Experiencing the Truth: More help for Recovering the Gospel in the African American Church

Experiencing the Truth: Bringing Reformation to the African American Community (Crossway, 2008) is available! A description of the book can be found here! Purchase a copy for an African American pastor, and, if Baptist, for any African American chairman of deacons and chairman of trustees that you know.

  

Thank you Pastors Carter, Jones, and Leach for a great work! Thank you, Crossway, for supporting the work of Reformation in the African American community with great publications.

  

Below is my endorsement on the book.

  

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“Experiencing the Truth gives great acclamation to black (African-American) church worship, black preaching, and the black Christian experience, rightly showing the strength of Reformed theology for each of these traditions. It also provides a rapier diagnosis of a churchgoing people whose tryst with liberation theology has birthed a practice of Christianity that is too badly deformed to produce a kingdom of God-like presence in the African-American community. The authors offer a careful narrative of orthodox Christianity with a faithful and proper emphasis on the Reformed confessions, creeds, and solas so that African-American believers can find themselves tied to a pre-Middle Passage Christianity without sacrificing their own identities to the heroic personalities of the Reformation. I am excited about a book that would dare to suggest the “irrepressible urban beats” of Fred Hammons’s Bread of Life and van Dyke’s Joyful, Joyful We Adore Thee sung to an arrangement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony could be used together to enhance our corporate worship experience! Carter, Jones, and Leach have wed the African-American Christian experience with the Reformation so graciously that that those proud to be the ethnic and religious descendants of Dubois, Douglas, and King can relish equally in their spiritual heritage from Calvin, Luther, and Edwards. The analysis, synthesis, and directives of this collaborative treatise may represent one of the most important works since the now classical observations of Frazier, Lincoln, and Mamiya, for in this work the authors call us to be a church where our need for God can be fulfilled rather than a religious organization that meets people’s self-serving desires. I hope Experiencing the Truth will be an impetus to move the African-American church from the self-deprecating darkness of theological liberalism into the divinely nourishing the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”

 

 

 

The Paul Edwards Show

Graciously, I was invited to The Paul Edwards Show to discuss Senator Obama’s Father’s Day “sermon” (?), the problem of absentee fathers in the African American community, and Where Are All the Brothers?   (For listeners to the program, my previous post on Jeremiah Wright and Liberation Theology can be found here.)  I probably should rejoice that the speech places the final answer in Christ, even as Paul rejoiced from Rome with the Phillipians that the Gospel was preached - even when out of ill-motives.  Yet I hope our pulpits will be centered around the Gospel every Sunday. As I state in the above post (which, chronologically, is after this post), there is a new book coming that I hope will contribute to a recovery of the Gospel in African American pulpits.

Abstinence Only Sex Ed and African Americans

 At the Vital Signs segment of the bet.com Lifestyle page, there is a May 30 posting entitled, “Why Abstinence-Only Sex Ed Doesn’t Work.” The author suggests that abstinence-only programs are not beneficial to the African American community. I have printed the text of the article below, and my responses to the author’s statements are in the red paragraphs. The line of reasoning is similar to that of those who are for acceptance of homosexual lifestyles within the African American church, to which I have responded in the last chapter of Where Are All the Brothers?   Abstinence will work for those with the power of Christ, for abstinence is really possessing our bodies in holiness and honor (I Thess. 4:4), having been cleansed by the power of Christ:

 

 

Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God, (I Cor. 6:9-11, ESV).

 

 

Here is the text and the response:

 

 

                                                               

 

 

There’s a sex crisis in our community and the government doesn’t want us to talk about it.

 

 

Blaming the Government will not solve the problem. The Government is only responsible for 1) equal governing of all, 2) defense from enemies within and without, and 3) equal justice to all. Not one of these items has been breached by reminding us that sexual relationships are reserved for heterosexual, monogamous married couples.

 

 

Abstinence-only conversations have ruled sex ed classes at federally sponsored programs and health clinics for nearly a decade. But, Black teens ARE having sex and getting sick from it. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Infection recently reported that its first of its kind study of 14-to 19-year-olds found that Black teen girls had the highest overall prevalence of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). Nearly half of the Black teen girls they surveyed had at least one STD, and they didn’t get them from being abstinent. What other proof do we need that abstinence-only programs don’t work?

 

 

The presence of STD among 14-19 year old girls does not necessarily mean that abstinence-only programs do not work. It could mean that no one takes them seriously, but if taken seriously by the user they would work. Or it could mean that teens are not gaining enough support from the social institutions outside of school and health clinics – the location of sex ed classes – to be faithful to abstinence—institutions like boys’ and girls’ clubs, or houses of worship. Or it could be an indicator of the effect of the breakdown of the family upon teen sexual patterns – that no one at home is giving attention to teen sexual habits. (As you say below, parents are the first line of defense. Is it right to assume parents are defending?) Or maybe there are sufficient flaws in the educational content of such programs that they are not truly abstinence-only programs, for some abstinence-only programs are showing success.

 

 

 

 

Let’s face it. Our girls are having sex and they don’t know how to protect themselves. Parents, you are the first line of defense. If you don’t know what to say to keep your daughter safe, talk to somebody, or have your daughter talk with someone who does – a doctor, health counselor or other adult your daughter trusts. We also need to stop being so righteous about sex. With all the mixed messages teens are getting from music, videos and their friends, we can’t afford to keep burying our heads in the sand. They’re not getting what they need to stay safe and it’s our fault.

 

 

Teaching abstinence is not the same as ignoring a threat. It is an alternative to giving away the responsible teaching on the proper place for a sexual relationship. It is an attempt by a minority segment of American society to counter the messages from the majority culture that come through music, videos, and ignorantly- or ill-informed and irresponsible peers. In fact, what is needed is a righteous approach to sexual relationships—one that puts the breaks on the sexual messages coming from the alternative outlets. If the music industry made a 180-degree turn to sing of abstinence and make videos of the same, what might the effect be? Of course I am being facetious, but you get the point: abstinence programs themselves cannot be faulted for the statistics on teen sex or teen STDs.

 

Get off your high horse. Get teens girls information, not just about sex, but about living with dignity. Check out actor Hill Harper’s latest book next week called “Letters To A Young Sister.” It stresses that one the most important sex talks you can have with a teen girl may be about respecting herself. It also tells teen girls to ”define your destiny,” shaping your future to whatever you want it to be. Talk with teen girls about her goals and dreams and about rising above her circumstances, and about delaying sex.

 

 

You are right: we need to teach our daughters about dignity! We need to teach them that it is indignant to give away their virginity and deepest emotional desires prior to marriage. We need to teach them that the way to gain respect is to hold young men at bay sexually so that they can stand out among their peers rather than be one of the girls known to be loose, free, easy, or available. Respect comes by uniqueness in high standards rather than by commonality in low standards. This is the part of one’s “destiny” that must be defined – that must be made into a conviction, not simple a goal. Might I suggest that Vicki Courtney has a book that every mother of a young daughter should read?

 

 

But also talk with her about how love doesn’t mean going to bed with someone she THINKS loves her just because he says so, or having sex just to keep a boy. And, most importantly, talk with her about using a condom every time she has sex. Let her know that if the young man she’s interested in doesn’t care enough about her to use a condom, kick him to the curb.

 

 

Is it necessary to have a “don’t, but if you do” conversation? If this is the alternative to abstinence, then how will you curb STDs based on your line of argumentation? You only have made a lesser form of abstinence: “Abstain from those who will not use condoms. Other guys are OK.” Does this prevent things transmitted through oral sex? Does this deal with the emotional desires and confusion brought on by having sex while young and unmarried? What will make this lesser-abstinence program more successful? Aren’t you being “righteous” about condom-use-only sex? Isn’t your head in the sand about young girls participating in sex without a condom? Is “don’t, but if you do” defining one’s destiny, or is it not saying, “do not strive for the highest goals?” Will this solution increase conversations about (responsible) sexual behavior or feelings of “love” toward young men? Once moms and dads OK condom use, why have any more talks with their girls? Isn’t the problem solved? Also, if we give the “don’t, but if you do” talk, will this be enough to say we have talked with our daughters? If so, then we will not need thereafter to talk with a doctor or a health care professional, for they should not be able to say any more than this, right? Or maybe, just maybe, a doctor or health care professional might go one step further and say, “young lady, the safest thing you can do to prevent contracting a Sexually Transmitted Disease is to refrain from participating in sexual acts until you have married someone who is committed to sexually enjoying you only, and then maintaining your mutual sexual fidelity.” I think this is better than saying abstinence, in either form, doesn’t work.

A Note for PG Gazette and Townhall.com Readers

Thank you if you are visiting this site because of today’s story in the Prince George’s Gazette, “Pastor Addresses Skipping Church,” or because of today’s post at Townhall.com (and carried at Crosswalk.com), ”Is Jeremiah Wright Mainstream?” The tab to the book, Where Are All the Brothers?, is above the first post in a tool bar line for this site’s pages. The Amazon link is at the top of the right side bar. I am appreciative of your visit.

New Book: Secret Sex Wars

Below is my endorsement of Secret Sex Wars, edited by Robert S. Scott, Sr, being posted at their website. Please tell a brother about the book. I have counseled men through pornographic additction; I have heard first-hand of the struggles of others. The need for help is real.

Like an evil parasite ever-looking for another host, sexual immorality, in all of its deviant forms, has buried itself into the walls of the belly of the Internet, and thus into the minds of many feeding continually on its images. Although the sickness and bondage from this sin is at pandemic levels in the world, its pervasive presence in the African American community only exacerbates the speed and depth of the erosion of our families and our communities. Secret Sex Wars comes to us at a time when the call to arms needs to be sounded in a new and clearer tone. This clarion call will benefit the men and women who heed the charge because the book is rooted in the Word of truth rather than the empty bio-psychiatry words of the modern talk-show hosts—those have appointed themselves falsely as experts and prophets on sexual liberty in our community. This book challenges men to take responsibility for their failures to fight off sexual sin without being naïve about the power of sexual sin or being condescending toward the sexual struggles, hurts, desires and disappointments of African American men. The candor of the writers about their own falls and triumphs leaves every reader without the ability to excuse defeat by saying “but these men do not know my pain,” for they do. My hope is that Secret Sex Wars will run a wide course through the African American community so that we might be rescued from the plague of sexual sin before we destroy ourselves from the inside out.

 

Jeremiah Wright’s BLT: Pre-Primer on Albert Mohler Show

Later today I can be heard on a pre-recorded broadcast on the Albert Mohler Radio Program. Dr. Mohler and I will be talking about the mainstream theology of Dr. Jeremiah Wright.    

“Mainstream?” Yes, in response to your question, mainstream. For, as I say on the broadcast, if you listen to the greatest aggregate of sermons from African American pulpits since the Civil Rights Era until now, I suggest that you will hear the themes of Black Liberation Theology throughout the sermons: empowerment, (social) deliverance, overcoming (White) oppression, God is for the poor (indiscriminant of their sins), God is for Black people, and even, God/Christ is Black. Or you will hear the voice of the close cousin of historic Black Liberation Theology: Black Word of Faith Health and Wealth (a)Theology (which could easily be termed Nuevo Negro Liberation Theology [NNLT]). If you listen to Health and Wealth teaching, it is an attempt to liberate people socially without concern about an institutional oppressor. It is Black Liberation Theology packaged for those who have 1) a piece of the American Dream and 2) enough social mobility to ignore the racialization of society because it does not keep them from putting a Lexus in the garage and a flat screen in every bedroom. I previously had some words about NNLT here.   

On the program I did not get to talk about the problems of Black Liberation Theology (henceforth BLT [without the mayo]). However, for my brothers and sisters who are not familiar with BLT, particularly my non-African American brothers and sisters, I provide the thoughts below, and I recommend Bruce Field’s book in the Three Crucial Questions series for more info.   

1.      If BLT created a study Bible, it only would contain text and annotation on Exodus 1 – 15, the prophets (Micah having prominence), the Gospels (with no commentary on texts like Matthew 5:27-37 or Luke 13:1-9), and Revelation 21.  These are texts that support the idea of God being a liberator of the oppressed, God’s concern for justice for the poor, Jesus’ identity with the suffering and oppressed, and the promise of a New Heaven and New Earth for overcomers. Womanist Theology (Black Women’s Liberation Theology) would add texts that empower women, like Judges 4-5.   

2.      BLT and NNLT, in effect, have restated the chief end of man as “to glorify the Black self through the pursuit of social mobility, victory over White oppression, riches, perfect health, and geographical distance from the poor, and to enjoy being earthly misers and our actualized selves forever.”  What I mean is that the problem of the use of Exodus 1-15 for a liberation idea is missing the fact that the liberation of Israel was not from social oppression but from religious pluralistic oppression as a covenant people, and that they were being liberated to worship the Lord, not to achieve an economic dream. BLT misses the fact that after God pulled Israel out of Egypt, he then took them through the wilderness, gave them his Law, and had them build the tabernacle in order to pull Egypt out of Israel by showing himself to be more glorious than the riches and food in Egypt; redemption involves both aspects of liberation. Ironically, BLT and NNLT have not liberated anyone differently than has the Wall-Street work ethic. There is no need for the Theo in BLT and NNLT…. No, I’m sorry. I misspoke. There is no God in BLT and NNLT – at least not the God of Scripture.    

3.      BLT (but not NNLT), however, like many theologies that challenge the practice of orthodox Christian belief, reminds us 1) to be careful in our language about God, for he is Lord of all, not simply a god who can be identified only as Black, White, American, Republican or Democratic (cf. Ex 9:29 Ps 24:1), 2) to consider the role we each should play in recognizing the image of God in all people (cf. Ja. 2:1-14), 3) to think of the active engagement we each should make in alleviating human suffering by oppression (cf. Obadiah 10-14), and 4) to look at the Biblical text with an awareness of our own cultural biases. (Reading Romans 9-11 on the priority of Israel as a Messianic Jew is vastly different than reading as a Christian Palestinian or Christian Arab (as my Palestinian and Arab brothers have told me), even though the truth of the text does not change. Similarly, “suffering” has a different significance depending upon whether you have to tighten your belt to go to graduate school or wonder if this is the day you will be torn away from your family by a warring faction). But these are truths about Christian praxis that should be derived from a proper understanding of Biblical theology and the Gospel. These are not ideas unique to BLT. We simply need to put the Gospel into practice.   

4.      Once BLT poured out from the pulpits and academic halls, you had at least five major results toward the African American community: 1) widespread acceptance of an egalitarian view of the family and the church, for anything short of giving women “equality” was viewed as an oppression from which African Americans needed liberation – the result being the erosion of the African American family, the creation of a female-led community, and the welcoming of homosexual practice as normal, 2) a misinterpretation of the goal of God (as stated above), 3) the increased racialization of society, because nearly everything “American” came from the (White) oppressor, so it and they had to be rejected rather than embraced, 4) a categorical rejection of Evangelical theology since it was seen as “White,” and 5) an uncritical acceptance of anything philosophical that is African American in origin as long as it was divorced from Evangelical theology and conservative social ideology. You do not have to look far to see what these results have done to the African American community. Think of how you would understand “the Gospel” if this is the version of the Gospel that had been fed to you on Sundays for two, three or four decades. Further, it should not be hard to reason from these results to NNLT, as Anthony Carter previously recognized.   

For more, read Fields. But do not order a BLT with your reading. Get something good to eat here, here and here. On the program, I make some sympathetic comments toward Wright. Dr. Mohler had a good exchange with Mark Dever on the topics of Politics in the Pulpit last Monday on Mohler’s program.   

negro

Pronunciation:  \ˈnē-(ˌ)grō\

Function:  noun

Etymology:   Spanish or Portuguese, from negro black, from Latin nigr-, niger

Date:  1555    

… for those of you who took offense at NNLT.  

Blaque Tulip; Book Notices: April 4, 1968

Over at the Blaque Tulip, Lance Lewis has written about our Unrivaled Savior. He has other posts pertaining to the presidential contests and our hope that are worth reading. I also appreciate his post on Glory; it is one of my all-time favorite movies too.

I also am appreciative of Newsweek’s cover story on William F. Buckley, Jr. I make no apologies for enjoying the writings of Buckley or George F. Will. Both men have helped me to think of how to speak about God, morality, truth and ethics to the committed liberal and secularist, even behind DuBois’s veil. I can only hope to have their respected wit when I reach age 60.

Even so, I still enjoy reading Dyson. (It is hard to live behind the veil philosophically when you understand the Gospel; even more so when you understand it from a Calvinist perspective. Dyson has served me well for helping me to remember I am trying to reach people within the veil too.) I am looking forward to his newest: April 4, 1968.

 Finally, I hope Accountable in the Covenant series will make us accountable to living morally.

Reposting Where Are All the Brothers?

This is a repost of the Where Are All the Brothers? post for those of you asking for the orginal post since the format of the blog has changed. The tab to more information is above the first post on this page, below the letterhead rather than to the right as in the previous format. This new format also has a search box. I am making this repost until I can figure out how to put a widget for the book on the front page.

The Washington Post on Southern Baptists

Today’s Washington Post did a cover article on Southern Baptists. There is a very cute 10-year old girl in prayer on the cover of the print version.

There also is a very good article on African American lawmakers’ struggles with deciding on which presidential candidate to endorse. Of course, the issue of morality is missing from their decision-making.

The Gloucester Institute February Newsletter

The Gloucester Institute February newsletter is available. Under the leadership of the Honorable Kay Cole James, the Gloucester Institute offers solid training and exposure opportunities for emerging African American leaders. As their website states,

 The Gloucester Institute will … … cultivate a society of “solutionists” within the African American community.

… provide a safe environment for African Americans of divergent views to work to resolve social, economic and political issues in the African American community.

… equip scholars with the intellectual, moral, and financial support to conduct intensive research to discover the best solutions to the social, economic and political problems facing the African American Community.

… communicate this vision to the entire African American Diaspora by creating a unique Web presence with a portal to policy papers, conversation, news media and career development.

… honor the legacy of African American leader Dr. Robert Russa Moton by using his historic home, Holly Knoll, for training, conferences and retreats designed to influence the market place of social, economic and political ideas in the African American community.is committed to providing an intellectually safe environment where ideas can be discussed and transformed into practical solutions

As many of you know, Kay James is a believer with an outstanding testimony before all. (Having read her biography several years ago, and knowing a little bit about the IVCF crew that were her acquaintences in her Hampton years, I suspect Kay holds to the Doctrines of Grace.) Maybe you have young person you wish to direct to the Gloucester Institute.