WEBVTT 00:00:00.560 --> 00:00:08.740 What we're going to do today, or for our last session, is going to be radically different than anything that we have done so far. 00:00:09.300 --> 00:00:17.039 So we're going to set aside Ephesians for now, and we will return to Ephesians for the sermon that will conclude our time together. 00:00:17.640 --> 00:00:28.240 But one of the other things that I do, besides standard biblical interpretation, is African American interpretation and how our culture reads the Bible. 00:00:28.239 --> 00:00:40.259 Because we've spoken a lot recently about this vision for the nations reconciled into one body, existing as one family as a manifestation of God's glory. 00:00:40.659 --> 00:00:44.299 But the question is, how do we get to the place we find ourselves so separated? 00:00:44.560 --> 00:00:49.239 So we're not in this place where we experience Paul's vision for all things. 00:00:49.240 --> 00:00:56.700 And so what I'm going to do is I'm going to walk you through, really briefly, kind of the history and development of the African American tradition, 00:00:57.179 --> 00:01:02.900 especially our habits of Bible reading, with the end towards helping us understand ways we can be reconciled. 00:01:03.000 --> 00:01:08.740 So this is not a story of, like, centering the white experience in the United States. 00:01:08.920 --> 00:01:11.240 It's the black experience of this story, okay? 00:01:11.320 --> 00:01:13.120 So we're going to talk about black people for about 40 minutes. 00:01:13.180 --> 00:01:13.540 Is that okay? 00:01:14.079 --> 00:01:14.960 Okay, here we go. 00:01:14.959 --> 00:01:21.379 So early black encounters with, and I get to go into lecture mode. 00:01:21.799 --> 00:01:22.879 I get to go full professor. 00:01:23.079 --> 00:01:23.979 I do have a PhD. 00:01:24.559 --> 00:01:25.319 Respect me. 00:01:25.819 --> 00:01:26.039 Okay. 00:01:26.699 --> 00:01:33.599 So you talk about the first black encounter with Christianity in this country. 00:01:34.019 --> 00:01:38.959 And I'm actually going to read to you really briefly a quote from an Anglican missionary. 00:01:39.579 --> 00:01:44.459 This is before the Church of England, when the Church of England was over here, before there was kind of the United States of America. 00:01:44.959 --> 00:01:53.179 And this is one of the things that one of the early Anglican or Episcopal missionaries had the slaves recite before they were baptized. 00:01:53.339 --> 00:01:59.239 So before you agreed to be baptized, you had to stand before your congregation, and you had to make this declaration. 00:01:59.359 --> 00:02:00.119 I'm going to read it to you. 00:02:00.120 --> 00:02:27.580 So you come in the early initial evangelization of African Americans. 00:02:27.580 --> 00:02:31.480 It did not include them having access to the entirety of the Bible. 00:02:31.900 --> 00:02:40.220 It's simply oftentimes they would receive a catechism that would point out to them Paul's commands, the slaves be obedient to your masters. 00:02:40.700 --> 00:02:42.600 So I want to ask you a quick question. 00:02:42.939 --> 00:02:45.980 How successful do you think that this evangelistic effort was? 00:02:46.640 --> 00:02:48.260 It failed robustly. 00:02:48.420 --> 00:02:51.400 This is why there's like very few African American Anglicans. 00:02:51.480 --> 00:02:52.320 This goes all the way back. 00:02:52.319 --> 00:02:54.400 So what happened? 00:02:54.519 --> 00:03:03.719 So the early generation of early Presbyterian and Anglican evangelization in the colonies was largely unsuccessful because of this perspective. 00:03:04.120 --> 00:03:07.780 We want to make sure that the system stays in place before you can become a Christian. 00:03:08.379 --> 00:03:15.400 Now, interestingly enough, the first African American, large-scale African American conversion to Christianity happens during the Great Awakening. 00:03:15.519 --> 00:03:19.419 At least you guys remember back enough in college, during the Great Awakening, all these evangelistic revivals, 00:03:19.419 --> 00:03:21.299 so they're going through and they're preaching, people falling out. 00:03:21.359 --> 00:03:21.780 You know this? 00:03:22.139 --> 00:03:22.299 Okay. 00:03:22.519 --> 00:03:28.119 So the Great Awakening happens, and these Baptist and Methodist preachers come down to the south. 00:03:28.339 --> 00:03:34.019 And one of the things that happens is the preaching of the Great Awakening, at least in its doctrinal emphasis, 00:03:34.019 --> 00:03:40.619 this idea that all are sinners who are equally in need of the grace of God and who are all justified on the same standards. 00:03:40.620 --> 00:03:48.080 And so this idea that all are equally sinners at least indirectly spoke to the equality across all races. 00:03:48.980 --> 00:03:55.640 And so they even had in some of their early evangelistic Great Awakenings blacks and whites together during this revival. 00:03:56.060 --> 00:04:02.460 One of the interesting things that marks out the early history of black conversion to Christianity that stands to this day, 00:04:02.800 --> 00:04:05.980 this actually happens here, and we still haven't resolved this. 00:04:05.979 --> 00:04:12.239 African Americans, on the whole, are first converted in large numbers during the Great Awakening, 00:04:12.459 --> 00:04:19.019 and they're drawn to evangelical theology but fundamentally alienated by practice. 00:04:20.019 --> 00:04:25.699 So your doctrine is one in which we should all be able to live together, but we experience this disconnect. 00:04:26.800 --> 00:04:33.680 So one of the things that happens is then the African American churches explode within two particular traditions. 00:04:33.680 --> 00:04:37.819 One is the Baptist, and the other is the Methodist tradition. 00:04:38.280 --> 00:04:40.500 Why are there so many black Baptists? 00:04:40.519 --> 00:04:42.759 We're not ontologically free church, right? 00:04:42.900 --> 00:04:47.280 The reason there are so many black Baptists is because you know what you need to start a Baptist church? 00:04:47.780 --> 00:04:48.220 Nothing. 00:04:49.139 --> 00:04:50.460 A Bible, right? 00:04:50.720 --> 00:04:52.819 And you can just tell we're now First Baptist Church. 00:04:53.280 --> 00:04:57.319 In the Anglican polity, you needed a bishop to ordain you. 00:04:57.840 --> 00:05:00.740 And how many bishops were willing to ordain black people? 00:05:00.740 --> 00:05:02.220 We had a polity problem. 00:05:02.460 --> 00:05:04.180 The exact same issues we're dealing with today, right? 00:05:04.300 --> 00:05:06.460 How did we get more ethical anointings into the ACNA? 00:05:06.720 --> 00:05:07.639 There's a polity problem. 00:05:07.900 --> 00:05:12.220 So because the Methodist church doesn't have a strong understanding of apostolic succession, 00:05:12.699 --> 00:05:14.960 John Wesley kind of just chose some bishops, right? 00:05:15.019 --> 00:05:16.579 And they kind of ordained themselves. 00:05:16.960 --> 00:05:19.740 Also, the polity of the Methodist tradition is true, right? 00:05:20.259 --> 00:05:22.000 The Methodists said, we're going to be bishops. 00:05:22.199 --> 00:05:22.840 God bless them. 00:05:23.120 --> 00:05:24.400 No shade at the Methodists. 00:05:24.840 --> 00:05:26.579 But like, this is how the Methodist tradition starts. 00:05:26.579 --> 00:05:32.779 And so because both the Methodist polity and the Baptist polity allow for rapid multiplication, 00:05:34.039 --> 00:05:41.060 African Americans, especially in the South, become overwhelmingly Baptist and Methodist, 00:05:41.180 --> 00:05:43.860 which becomes the AME, which kind of remains to the day. 00:05:44.000 --> 00:05:46.539 The Church of God in Christ, the Pentecostal tradition happens later, 00:05:46.599 --> 00:05:48.000 which is kind of on the side of this story. 00:05:48.139 --> 00:05:48.919 They won't come into it. 00:05:49.299 --> 00:05:53.319 So what happens when African Americans actually become Christians? 00:05:53.360 --> 00:05:54.159 What do they do with the Bible? 00:05:54.160 --> 00:05:59.520 There are three basic responses that actually also continue to this day. 00:06:00.020 --> 00:06:04.880 One of the favorite, and I think one of the ways it's represented in one of the favorite passages, 00:06:05.280 --> 00:06:08.600 that if you read the early slave narratives and early sermons, 00:06:08.660 --> 00:06:13.980 one of the passages that you see occur over and over again is Acts 1726. 00:06:14.980 --> 00:06:17.360 It actually occurs in the King James translation. 00:06:17.640 --> 00:06:19.400 We translate it a little bit differently now. 00:06:19.399 --> 00:06:24.439 But in the King James Version, it says, out of one blood he has made all the people of the earth. 00:06:24.699 --> 00:06:29.579 Actually, this still is in the collects in the Book of Common Prayer where it says that. 00:06:29.639 --> 00:06:33.299 But we now know that the proper translation is from one man he made all the people. 00:06:33.359 --> 00:06:35.839 So if you guys look it up in your Bible, you'll see from one man. 00:06:36.199 --> 00:06:39.620 And so what the early African American preaching tradition does is say, look, 00:06:39.620 --> 00:06:45.540 the Bible says very clearly that from one person, from one common blood, we're all made. 00:06:45.660 --> 00:06:50.240 So let's create this multi-ethnic brotherhood united in Christ. 00:06:50.300 --> 00:06:52.500 So this is like one strand of African American preaching. 00:06:52.740 --> 00:06:54.019 You see it from the beginning. 00:06:54.220 --> 00:06:58.699 You see it in some ways in the preaching of Martin Luther King 100 years down the road from this. 00:06:59.340 --> 00:07:06.319 Another tradition kind of internalizes the negative assessment of the African American person 00:07:06.319 --> 00:07:08.480 that was dominant in the day. 00:07:08.480 --> 00:07:14.300 And so if you wanted to have kind of a platform, there's a platform for African, 00:07:14.620 --> 00:07:20.220 even some enslaved who encourage other slaves to kind of submit to their masters and do the thing. 00:07:20.400 --> 00:07:24.520 So there's a tradition of submission in repeating the talking points 00:07:24.520 --> 00:07:27.200 and internalizing some of the negative views of black bodies. 00:07:27.700 --> 00:07:33.040 The third strand is represented by, I guess, the person who you would see most clearly, 00:07:33.120 --> 00:07:35.879 someone who was actually a Christian. 00:07:35.879 --> 00:07:39.959 And that turn is that God told him to lead this revolution. 00:07:40.620 --> 00:07:49.819 And so you see kind of the violent response and using kind of the stories of the Exodus as a motivator for revolution. 00:07:50.259 --> 00:07:55.159 There's the submissive approach where you repeat the talking points of the dominant culture. 00:07:55.160 --> 00:07:59.620 And then there's this turn towards brotherhood, which we'll talk about later. 00:07:59.700 --> 00:08:02.720 It's also coupled with a strong public critique. 00:08:03.300 --> 00:08:11.300 And historically, the emphasis on brotherhood linked to a strong public critique of America 00:08:11.300 --> 00:08:13.379 becomes indicative of the African American tradition. 00:08:13.379 --> 00:08:22.579 And in general, the part that is received most freely within kind of white spaces is the submissive tradition, 00:08:23.259 --> 00:08:26.120 where you repeat the talking points from the dominant culture. 00:08:26.120 --> 00:08:30.199 So the early testimony of black churches. 00:08:30.500 --> 00:08:38.019 So if you ever want to know, like, what black theology is, the easiest place to go is the primary document. 00:08:38.159 --> 00:08:42.840 So in the same way that we have the church fathers that represent the first 100, 00:08:42.980 --> 00:08:45.879 the 1 to 300, 400 years of church history, 00:08:46.200 --> 00:08:49.580 they're all the primary documents of the African American Christian tradition. 00:08:49.940 --> 00:08:52.379 They're called the fathers and mothers. 00:08:52.379 --> 00:08:58.960 So here is one testimony from the founding of the African Methodist Episcopal Church in 1787. 00:08:59.139 --> 00:08:59.899 So I'm going to read to you again. 00:09:01.419 --> 00:09:06.779 In 1787, the colored people belonging to the Methodist society in Philadelphia convened together 00:09:06.779 --> 00:09:10.439 in order to take into consideration the evils under which they labored, 00:09:10.899 --> 00:09:13.379 arising from the unkind treatment of their white brethren, 00:09:13.779 --> 00:09:16.240 who considered them a nuisance in the house of worship, 00:09:16.620 --> 00:09:19.379 and even pulled them off their knees while in the act of prayer 00:09:19.379 --> 00:09:21.600 and ordered them back to their seats. 00:09:21.600 --> 00:09:25.360 From these and various other acts of unchristian conduct, 00:09:25.720 --> 00:09:30.500 we considered it our duty to devise a plan in order to build a house of our own 00:09:30.500 --> 00:09:35.680 and to worship God under our own vine and fig tree. 00:09:37.120 --> 00:09:38.019 So what happens? 00:09:38.100 --> 00:09:41.920 The African, the black people in Philadelphia are praying. 00:09:42.279 --> 00:09:45.060 They're told to return to their seats because they can't pray in the front. 00:09:45.340 --> 00:09:47.379 They must go to the colored section of their own. 00:09:47.379 --> 00:09:50.000 And it's because of these and other unchristian acts. 00:09:50.139 --> 00:09:52.120 They wanted to go and form their own communities. 00:09:52.779 --> 00:09:56.320 The thing that I want you to hear is they're actually accusing. 00:09:56.539 --> 00:09:57.360 This is the important part. 00:09:57.879 --> 00:10:01.799 They started their own church so that they can actually be Christians. 00:10:02.580 --> 00:10:06.559 They didn't say that there's something fundamentally wrong with the doctrines and the teachings of Christianity. 00:10:06.559 --> 00:10:11.059 They're saying that in this context, we can't actually be Christians. 00:10:11.479 --> 00:10:16.719 So in order to follow Jesus fully, apart from the heresy of racism and white supremacy, 00:10:16.959 --> 00:10:18.919 we need to form our own community where we can follow Jesus. 00:10:19.479 --> 00:10:23.099 So one of the things that I've talked to Tommy about a lot in the last couple of days 00:10:23.100 --> 00:10:28.500 is one of the things that I see is that when people come to grips with kind of the legacy of racism in this country 00:10:28.500 --> 00:10:32.879 and they have this angst or this guilt and they go, well, what do I do? 00:10:33.279 --> 00:10:37.779 And one of the common responses is, why don't you stop being Christian and become progressive? 00:10:38.420 --> 00:10:41.100 We didn't ask you to stop becoming Christian. 00:10:41.159 --> 00:10:42.759 We said stop being racist, right? 00:10:42.779 --> 00:10:43.879 Those are two separate things. 00:10:44.240 --> 00:10:49.200 And so it's possible to say, you know what, I'm going to leave the racism alone and keep the orthodoxy. 00:10:49.200 --> 00:10:52.660 And this is at the heart of the foundation of the black church. 00:10:52.820 --> 00:10:57.400 You can go, if you had time, you probably won't, but I'm going to tell you that it's there anyway in case you want to Google it. 00:10:57.620 --> 00:11:00.600 You can go and look at the early confession of the Methodist church, 00:11:00.759 --> 00:11:05.160 which is rooted in the same 39 articles that become the foundation of the Anacan church. 00:11:05.220 --> 00:11:08.320 And then you look at the catechism that is created by the AME. 00:11:08.560 --> 00:11:12.080 And the catechisms are almost identical with a few small changes. 00:11:12.200 --> 00:11:17.740 And you see, I'm going to give you an example of one adjustment to kind of show you how black theology develops in a slightly different way. 00:11:17.740 --> 00:11:21.720 So here's from the catechism of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. 00:11:22.720 --> 00:11:23.080 Question. 00:11:24.240 --> 00:11:26.399 What shall be done for the extermination of slavery? 00:11:27.120 --> 00:11:27.440 Answer. 00:11:28.299 --> 00:11:35.680 We will not receive any person into our society as a member who is a slaveholder and any who are now members that have slaves 00:11:35.680 --> 00:11:42.220 and refuse to emancipate them after notification being given by the preacher, having the charge, he shall be excluded. 00:11:42.220 --> 00:11:48.200 The amazing thing about this is there's no one in the AME who probably owned a slave. 00:11:48.740 --> 00:11:50.220 It's an all-black congregation. 00:11:51.360 --> 00:11:56.460 But it's at least in principle open to the white brothers and sisters coming over here 00:11:56.460 --> 00:12:01.180 that you need to get rid of the false teaching around slavery. 00:12:01.960 --> 00:12:07.240 You can go through the rest of the catechism, and you will see that the rest of the doctrines are almost the same. 00:12:07.240 --> 00:12:13.740 One of the things that is kind of necessary to understand, and this is part of the historic disconnect that I talk about, 00:12:14.440 --> 00:12:20.440 the African American church is born in protest against an established law. 00:12:20.740 --> 00:12:25.779 We think of slavery as this moral thing that you can kind of be for or against, but slavery was actually legal. 00:12:26.440 --> 00:12:30.899 And so when the African American church is born and they begin to speak out against slavery, 00:12:31.139 --> 00:12:34.139 they're asking the government to change an existing law. 00:12:34.960 --> 00:12:35.440 You get that? 00:12:35.440 --> 00:12:39.860 So African American Christianity has always been political. 00:12:41.160 --> 00:12:42.020 It's always been political. 00:12:42.540 --> 00:12:50.420 And so when you say we're going to focus on preaching the gospel and not get involved in issues of politics that are divisive, 00:12:50.960 --> 00:12:55.100 it is heard as what the Anglican missionaries said, 00:12:55.520 --> 00:13:00.560 content yourself with the transformation of your soul and have no designs towards your freedom. 00:13:00.559 --> 00:13:07.579 And it's actually calling upon us to abandon the entire tradition of seeing it wrong in society 00:13:07.579 --> 00:13:11.799 and advocating for that change for our good and our liberation. 00:13:13.799 --> 00:13:14.739 Here's an example. 00:13:15.159 --> 00:13:18.279 This is another testimony from William J. Simmons, a Baptist. 00:13:18.379 --> 00:13:19.279 This is 1887. 00:13:19.619 --> 00:13:23.500 So we're 20 years downstream from the Civil War. 00:13:23.819 --> 00:13:24.599 Listen to this testimony. 00:13:24.759 --> 00:13:26.879 Listen to the scope of what he talks about here. 00:13:26.879 --> 00:13:29.840 God has permitted us through him. 00:13:30.460 --> 00:13:35.320 God has permitted us to triumph and through him has implanted in us a vigorous spiritual tree. 00:13:35.939 --> 00:13:38.559 And since freedom, how has this been growing? 00:13:39.100 --> 00:13:43.700 Untrammeled, we have, out of our ignorance and punery, built thousands of churches, 00:13:44.240 --> 00:13:47.559 started thousands of schools, educated millions of children, 00:13:47.559 --> 00:13:53.039 and supported thousands of ministers of the gospel, organized societies for the care of the sick 00:13:53.039 --> 00:13:54.619 and for the bearing of the dead. 00:13:55.699 --> 00:14:00.799 This spirituality and love of offspring are evidence that slavery, though long and protracted, 00:14:01.079 --> 00:14:06.079 met in our race a vigorous, vital, godlike spirituality, 00:14:06.579 --> 00:14:11.099 which like a palm tree flourishes and climbs upward through opposition. 00:14:12.159 --> 00:14:13.299 What did they do? 00:14:14.159 --> 00:14:14.759 What did they do? 00:14:14.759 --> 00:14:17.779 They planted churches, thousands of them. 00:14:18.340 --> 00:14:21.419 They started schools, so there was no place to educate these slaves. 00:14:21.960 --> 00:14:24.259 They formed places to care for the sick. 00:14:24.860 --> 00:14:27.460 And they raised up clergy. 00:14:28.139 --> 00:14:31.500 So you see that, once again, at the heart of this, it was 20 years in, 00:14:32.480 --> 00:14:37.500 the combination of activism for the transformation of the lives of its citizens 00:14:37.500 --> 00:14:43.240 and proclamation of the orthodox faith are inherent in the tradition. 00:14:43.240 --> 00:14:49.440 I want to be, like, polemical and say what God has joined together, let no man tear asunder. 00:14:49.779 --> 00:14:51.480 But I won't do that. 00:14:51.539 --> 00:14:51.980 I won't do that. 00:14:52.039 --> 00:14:56.360 That's an allusion to the wedding liturgy, for those of you who don't know your book of Common Prayer well enough. 00:14:56.659 --> 00:14:56.840 Okay. 00:14:58.120 --> 00:14:59.159 What happens after that? 00:14:59.200 --> 00:15:05.940 We're going to skip forward about 70 years to the birth of what becomes academic black theology. 00:15:06.100 --> 00:15:09.659 So I'll talk to you about black ecclesial theology, what's happening in the pulpits, 00:15:09.680 --> 00:15:11.279 what's happening in the actual community. 00:15:11.279 --> 00:15:18.360 And for a variety of reasons, there wasn't a huge black presence in the academy during this early, you know, 00:15:18.659 --> 00:15:20.980 post-slavery up through around the 1960s. 00:15:21.019 --> 00:15:25.699 There wasn't a lot of places for African-Americans to study theology academically and publish these papers. 00:15:26.879 --> 00:15:31.179 So the first generation of black writers, especially as it relates to the Bible, 00:15:31.659 --> 00:15:34.559 gets really excited about the black presence in the Bible. 00:15:34.559 --> 00:15:39.279 Because the story had been told in such a way that they thought that there was no African presence in the New Testament. 00:15:39.739 --> 00:15:45.219 And, like, our presence there was like a fact hiding in plain sight. 00:15:45.719 --> 00:15:50.579 And an example of this that I'd like to use, and if we had more time, because I can only give you 40 minutes, not 41, 00:15:50.939 --> 00:15:53.479 is the story of Ephraim and Manasseh. 00:15:54.000 --> 00:15:55.659 This is the kind of stuff that they did. 00:15:55.859 --> 00:15:57.059 You guys know Ephraim and Manasseh? 00:15:57.059 --> 00:15:59.779 These are two of the 12 tribes of Israel. 00:16:00.039 --> 00:16:01.439 The heads are two of the 12 tribes of Israel. 00:16:02.079 --> 00:16:07.659 And Ephraim and Manasseh are the children of Joseph and his half-Egyptian wife. 00:16:08.639 --> 00:16:13.319 And so when you get to the end of Jacob's life, and they take, 00:16:13.479 --> 00:16:18.939 Joseph takes these two boys to meet their grandfather before he dies. 00:16:18.940 --> 00:16:24.980 The text says that Jacob looks at him, looks at the boys, looks at them. 00:16:25.380 --> 00:16:27.740 So he looks at the, like, he sees their ethnicity. 00:16:28.540 --> 00:16:30.460 He sees their ethnicity and says, 00:16:31.620 --> 00:16:37.760 God made a promise to my forefather and to me that he'll make me a father of many nations. 00:16:38.860 --> 00:16:44.180 So now I'm going to bring these two boys into my family. 00:16:44.179 --> 00:16:49.279 So these two boys, who are sons of Joseph, actually become tribes in Israel. 00:16:49.919 --> 00:16:55.699 The point of that is their Africanness was a manifestation of God's promise to Abraham, 00:16:56.000 --> 00:16:56.839 and so he brought them in. 00:16:57.539 --> 00:17:01.000 And the point that people like Charles Cofer and Cain Folt Hilda was making, 00:17:01.379 --> 00:17:05.539 it's like no one talks about the fact that two of the 12 tribes had Africans at the head of them. 00:17:06.519 --> 00:17:12.659 Because in the South, in the 1960s and the 70s, they had the one-drop rule. 00:17:12.660 --> 00:17:15.560 If you had one drop of blood, you were black. 00:17:16.160 --> 00:17:19.000 And you couldn't get pulled over and say, I'm only half black, 00:17:19.080 --> 00:17:20.759 so you should only be half racist towards me, right? 00:17:20.800 --> 00:17:21.779 No, you have to deal with it. 00:17:21.980 --> 00:17:25.680 And so they were saying that these boys were Africans. 00:17:26.660 --> 00:17:30.380 And so the early generation just wanted to kind of recount our presence 00:17:30.380 --> 00:17:32.120 and bring us back into the story. 00:17:32.600 --> 00:17:34.200 If we had time, we could give you 15 more examples. 00:17:34.320 --> 00:17:37.060 This gives you a picture of what they were doing. 00:17:37.059 --> 00:17:45.079 Now, later on, you have kind of, in the same context, people like James Cone 00:17:45.079 --> 00:17:52.259 and what becomes Black Liberation Theology, and they're in the mainline academy. 00:17:52.799 --> 00:17:54.980 So they're at progressive institutions. 00:17:55.159 --> 00:17:59.019 What I'd like to explain to people is if you think about the history of kind of white Christianity, 00:17:59.759 --> 00:18:01.819 you see the creation of kind of two streams. 00:18:01.819 --> 00:18:05.639 There's like what becomes the mainline church, and then it becomes evangelicalism. 00:18:05.720 --> 00:18:08.279 So you could go to Duke or Wheaton, right? 00:18:08.299 --> 00:18:09.179 You have two options, right? 00:18:11.159 --> 00:18:13.000 Duke's never going to hire me now. 00:18:13.019 --> 00:18:13.399 It's fine. 00:18:13.480 --> 00:18:13.960 Sorry, Duke. 00:18:14.919 --> 00:18:15.819 I like Wheaton. 00:18:15.919 --> 00:18:16.259 It's okay. 00:18:16.359 --> 00:18:16.859 I'll be fine. 00:18:17.439 --> 00:18:21.119 But if you're African American, there was no Wheaton for you to attend at this point 00:18:21.119 --> 00:18:22.700 because it wasn't friendly to you. 00:18:22.700 --> 00:18:30.340 So the only place where you could go and learn and be educated and have a position were in the mainline tradition. 00:18:30.580 --> 00:18:36.160 So early Black theology, what becomes Black academic theology, is in a part of the mainline tradition. 00:18:36.580 --> 00:18:41.640 The interesting thing that people don't really often realize is that actually the critique of Christianity 00:18:41.640 --> 00:18:46.700 that is offered by Black liberation theologians is not in the first place directed towards evangelicals. 00:18:47.480 --> 00:18:49.819 It's actually directed towards their mainline people. 00:18:49.819 --> 00:18:53.799 These are the people who are actually living life with, and they're experiencing the racism there. 00:18:54.159 --> 00:19:00.019 James Cone writes his fiery critique of white Christianity right in the middle of white progressivism. 00:19:00.240 --> 00:19:01.339 He wouldn't have Wheaton, right? 00:19:01.480 --> 00:19:01.599 Okay. 00:19:02.599 --> 00:19:06.899 So what does James Cone say, and how does it relate to the history of the African American tradition? 00:19:07.519 --> 00:19:12.819 Now, this is a sentence that is not representative of his entire thought, and we could go into a wider thing, 00:19:12.939 --> 00:19:17.279 but this actually gets to the place where I think there's this strong divergence. 00:19:17.279 --> 00:19:21.460 And it's a little bit complicated, so I'll read it, and then I'll explain it. 00:19:21.980 --> 00:19:24.579 This is what he says, and maybe I'll translate it as I read it. 00:19:24.920 --> 00:19:30.859 The hermeneutical principle for biblical interpretation is the revelation of Jesus Christ as liberator. 00:19:31.019 --> 00:19:39.059 So the hermeneutical principle, the means by which you read scripture is Jesus Christ as liberator of the oppressed from oppression. 00:19:39.059 --> 00:19:55.119 You see the move? 00:19:55.119 --> 00:20:00.759 He ceases, and once again, this is like a small sliver of his thought, so this is not the whole thing. 00:20:01.039 --> 00:20:07.739 This is where I think some of these sentences get to the ways in which he's in continuity and discontinuity with the historic African American tradition. 00:20:08.479 --> 00:20:15.899 He rightly emphasized, and we've talked about this, you can trace black quests for liberation through the entirety of our tradition. 00:20:15.900 --> 00:20:23.980 That part of the gospel involves African Americans longing for the experience of freedom here, not just eschatological freedom. 00:20:24.960 --> 00:20:33.259 But there's also been this, alongside that tradition, this radical assertion about the need for personal transformation as well, 00:20:33.519 --> 00:20:35.820 and the need of Jesus in the blood that cleanses from your sins. 00:20:35.900 --> 00:20:37.280 You can hear that in all of our gospel music. 00:20:37.279 --> 00:20:56.119 And so one of the things in which I would say what becomes black liberation theology is discontinuous with black ecclesial theology is the emphasis on liberation to the exclusion of the atoning work of Christ and salvation from sin. 00:20:56.119 --> 00:21:07.799 So the way that I like to describe this is to say that historically in the African American tradition, exodus is giving way to Leviticus, right? 00:21:08.219 --> 00:21:14.179 Liberation to worship, the formation of a people whose holiness reflects something of God's nature in the world. 00:21:15.659 --> 00:21:24.799 So if I think that ultimately what Cone does, though important, because I think that Cone does a really good job of articulating, 00:21:24.799 --> 00:21:34.759 we'll get to it later, Cone picks up on another aspect of the African American tradition that is also best seen in actually going back in history a little bit for Frederick Douglass. 00:21:34.859 --> 00:21:38.859 Because I think that ultimately there's enough problems there that this isn't the way forward for us. 00:21:39.680 --> 00:21:46.279 I'm going to now read Frederick Douglass, who I think is the patron saint of black biblical interpretation. 00:21:47.500 --> 00:21:52.940 And this is his quote, and I think that this quote captures so much of our spirituality and ethos. 00:21:52.940 --> 00:22:02.380 And it also gets to some historic evangelical, like, distrust or angst around African American rhetoric and theology. 00:22:02.600 --> 00:22:03.200 This is what he says. 00:22:03.460 --> 00:22:05.920 This is towards the end of his narrative of the life of a slave. 00:22:06.019 --> 00:22:06.500 He says this. 00:22:07.400 --> 00:22:11.019 I have in several instances spoken in such a tone and manner respecting religion, 00:22:11.920 --> 00:22:17.180 as may possibly lead those unacquainted with my religious views to suppose me an opponent of all religion. 00:22:17.180 --> 00:22:22.240 So he has been so mean to Christians that people are going to say, do you hate Jesus? 00:22:23.360 --> 00:22:27.180 This is the assertion that Frederick Douglass is now an enemy. 00:22:27.539 --> 00:22:29.740 Because when we say religion, they're thinking of Christianity here. 00:22:30.039 --> 00:22:31.799 Like, does Frederick Douglass hate Jesus? 00:22:32.759 --> 00:22:33.500 And this is what he says. 00:22:33.500 --> 00:22:43.259 What I've said, respecting and against religion, I mean strictly to apply to the slaveholding religion of this land. 00:22:43.920 --> 00:22:47.359 And with no possible reference to Christianity proper. 00:22:47.960 --> 00:22:55.500 For between the Christianity of this land and the Christianity of Christ, I recognize the widest possible difference. 00:22:55.500 --> 00:23:09.579 So wide that to receive one as good, pure, and holy is of necessity to reject the other as bad, corrupt, and wicked. 00:23:10.140 --> 00:23:14.839 To be a friend of one is of necessity to be an enemy of the other. 00:23:15.779 --> 00:23:21.279 I love the pure, peaceable, and impartial Christianity of Christ. 00:23:21.279 --> 00:23:32.519 I therefore hate the corrupt, slaveholding, women whipping, cradle plundering, partial, and hypocritical Christianity of this land. 00:23:32.660 --> 00:23:33.200 End quote. 00:23:35.599 --> 00:23:45.160 So here, Frederick Douglass engages in an unmeasured critique of American religiosity. 00:23:45.559 --> 00:23:47.019 And he calls it hypocritical. 00:23:47.019 --> 00:23:52.000 I call it the audacity, what becomes a tradition of black audacity. 00:23:52.900 --> 00:24:00.200 So I'm all like, because if you listen to African American preaching, you will hear this like, did he say that? 00:24:01.359 --> 00:24:04.559 I can't, and it is unfiltered and it is uncomfortable. 00:24:05.700 --> 00:24:14.539 And sometimes that very black audacity is what makes evangelicals uncomfortable because they hear themselves in the critique. 00:24:14.539 --> 00:24:19.680 If what Frederick Douglass is saying is true, then what does it mean about the faith that I practice? 00:24:20.460 --> 00:24:26.960 And because it seems to be difficult to imagine a different form of, that's the wrong, that's the wrong, different form is the wrong word. 00:24:26.960 --> 00:24:39.319 But because America and Christianity seems so intertwined, the strong critique of American Christianity seems to be a critique of Christianity itself. 00:24:40.079 --> 00:24:45.900 And in the African American tradition, there's been a historic distinction between the hypocritical Christianity of this land and the Christianity of the Bible. 00:24:45.900 --> 00:24:50.880 And we have been consistent in our critique of the Christianity of this land. 00:24:51.180 --> 00:24:53.740 And for that reason, we're consistently accused of not believing the Bible. 00:24:54.740 --> 00:24:57.180 Like the Frederick Douglass critique marks out. 00:24:57.460 --> 00:25:02.880 So the requirement then for participation in white spaces is measured critique. 00:25:04.620 --> 00:25:05.300 It's measured critique. 00:25:05.860 --> 00:25:10.400 Don't say anything that is too far because then you will lose your audience. 00:25:10.400 --> 00:25:23.720 But the very preaching of the very black rhetorical tradition that actually exists both in the black church and it comes into what becomes black hip-hop and soul music. 00:25:23.980 --> 00:25:28.240 The same audacity that marks hip-hop music is stolen from the black preacher. 00:25:28.660 --> 00:25:33.000 And the reason the rhetorical power is there is because it was the only tools that we had with the fight oppression. 00:25:33.000 --> 00:25:47.920 So I think that unless churches are able to come to grips with this idea that we are completely comfortable with public critiques of American Christianity, 00:25:49.180 --> 00:25:56.119 unless churches can really come to grips with that and they can accept that, then you can't have African Americans in your congregation. 00:25:56.119 --> 00:26:03.539 Because if the cost of membership in your church is silenced in the face of what we're seeing going on in society, 00:26:03.899 --> 00:26:06.339 then it's just hard for us to exist in these places. 00:26:07.219 --> 00:26:12.039 I like to use, I wish I had like a board, but you had to imagine a Venn diagram. 00:26:12.659 --> 00:26:13.799 Can someone bring one of those over? 00:26:13.899 --> 00:26:15.119 I'll do a very bad drawing. 00:26:15.959 --> 00:26:22.459 But you can imagine like, can you make a Venn diagram for me with an overlap in the middle, those of you who can draw? 00:26:22.579 --> 00:26:24.919 I'll just keep talking and if you find a marker, we'll do that. 00:26:24.920 --> 00:26:29.600 And so what I say is, there we go. 00:26:31.240 --> 00:26:33.960 I'll pause this and then this doesn't count as a part of my time. 00:26:34.960 --> 00:26:35.779 I'll do this. 00:26:36.220 --> 00:26:37.960 I didn't tell you to write in the Venn diagram. 00:26:48.880 --> 00:26:49.980 I can't help it spell. 00:26:50.940 --> 00:26:51.920 EB is correct. 00:26:52.000 --> 00:26:52.740 I'm going to stop there. 00:26:53.240 --> 00:26:53.420 Okay. 00:26:54.920 --> 00:27:03.740 So what I like to say is, there is a bar of entry within the African American context, 00:27:03.960 --> 00:27:13.220 where there's a certain understanding of what is happening in society and culture that you must be able to articulate, 00:27:13.600 --> 00:27:14.779 or we won't even listen to you. 00:27:14.779 --> 00:27:26.059 Now, there is also in evangelicalism kind of what evangelicalism can accept before it like loses its mind. 00:27:27.099 --> 00:27:27.359 Right? 00:27:27.599 --> 00:27:29.359 And then there's the rest of evangelicalism. 00:27:29.359 --> 00:27:36.039 So on the right here, there are things that will, in some sense, rightfully so, that will only exist in the black church. 00:27:36.459 --> 00:27:37.139 Certain things. 00:27:37.539 --> 00:27:40.419 And there's certain things that only exist in evangelicalism. 00:27:40.639 --> 00:27:44.199 And then there's actually a place in the middle where both of these communities can come together. 00:27:44.200 --> 00:27:55.120 And I would say the churches that actually value diversity are going to have to come to grips with this section right there, 00:27:55.299 --> 00:28:03.200 which is going to be the far extreme of evangelicalism, for whom any discussion of race is going to cause them to leave your congregation. 00:28:03.200 --> 00:28:09.720 It doesn't matter how well you articulate it, it doesn't matter what you say, any discussion of race or justice, they're just going to leave. 00:28:11.019 --> 00:28:14.940 And so you have to be willing to, not because you don't love them as brothers and sisters in Christ, 00:28:15.160 --> 00:28:23.940 but to say, if I care about diversity, I am going to have to speak in a way that makes people of color comfortable, 00:28:24.299 --> 00:28:25.460 if it makes them uncomfortable. 00:28:25.460 --> 00:28:38.079 And I've never seen a church, never in my entire life, that manages to become diverse and doesn't lose its, like, far right, it's the cost. 00:28:38.460 --> 00:28:47.019 And if the church is led from the perspective of what's going to happen to my most extreme elements, if I say this, 00:28:47.360 --> 00:28:49.519 that church never is successful in becoming multi-ethnic. 00:28:49.519 --> 00:28:59.759 Because African Americans, in particular, are used to hearing about what's going on in society in the congregation. 00:29:00.119 --> 00:29:03.680 And this doesn't mean that every, because, like, there's an event every single day. 00:29:04.240 --> 00:29:09.339 So it doesn't mean that, like, the sermon becomes a commentary on every political event. 00:29:09.839 --> 00:29:18.259 What I'm saying is the culture of the congregation is one in which the struggles of being a person of color in America 00:29:18.259 --> 00:29:19.799 are acknowledged and spoken about. 00:29:20.220 --> 00:29:21.220 It's not about a number. 00:29:21.359 --> 00:29:22.460 It's not about how many times. 00:29:22.539 --> 00:29:26.240 It's not about, you know, every single time you need to have this particular critique 00:29:26.240 --> 00:29:28.379 or that you need to take a particular stance. 00:29:28.859 --> 00:29:35.779 But it is mean, it does mean that you, I've never seen this not happen. 00:29:36.400 --> 00:29:38.400 Because we come from the Frederick Douglass tradition. 00:29:38.879 --> 00:29:40.440 So Frederick Douglass addresses it, right? 00:29:40.480 --> 00:29:42.759 He goes, you might think I hate Christianity. 00:29:44.379 --> 00:29:45.400 Who is he addressing? 00:29:45.400 --> 00:29:50.340 He's not addressing the people who are sympathetic to him, who recognize that slavery is wrong. 00:29:50.880 --> 00:29:56.940 He's the person, he's speaking to the people for whom any discussion of the evils of Christianity 00:29:56.940 --> 00:29:59.560 as it is practiced is seen as a critique of Christianity, full stop. 00:30:01.540 --> 00:30:07.120 So what do I think then kind of mark African American interpretation 00:30:07.120 --> 00:30:11.080 and why it's important for you all to understand this? 00:30:11.100 --> 00:30:13.880 So at least some of the disconnects, at least you know where the disagreements are. 00:30:13.880 --> 00:30:22.700 I would say that in general, African American theology is unapologetically canonical and theological at its origins. 00:30:23.240 --> 00:30:29.600 So when I speak about canonical, I mean that you had these catechisms that says slaves submit to your masters 00:30:29.600 --> 00:30:34.080 and you had in the African American tradition that say, well, there's the book of Exodus 00:30:34.080 --> 00:30:38.860 and here's like 50,000 ways in which God shows himself to be on the side of the oppressed. 00:30:38.859 --> 00:30:46.619 And so it has this tendency to do biblical theological moves over against adamantistic readings of particular texts. 00:30:46.619 --> 00:30:57.539 When I say theological, there's origins is the African American theological tradition has a huge emphasis on the imago Dei, the image of God. 00:30:57.859 --> 00:31:04.679 And we reason from the theological truth that we are image bearers to how the church should function, right? 00:31:04.680 --> 00:31:11.140 So it's both canonical and it's theological more than it is adamantistically exegetical. 00:31:11.200 --> 00:31:17.160 It's not that it's opposed to close readings of text, but it tends to look at the whole testimony of God 00:31:17.160 --> 00:31:20.420 and the theology of God and persons that arise out of that reading. 00:31:21.200 --> 00:31:27.240 The other thing that I say is that it clearly arises out of the particular context of black Americans. 00:31:27.240 --> 00:31:33.819 So we began as a protest movement within Christianity. 00:31:34.859 --> 00:31:38.400 So we said these are the issues facing us, slavery, later Jim Crow, 00:31:39.180 --> 00:31:44.900 and we're saying Christianity speaks to these issues and speaks to these issues in a particular way for our freedom. 00:31:44.960 --> 00:31:47.900 And it does so without, once again, denying historic orthodoxy. 00:31:47.900 --> 00:31:59.720 The other thing that it does is our method, if I can speak about one, listens to the ways that the scriptures themselves respond to and redirect black issues and concerns. 00:31:59.780 --> 00:32:05.360 When I speak about this, I mean the emphasis on family and the one brotherhood that marks the African American tradition 00:32:05.360 --> 00:32:07.280 is not something that we just came up with. 00:32:07.759 --> 00:32:09.400 It came from our reading of the Bible. 00:32:09.800 --> 00:32:13.440 So, like, what do we do in response to the truth of slavery in this country? 00:32:13.440 --> 00:32:19.759 Well, we see it in Acts 17, 26, and a bunch of other passages that say we actually reconcile with our brothers and sisters 00:32:19.759 --> 00:32:21.279 rather than burning the thing to the ground. 00:32:21.759 --> 00:32:26.320 So actually that shows the formative impact on the Christian tradition, on the African American sensibility. 00:32:28.559 --> 00:32:34.279 One of the other things that I would say that it does is that it listens to and enters into dialogue 00:32:34.279 --> 00:32:37.920 with both black and white critiques of the Bible. 00:32:38.480 --> 00:32:40.440 When I speak about black and white critiques of the Bible, 00:32:40.440 --> 00:32:45.320 I'm speaking about the fact that even at seminary, and this may not be your experience, 00:32:45.400 --> 00:32:47.720 but, like, we learn how to defeat liberalism. 00:32:48.420 --> 00:32:48.559 Right? 00:32:48.580 --> 00:32:55.400 We say here are, like, here's the liberal worldview, and here are the ways which Christianity responds to it 00:32:55.400 --> 00:32:57.880 as a coherent theological system. 00:32:58.240 --> 00:33:04.900 So much of evangelical thought and biblical interpretation is, like, in a constant battle 00:33:04.900 --> 00:33:07.820 against this, like, monster of progressivism. 00:33:07.819 --> 00:33:12.980 Like, that's where the attention is drawn, and they hear everything from that perspective. 00:33:13.919 --> 00:33:16.379 Anything that seems like he comes from over there is bad. 00:33:17.000 --> 00:33:22.460 The African American tradition has historically had to have two separate contexts in which it is critiqued. 00:33:22.899 --> 00:33:26.679 We also deal with kind of the progressive turn in theology, 00:33:27.059 --> 00:33:32.399 but we also deal with an interior critique within our community of Christianity from African Americans. 00:33:32.400 --> 00:33:37.400 So if Frederick Douglass makes the distinction between the hypocritical Christianity of this land 00:33:37.400 --> 00:33:41.380 and Christianity full stop, there are African Americans who don't make that distinction 00:33:41.380 --> 00:33:44.200 and say, no, no, no, the Bible is the white man's religion, 00:33:44.759 --> 00:33:50.140 and you shouldn't be a Christian if you're black because that isn't for you. 00:33:50.140 --> 00:33:54.060 And so part of what is happening, and this happens all of the time, 00:33:54.600 --> 00:34:03.160 if an African American is speaking about Christianity in such a way that, like, triggers evangelicalism, 00:34:03.680 --> 00:34:10.079 it is also the entry point to conversations in the African American context. 00:34:10.079 --> 00:34:16.199 So if I can't speak about white supremacy in an all-black setting, 00:34:16.239 --> 00:34:19.739 and I'm making the argument that things aren't that bad, it's going to be a rough move for me, right? 00:34:20.679 --> 00:34:23.420 And then, but if people hear me say the word white supremacy, 00:34:23.639 --> 00:34:25.960 then they say that, you know, people hear it, 00:34:26.079 --> 00:34:31.099 and they attach it to the only people they're in dialogue with, which is the progressive world. 00:34:32.179 --> 00:34:38.980 And so if you want to understand kind of the African American experience of Christianity in this land, 00:34:38.980 --> 00:34:41.539 it's that you have to understand both those pressures, 00:34:42.219 --> 00:34:47.019 which is the reason why we have to be willing to offend you all 00:34:47.019 --> 00:34:52.019 if we want to keep, participate in a community that is experiencing oppression. 00:34:54.420 --> 00:34:55.639 So what does this mean? 00:34:55.920 --> 00:35:00.740 Does this mean that, like, the African American interpretive method is the only thing that we should do? 00:35:01.039 --> 00:35:01.440 No. 00:35:02.240 --> 00:35:07.639 This, at least really briefly, explains the ways in which our experiences shape us, 00:35:07.639 --> 00:35:10.599 and they shape our instincts towards the text. 00:35:10.940 --> 00:35:14.219 But it is one particular manifestation of God's glory. 00:35:14.699 --> 00:35:22.579 If we had time, we could ask questions about how the Asian American experience in the United States 00:35:22.579 --> 00:35:25.799 shapes how they experience Christianity in this country 00:35:25.799 --> 00:35:28.480 and how it gives rise to certain habits of biblical interpretation. 00:35:29.179 --> 00:35:31.759 And what I think the proper biblical interpretation is, 00:35:32.079 --> 00:35:36.119 is a discussion across culture with the scriptures as the primary authority. 00:35:36.119 --> 00:35:41.279 So that my blind spots are made up by people from other cultures who say, 00:35:41.380 --> 00:35:44.880 Esau, because you have these issues, here are the things that you can't see. 00:35:45.139 --> 00:35:48.219 And then I say to them, because you have these issues, I can't see. 00:35:48.380 --> 00:35:52.199 It's almost as if God needs all of us together to interpret his word correctly. 00:35:52.199 --> 00:36:01.960 So it is not a call for the triumph of, like, black Bible reading over against a history of interpretation everywhere else. 00:36:02.319 --> 00:36:05.579 It's actually to understand what we bring to the table 00:36:05.579 --> 00:36:11.379 and how what we bring to the table is often misunderstood by our brothers and sisters 00:36:11.379 --> 00:36:12.879 who claim to believe the same things. 00:36:13.939 --> 00:36:14.679 Thank you. 00:36:14.679 --> 00:36:15.339 Thank you. 00:36:15.859 --> 00:36:42.319 Thank you.