Don’t Give up on the Black Church

It just happened again. There he sat in my office looking for answers. He is a young twenty-something black male freshly graduated from a predominantly white evangelical Bible college. He is also an aspiring theologian and pastor. He grew up in the hood and came to faith in a black church. But before college was over he felt a strange disorientation, a tug to disavow the black church.

His story is not uncommon. His tribe seems to increase with each passing spring semester at graduation.

He had been asking to meet for a while. He wanted to talk about some of my research on the health of black preaching in late 20th century Chicago. Now anybody who has interest in my narrowly themed dissertation becomes a welcome companion. I thought we were going to talk about Parson and narrative discourse in preaching. I prepared to tell him about how the black Chicago neighborhoods became black ghettos through governmental experiments like “The Neighborhood Composition Rule.” I wanted to tell him about how black pastors bravely fought systemic injustice; recognizing it as a responsibility of the righteousness they preached. It turns out the conversation was different.

While studying theology at his small Bible college, he started to run up against the not so subtle jabs aimed at the black church. His professors and his peers wondered why someone so bright would return to the 'simplistic, unsophisticated' preaching of the black church.

While studying theology at his small Bible college, he started to run up against the not so subtle jabs aimed at the black church. His professors and his peers wondered why someone so bright would return to the “simplistic, unsophisticated” preaching of the black church. Far be it from them to name it heresy, but some of them came close. Black churches, he was told, don’t disciple well. Their preachers lack integrity, and their theology is overrun by prosperity teaching. He started to believe it. Before he knew it, he was a critic of the black church in which he got saved. And worse, he condemned the same preaching through which he met Christ.

I’m not exactly sure when it happened or how, but the movement is gaining steam. It is drawing young black aspiring pastors, theologians, and churchmen away from the black church. I felt compelled to say something. So I began urging young black preachers: Don’t let your newfound training turn you away from the black church! One brother replied asking I say more. So here it is.

My journey

By the grace of God alone I serve a growing, vibrant black church in Chicago, Progressive Baptist Church. I am young, sometimes restless, but not reformed. At our church, we are doing the hard work of church revitalization. We are developing ministry that neither alienates the elderly-traditional crowd nor ignores the younger-incoming crowd. For 96 years our church has demonstrated its passion to disciple its membership. More recently, we have turned our focus outward and it is bearing fruit. A hallmark at Progressive is the decidedly expositional, Spirit-filled preaching. We are a local, thriving black church in the hood. And we are not an anomaly.

I received my formal theological training at a predominantly white evangelical divinity school in the Chicago suburbs. It had its cultural blind spots, but it held to the same Bible I came to know and love in my black church back home. Not soon after orientation I noticed that some of the brothers were not going to black churches. Of course attending a black church is not a requirement for being a black man in America, but I found it strange that many of them preferred white churches to black ones. Some of them felt like black professors were inferior to the white professors and a few made fun of books published by black preachers. They couldn’t learn from black preachers or professors. You can only imagine my uneasiness with their depreciation of the heritage that so planted and nourished the faith of countless generations—including my own!

Present day problems

These days I run into an increasing number of young black aspiring pastors who loathe the black church. Turned off at the site of old deacons and trustees, they would rather plant a church in the inner city than candidate and pastor one already established. This is part of what one Illinois pastor has called “Gospel Gentrification.” I understand the impulse. Church planting is a biblical imperative. Unfortunately their motives for planting are often tinged with arrogance and a disdain for the older, established churches.

Lest I be accused of black church tribalism let me be clear: I recognize some glaring weaknesses of the black church in America, especially my own. One reason why a growing number of young men are opting out of the historic black church is because they cannot find the financial and denominational support to plant within the black church. There are notable exceptions of course. Eric Mason is one of them. He is turning the tide in Philadelphia by helping young black men locate resources to plant without denouncing the black church in the process. He is not alone, but there are too few like him.

Another challenge is the arduous process of church revitalization. This is no easy task. The patience, fortitude, and stamina required to overcome traditional encumbrances are significant. And yet there is no other way to turn an old ship.

I recognize that not everyone is wired for this work. However, those whose personalities don’t lend to such revitalization ought not demean a church they are unwilling to help. These are the days when we miss Bishop College. From one institution came the likes of James Meeks, Ralph West, Jeffrey Johnson, Major Jemison, E. K. Bailey, Karry Wesley, Melvin Wade, and a great many more. As her last graduates reach middle age, the black church in America has no equivalent replacement to train her succeeding generation of pastors. Where can young, black, aspiring pastor-theologians go?

Schools like Bishop College handled the issues of orthodoxy, social engagement, and disciple-making in the context of the black church. These days it seems like you have to pick one of those issues to the exclusion of the others before deciding on a school for formal training. And this is hurting young black aspiring pastors.

Three reasons to return

Yet in the face of these real challenges, I want to provide three reasons why young black preachers should not turn away from the historic black church.

1. You likely need her more than she needs you.

The savior complex is tempting, but it’s dangerous. Some of the young men I meet leave the black church because she didn’t compare to their newfound non-black church experience. Their mission is to show the black church how to do church right. They say, “Her theology is not robust. Her message is too ‘socially conscious.’ Her leaders lack moral integrity.”

Here’s the problem with such thinking: it overlooks the fact that these same tendencies exist in non-black churches. Don’t assume that any practice of theology is devoid of its own cultural deficiencies. Everybody from Jonathan Edwards to John Piper processes theology through their own cultural privilege or lack thereof. Gardner Taylor, William Augustus Jones, Charles Adams, Benjamin Elijah Mays, and many others did ministry, preaching, and theology in ways wonderfully informed by their black cultural experience. The American church is better because of them! Seek a balance in your training.

Not being able to find a biblically faithful black pastor of integrity is no excuse. We abound! In Illinois I served three godly men over 15 years who modeled discipline and discipleship for me. They are faithful to their wives, preached sound doctrine, and led the church in passionate worship—while remaining socially active in the civic affairs of their city.

2. Her historic theological heritage reflects the ethics and practice of Christian orthodoxy.

From Slavery to Reconstruction, from Jim Crow to Donald Trump, the black church has trained her members to live biblically and with hope in a foreign land. Her preaching has been faithfully biblical. Sadly, most neo-evangelical black student fail to even learn about the likes of Charles Adams, James Perkins, E. K. Bailey, A. Louis Patterson, E. V. Hill, and C. L. Franklin. Some in the academy make black preachers out to be mere entertainers, jesters of the cultural court. This is both dishonest and irresponsible.

There is this implicit loathing for the social application of the gospel in many critiques of the black church. The witness of black preaching is that our submission to the authority of Scripture demands that we engage societal injustice. The black church has not historically engaged in social justice in lieu of the gospel. It does so because of the gospel.

My generation will have to give an account for our strange silence in the wake of the #BlackLivesMatter movement. This is the first time that the black pulpit has not been at the forefront of the moral conversation of systemic injustice against black people in America. The witness of Frederick Douglass, Mary McLeod Bethune, M. K. Curry, Jr., Dr. Martin King, Jr. and countless others, is that they edified the church through the exposition of biblical propositions. They taught America to live according to our professed Christian ideals.

3. If you think the black church is full of heresy and prosperity teaching, stop going to church on TV.

Contrary to popular belief, black churches did not invent the prosperity gospel. Of course there are black churches that espouse a prosperity gospel. This is without question. And its wrong. But it is a dishonest to blame that tragedy on black churches and not decry its proliferation in non-black theological traditions. When I hear the criticism of the black church prosperity preaching the names of the preachers are almost always those with national television ministries, as if they are solely representative of the black church as a whole. I wonder if the people making these accusations know of black pastors in the trenches without famous names.

We should hear more about the ministries of young, faithful black pastors like Romell Williams, Phillip Pointer, Sr., George Parks, Jr., Carlos Kelley, Adron Robinson, George Hurtt, Terry Brown, Blake Wilson, Watson Jones III, Bryan Carter, Shaun Marshall, Walter Carter, and Kelon Duke. These are men who preach the Bible responsibly; who handle Christian theology appropriately and lead growing black churches. Be cautious of those who tell you that black churches are somehow inferior to white ones. They are simply uninformed or ill-intentioned.

The vitality of the black church is critical to the welfare of the church at large. We need a bigger conversation; one that involves those who are concerned about the coming generations of black pastors in America. With Millennials exiting churches around our nation, we need to strategize about how to best equip them for meaningful service in broken communities.

Much of black America lives in the tension of greater societal upheaval. The black church has historically been the voice of biblical conscience and transformation. My concern is that her next class of pastors needs a better-rounded education. We need Christian leaders and professors to encourage our young to humbly serve the black church.

Charlie Dates is the senior pastor at the historic Progressive Baptist Church in Chicago, Illinois.

This article was adapted from a post that originally appeared on ProgressiveChicago.org.