from one blood all nations of men.”  So, race (and therefore “blackness” or “whiteness”) has no genetic foundation.

From Society

So where does “blackness” and “whiteness” come from?  There are four interlocking sources, if you’ll let me speak in general terms.  First, it comes from society.  ”Race” and attendant ideas like “blackness” and “whiteness” are social constructs, made up by people and cultures everywhere.  One thing many people don’t realize is that there has never been in worldwide consensus on precisely how many “races” there are.  Different societies developed different definitions.  In America, most of the history focused on two “races”–black and white.  But in South Africa, that society classified people into three “races”–black, white, and colored.  Early Chinese ethnographers argued for ten racial classifications.  We could go on.  If you want more about this, read the introduction to Colin Kidds excellent work, The Forging of Races.  The point is that “race” and “blackness” or “whiteness” are socially constructed identifiers.

What’s fueling these social constructions of racial categories?  That brings us to our second of the three interlocking sources: spiritual alienation from God and one another.

From the Fall

Read Genesis 3-4 and 10 again.  What was meant to be one humanity under the reign of God subduing the earth and filling it with His glory became a alienated, hostile, murderous, dispersed, confused, and separated mass of peoples.  The effects of the Fall are real, and it’s our fallen nature that drives us to not only classify ourselves along racial lines but also to join feelings of alienation, hostility, and xenophobia to those classifications.  What’s the first thing Cain says when God pronounces his banishment?  “Today you are driving me from the land, and I will be hidden from your presence; I will be a restless wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me” (Gen. 4:14, NIV).  Do you see the alienation from God and other peoples in Cain’s speech?  It’s an alienation he received from his parents and that we receive from his parents.  The spiritual “other” or “alien” really emerges from sin’s entrance into the world.  And it’s partly what explains the existence of “blackness” and “whiteness.”

From Psychology

The Fall touched every part of man, corrupting him at his root.  The rational faculties of man are no exception.  That’s what I mean when I say “race,” “racism,” “blackness,” and “whiteness” come from our psychology.  There’s a theory in social psychology called “social attribution theory.”  Simplifying a bit, the theory teaches that basically all of our minds are pretty quick stereotyping machines.  We recognize certain characteristics in others and then our minds–often so quickly that we’re not conscious we’re doing it–begins to make attributions.  You’ve perhaps heard of the famous (though flawed) psychological study that showed a black baby doll and a white baby doll to little children and asked the children to describe what they thought about the dolls.  Routinely the children rated the black doll as dirty, dumb, and so on, while rating the white doll as pretty, desirable, etc.  That study was pivotal in the Brown v. Board case that led to the end of racial segregation in the United States.  I point to the study simply to illustrate the point: we are assigning attributes to one another all the time based upon things like skin color and hair texture.  It’s not simply that we have a category of “races” in our minds, or simply that we notice skin color.  That’s not how the mind works.  We notice skin color, file the person into a racial category, and then our minds take over by filling in assumed attributes (positive or negative) about the person.  We do it and we often don’t even know we do it. The mind is a mercilessly efficient stereotyper.  That’s why we have the notion of “blackness” or “whiteness.”

From Interaction

Now, there’s a fourth source of “blackness” and “whiteness” we need to consider: cross-ethnic interactions.  Our experiences with one another have a lot to do with forming, reinforcing, and shaping our notions of “blackness” and “whiteness.”  Part of what it means to be “black” or “white” gets formed in the crucible of shared pain, suffering, joy, hope, failure, success, loss and so on.  Despite our various categorizations, we share one planet and occupy one social world.  There are places in this social world where we may retreat with others who share our identity, but even then we’re aware of “the others” and that awareness shapes how we’re together.

Now, here’s an important point under this category of interaction: White people helped define “blackness” for Black people, and Black people help define “whiteness” for white people.  The entire argument for slavery which depended on defining “blacks” as inferior and subhuman had and has a tremendous effect on how others see Black people and how Black people see themselves.  Many others bought and buy the lie.  So, too, did some Blacks.  And those Blacks who did not nevertheless had to forge a definition of “blackness” in response to the negative definitions of whites.  There’s a dynamic negotiation and struggle for the control of “blackness.”  Where does “blackness” come from?

But the truth is: White people created “blackness,” and Black people have returned the favor.  ”Blackness” and “whiteness” come from the conflicts and interactions of black-skinned and white-skinned people fighting for that most absolute power of defining self and others according to your own social location.  In the same whites, Blacks have mounted counter-strikes to define white-skinned people, so that “whiteness” in the Black imagination includes certain things.  To be silly and very stereotypical, “whiteness” includes the inability to dance, strange tastes in music, no ‘cool’ or ‘soul,’ and so on.  Or, to be more serious, “whiteness” represents risk to one’s Black self, oppression, marginalization, and so on.  We are simply one lifetime away from a social setting where mistakes with Whites ended in lynchings, cross burnings, and so on.  That’s ugly, real, painful history.  It illustrates how “blackness” and “whiteness” result from a fallen social world where attributions and interactions happen at the speed of thought and carry enormous consequence.

So…

That’s why any discussions of “race” almost immediately move to discussions of our experiences.  It’s in the interactions that these things get defined in powerfully personal ways.  Now the problem with the quick move to experiences is that (a) we can’t change our histories, (b) our histories can enslave us, and (c) our personal histories often blind us to the underlying issues of the Fall and the social attributions we make.  So, our histories keep us from doing the harder, deeper work of forging a biblical view of ourselves and others.  And this is very important: Because these ideas are formed through interaction, it’s going to take massive levels of interaction to undo the damage that’s been done and to forge a new path.  We won’t escape the quagmire by waving a wand or by fiat.  Nor will we get there by simply decrying the fact that others “still think this way.”  We have to roll up our sleeves, reach into our hearts, pull out the old and plant the new.  I pray the Lord will allow us to do this more and more by His word and His Spirit.

Some References for Those Who Might Like to Read More:

Collin Kidd, The Forging of Races: Race and Scripture in the Protestant Atlantic World, 1600-2000 (Cambridge, 2006)

Joseph L. Graves, Jr., The Race Myth: Why We Pretend Race Exists in America (Plume, 2005)

Nell Irvin Painter, The History of White People (Norton, 2010)

Winthrop D. Jordan, White Over Black: American Attitudes Toward the Negro, 1550-1812 (Chapel Hill, 1968)

David R. Roediger (ed.), Black on White: Black Writes on What It Means to Be White (Schocken, 1998)

Debra J. Dickerson, The End of Blackness: Returning the Souls of Black Folk to Their Rightful Owners (Anchor, 2004)

W. Fitzhugh Brundage, The Southern Past: A Clash of Race and Memory (Belknap of Harvard, 2005)

Mia Bay, The White Image in the Black Mind: African-American Ideas about White People, 1830-1925 (Oxford, 2000)

Eric L. Goldstein, The Price of Whiteness: Jews, Race, and American Identity (Princeton, 2006)

Mark M. Smith, How Race Is Made: Slavery, Segregation, and the Senses (Chapel Hill, 2006)

Scott L. Malcolmson, One Drop of Blood: The American Misadventure of Race (Farrar Straus Giroux, 2000)

Amitai Etzioni, The Monochrome Society (Princeton and Oxford, 2001)

Grace Elizabeth Hale, Making Whiteness: The Culture of Segregation in the South, 1890-1940 (Pantheon, 1998)

Where Does “Blackness” and “Whiteness” Come From?

The Apostle Paul:

But I have made no use of any of these rights, nor am I writing these things to secure any such provision. For I would rather die than have anyone deprive me of my ground for boasting. For if I preach the gospel, that gives me no ground for boasting. For necessity is laid upon me. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel!  For if I do this of my own will, I have a reward, but if not of my own will, I am still entrusted with a stewardship.  What then is my reward? That in my preaching I may present the gospel free of charge, so as not to make full use of my right in the gospel. (1 Cor. 9:15-18)

David E. Garland commenting on these verses:

Paul laments neither the overpowering nature of his calling nor the hardship that preaching the gospel of the cross free of charge creates for him.  He does not preach grudgingly, because his lament has to do with not preaching the gospel: ‘For woe is me if I do not preach.’  The consequences for preaching are adversity and suffering, as they were for Jeremiah.  But Paul’s attitude toward his suffering differs from Jeremiah’s.  He does not bemoan it but welcomes it as something that reveals to others the life of Christ (2 Cor. 4:7-12).  Preaching the gospel brings him life, but he will not live off the gospel.  Preaching the gospel brings him life but exposes him to death time and again (1 Cor. 4:9; 2 Cor. 1:8-10).  Not preaching the gospel brings a fate worse than death.

We ought, as Baxter put it, preach as dying men to dying men.  But we ought also preach the gospel as though not preaching were worse than death.

Not Preaching the Gospel Brings a Fate Worse Than Death

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It was also the subject of a roundtable discussion sponsored by Columbia University’s Institute for Research in African-American Studies (IRAAS) and Institute for Religion, Culture, and Public Life in October 2010 at Union Theological Seminary.  My man Louis Love sent the link to me. The discussion takes place in 12 YouTube parts and features several academics and pastors, including:

Reverend Otis Moss III, Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago
Reverend Eboni K. Marshall, Abyssinian Baptist Church, New York
Josef Sorett, Assistant Professor of Religion at Columbia University
Anthea Butler, Associate Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Pennsylvania
Eddie Glaude, William S. Tod Professor of Religion and African-American Studies at Princeton University
Fredrick C. Harris, Professor of Political Science at Columbia University
Obery Hendricks, Jr., Professor of Biblical Interpretation at New York Theological Seminary and Visiting Scholar at Columbia University.

Eddie Glaude called the question in a post at the Huffington Post in February 2010, and the roundtable picks up where Glaude left off. You can find the audio here. Below are the YouTube segments.

Part 1–Introductions and Opening Question

Part 2–One Thing the Black Church Struggles to Do

Part 3– [Video missing]

Part 4–”Theological Exotic Dancers” (End of opening remarks), and the Substance of Being “Black and Christian”

Part 5–”You May Own My Body but God Owns My Soul”

Part 6–Rev. Ike Won the Battle with Dr. King

Part 7–What Is the Mission of the Church?

Part 8–Church, Class, Community, Gender, and Love in Action

Part 9–Sexual Ethics and Hermeneutics in the Black Church

Part 10–”Allowed to Be James Brown at Least Once Per Week”

Part 11–”Too Many Christians Take Too Much Pride in Being Christians… The New Heavens and the New Earth Means All of Humanity”

Part 12–Final Remarks; Is the White Evangelical Movement Over in 20 Years?

Based on this panel, I’d say the Black Church is indeed dead. What do you think? Can these bones live again?

Is the Black Church Dead?

For nearly three-hundred years, African-American leaders have been cast in one of two broad categories: radical or accommodationist, progressive or conservative.  Social and political views  ranging from conservative to moderate to progressive isn’t unique to African-American communities.  It’s a range that people from every ethnicity fit into; it’s a set of ideas and ideals attractive to people without regard to ethnic background.

But there there are at least two aspects to this ideological range that may be fairly pronounced if not unique in the African-American context: racial identity and racial independence.   I was reminded of this listening to the interview with William Pannell.

Racial Identity

Historically, certain parts of the spectrum came to define African-American or Black identity.  The more radical and progressive, the more “Black” you were deemed to be.  The social conservatism and accommodation to segregation of a Booker T. Washington was cast as a betrayal of black identity and equality while the progressive and integrationist stance of DuBois took on the seal of “genuine” Black identity.  At least since the time of DuBois and Washington, conservative African Americans have been ethnically suspect while politically progressive counterparts have symbolized true “blackness.”

The fiery rhetoric of Malcolm X, for example, castigated conservative Southern leaders in various Civil Rights groups as “handkerchief head Negroes” bowing to the whims of Whites.  President Barack Obama faced suspicion not only from Whites but also from African-American groups who wondered why he would announce his candidacy in Chicago on the day Tavis Smiley hosted his “State of Black America” meeting in Atlanta.  Smiley’s panel discussion was dotted with jokes and innuendos questioning the validity of Obama’s claim to blackness.  It didn’t help matters much as Obama ran a presidential campaign that steered a wide course around traditional Black political groups on the left and the right.  Failing to take the necessary place on the spectrum and trod in established Black identity paths, Obama found himself ridiculed and suspected in some quarters.

What’s the point?  Political and social positions are not simply positions on a political or social spectrum if you’re an African American.  Positions on the spectrum are associated with your ethnic or racial identity.  Politics and person are fused together.  Issues and identity determine one another.  I suspect this is either unique or far more prominent in the African American context where such positions had a direct and sometimes deadly impact on persons and community.

Racial Independence

Here’s another thing I suspect is very different in Black versus other contexts: Certain positions and associations also raise questions about an African-American leader’s independence.  To be politically conservative results in suspicions about a leader’s autonomy.  Is he or she “owned” by White counterparts and constituencies?  Whose agenda do they represent?

During his brief and provocative bid to be the next Republican presidential nominee, Herman Cain found himself facing down questions about his blackness.  But had his campaign not imploded, it’s likely he would also have faced some sharp questions and criticisms about his association with White conservatives.  Was he “owned” by those associations?  Was he the new Booker T. Washington?  If Justice Clarence Thomas thought he received a hi-tech lynching during the Anita Hill scandal, the Black community’s treatment of Cain running against a politically progressive African-American incumbent President (stop for a moment to ponder how close we came to living out this scenario unimaginable just five years ago!) would have made Thomas’ hearing a love fest by comparison.  The guilt by association that would have befallen Cain undoubtedly would have created great personal anguish and public ridicule for Cain.  How he would have escaped being viewed as “the White man’s lackey” and “traitor to the cause” inside the African-American community would have been beyond me.

Again, I suspect that this would be unique or at least a far more prominent dynamic inside the African-American community.

The Cost of Black-White Evangelical Associations

I spend the time explaining this dynamic to make a couple points about Black and White Evangelical cooperation.

Suspect identity.  I long for everyone to know something more about the costs African Americans pay in their own communities for cooperating across ideological and ethnic lines.  We all, as one dear brother put it to me recently, “take kicks in the teeth” when we come to the table to work together at reconciliation and cooperation.  However, the kicks African Americans take aren’t limited to the kicks prompted by mistakes or mis-speaking, the kind of faux pax we all make when handling sensitive subjects like “race”.  There are also kicks coming from some who resent or at least question the table itself–whether the “table” is membership in a multi-ethnic or predominantly white church, or cooperation in larger evangelical movements and organizations.  To have your ethnic identity questioned is a “kick in the gut” more painful than most can imagine.  For the gospel, we should and must pay this cost, take this kick.  But it’s a cost nonetheless.  The brothers at the inter-ethnic table are likely taking one for the team.  Awareness of that is helpful.

Suspect loyalty.    This is another of the costs raised by cooperation across ethnic, social, and political lines.  To break free from the Black political and relational orthodoxy means opening yourself to the charge of betraying the community.  That charge comes simply by association in many instances.  And it’s a charge no African American really wishes to face.  Consider the allegations and castigations faced by men like Shelby Steele, John McWhorter, and Clarence Thomas.  Something as simple as arguing the primacy of the biblical gospel over social concerns–something taken for granted in most broader evangelical cooperation–is enough to raise the specter of sell out Tomism for participating African Americans.  For the cooperation to hold and African Americans to play a part, there needs to be sensitivity to this issue of perceived disloyalty back in the home community.  We can’t think that just because we all agree on keeping the main thing the main thing that there aren’t ramifications and perceptions to be faced in more racialized contexts.

Danger of division.  I also want my non-African-American brothers to realize the harmful dynamic of pitting one African American against another.  When two white brothers disagree publicly over a theological issue, there’s likely not a community “back home” trying to decide which brother is “black” and therefore which brother to follow.  Historically, some white leaders have intentionally played one African American leader against another with the aim of dividing and weakening the community.  That’s a history well-known and a strategy much hated in African-American communities.  So, when a conflict between two African American religious leaders takes place publicly, care must be taken not to walk into this troubled narrative and trap.  Inevitably, pitting two African-American leaders against one another is going to result in (1) one of those leaders losing “black” authenticity in their community, (2) one or both of those leaders being marginalized for their cooperation with “outsiders” to the community, and (3) the White brothers who do the pitting being seen as unconcerned about the Black community and unrighteously attempting to anoint the next Black leader.  No one wins.  if you’re from outside the African-American community, think very long, hard, and carefully about ever calling some African Americans to take your position in defense against other African Americans.  It’s disastrous for everyone, and, frankly, you won’t begin to pay the deeper costs over the longer period that your African American friend will.

Stereotypes and caricatures.  As for my brothers who come to the table of cooperation, facing suspicion and questions from some in the community, let’s work hard to avoid stereotyped and caricatured responses to the pressures we feel.  We have to be comfortable with the skin we’re in and with the thoughts we think.  There’s no necessary relationship between skin color and ethnic identity.  Mythic “blackness” can’t be allowed to take precedence over union with Christ and the freedom we find in the Lord.  We’re at that table and sometimes feel the internal pressure to represent ourselves according to black hegemonic ideals.  Resist the impulse, and resist others at the table when they appear to approach you with the stereotype in mind.  Much depends on our enjoying and protecting the freedom to act like Jesus–which means there will be times we sound like we’re against traditional views in the Black community and times where we sound like we’re for them.  Jesus has a way of cutting across every ethnic and cultural way of being.  We need to embrace that reality and pay the costs associated with rejecting stereotypes and caricatures.

This Black Leader or That Black Leader?

You choose.  Honestly, the world is more complex than simply deciding whether you like King or Malcolm, or Obama or Cain.  These names are exemplars of positions that themselves have pros and cons.  And I can’t imagine any meaningful discussion about theological or political differences in the African-American community that doesn’t at some level imagine differing representatives of those positions.  But I can imagine our doing a better job of resisting hegemonic pressure, stereotypes, and divisive discussions that pit brothers and bruthas against one another.  We don’t have to agree about strategy in order to avoid problems of association.

This Black Leader or That Black Leader?

was the first African-American to serve on Fuller’s Board of Trustees. In 1992 he was appointed as the Arthur DeKruyter/Christ Church Oak Brook Professor of Preaching, served as dean of the Chapel from 1992 to 1998, and also served as director of the African-American Studies Program. A gifted preacher and professor of homiletics, Pannell has nurtured several generations of Fuller students from the classroom to the pulpit. He currently serves on the board of Taylor University in Indiana and is the author of numerous articles and books, including The Coming Race Wars? A Cry for Reconciliation (1993); Evangelism from the Bottom Up (1992); and My Friend, the Enemy (1968). [From the Fuller website]

Here is the video:

Here are the interview questions and their time frames:
1. What is Black Evangelicalism? [00:03]
2. What was your relationship with the late Tom Skinner and the rise of Black Evangelicalism? [2:05]

3. Why did you write My Friend, The Enemy (1968)? [7:55]
4. What is the Obsidian Society? [12:53]
5. What are the challenges facing young black evangelical scholars? [14:17]
6. What is the state of preaching as we move deeper into the 21st century? [16:46]
7. What lead to the development of your book, The Coming Race Wars, published in 1993? [20:00]
8. Dr. Pannell on President Barack Obama [23:38]
9. What implications does race in America have on President Obama? [25:48]
10. Dr. Pannell on the Tea Party [27:35]

Books mentioned in the interview:

Tom Skinner, Black and Free
William Pannell, My Friend, the Enemy (1968)
William Pannell, The Coming Race Wars: A Cry for Reconciliation (1993)

Evangelicalism in Black and White

Liberating Black Theology: The Bible and the Black Experience in America (Crossway, 2010)–a review here.

Black and Tired: Essays on Race, Politics, Culture, and International Development (Wipf & Stock, 2011).

And in his newest edited volume, Keep Your Head Up: America’s New Black Christian Leaders, Social Consciousness, and the Cosby Conversation, Bradley assembles a collection of African Americans to join the debate about the responsibilities and roles of African Americans and the Black Church in addressing the social ills of the community. It’s an important conversation generated, in this case, by controversial remarks made by Bill Cosby and the ensuing push-back offered by Michael Eric Dyson. Each of the contributors in some way interacts with these two voices on the African-American right and left. Though Keep Your Head Up comes to the party a bit late, it provides a much needed emphasis that neither Cosby nor Dyson provide: the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.

After providing a brief introductory chapter, Bradley and team offer the following commentaries:

1. Vincent Bacote, “More Than Victims: The Benefits of a Theological Vision”
2. Bruce Fields, “The Black Family: The Hope of ‘True Religion’”
3. Howard Brown, “Sexuality in the Black Community”
4. Ralph C. Watkins, “Gangsta Rap Made Me Do It: What’s Really Going On?”
5. Eric M. Mason, “Black Men and Masculinity”
6. Lance Lewis, “The Church and the Community”
7. Anthony B. Bradley, “Redeemed and Healed for Mission”
8. Anthony Carter, “The Black Church and Orthodoxy”
9. Ken Jones, “The Prosperity Gospel”
10. Craig Mitchell, “Rev. Michael Eric Dyson: An Analysis”

General Comments

The chapters seem to flow from the more personal complex of issues involving identity and family outward toward church, community, and mission. The arrangement is effective and the reader flows readily from one level of analysis to the other.

Most of the writers attempt a summary of either Cosby and Pouissant’s book, Come On, People! as an introduction to their topic. That gives the book a somewhat repetitive feel. Perhaps the volume would have been helped with one general introduction, thus freeing the contributors to give more attention to their subjects. But having said that, the repetition does not hinder the volume’s effectiveness.

Another source of repetitiveness were the sections of most chapters that outlined the gospel. Who can complain about repetition of that message? I think there’s value in the restating of this most basic message. However, I found myself wondering if the volume as a whole might have been more effective if one early chapter defined and expanded the gospel for the entire book, leaving the chapter writers free to apply the gospel in specific pastoral ways to their subjects. That application appeared unevenly throughout the book.

Specific Appreciations

While I enjoyed all the contributions, there were a couple that emerged as favorites for me. First, I appreciated Vincent Bacote’s wrestling with the question of Black identity. Bacote set for himself the goal of presenting “a theological path toward a more whole, positive, and responsible identity.” No small task, but Bacote gives the reader much to think about. I couldn’t help drifting back to my days in graduate school researching and writing about the psychological development of racial identity attitudes. Bacote’s chapter stirred that same curiosity and excitement–with one crucial difference: Bacote writes as an evangelical Christian and sets Black identity firmly within a biblical and gospel-centered framework. In fact, Bacote’s chapter directly challenges the assumptions underpinning my field of study and most conversations about Black identity. He asks:

“Is it enough to replace the lies [of white supremacy] with some version of another cultural history? How do we affirm our cultural uniqueness and our common humanity and resist the siren song that would exalt essential or ontological blackness as the answer to the norms of whiteness? Our cultural stories alone will not suffice. A theological vision can help us have a deeper sense of identity the incorporates the gifts of our culture without requiring us to go on an expedition for a mythical conception of blackness” (p. 32).

Amen. As true as that paragraph is, it won’t earn Bacote many friends in an African-American community that’s been on “an expedition for a mythical conception of blackness” so long that to question the expedition may get you exiled along the way. Bacote’s piece calls the correct questions and points the way forward from myth to Bible.

I also really enjoyed Bruce Fields’ meditation on the Black family. Fields takes an unusual approach, beginning his discussion with two quotes from Augustine. If you’re not accustomed to seeing Augustine cited in discussions of the Black family, you may be interested to read Fields’ justification and to see how Augustine’s conception of “true religion” informs Fields’ prescription for Black family renewal. Fields’ discussion was passionate, pastoral, appropriately personal, and the clearest meditation on the Lord’s cross and redemption in the volume. Most of the chapters make some reference to the gospel, but Fields brought the cross into sharp relief for the reader. As gospel-centered as Fields’ chapter was, I found it curious that he would end the essay with a quote from a Native American “holy woman.” A curious close to an otherwise stellar meditation on the Black family.

Lance Lewis offered what I considered the most eloquent and at points most forceful chapter. Lewis’ chapter on “The Church and the Community” began with a short history of the Civil Rights movement, calling attention to some unintended consequences. Then Lewis begins exhorting the church and the reader to “cultivate a desire for a satisfaction greater than the life of prosperity, comfort, and convenience…, be devoted to a mission more significant and permanent than lifting black folks… and determine to seek a place more beautiful, pristine, bountiful, and secure than the suburbs…” (p. 126). Consider Lewis in his own words:

Christ’s stated mission for His church is cultural transformation to the extent that whole people groups reorient their existence around obeying, worshiping, serving, loving, and delighting in the living God through a worshiping relationship with Jesus Christ. Embracing this mission will move us from the notion that maintaining the military, political, and economic dominance of the United States is somehow God’s will or must at least be a part of His plan. It also affirms the truth that it is not His express will to raise black folks into the middle income levels of American society so they can enjoy the ‘blessings of liberty.’ Finally, we must grasp the truth that we can no longer regard the black church as our black church simply on the basis that it arose from our shared history and struggle, so that we now shape its content, mission, and direction for the temporal fortunes of our people. Rather, the black church is black to the extent that it calls black people to drop the African-American idols, take up the cross of Jesus Christ, and become active followers of Jesus Christ (p. 128-129).

Lewis concludes with some preliminary steps forward. Overall, his essay was insightful and full of sermonic force.

Anthony Carter provides a cogent call to orthodox theology in the Black church. He reminds us, “There are infinite ways to lose your soul. There is only one way to save it” (p. 161). Though winsome as always, Carter is not naive about the dividing and clarifying nature of orthodoxy. “Orthodoxy by definition is opinionated,” he tells us. Stalwart theological opinion is indeed lacking in too much African-American Christian life and practice. Carter gives us the bottom line:

Today, some are calling for a new theology, while others are proclaiming that God is doing a “new thing.” On the contrary, we do not need a new theology; we need to recover the orthodoxy that has already been delivered to the church by the Spirit of God. The test of orthodoxy is to place it in differing contexts and not have it change, but rather watch as it changes people. It will produce voices unique to its time, decrying the evils of its day, yet never denouncing or denying the source from which it springs–namely, the Bible, the inspired, all-sufficient Word of God–or the message and mission of that source–namely, Jesus Christ and eternal life through Him. The world is waiting (pp. 174-175).

Finally, Ken Jones turns in an effective survey of the prosperity gospel and some of its main proponents. These were among my favorite contributions in the volume.

A Friendly Critique

Chapters 3-5 needed more clarity to be effective, in my opinion. For example, Harold Brown’s contribution on Black sexuality–a very important topic–had very helpful things to say in support of marriage but also contended that marriage in itself was not the answer to sexual brokenness and that feeling ashamed over such brokenness is what actually drives people to sexual dysfunction. A clearer statement at these points along with a clearer articulation of the gospel would have helped this chapter.

Likewise, Watkins’ chapter on gangster rap made only a cursory allusion to the gospel at the end of the chapter and failed to interact as critic of the genre. Watkins took the church to task for not engaging hip hop and the hip hop generation. It’s a charge we often hear and it has some force. But I found his almost heroic treatment of Ice Cube puzzling. Cube was my man back in the day, but I think it’s a significant stretch to recast Cube as social commentator and critic of the church. The music is more crass than that. Watkins would have done well to give at least a few paragraphs critiquing the genre just as he critiqued the church. I also found myself hoping Watkins would have put gangsta rap as one sub-genre of rap in conversation with some of the holy hip hop offerings available. The brothers in holy hip hop have provided a viable alternative to secular and gangsta rap, and indeed the holy hip hop crowd represents one wing of the Black church that is in conversation with and critique of the misogyny, materialism, violence, and twisted views of manhood and womanhood in gangsta rap.

Finally, Eric Mason’s chapter provided some insightful commentary on black masculinity. Mason opens by questioning the appropriateness of some white evangelical material on manhood, then continues with his own summary and categorization of African-American history of manhood. The final sections include some pragmatic considerations for cultivating manhood and masculinity. Mason writes, “For the most part, the Bible does not define what a man is, but it does give vivid portraits of manhood and characteristics of masculinity” (p. 108). I’m not sure I’d agree that the Bible lacks a definition of manhood. For example, Titus 2 provides a definition that stresses the characteristics of both mature manhood and younger men.  The chapter might have been helped by commenting on that passage and others like it that describe mature manhood/masculinity (1 Tim. 3, for another example).

One other critique to mention: some of the writers seem to sometimes equate the Black Church with the Black community.  It’s difficult to sometimes identify whether the critiques and descriptions apply to Christians or to non-Christians in the community.  The assumption that the church’s concern as well as its membership is co-terminous with the community makes for some problematic conclusions.

Main Contribution

Keep Your Head Up joins an important discussion already well underway between the conservative Cosby types who argue that African Americans need to accept and exercise more personal responsbility in addressing social problems and the liberal-progressive Dyson types who do not deny the need for personal responsibility but argue Cosby and his ilk overlook the more pervasive and debilitating effects of structural racism.  Both Cosby and Dyson would criticize the Black Church for failing to play an effective role in resolving these social ills.

Keep Your Head Up speaks up to the church and for the church.  The book really doesn’t break new ground, depending largely on the data and analysis already provided by Cosby and Dyson.  The book’s main contribution is the insertion of the gospel in these discussions about African-American progress.  If it did nothing else but repeatedly make known the Good News that the Lord Jesus Christ redeems sinners from their sin and brokennes, making them new, removing their guilt, and giving eternal life and everlasting hope through His death, burial, and resurrection, then it would have done a lot.

Perhaps it’s best to think of Keep Your Head Up as an early comment from evangelical Black Christians.  There’s more that needs and certainly will be said.  We can look forward to that.  Read Keep Your Head Up for a start.

“Keep Your Head Up”: A Book Review