Black and Evangelical

Full Transcript by Chapter

INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER 1: SETTLE+MIGRATE
CHAPTER 2: HOME+ORPHAN
CHAPTER 3: NEGRO+BLACK
CHAPTER 4: BLACK+WHITE
CHAPTER 5: NOW+NOT YET
CHAPTER 6: EMBRACE+RELEASE
CHAPTER 7: CELEBRATION+ANTICIPATION

INTRODUCTION

Rev. Tom Skinner
00:00:02:19 - 00:01:15:28
African American people, Black people have been led to almost apologize for anything that had implications to Blackness. This has also been particularly true for the Christian community. In our theological thinking, we have apologized that God would have anything to do with Blackness. And that for the sake of unity, we must play that down, ignore it, act like it is not part of us or our heritage. And I believe that in our generation there must arise young Black men and women who love Jesus so much, and who love the gospel so much, and who love Black people so much, who would say that if going to hell could lead to the salvation of Black people, I would be prepared.

Dr. Carl Ellis
00:01:16:01-00:01:27:00
I was asked one time, am I an evangelical? I said, “well, it depends on how you look at it. In America, I can no longer identify as an evangelical. However, globally. Oh yeah.”

Dr. Carl Ellis
00:01:27:00-00:01:31:00
Sing it with us, we will work…

Dr. William “Bill” Pannell
00:01:31:00-00:01:39:00
I had a hard time trying to differentiate between white racist Christianity and the type set down in the Bible.

Rev. Ronald C. Potter
00:01:39:00-00:01:50:00
To attempt to define evangelicalism is problematic in and of itself. To attempt to define Black evangelicalism is even more problematic.

Dr. Albert “A.G.” Miller
00:01:50:00-00:02:00:00
The term has been so tainted now, people may feel more comfortable saying, oh yeah, I believe in that, but I don't want to be labeled that.

Dr. Stan Long
00:02:00:10-00:02:11:18
I think that one of the errors of the Black evangelical was the assumption that the Black church was not evangelical.

Rev. Dr. Walter McCray
00:02:11:21-00:02:33:11
We celebrate the history of a great Black people, and we celebrate a Black people with a great history. A Black evangelical is not a white evangelical in blackface. There's something very authentic and deeper. The most prominent Black evangelical in the Bible was Jesus.

Rev. Howard O. Jones
00:02:33:13-00:02:46:08
One of the great glaring problems that we have in the Christian church is racism. Racism is a sin in the evangelical church, and we need to deal with this.

Lisa Fields
00:02:46:11-00:02:55:25
It can be very challenging for Black people that are in majority evangelical contexts that may not have the same convictions around justice.

Dr. Henry Greenidge
00:02:56:01-00:03:03:17
White evangelicals have positioned us to be anti-Black theology and Black church.

Rev. Tom Skinner
00:03:03:20-00:03:07:29
To love Black people is not to be against anybody.

Rev. Brandon Washington
00:03:08:01-00:03:12:27
I would argue that our gospel message is mindful of our Blackness.

Rev. Tom Skinner
00:03:13:02-00:03:19:21
To love your redeemed Blackness is not to hate anybody. It is simply to be for yourselves.

Dr. Dwight Radcliff
00:03:19:26-00:03:26:12
Is the environment one that I can actually be unapologetically Black and unashamedly Christian? Right. Or do I have to become culturally white?

Dr. Joy Moore
00:03:26:19-00:03:51:03
One would hope that our Christian identity would be the place where we would belong most freely. And in actuality for a lot of persons of African descent, what that has equaled is the one place where I am most fake is the church. That means I have to walk in this in-between space.

Dr. Nicole Martin
00:03:51:06-00:04:03:11
How much of yourself is enough to show up and be validated in a certain space? Am I Black enough in this space or too Black? Am I evangelical enough in the space or too evangelical?

Dr. Jemar Tisby
00:04:03:14-00:04:19:17
The liminality of Black evangelicals is what makes them Black evangelicals.

Dr. William “Bill” Pannell
00:04:19:19-00:04:49:11
How do Black people become evangelicals, and why in the name of sense would they anyhow? But they did. Who were they and where did they go? What legacy do they did they leave behind? That's a very interesting and important story.

BLACK + EVANGELICAL

Dr. Vincent Bacote
00:04:49:13-00:05:18:18
There are more than 600 million evangelicals in the world and an estimated 90 million evangelicals in the United States. It's a religious category that transcends denomination, tradition, and race. Yet the term has become synonymous with a particular kind of white American Christianity. I am a Black evangelical. That doesn't just mean I'm an evangelical who happens to be Black. To be Black and evangelical today is to exist at a kind of crossroads of faith and race.

Dr. Vincent Bacote
00:05:18:18-00:05:47:24
It's a liminal space where you're forever trying to straddle two worlds. I grew up in a Black Baptist church, but when I joined a navigators Bible study in college, it introduced me to a new wing of Christianity, the world of American evangelicalism. I've now spent almost half my life as a professor at an evangelical college.

Dr. Vincent Bacote
00:05:47:26-00:06:24:14 I can't avoid navigating this crossroads where the traditional Black church meets institutional evangelicalism. What draws me or any of us to this intersection of Black evangelicalism? Why do we choose to live in this tension? To answer that, our story begins in the first half of the 20th century, when Black Americans were reshuffling across the country, and three brothers came from the Bahamas to evangelize them.

Back to the Top

CHAPTER ONE: SETTLE + MIGRATE

Rev. Derrick Rollerson
00:06:24:16-00:06:52:25
Westlawn Gospel Chapel, this is like second home for me. Back in the ‘50s, three families moved over into North Lawndale. My family, the Rollersons, the Yates and the Banks. And so they planted a church here in North Lawndale. And what's incredible is, as African Americans were coming in, our white counterparts were quickly moving out. So within ten years, it became about 90% African American.

Rev. Mark Soderquist
00:06:52:29-00:07:17:06
This story of this church connects with the story of this nation, is a part of the Great Migration North. African Americans trying to escape Jim Crow and the lynchings down in the South, coming up north to the big cities where there were jobs. This was a neighborhood in Chicago, like other neighborhoods, that African Americans started moving in.

Rev. Mark Soderquist
00:07:17:13-00:07:41:09
Of course, they discovered racism here - a different flavor - but, and one of the ways that that manifested itself was white flight. And so, in 1950, this neighborhood was a white neighborhood. By 1960 it was 90% Black. The church was planted right in the middle of that white flight, the white flight years.

Rev. Derrick Rollerson
00:07:41:12-00:07:50:08
Growing up in that context and seeing some of these dynamics and having discussions about that since I was a child has helped to shape me in my faith.

Dr. Vincent Bacote
00:07:50:14-00:07:54:17
Westlawn Gospel Chapel. What kind of church is this in terms of its roots?

Rev. Derrick Rollerson
00:07:54:19-00:08:12:23
Well, Westlawn Gospel Chapel is a Plymouth Brethren church in its roots. Part of our history goes back to the Caribbean, to the Bahamas. There were three brothers that came over from the Bahamas, the Nottage brothers, absolutely.

Dr. Carl Ellis
00:08:12:23-00:08:34:01
B.M. Nottage, T.B. Nottage and Whitfield Nottage came over from the Bahamas and they got involved with the Brethren assemblies in the, in, in New York. And they began to attract a lot of Blacks, you know, saying, hey, this is what we need. These are these northern kids, you know, who are more oriented, you know, towards uh, because of public school system, toward a more cognitive approach.

Dr. Albert “A.G.” Miller
00:08:34:03-00:08:39:19
The Nottage brothers came with the specific intent to really be evangelists.

Dr. William “Bill” Pannell
00:08:39:22-00:08:50:28
They really wanted to preach the gospel. They want people to be saved. They ended up in Philadelphia, Cleveland and Detroit.

Dr. Albert “A.G.” Miller
00:08:51:00-00:09:08:28
B.M. worked his way across the Great Lakes, working at establishing churches in the Buffalo area and then in Cleveland and then Detroit. He made his way into Chicago, reaching out. That's where he ends up connecting with Moody Bible Institute. But his base is in is in Detroit.

Dr. William “Bill” Pannell
00:09:09:00-00:09:24:27
I had heard of him, learned he was preaching in a missions conference in a church funded and pastored by a friend of mine, so I invited myself to lunch and that's how I met the man. He invited me to Detroit and so forth. And the rest was history.

Dr. Albert “A.G.” Miller
00:09:25:01-00:09:37:06
B.M. and his wife did not have children. And so that's how, you know, Bill and a couple of others become kind of adopted into, into the family once he connects with them.

Dr. William “Bill” Pannell
00:09:37:13-00:09:46:28
We became good friends. And in some ways, I often wondered if I wasn't maybe the son he’d never had.

Dr. William “Bill” Pannell
00:09:46:28-00:10:04:09
The Christian Workers Fellowship of Detroit, Michigan, presents the Bible News Hour, designed to focus attention on the Word of God and its relevance to our times. Music is by Verna Holly and Bill Pannell.

Dr. William “Bill” Pannell
00:10:04:09-00:10:07:06
Redeemed, redeemed, redeemed by the blood of the Lamb. Redeemed…

Dr. William “Bill” Pannell
00:10:07:08-00:10:29:00
Nottage’s passion in preaching the gospel was to reach everybody in general and as he put it on WMBI radio, quote unquote, our own colored people in particular. That was his passion.

Dr. William “Bill” Pannell
00:10:29:00-00:10:34:00
And now here with today's meditation from the Word of God is B.M. Nottage.

B.M. Nottage
00:10:34:05-00:10:57:11
We're happy to be here in this program today, and I'll say, this is B.M. Nottage speaking. We're coming out from the very heart of the colored area of Detroit, and we feel that proclaiming the gospel is the best contribution that we can make of the glory of God and the well-being of society in general.

Dr. William “Bill” Pannell
00:10:57:13-00:11:36:28
Nottage was a Bible guy. Lord have mercy. I’ve never, I have never seen it. I had never been a part of a man man's life, a ministry that was so saturated with Scripture as that man. And the scriptures that he was particularly captivated by was that part of the Word of God, that Pauline tradition that Nottage used to tell Black people who they really were, that they were really somebody.

B.M. Nottage
00:11:37:00-00:12:02:05
God is saving people out of every kindred and tongue and race and nation. And uniting them in a great society with Jesus Christ at the head, and all of us as members of his body, of his church, of his flesh, and of his bones, and members one to another. United to God, loving God by faith in Jesus Christ and loving people.

B.M. Nottage
00:12:02:07-00:12:07:27
You can't love God and not love people. They both go together.

Dr. William “Bill” Pannell
00:12:07:29-00:12:22:20
Oh my goodness. If you wanted to get Nottage’s attention, mention that you had a ministry in the Black community on the south end of some town, someplace. And he his eyes would brighten. He'd say, “Oh, really? Tell me about that.”

Rev. Derrick Rollerson
00:12:22:24-00:12:37:13
B.M. in particular ministered in the Midwest and I think maybe that's part of of why we have such a strong affinity towards young people. Because he would embrace folk, draw ‘em in, and giving them opportunities in the gospel.

Rev. Mark Soderquist
00:12:37:17-00:12:41:28
The Nottage brothers and especially B.M. Nottage had this incredible impact.

Rev. Derrick Rollerson
00:12:42:03-00:12:55:22
These brothers were very engaging, drawing people in, getting them involved, sending them out. All kinds of ministries started opening up. Churches started becoming associated with this movement, some who already planted, but then they identified with the Brethren.

Dr. Albert “A.G.” Miller
00:12:55:24-00:13:14:13
So you have these interesting networks about kind of, mostly Baptist churches, but then you have the kind of Brethren connections and they kind of create these loose affiliations and networks that began to emerge, you know, across the country.

Dr. William “Bill” Pannell
00:13:14:15-00:13:32:10
As recently as this past year when I'm on, I did a Zoom thing. And I knew a lot of the people on the other end of that camera. They're his kids, his grandkids, spiritually. All over the place. All over the place.

B.M. Nottage
00:13:32:10-00:13:52:17
Lord, bless the Word to all who listen today and glorify the name of the Lord Jesus and blessing Christians and saving sinners. Goodbye. This is B.M. Nottage saying God bless you until the next message.

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CHAPTER TWO: HOME + ORPHAN

Dr. Vincent Bacote
00:13:52:19-00:14:17:06
While not all Black evangelicals trace their heritage to B.M. Nottage, his ministry and emphasis on biblical education are an example of what draws many of us to this world of evangelicalism. Growing up, the soulful culture of the traditional Black church was deeply a part of who I am. But I also resonated with evangelicalism’s more cerebral emphasis on discipleship and biblical inquiry.

Dr. Vincent Bacote
00:14:17:08-00:14:35:08
It was different from my upbringing, and in the past, I have to admit, it made me judgmental of the Black church. These offerings have led many Black Christians to find new homes within evangelical schools and organizations, even when many of us were not entirely treated like part of the family.

Dr. William “Bill” Pannell
00:14:35:10-00:15:03:15
If I were going to do some research, I would start in New York and I would work my way across the country till I got to LA, and I would trace the root system of a Black evangelicalism in all of these northern white evangelical institutions that, however tentatively, gave some of us a welcome.

Dr. Jemar Tisby
00:15:03:21-00:15:23:09
In the North and the Midwest you actually had the institutions and the infrastructure for Black evangelicals to enter into. By that, I mean, you had Moody, Wheaton. You had the headquarters of different places, from InterVarsity to Campus Crusade and those kinds of things.

Dr. Ruth Lewis Bentley
00:15:23:09-00:15:26:05
I went through Wheaton College.

Dr. Ruth Lewis Bentley
00:15:26:07-00:15:30:21
Got a master's there as well, went to InterVarsity.

Dr. Stan Long
00:15:30:23-00:15:38:00
I went away to a Bible school in Rhode Island called Zion Bible Institute, which was a Pentecostal school.

Dr. Albert “A.G.” Miller
00:15:38:00-00:15:50:00
I enter into this evangelical world through two portals. One is Young Life and the other one is InterVarsity Christian Fellowship.

Dr. Soong-Chan Rah
00:15:50:00-00:16:09:00
In the ‘70s, ‘60s, post-World War two, we begin to see the emergence of a kind of a specific iteration of evangelicalism, and this would be U.S. capital E evangelicalism, the emergence of publishing, the emergence of seminaries and Christian colleges. Parachurches emerged during this time with some significant authority.

Dr. Soong-Chan Rah
00:16:09:22-00:17:09:11
These become places where evangelicals with the lowercase e begin to form a, infrastructure with capital E. It's where a lot of funding goes through. It's where a lot of the relational networks and even the power dynamics are at work. And that's where Black evangelicalism is emerging out of.

Dr. Stan Long
00:16:27:00-00:17:07:00
I started working at the American Tract Society, which was again one of those white organizations, and being like the only Black working in a white organization, what happened was we tended to find other Blacks who were working in white organizations and we started coming together. We started sharing ideas and thoughts and we were being exposed to, I would say, a broader understanding of of the gospel message. We were learning a lot, but we still were kind of, like islands.

Dr. Stan Long
00:17:09:14-00:17:32:28
We were still out there kind of by ourselves. I think we mistakenly withdrew from our traditional Black churches thinking that we had something better. And later discovered that we didn't have anything better. We may have had something a little different, but it wasn't better.

Dr. William “Bill” Pannell
00:17:33:01-00:18:18:15
Later on we would be invited to speak, or we would be invited to teach a class or, join a faculty here and there - a board, of course. And so we got and we stayed in touch with these schools, even as we knew that sometimes we were not quite first class.

Dr. William “Bill” Pannell
00:18:18:18-00:18:29:25
We are the orphaned children of evangelicalism. We were raised in evangelical schools and trained in evangelical schools. Our models were evangelical leaders and so forth and so on. There just wasn't any room for us in evangelicalism.

Dr. Vincent Bacote
00:18:29:28-00:18:55:11
This crossroad experience of being an orphan in our home faith community has taken many shapes over the years. In the wake of the assassination of Doctor King, Campus Crusade for Christ founder Bill Bright brought together a small but influential group of Black evangelical leaders. They met to discuss the challenges of reaching Black communities against the backdrop of social despair and unrest.

Dr. Vincent Bacote
00:18:55:14-00:19:01:00
The intentions may have been good, but the experience was one that became sadly familiar.

Dr. Ruth Lewis Bentley
00:19:01:02-00:19:21:23
It was billed… and the way it was billed actually was an insult. It was billed as to take the at least 40 or 50 of the best Black leaders it could find and teach them how to reach Black people in America.

Dr. Vincent Bacote
00:19:21:26-00:19:25:29
Really? Reach Black people in America?

Dr. Ruth Lewis Bentley
00:19:26:02-00:19:28:25
With for Christ, you know, lead them to Christ.

Dr. Vincent Bacote
00:19:28:27-00:19:29:18
And because

Dr. Ruth Lewis Bentley
00:19:29:18-00:19:33:01
And the methodology was the four spiritual laws.

Dr. Vincent Bacote
00:19:33:03-00:19:34:04
Ah.

Dr. Ruth Lewis Bentley
00:19:34:06-00:19:39:19 They wanted Black people to really be saved.

Dr. Walter McCray
00:19:39:22-00:19:40:20
Yeah.

Dr. Vincent Bacote
00:19:40:22-00:19:44:00
And they didn't think that they were being saved in Black churches?

Dr. Ruth Lewis Bentley
00:19:44:00-00:19:45:00
Mm-mm.

Dr. Albert “A.G.” Miller
00:19:45:22-00:19:53:00
They've been invited by Bill Bright to talk about what? Who knows what, but maybe, what, reconciliation and fellowship.

Dr. Vincent Bacote
00:19:53:00-00:19:54:00
Right.

Dr. Albert “A.G.” Miller
00:19:54:00-00:20:15:00
And they're trying to deal with the urban crises that the city has gone up in flames. Just as they're getting into intensive conversation, Bill Bright says, “well, we need to we need to stop and pray.” What? Pray? What do you think we've been doing here?

Dr. Ruth Lewis Bentley
00:20:16:10-00:20:32:16
Bill Bright walked out of the prayer meeting. He said, “I think we need to concentrate on the solutions to the problem, not the problems themselves.” And, you know, so Bill and others said to him, “You don't know what the questions are. You can't get the solution if you don't know the question.”

Dr. Vincent Bacote
00:20:32:16-00:20:38:05
Yes. Right. Right.

Dr. Ruth Lewis Bentley
00:20:38:05-00:20:46:11
I think they genuinely thought that they could help us. But they just but they just did not know us.

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CHAPTER THREE: NEGRO + BLACK

Dr. Vincent Bacote
00:20:46:13-00:21:19:28
While I value the evangelical world, sometimes its values are silent to matters of racial identity and justice. How does our faith relate to matters of systemic prejudice and social inequality? Since the birth of evangelicalism, these questions have been contentious, both with the larger evangelical community and even among Black evangelicals ourselves. Amidst the tensions, in 1963, a group of Black leaders formed the National Negro Evangelical Association.

Dr. Vincent Bacote
00:21:20:00-00:21:45:09
Their purpose was to advocate for the Black Christian community in a way that the mostly white National Association of Evangelicals could not.

Dr. Vincent Bacote
00:21:45:11-00:21:50:02
So, when does the NNEA first emerge?

Dr. Walter McCray
00:21:50:05-00:22:42:08
The National Negro Evangelical Association was founded in 1963, in Pasadena, California, after a time or year of cottage meetings and prayers of participants that were held all over the country. They came together with a focus for ministry or mission toward the Black community. William Hiram Bentley, the father of NBEA, he likened the formation to what happened in terms of Black church development in America - because we had an authentic relationship in African descended culture with the Lord - that was not akin to what was taking place in white Christian circles.

Rev. Dr. William Hiram Bentley
00:22:42:10-00:23:11:07
Or when we first began the National Negro Evangelical Association, I think it was a necessary move. Nobody but us can interpret the Black community adequately. And as evangelicals, we had been pushed aside for so long, it was impossible for us to remain within the context as it was set up. And I do not limit myself to remarks about the National Association of Evangelicals - but, I mean, even the evangelical institutions in which we trained.

Dr. Walter McCray
00:23:11:09-00:23:46:10
Some of the early organizers and those who associated with them, they came from differing perspectives. There were men, there were women, there were ministers, preachers, pastors, lay persons. There were those who had a strong Black consciousness and those who had otherwise not a strong Black consciousness, but all of them had a consciousness. We need to do something for ourselves.

Dr. Walter McCray
00:23:46:12-00:23:55:19
And even more so, we need to do something for the Black community, our community. Alright. So there was a mission focus.

Dr. Ruth Lewis Bentley
00:23:55:22-00:24:06:01
The idea was to bring those groups together, you know, the people who were out doing their own thing, but that there would be power in the group formation.

Dr. Walter McCray
00:24:06:04-00:24:14:22
Doctor Ruth Bentley, she is the remaining living co-founder of NNEA.

Dr. Ruth Lewis Bentley
00:24:14:22-00:24:31:24
The National Black Evangelical Association was established to increase fellowship among those of us who were in ministry in the Black community, but also to address the problems that we face as a people in the country. And we're still doing that today.

Dr. Walter McCray
00:24:31:26-00:24:56:07
Now, how some would define reaching the Black community with the gospel of Jesus Christ, it would differ, all right, because some would say now, now, we got to deal with issues of social action. We got to deal with issues of power. We got to deal with issues of disenfranchisement and so on and so forth.

Dr. Walter McCray
00:24:56:07-00:25:09:28
Others will say, no, we just got to preach the gospel. And the heart of the matter is the matter of the heart. And when folk get saved, change and deal with the sin problem, then everything going to be all right.

Dr. Vincent Bacote
00:25:10:01-00:25:20:15
So while this is happening, what is your recollection, your awareness of how the broader white evangelical community was responding to the fact of their being an NNEA?

Dr. Walter McCray
00:25:20:18-00:25:50:16
Well, many of the white evangelical community, I think they had different responses. If they were in association with some of the prominent Black evangelical leaders or Negro evangelical leaders, they understood. They supported. They came. Other white evangelicals would not understand it. And they would say, why can't we just get along and all be one together?

Dr. Walter McCray
00:25:50:18-00:26:04:29
And what they mean is that Blacks should be a part of the NAEs, etc. and submit to white leadership.

Dr. Vincent Bacote
00:26:05:02-00:26:20:15
Howard Jones was the president of the NNEA and a member of the NAE. He was a pioneer in both organizations, having been the first African American preacher to join evangelist Billy Graham's crusade team.

Billy Graham
00:26:20:18-00:26:37:22
And in every one of these crusades, we have associate evangelists. Most of them preach far better sermons than I do. The first one I want you to meet is Mr. Howard Jones. He's just recently come with us. Now he's on his way to Africa to preach the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Rev. Howard O. Jones
00:26:37:24-00:26:58:03
Now, I remember in ‘57 when Billy invited me to join the team, I was the first Black. And there were a lot of white pastors in New York that was against my being on that team. Billy asked me, he said, “There aren’t enough Blacks and ethnic people coming to Madison Square Garden. What would you suggest?” I said, “Go where there are.”

Rev. Howard O. Jones
00:26:58:05-00:27:20:28
And he said, “What do you mean?” I said, “Go to Harlem.” Some white Christians said, “Don't go to Harlem. Those people will assassinate you.” And we couldn't believe it, you know. And he stuck by me and the members of the team when I thought at times I wouldn't be able to stay on it because friends of the team resented me being on the team, wouldn't sit with me on the platform.

Rev. Howard O. Jones
00:27:21:00-00:27:27:28
I like to think that when we get to heaven, that it’s going to be an integrated society. You know, that's the true body of Christ.

Dr. Vincent Bacote
00:27:28:01-00:28:14:02
Even with all his accolades, Jones still felt the tension between two worlds. On one side were white Christians who criticized Graham's decision to put a Black man on his team. On the other were Black Christians who felt Graham's response to America's racial crisis lacked the urgency demanded by the moment. This kind of contention was emblematic of the broader cultural shifts around Black identity. When the National Negro Evangelical Association eventually changed its name to the National Black Evangelical Association. It was more than just a sign of the times. It represented a shift in how the majority of Black evangelicals understood themselves and their place in the national struggle for equality.

Dr. William “Bill” Pannell
00:28:14:05-00:28:36:05
White America had slept through a revolution, especially white evangelical Christians. And one of the ways that they exhibited their slumber was by getting on airplanes and going into all the world. Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Male College Student
00:28:36:07-00:28:44:00
Not that I don’t dig working with the Black people in other countries, but we had to get ourselves together first. How can you just go and try to get somebody’s house together when yours is falling apart?

Dr. Stan Long
00:28:44:00-00:28:59:01
One of the most notable things, I think, was the rise of Elijah Muhammad. Malcolm X, and the pressure of that movement on Black youth.

Dr. Stan Long
00:28:59:03-00:29:04:14
You had the growth of - I would call it aggressiveness.

Female College Student
00:29:04:16-00:29:12:07
Black people have a problem here in this country. They've got faith, they're in a struggle. And their struggle is for survival.

Dr. Stan Long
00:29:12:09-00:29:21:20
We were struggling to find how do we respond to this in a way that has some credibility to it?

Dr. Carl Ellis
00:29:21:22-00:29:51:23
There began to be a group of us who began to think, we're going to have to engage this new consciousness, this new Black consciousness. And therein was the beginning of kind of a divide among Black evangelicals. There were some of us who wanted to stay true to the, the, the evangelical theology outlook that was handed down to us from the dominant Christian culture.

Dr. Carl Ellis
00:29:51:23-00:30:02:21
And there were others of us who wanted to say, no, we need to we need to not take our base from the from the theology, take it from the Bible, and go directly apply it to the African American context, where there where there was this emerging, consciousness going on.

Dr. Walter McCray
00:30:02:27-00:30:32:29
We chose at that particular time in Black history to define ourselves, to choose which term we felt best suited us in the social, political, environment, cultural or racial environment of the United States of America. We were Black. However, as I'm recalling, there were some Blacks who disassociated at that meeting because of the name change and identity change from Negro to Black.

Dr. Jemar Tisby
00:30:33:01-00:31:07:12
There's this big shift happening in the civil rights and Black power move. There's this transition from freedom now to Black power as the slogan. From Negro, which Martin Luther King Jr. typically said to Black, which folks like Stokely Carmichael and SNCC, Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee said. And to embrace the term Black was a more sort of confrontational, militant, proud interpreted as right a reclaiming, proudly claiming one's racial identity.

Dr. Jemar Tisby
00:31:07:15-00:31:21:20
And all of these changes are also affecting Black evangelicals, so they’re like, do we need to still call ourselves Negro or Black?

Back to the Top

CHAPTER FOUR: BLACK + WHITE

Dr. Vincent Bacote
00:31:21:23-00:31:45:27
It's easy to look at these crossroads as an either-or situation. You're either Negro or Black. You're either with Stokely or Martin. You're either Black or evangelical. What does it mean to be both in a world expecting either-or? This question was urgent in the 1960s and ‘70s, when a new generation of Black evangelicals made their way to the podiums.

Dr. Vincent Bacote
00:31:45:29-00:31:51:16
Many gifted communicators emerged in this era. One of them was Tom Skinner.

Dr. Henry Greenidge
00:31:51:18-00:32:02:29
My two contemporary heroes at that time was Malcolm X and Tom Skinner. Malcolm would be preaching on one corner. Tom would be preaching on the other.

Rev. Tom Skinner
00:32:03:02-00:32:22:24
I was born in a little community called Harlem, which is typical of most Black communities throughout America. I could not reconcile Christianity with the kind of community that Harlem was. And so, I wrote the church off. But in my frustration and bitterness, I became a member of one of the leading gangs in Harlem, which I will not go into detail.

Rev. Tom Skinner
00:32:22:24-00:32:30:25
But the problem was, I wrote off any Christian message. I accepted it as the white man's attempt to subjugate me, to brainwash me.

Dr. Henry Greenidge
00:32:30:27-00:32:43:20
He was 17. I was 16, and my father wanted me to meet somebody who was on fire for Jesus. I was kind of lukewarm at the time. My dad said, “I want to meet. I heard about this young Baptist preacher.”

Rev. Tom Skinner
00:32:43:23-00:33:02:16
And so, I became very angry and very bitter. I got to the point that I could bust a bottle across the fella’s head and be undisturbed about it, break the bottle in half and jig the glass in the space and not bat my eye. By the time I left the gang, I had 22 notches on the handle of my knife, which meant that my blade had gone into the bodies of 22 different people.

Rev. Tom Skinner
00:33:02:16-00:33:08:07
And I didn't care. All that mattered to me was that Tom Skinner got what he wanted. How he got it made absolutely no difference.

Dr. Henry Greenidge
00:33:08:14-00:33:25:05
I went down to 125th Street, Lenox Avenue. He was doing the street meeting, and I watched him preach and and give an invitation. I watched winos and drug addicts and people just standing around the corner. When he gave that invitation, they came forward, knelt down on the curb.

Rev. Tom Skinner
00:33:25:07-00:33:48:10
Quite by accident. One night I was mapping out strategy for what was to have been the largest scale gang fight ever to take place in New York City. And for the first time, my rock and roll program was interrupted by by a very simple program where a guy started talking from a passage written in Second Corinthians, chapter five, verse seventeen which says, “Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creation.

Rev. Tom Skinner
00:33:48:12-00:33:51:21
Old things have passed away, and behold, all things have become new.”

Dr. Henry Greenidge
00:33:51:23-00:34:09:08
It blew my mind because at that time, the only people who were public about their faith were Black Muslims. Black Christians were dynamic in the church, but you didn't see that kind of evangelism. And so, Tom was just blowing people's minds.

Rev. Brenda Grier-Miller
00:34:09:10-00:34:30:18
I was about 14 years old when I made a faith commitment - actually was some time in Skinner’s ministry. He was speaking at a church. I went to hear him speak, and the reality was that Tom said something I had never heard before, about taking a personal a personal endeavor with God and inviting Christ into my life.

Dr. Stan Long
00:34:30:20-00:34:50:03
My association with Skinner started with the Harlem Crusade, which was one of our first attempts at approaching the presentation of the gospel in a kind of a Billy Graham form. And the Harlem Crusade was sort of like the beginning of Skinner’s notoriety.

Dr. Vincent Bacote
00:34:50:05-00:34:57:20
Both of you wind up working for Tom Skinner. How does Skinner become, if you will, the figurehead?

Dr. William “Bill” Pannell
00:34:57:22-00:35:02:28
Oh. That's simple. That's where the cameras were. This is a celebrity culture.

Dr. Henry Greenidge
00:35:03:00-00:35:05:07
He wasn't churchy.

Dr. Henry Greenidge
00:35:05:10-00:35:32:07
He was, at times, he could be conversational. At times, he was like a stand-up comedian. He had his jokes that he would drop. Like one of his favorite was, “The neighborhood I grew up, we didn't have grass. At least not the kind that you walk on.” He just did things different. And it was in line with the young activists, with Malcolm and Stokely, who were talking about the power of Blackness.

Dr. Henry Greenidge
00:35:32:10-00:35:35:05
And he had written that book, Black and Free.

Dr. Vincent Bacote
00:35:35:07-00:35:39:14
Is it because of his personal narrative? Is it his personality?

Dr. William “Bill” Pannell
00:35:39:16-00:35:56:00
It's all of that. Yeah, it's all of that. You know, Skinner has this great story, as ex-gang leader, it fits into the grand evangelistic tradition of white folks from Dwight Moody on up to Graham and so forth. Somebody gets saved out of this despicable.

Dr. Vincent Bacote
00:35:56:00 00:35:58:00
Oh, the evangelical conversion era.

Dr. William “Bill” Pannell
00:35:58:00 00:36:20:17
All that, all that, all that stuff. And he becomes and the model and the and the voice of that. He became the Black evangelical voice, the great Black hope that somehow or other we had guys like Skinner, we could save the city from its decadence, all that kind of stuff, right?

Dr. Carl Ellis
00:36:20:00 00:36:21:00
Mm hmm

Dr. William “Bill” Pannell
00:36:21:00 00:36:23:00
We all Black folks need to be saved.

Dr. Carl Ellis
00:36:23:00 00:36:25:00
That's right. Right. You need, you need a Moses.

Dr. William “Bill” Pannell
00:36:25:00 00:36:46:23
Yeah. Really? All that mess. Does Tom become the merger of the Graham model and Martin King? Whoa.

Dr. Jemar Tisby
00:36:46:25 00:37:17:11
What happens at Urbana in 1970 actually doesn't start in 1970. It starts in 1967. Urbana is a conference that happens every three years. So the ‘67 conference had a sprinkling of Black folks there. College students who are coming for this missions conference, getting equipped to go out and take the gospel to the world, right? Black evangelicals, even as college students are sitting there like – y’all are talking about going across the ocean to tell people about Jesus.

Dr. Jemar Tisby
00:37:17:13-00:37:48:03
And most of y'all are white evangelicals. But you're not in my neighborhood. You're not on my HBCU campus. You don't understand the concerns of people who are right across the street from you. And you want to go across a continent, right? So they're feeling invisible, left out, unseen. And it's 1967. So they're thinking through all these things and they go to Urbana ‘67, and it's a typical white-bread evangelical conference.

00:37:43:00-00:37:47:00
‘Cause Jesus saved me from my sins.

Rev. Ronald C. Potter
00:37:48:06-00:38:03:00
There were only a few African American students there out of maybe about 8 to 9 thousand students. There were probably only less than 200 Black American students there.

Dr. Carl Ellis
00:38:03:00-00:38:14:09
A bunch of us went to Urbana, not a whole lot, but but I'm sitting through and I'm taking in all this wonderful teaching. But at the same time, something is gnawing me, gnawing at me. I said, there's something wrong here. There's something wrong.

Rev. Ronald C. Potter
00:38:14:09-00:38:27:14
We got together because we wanted to get more Black students to come. But we felt somehow that we were a tad bit ostracized there. We didn't know why. So we had an all-night prayer meeting.

Dr. Carl Ellis
00:38:27:17-00:38:38:11
We prayed fervently. I mean, I'm telling you, it was like we were screaming at God. It wasn't that we were angry at him, but we were frustrated because, God, how can you, how can you boycott us like that?

Dr. Jemar Tisby
00:38:38:13-00:39:38:13
So they say, hey, we need to do something about this. Actually a couple of Black students, Carl Ellis, Elward Ellis, not related. They get on a planning advisory council for the next Urbana, and they're the ones who recommend Tom Skinner. So they get approval for Skinner to come. And then begins this huge marketing campaign. I love it, they actually put together a promo video, like a 20-minute video, because they knew these Black college students who went to Urbana in ‘67 knew they would have to make a case to Black college students to come to this white evangelical conference.

Dr. Jemar Tisby
00:39:38:15-00:39:59:27
So they put together a video, and Carl Ellis is there with an afro and a dashiki. You've got djembe drum playing. You know, it's a reclamation of their Africanness, which goes right along with what was happening with the Black Power and Black Consciousness Movements at the time. And they would screen this video with Black students at different college campuses and then have a discussion.

Dr. Jemar Tisby
00:40:00:00-00:40:15:14
And in the video they're asking questions like, you know. Isn't Christianity a honky religion? You know, they're using the terms of the day, right? And they're trying to confront head on the potential objection.

Dr. Jemar Tisby
00:40:15:16-00:40:16:27
But it works.

Urbana ’70 Promo Video
00:40:16:29-00:40:42:23
Interested in solution? Urbana ‘70. The ninth InterVarsity Christian Fellowship missionary convention. Could you be serious? Yeah, man. I'm for real. Are you really interested in helping people get themselves together, brother? Yeah, man, but dig it. Missions ain't nothing but Christian racism. Christianity is nothing but an extension of colonialism. Christianity is a tool for enslaving Black people.

Urbana ’70 Promo Video
00:40:42:25-00:40:46:07
Is this really what God's worldwide program is all about in the ‘70s?

Rev. Ronald C. Potter
00:40:46:10-00:41:13:06
They interviewed several students here at Wheaton, Black students at Wheaton. You'll see me sitting on my bunk bed at Fischer Hall, pontificating in a Schaefferian style. You know, I had a hard time trying to differentiate between white racist Christianity and the type set down in the Bible. And I think there at the convention, I learned that the differentiation does and must exist.

Rev. Ronald C. Potter
00:41:13:08-00:41:19:26
I think that it related to my own Black experience and basically it was well worth my while going.

Dr. William “Bill” Pannell
00:41:19:29-00:41:47:10
Wham. So what we did leading up to that event was in some ways more important than the speech itself, and that was kind of headed up by Carl and others. And Black students turned out and that Urbana like they'd never before, turned out because they really actually believed that when we said they could make a difference if they came, that's they came.

Dr. William “Bill” Pannell
00:41:47:12-00:42:08:25
We had at several separate meetings, that finally the white students, wanted, they wanted to get in on that and they did. We've just packed the place out and we had wonder, woo, we had church. I'm telling you, it was really something. So that in some ways, the best story of that event wasn't what happened that night that Skinner spoke.

Dr. William “Bill” Pannell
00:42:08:25-00:42:14:00
As important as that was, that was kind of the capstone of what had been going on that whole time.

Dr. Vincent Bacote
00:42:14:00-00:42:15:00
Okay. Right.

Dr. Vincent Bacote
00:42:17:06-00:42:35:17
The campaign to recruit more Black students was effective. Urbana ‘70 saw more Black students in attendance than ever before. This was a pivotal moment at the intersection of Black Christianity and white evangelicalism. Wednesday night, Tom Skinner spoke.

Rev. Ronald C. Potter
00:42:35:19-00:42:39:15
All the Black students sat together on the first floor.

Dr. Jemar Tisby
00:42:39:18-00:42:51:29
They're all front and center for Tom Skinner when he comes to talk. They are the Amen corner.

Dr. Henry Greenidge
00:42:52:02-00:43:14:21
Soul Liberation emerged from the blending of Black evangelical emphasis on Black liberation and biblical Christian lifestyle.

Dr. Henry Greenidge
00:43:14:23-00:43:35:29
I don't even know how we actually got on the program. When we arrived at Urbana, we were told, okay, you know, you guys got three minutes. And at that time, the leadership of InterVarsity was very much in line with that Graham musical ethos. They had a pipe organ for the music. They sang hymns and so forth.

Dr. Henry Greenidge
00:43:36:02-00:43:58:16
And here we come up with this ragtag group of African garb on, and we using drums, and guitar and bass and all that. And then the song that I wrote, I wrote a song called Power to the People. When we started the song, it was like an electric current shot up in that place. These kids got on their feet and they started singing.

Dr. Henry Greenidge
00:43:58:19-00:44:22:13
When we were done, I'm ushering the people off and the crowd is on their feet and they're shouting, more! more! Then, of course, right after we sang, then they brought Tom on. And that was like, well, we set the stage for him.

Dr. Jemar Tisby
00:44:22:16-00:44:26:13
What I love as a historian? He begins his speech by saying.

Rev. Tom Skinner
00:44:26:17-00:44:38:04
Any understanding of world evangelism and racism in our country must begin with an understanding of the history of racism.

Dr. Jemar Tisby
00:44:38:07-00:44:40:25
You have to understand history.

Rev. Tom Skinner
00:44:40:28-00:45:05:03
To understand why we are in the middle of a revolution and our time, to come to grips with what the what the Black revolution is all about, and to understand what the nature of racism in our society is, I must take you back approximately 350 years to when the early ships landed in this country in approximately 1619.

Dr. Jemar Tisby
00:45:05:05-00:45:25:04
So he starts all the way back in 1619 with the arrival of 20 and odd Negroes at Port Comfort in Virginia, British colonial Virginia. And then he traces the history. What he's doing is showing the compromise and complicity of white evangelicals in U.S. racism.

Rev. Tom Skinner
00:45:25:10-00:45:47:04
And let's understand that slavery was upheld by three sectors of society. First, it was upheld by the political system, secondly, by the economic system, and thirdly, by the religious system. Numerous churches and denominations preached that slavery was a divine institution ordained by God.

Dr. Jemar Tisby
00:45:47:07-00:45:57:01
And what he does is he uses history to set up what's happening in his time in 1970 with race and evangelicalism.

Rev. Tom Skinner
00:45:57:03-00:46:17:02
And for a great extent, the evangelical church in America supported the status quo. It supported slavery. It supported segregation. It preached against any attempt of the Black man to stand on his own two feet. And where there were those who sought to communicate the gospel to Black people, it was always done in a way to make sure that they stayed cool.

Rev. Tom Skinner
00:46:17:07-00:46:38:20
We would preach the gospel to those folks so they won't riot. We will preach the gospel to them so that we keep the lid on the garbage pail. And so, they were careful to point out such scriptures as obey your masters, those scriptures which said, love your enemy, do good to them that hurt you. But no one ever talked about a message which would also speak to the oppressor.

Dr. Jemar Tisby
00:46:38:22-00:46:53:04
And he's basically saying, you all are so eager to go preach the gospel to Black and brown people in some other country, but you don't have the concern or the care for Black folks right here where you are.

Rev. Tom Skinner
00:46:53:07-00:47:12:21
In this context, the question then becomes how in all the world do you communicate the gospel, whatever that is? How do you go in and communicate the message of Jesus Christ to a society that has been cut off from the rest of society, in which those people who proclaim Christ have participated in their oppression?

Dr. Jemar Tisby
00:47:12:23-00:47:31:04
So what Skinner does is contextualize Jesus in the gospel to a 1970s Black Power era, urban, mostly Black context. And it's something that people haven't heard before.

Rev. Tom Skinner
00:47:31:06-00:47:56:12
Now perhaps, one of the great debates going on today are those people who resist the idea that Jesus was a revolutionary. But let's come to grips with what the Word of God says. First, the definition of a revolution is to take an existing situation which is proved to be unworkable, archaic, impractical, and out of date. You seek to destroy it or overthrow it and replace it with a system that works.

Rev. Tom Skinner
00:47:56:15-00:48:27:29
The whole premise of the Scripture is that the human order is archaic, impractical. It is no good. It is infested with demonic power - with sin, racism, hate, envy, jealousy, pride, war, militarism. But the whole existing human order is infested with ungodliness. And the whole purpose of Christ coming into the world is to overthrow the demonic human system, and to establish his own kingdom in the hearts of men.

Dr. William “Bill” Pannell
00:48:28:02-00:49:01:16
We were trying to find a motif that would respectfully respond to the liberationist impulse anywhere in the world. We were trying to respond to that in a respectful sort of way, while at the same time making sure that we did not compromise our biblical/evangelical understandings of the scriptures and our mission. So the motif that we decided to work on was the motif of the Kingdom of God.

Rev. Tom Skinner
00:49:01:18-00:49:20:19
The thing you must recognize is that Jesus Christ is no more a capitalist than he's a socialist or communist. He's no more a Democrat than he's a Republican. He is no more the president of the New York Stock Exchange, then he is the head of the Socialist Party. He is neither of that. He is the Lord of heaven and earth.

Rev. Tom Skinner
00:49:20:22-00:49:28:07
And if you're going to respond to Jesus Christ, you must respond to him as Lord.

Dr. William “Bill” Pannell
00:49:28:09-00:50:04:13
We came to see that that was the most radical focus that could scratch where this itch was. And so we began to think and reflect theologically on that theme and began then to preach that. So when you hear Tom say in that sermon that Jesus did not come here to take sides, he came here to take over. That probably was the critical sentence, perhaps in the whole sermon in a way. We had understood that as the very core of the good news of the Kingdom.

Rev. Tom Skinner
00:50:04:15-00:50:52:25
Let me conclude my thinking, then, by understanding that there is no possible way you can talk about preaching the gospel if you do not want to deal with the issues that bind the people. If your gospel is a either-or gospel, I must reject it. Any gospel that does not talk about delivering to man a personal Savior who will free them from the personal bondage of sin and grant them eternal life with at the same time does not speak to the issue of enslavement, does not speak to the issue of injustice, does not speak to the issue of inequality, any gospel that doesn't want to go where people are hungry and people are poverty-stricken and set them free in the name of Jesus Christ is not the gospel.

Rev. Ronald C. Potter
00:50:52:27-00:51:02:02
It was the first time the InterVarsity had ever heard that kind of holistic take on what the gospel is.

Rev. Tom Skinner
00:51:02:05-00:51:26:02
Jesus was turning the whole thing upside down, so they finally had to arrest him too. Because, you see, Jesus was dangerous, and he was dangerous because he was changing the system. The whole Roman Empire was shaking, but no shots were being fired, no firebombs being thrown. But the whole Roman Empire was rocking. Because you see, anybody who changes the system is dangerous.

Rev. Tom Skinner
00:51:26:04-00:51:32:08
And so they took and nailed him to a cross, and they then realized that in nailing Jesus to the cross, they were putting up on that cross the sinful nature of all humanity.

Rev. Tom Skinner
00:51:32:10-00:51:51:20
And I was told that as Christ was nailed to the cross, it was more than just the political radical dying, but it was God's answer to the human dilemma. That on that cross, Christ was bearing in his own body my sin, and he was proclaiming my liberation on that cross.

Rev. Tom Skinner
00:51:51:23-00:52:16:13
And on that cross, he shed his blood to cleanse me of all my sin, to set me free. They took and buried him - rolled the stone over his grave. And they wipe their hands, and they said, that is one radical that will never disturb us again. We have gotten rid of him. We will never hear any more of his words of revolution.

Rev. Tom Skinner
00:52:16:15-00:52:26:21
Three days later, Jesus Christ pulled off one of the greatest political coups of all time.

Rev. Tom Skinner
00:52:26:24-00:52:53:13
He got up out of the grave. And when he arose from the dead, the Bible now calls him the second man, the new man, the leader of a new creation. A Christ who has come to overthrow the existing order and to establish a new order that is not built on man. Keep in mind, my friend, with all your militancy and radicalism, that all the systems of men are doomed to destruction. All the systems of men will crumble.

Rev. Tom Skinner
00:52:53:19-00:53:16:28
And finally, only God's kingdom and his righteousness will prevail. You will never be radical until you become part of that new order, and then go into a world that's enslaved, a world that's filled with hunger and poverty and racism. And all of those things are the work of the devil. Proclaim liberation to the captives. Preach sight to the blind. Set at liberty them that are bruised.

Rev. Tom Skinner
00:53:17:05-00:53:28:25
Go in the world and tell men who are bound mentally, spiritually and physically - the Liberator has come.

Rev. Ronald C. Potter
00:53:28:28-00:53:32:19
And that's when the whole assembly hall just exploded.

Dr. William “Bill” Pannell
00:53:32:21-00:54:15:13
I'd never seen a response like that anywhere. It was almost as if all of the seats had been wired, and someone had pressed a button, and the electricity ran up through those seats and everybody's rear end, and they just jumped straight up in the air. It was that electric. It was astonishing. Whoo! Man oh man. And I think it scared some of the leadership of InterVarsity, because that was not a group of Black college students, a distinct minority there, excited about a Black man's sermon. The majority of those kids were white, and they heard the same thing those Black kids heard, and they exploded in rapturous applause. I mean, it was the moment. Boy, it was decisive.

Dr. Henry Greenidge
00:54:15:15-00:54:21:25
He had his facts right. He was articulate. And, uh, white people liked that.

Dr. Vincent Bacote
00:54:21:28-00:54:23:06
This was an awakening moment.

Dr. Jemar Tisby
00:54:23:07-00:54:27:27
An awakening moment. That's precisely it. And there were a lot of white students who were eager for it.

Dr. Henry Greenidge
00:54:28:00-00:54:40:00 In fact, many of the young people who were at that conference at Urbana in 1970 are now denominational leaders at evangelical institutions all over the country.

Dr. Jemar Tisby
00:54:40:00-00:54:59:02
There are a lot of white people who were coming of age in that era who, when they heard Skinner and his message, a light bulb came on and they knew that racial progress had to be part of what it meant to be a Christian in the United States, particularly in that era.

Rev. Brenda Grier-Miller
00:54:59:04-00:55:24:11
Tom Skinner's famous message about the Liberator has come was absolutely fabulous news and information and way of thinking and challenge to the Christian church. Tom validated what we were feeling deep inside. And he validated through the Scripture. He validated it with Jesus. And so Jesus didn't get thrown out.

Dr. Albert “A.G.” Miller
00:55:24:13-00:55:37:07
Tom begins to articulate a vision for Black folk to be authentically Black and be clearly identified as Christian without being ashamed.

Rev. Brenda Grier-Miller
00:55:37:09-00:56:05:04
But it also tore up my social life in terms of - but now I got these other friends over here that are white, that are Christian. And we've done things together. What do I do with them? I remember in bed … I cried and cried and cried because I had this liberating information and the right message, or the thing that fit, that was that made sense to the Jesus I thought I understood from the Bible.

Rev. Brenda Grier-Miller
00:56:05:06-00:56:09:07
And then, what am I going to do with all these other people?

Rev. Ronald C. Potter
00:56:09:10-00:56:39:24
Many of us who were Urbananites in 1970, as we get into the early months of 1971, we begin to raise critical questions about the way Tom ended that iconic message. And our question was, where is the Liberator? We don't see the Liberator. You said the Liberator has come. Where is he?

Back to the Top

CHAPTER FIVE: NOW + NOT YET

Dr. Vincent Bacote
00:56:39:27-00:57:10:20
Where is the Liberator? This question has defined Christianity since the ascension of Jesus. We all live at the crossroads of a kingdom that is now and not yet. Broadly speaking, evangelicals have a high view of Scripture to guide how we should live during this in-between time. The challenge many Black evangelicals face is that while they read the same scriptures as other evangelicals, it's often clear their fellow believers don't always see the same thing.

Dr. Vincent Bacote
00:57:10:22-00:57:22:28
This is why Doctor Melvin Banks, a spiritual child of B.M. Nottage with degrees from Moody Bible Institute and Wheaton College, used the Bible to creatively tell Black people that they were really somebody.

Rev. Derrick Rollerson
00:57:23:01-00:57:42:20
Growing up as a young person--and this is one of the things that's so significant about Mel Banks--all the Sunday school literature that we had, all of the characters were white. If I was to open a Bible and there were pictures, all of you were white. So consequently. Right. I thought everybody in the Bible was white. Nobody had to say that, you just see the images.

C. Jeffrey Wright
00:57:42:20-00:58:09:18
Doctor Banks, who had originally planned to go back to Birmingham, Alabama to start a Bible school, found himself working in a Christian publishing company here in the Chicagoland area that had the idea that they could reach African American churches. And they hired him to do it. And he tried.

Dr. Melvin E. Banks, Sr.
00:58:09:18-00:58:26:25
Black children were being cheated. They were not seeing themselves in materials. They were not written for them. When they went to Sunday school, they were seeing white faces all the time. If there was ever a Black face, it was usually a picture of Jesus and the children. Jesus was white. All the kids were white except here was one, this little African over on the outskirts of the little group and half naked.

Dr. Melvin E. Banks, Sr.
00:58:26:28-00:58:49:02
And if there was any reference to Black people at all, it was like, white folks ought not to mistreat Black people. But Black people were never addressed directly, and so they never felt that they could identify with whatever was being said. And that that disturbed me. And so the passion grew that we just needed to do something.

C. Jeffrey Wright
00:58:49:04-00:59:20:16 So he set out on his own to try to find a way to create a much more contextual message of the gospel and a presentation of Christian education resources, particularly for young people.

Dr. Melvin E. Banks, Sr.
00:59:20:18-00:59:30:11
When we first conceived of the idea of a a separate entity, we thought it might have been under the auspices of Scripture Press. But it was the civil rights movement and the activity that was taking place then, and the emphasis on Black identity and self, uh, Black self-development, that when it was time to publish, that influenced my thinking to say, this will never work if it’s under the auspices of some other company.

Dr. Stan Long
00:59:30:12-01:00:03:09
Scripture Press encouraged that, believe it or not, because when Mel went to Scripture Press and asked them if we could not do more Black images in the Sunday School literature, they tried and they got pushback from their users. And they decided that the best way they could help would be to encourage us to do our own. And so they did put up some money to help us to get UMI started.

Rev. Derrick Rollerson
01:00:03:11-01:00:11:00
And Brother Banks, when he started the Urban Ministries, he started it in his basement on 99th and Green. I was one of his first employees when I was in high school.

Dr. Melvin E. Banks, Sr.
01:00:11:00-01:00:44:01
When we started, we started in my basement and just a regular bungalow. Initially there were three people. Henry, my wife and myself - and of course the kids were working part time. And you just cannot conceive of of how much this has grown since the time that we and I, when we used to do the packing and shipping ourselves, my wife and I. We’re standing here in the midst of our distribution system, center, where we ship out all our materials.

Dr. Melvin E. Banks, Sr.
01:00:44:03-01:01:03:04
And, I'm holding here a one of the Black history kits. We do a kit every year. And this one, it was focused on Sankofa, which means that you have to look back in order to look forward. And inside of this kit were all of the materials that people can use to celebrate Black history for four weeks of February.

Dr. Melvin E. Banks, Sr.
01:01:03:06-01:01:34:13
One of my desires is to see a message of the gospel going forth that's a whole message. Missionaries have gone out, but often they have not, with that message carried the the truth that God is not only concerned about your soul in heaven. He wants justice to prevail here on earth. This kit contains all of the products that we provide for Vacation Bible School.

Dr. Melvin E. Banks, Sr.
01:01:34:16-01:02:00:23
And, inside of here will be something like 30 or 40 pieces of student books, teacher books, videos, various items that are needed in order to conduct Vacation Bible School. I would love to see our publications and our products go to tell people that God loves you and he doesn't give you a back seat to what he wants to do in the world.

Rev. Derrick Rollerson
01:02:00:25-01:02:26:04
When he was in his last days, we went to his bedside. It was a couple of days before he passed on and he shared some things with us - very personal. He couldn't talk. He wrote some things to each, each of us - very personal, very direct. And he said some other things about the faith and Christianity. And he also said some things about evangelicalism that were pretty profound.

Rev. Derrick Rollerson
01:02:26:07-01:02:27:18
You know, I'll never forget that.

Rev. Mark Soderquist
01:02:27:18-01:02:45:24
The last thing he wrote, and I brought it here with me. He said, “Loving our neighbor as ourselves includes working for justice. No justice, we rob the gospel of its power.

Rev. Mark Soderquist
01:02:45:27-01:02:55:00
Evangelicals are robbing the gospel of power because they're leaving out justice.” And that's the last thing he wrote.

Dr. Vincent Bacote
01:02:55:00-01:02:56:00
Wow.

Rev. Mark Soderquist
01:02:56:00-01:02:58:29
Um, to us.

Dr. Vincent Bacote
01:02:59:01-01:03:23:29
Justice is a crossroads, a balancing act in the eyes of the law. But who sets the scale? Who defines where justice begins and ends? As Black evangelicals found traction in larger evangelical organizations when telling their conversion narratives, their messages for a tangible justice within Black communities was deemed too political for the majority of evangelicals.

Dr. Soong-Chan Rah
01:03:24:06-01:03:46:01
Skinner begins by talking about this personal evangelism, especially when he tells his own conversion story that's very capital “E” evangelical. Then, when Tom begins to speak about other issues, the story begins to shift from - I was a bad kid that became a good kid, and now I'm a street evangelist because of the evangelical witness, to - we've got some brokenness in our society.

Dr. Soong-Chan Rah
01:03:46:01-01:04:05:25
We've got to deal with systemic racism. We've got to deal with the sins of racism. And that's when largely the larger evangelical movement would say, that's not where we're at. Or more so, this is a threat to our agenda. Or more so, this is undermining our authority. This is a challenge to who we are.

Dr. Carl Ellis
01:04:06:00-01:04:15:00
As Tom began to address real cultural issues out there, I think that's when evangelicals began to to turn off.

Dr. William “Bill” Pannell
01:04:15:00-01:04:34:07
I had one prominent evangelical leader take me aside. He said, “We're going to tell you guys something and that you didn't hear from me. And if you say anything about it, I'll deny it. The truth of the matter is, there are people out there in the evangelical world that want you guys to succeed, but not too well.”

Dr. Soong-Chan Rah
01:04:34:10-01:04:53:07
So Tom Skinner is has a show on Moody Radio. Now, of course, he begins by talking about his personal conversion story. That's what gets him on Moody Radio. But as he begins to shift the conversation towards racial injustice and kind of the larger issues around race and racism, he gets fired from that job. And I actually saw the letter that Moody sent to Tom Skinner.

Dr. Jemar Tisby
01:04:53:07-01:05:06:20
And I'll never forget in the letter that was canceling Tom Skinner's program, it specifically said, “Your program has become too political. It's not focused enough on the gospel.”

Rev. Tom Skinner
01:05:06:22-01:05:29:10
And then they started putting the rumors out. They said, Skinner ain't preaching the gospel no more. And that was because the gospel was telling the truth for some people. And so there were Christian radio stations across the country, start taking the program off the air because of the truth that was coming forth. And the sad part was that Black people decided that that must be true with white folks were putting them off.

Dr. Soong-Chan Rah
01:05:29:13-01:05:42:22
So if an African American has been steeped and raised in the context of racism, this isn't a political issue. This is a life issue. This is a spiritual issue. But in the eyes of Moody Radio, they're looking at this and saying, oh, this is too political for us. We need to shut this down.

Dr. Jemar Tisby
01:05:42:22-01:06:09:14
For Black people, racism is existential. We can't not talk about it because it's impacting us every day in not just ideological ways, but material ways as well. So if we're not attending to the real and pernicious effects of racism on Black individuals and communities, then there's a sense in which we're not even preaching the gospel or applying it in terms of neighborly love.

Dr. William “Bill” Pannell
01:06:09:16-01:06:15:00
I think by the time that that occurred, the handwriting was clearly on the wall. Skinner was no longer safe.

Dr. Carl Ellis
01:06:15:00-01:06:16:00
That's right.

Dr. William “Bill” Pannell
01:06:16:00-01:06:25:00
He was no longer safe. I had conversations with everybody from Jack Wyrtzen on out who, who blame me for spoiling Skinner. You remember that?

Dr. Carl Ellis
01:06:25:00-01:06:26:00
I remember that.

Dr. William “Bill” Pannell
01:06:26:00-01:06:27:00
conversation.

Dr. Carl Ellis
01:06:27:00-01:06:29:25
Skinner was just to preach the gospel till Bill Pannell came and messed him up.

Dr. William “Bill” Pannell
01:06:30:01-01:06:30:00
That's correct.

Dr. Carl Ellis
01:06:30:00-01:06:31:00
Yeah.

Dr. Henry Greenidge
01:06:31:22-01:07:04:04
Pannell, in my view, and to many people who knew Tom, is responsible for his intellectual curiosity and for his knowledge of unique theological thought and Black thought. Because Pannell was a voracious reader and he turned Tom on to the books he was reading, and they would have discussions about these issues and how it relates to contemporary times. And uh Pannell was like that, too.

Dr. Henry Greenidge
01:07:04:10-1:07:19:28
His style was so different from Tom's, I mean, you know, so it was said about Bill, he could cut your throat with an idea and you wouldn’t even know. Yeah. So you know that line, ‘til you turn your head and your neck fell off.

Dr. Vincent Bacote
01:07:20:01-01:07:23:00
You wrote My Friend, The Enemy in 1960…

Dr. William “Bill” Pannell
01:07:23:00-01:07:24:00
68

Dr. Vincent Bacote
01:07:24:00-01:07:25:00
68

Dr. William “Bill” Pannell
01:07:25:01-01:07:25:16
68, I think. Yeah.

Dr. Vincent Bacote
01:07:25:17-01:07:29:23
So were you already an unsafe person because of that book?

Dr. William “Bill” Pannell
01:07:29:26-01:07:31:00
Oh, I'm not sure. I didn't think I was.

Dr. Carl Ellis
01:07:31:00-01:07:33:00
Oh, yeah. You were unsafe, Doc.

Dr. William “Bill” Pannell
01:07:33:23-01:07:34:05
Was I? Oh, yeah.

Dr. Carl Ellis
01:07:34:10-01:07:41:21
We were in an elevator one time at a team meeting, and some folks got on. You're the one who wrote that book, you know?

Dr. William “Bill” Pannell
01:07:41:25-01:07:42:00
Yeah.

Dr. Carl Ellis
01:07:42:00-01:07:44:00
And it was obvious she was very displeased, yeah.

Dr. William “Bill” Pannell
01:07:44:00-01:08:06:23
Very unhappy, yeah. So you get those kinds of conversations that would say, Mr. Pannell, I'm confused. I’d say, what's up? You seem such a nice person. How in the world could you write such a bad, nasty, terrible book?

Dr. Jemar Tisby
01:08:06:23-01:08:28:17
Bill Pannell had written a book in 1968, My Friend, The Enemy, which just struck like lightning for those who read it, because it was kind of this exposé of Black evangelical white folks think, you know, Black people are all just happy being in these white evangelical spaces. Bill Pannell pulled back the curtain and says, this is what it's like.

Dr. Jemar Tisby
01:08:28:20-01:08:32:13
It's hard. It's exhausting. It's frustrating. It's toxic sometimes.

Rev. Ronald C. Potter
01:08:32:16-01:08:40:18
Everything you said resonated. I said, “This is it.” I would try to explain what happened to me at Wheaton.

Dr. Carl Ellis
01:08:40:18-01:08:42:08
Because you had a sense of dysphoria, didn’t you?

Rev. Ronald C. Potter
01:08:42:09-01:09:14:04
Yeah, right. So, this is it. This is exactly what I'm experiencing at Wheaton College. But I was not able to put into words, as you so beautifully did in My Friend, The Enemy and I said, “This is it. The enemy was both enemy and a friend.” Because that is how this this dual commitment, functions, a dual commitment to biblical faith on one hand, or what's thought to be the biblical faith on one hand and a commitment to white Americanism.

Rev. Ronald C. Potter
01:09:14:07-01:09:25:14
That's the duality that that Pannell saw. And he could not put the two together. So his friend also became the enemy. My Friend, The Enemy.

Dr. Walter McCray
01:09:25:18-01:10:01:08
My Friend, The Enemy, and just putting those two together in that way shows the tension and what we had to wrestle with, and that's exactly what young Black evangelicals are wrestling with today, right, in these settings. My Friend, The Enemy.

01:10:01:08-01:10:01:10
Yes, they’ll know we are Christians by our love. We will work with each other, we will work…

Dr. Henry Greenidge
01:10:01:10-01:10:11:00
When we moved to this era, I moved away from the mass evangelical movements into what I call the grind.

01:10:11:00-01:10:15:00
We will work, side by side…

Dr. Henry Greenidge
01:10:16:13-01:10:54:26
I mean, I was the first full time Black staff at Young Life. And that's when the reality of white evangelicalism and their connection to money and power, money and power really began to sink in. I became a workaholic to the detriment of my wife and children. It was impacting my ability to survive as a Black man because I didn't have the relational resources to raise the funds in order to keep building and growing the staff in an environment that was set up for white people to survive but not Blacks.

Dr. Henry Greenidge
01:10:54:28-01:11:07:27
Especially not Black evangelicals.

Back to the Top

CHAPTER SIX: EMBRACE + RELEASE

Dr. Vincent Bacote
01:11:08:00-01:11:34:28
The 1970s and ‘80s revealed the question for Black evangelicals was not are you too political? But in fact, which political team are you on? Even Democrat President Jimmy Carter, a self-proclaimed born again evangelical, quickly fell out of favor after only one term. In 1979, the Moral Majority was founded, marking an era when conservative political commitment became part of evangelical identity.

Dr. Vincent Bacote
01:11:35:01-01:12:07:10
Increasingly through politics, many white evangelicals became committed to saving the soul of America. Yet by the end of the 1980s, it was clear that that soul was still stained with the sin of racism. Catalyzed by glaring injustices impossible to ignore, racial reconciliation found prominence across evangelicalism. Suddenly, Black Christians such as John Perkins and Brenda Salter McNeal were in high demand to speak at conferences and college chapels.

Dr. Vincent Bacote
01:12:07:12-01:12:34:15
Books about how Black and white Christians had reconciled became required reading for pastors and ministry leaders. In 1995, the National Association of Evangelicals committed to partner with the NBEA to address the sin of racism. Black evangelicals embraced the opportunity even as experience made doubt impossible to let go.

Dr. William “Bill” Pannell
01:12:34:18-01:12:47:28
When Aaron Hamlin called me to participate in this conference several months ago, I didn't want to hear it. I'd been there, seen that. I got that t-shirt.

Dr. William “Bill” Pannell
01:12:48:00-01:13:14:23
So I didn't come here with a lot of enthusiasm, a lot of optimism, a lot of hope necessarily. Those of us in the Black evangelical community, whether from NBEA or otherwise, would rent ourselves out occasionally. National Black rent a Negro month or something like that. How those games got played. And sometimes, you know, you know, that history. Nobody took us seriously. Until Mr. Graham says racism was a problem many of you people didn't even believe it.

Dr. William “Bill” Pannell
01:13:14:25-01:13:28:14
And some of us have been telling you that for years. We could have been in each other's arms long ago.

Dr. Don Argue
01:13:28:16-01:13:31:24
I was not the president in 1960. I was a college student. But members of my church were present. I don't even know the chronology.

Dr. Don Argue
01:13:31:27-01:13:34:11
But as the incoming president of NAE, I repent and I confess unconditionally and ask for your forgiveness today before God and this company so assembled.

Prayer at NAE Assembly
01:13:34:11-01:14:02:04
We affirm that racism is a severe and fervent sin. It is an idolatry which makes God in the image of the controlling group and uses God to justify willful or unintended evil against minority interests.

Bill McCartney
01:14:02:06-01:14:08:00
We teach, preach, model, and live racial reconciliation.

Dr. Jemar Tisby
01:14:08:06-01:14:32:11
Promise Keepers starts in 1990 by a guy named Bill McCartney, who's a football coach at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Promise Keepers really gets known nationally. Kind of as a Christian manhood movement. They hold these conferences, the first ones like 4000 people. The next one is like 50,000, and it's just taking off like wildfire. It's huge and has all this momentum.

Dr. Jemar Tisby
01:14:32:18-01:15:00:07
But then, you know, Bill McCartney starts saying, hey, racial reconciliation needs to really be a big part of this. One of the really canon events was a conference, I believe, in ‘96 at the Georgia Dome. And there's one point where one of the speakers invites all the Black pastors down to sort of the center of the stadium for, for prayer and everything and says, you know, on the way down, you know, shake a hand, hug.

Dr. Jemar Tisby
01:15:00:10-01:15:19:14
And it it's this powerful moment, like it's a truly meaningful moment for people. There's tears streaming down faces. There's a sense, I think, of relief on the part of the Black men there that finally somebody is talking about this, paying attention to this, acknowledging the pain and the hurt. There's a genuine openness here where we might see progress.

Dr. Jemar Tisby
01:15:19:14-01:15:31:11
And I think white folks are finally realizing, hey, this isn't a departure from the gospel. This is part of what it means to be a Christian, is to have these intentional interracial relationships and to celebrate diversity.

Bill McCartney
01:15:31:14-01:15:44:21
Go back to your church, call your men together, and tell them about the needs in the community. And Almighty God will raise up just what we need to meet the needs in those communities.

Rev. Mark Soderquist
01:15:44:24-01:16:00:11
You had white men hugging a Black man for the first time and crying. But as the comment that I often heard from African Americans and certainly here is that, yeah, and then we went back to our own neighborhoods and, and, and never continued in a relationship.

Dr. Stan Long
01:16:00:11-01:16:27:19
You know, I was at Promise Keepers and that rally and I saw us all hugging one another and all that. What was never realized was that reconciliation has to be more than just us hugging one another. There is racist behavior that's built into the system. I think to be truthful, I don't think the white evangelicals understood that.

Dr. Stan Long
01:16:27:22-01:16:46:22
And when they did understand it, they weren't willing to make those moves. They weren't willing to do what needed to be done to make reconciliation a reality. It was superficial. It was not dealing really with the issues of what divided us.

Bill McCartney
01:16:46:24-01:17:03:26
We teach, preach, model and live racial reconciliation. And when that happens, the church of Jesus Christ is going to be able to stand up and say, we can testify that the giant of racism is dead.

Dr. Jemar Tisby
01:17:03:29-01:17:21:00
Honestly, white evangelicals, particularly in that moment in time, didn't have the range to deal with the complexities and the depths of racism in the United States and the church. What I mean by not having the range is they thought the hugs and the I'm sorry were it.

Dr. Vincent Bacote
01:17:21:00-01:17:21:40
Were enough.

Dr. Jemar Tisby
01:17:21:40-01:17:30:18
Yeah. They thought if I can be friends with a Black man, if we can have coffee and meals together, if we can go to church together.

Dr. Jemar Tisby
01:17:30:23-01:17:40:23
That's the holy grail. That's the end all be all. But none of that addresses what happens Monday through Saturday in the lives of Black people.

Rev. Mark Soderquist
01:17:40:25-01:18:05:05
There's an illustration about charity and justice that, you know, charity is when you see somebody in a river drowning, you jump in and save them. Justice goes up the river and finds out who's throwing him in. And part of the problem is that we were willing to to, um, hug each other and meet somebody at a conference.

Rev. Mark Soderquist
01:18:05:08-01:18:19:17
But when you start asking those tough questions about justice and the history, you find out, okay, it's my people or my family that are connected to the people that are are throwing the ones in the river up river.

Dr. Nicole Martin
01:18:19:19-01:18:52:15
Okay. So what could have happened was a reconciliation that both honored the distinctions and the richness of diversity. The history of Black Americans and Black evangelicals and valued not just their voices on the platform, but their voices and leadership on boards and leading of organizations. What could have happened was those moments could have ripple had a a ripple effect and impact the institutions of evangelicalism.

Dr. Nicole Martin
01:18:52:17-01:19:03:03
What did happen was an understanding of the cost. And from my vantage point, an unwillingness to pay that cost.

Dr. William “Bill” Pannell
01:19:03:06-01:19:31:27
I suspect it is not our theology that drives us to reconciliation. The Pentecostals in Southern California, who are now in each other's arms, were not attracted there by their theology, nor by their experience. They were driven there by what happened to Rodney King. So we are crowded to reconciliation, slammed over against the reality expressed so powerfully years ago by Martin Luther King, Jr.

Dr. William “Bill” Pannell
01:19:31:27-01:19:44:12
He said something like this, “We will either live together as brothers or we will perish separately as fools.”

Dr. Vincent Bacote
01:19:44:15-01:20:11:13
As with Bill Bright’s gathering, the era of racial reconciliation revealed to Black evangelicals that their white brothers and sisters were eager to get to the solutions without fully understanding the questions. Despite a public image that evangelicals were coming together to solve racism, many Black evangelicals had continual tensions, frustrations, even anger. In my seminary years, I witnessed this variety of emotions firsthand.

Dr. Vincent Bacote
01:20:11:13-01:20:35:12
At a conference on Black evangelicalism I wrote about for our school paper, one person of the conference likened the experience of Black Christians among white evangelicals to the fictional character Friday, willfully lying on the ground for Robinson Crusoe to put a foot on his neck. How, with all these efforts of reconciliation, did blindness to Black evangelical experience remain?

Lisa Fields
01:20:35:14-01:20:56:22
You know, everybody has a commitment to justice. It's often times, do they have the commitment to justice for the people that look different from them? And so the challenge is, how do I make the justice of God something that you should lean into for people that don't look like you?

Dr. William “Bill” Pannell
01:20:56:24-01:21:26:00
I am quite sure my friend has nothing against me personally, especially to the extent that many of my values, norms, theological constructs are one and the same as his. But when I insist on being Black, as I did 20 some years ago, I find myself once again in his eyes, becoming a non-person.

Dr. Vincent Bacote
01:21:26:02-01:21:31:27
Do you think that many people thought that reconciliation meant a commitment to colorblindness?

Dr. Walter McCray
01:21:31:29-01:21:34:21
Yeah. Which is bad.

Dr. Jemar Tisby
01:21:34:24-01:21:38:15
Colorblindness is not a solution to racism.

Dr. Vincent Bacote
01:21:38:17-01:21:44:21
It's a shame that you even have to say that, because isn't it kind of obvious? Because colorblindness, of course, is about not seeing.

Dr. Walter McCray
01:21:44:27-01:21:58:21
It says that you don't exist to the next person. Okay. Alright. And the oppressor looks at the oppressed in their own mentality.

Dr. Jemar Tisby
01:21:58:24-01:22:28:20
And of course, we're not talking about physical blindness. We're talking about the unwillingness to see Christians who are embodied in brown skin as fully dimensional mind, body, soul beings. So if you claim not to see color, there's a portion of me, in my experience, that you do not see, and that is not helpful to loving our neighbor.

Dr. Walter McCray
01:22:28:27-01:22:37:14
The first thing that folks see coming when a Black folk is walking down the street is our Blackness.

Dr. Walter McCray
01:22:37:17-01:22:50:03
Yeah. I can be four blocks away and someone could see me coming. Alright. Color is a constituent, a major constituent of Black identity.

Dr. Albert “A.G.” Miller
01:22:50:09-01:22:58:08
I have to see you through humanitarian eyes.

Dr. Albert “A.G.” Miller
01:22:58:11-01:23:07:28
And that means that I have to see you through Christ’s eyes. Yeah. Doesn't mean I give up who I am. Yeah. Nor ask you to give up who you are.

Dr. Walter McCray
01:23:08:00-01:23:18:22
But God will do. He will not break down color and culture or physical feature. God will enhance it.

Dr. Albert “A.G.” Miller
01:23:18:24-01:23:38:10
I don't want to ever deny anyone's, um, one’s humanity, all those pieces to make them up for who they are. Ask. Look, I'm a proud Black man. I have, I have no, I'm trying to figure out how Black I am, right? Yeah. I'm doing the DNA tests and trying to figure out what part of Africa I came from.

Dr. Albert “A.G.” Miller
01:23:38:16-01:24:03:11
Right. Right. Right. I want to know that. Yeah. Right. But I'm not. I'm also going to encourage my, my Irish and my Polish, church members to go and dig into their history and culture and understand who they are in that context and what makes them who they are in the American context. I want that for them.

Dr. Albert “A.G.” Miller
01:24:03:14-01:24:09:28
So that can fully be who God is calling them to be. Doesn't take away from me. Yeah.

Dr. Walter McCray
01:24:10:01-01:24:33:16
And that's how God will bring about reconciliation today when Black folk, when we begin to live up and project our origin and identity in God that is sacred and exalted. Then that’s how God uses to break down the dividing wall between Blacks and whites.

Dr. Jemar Tisby
01:24:33:18-01:24:59:24
And so the move is from color blindness to color consciousness. Yeah. In that you are conscious and cognizant of the ways race has impacted people's lived experiences, past and present, and you are responsive to them. You are not only sympathetic or empathetic, but you take action on behalf of people who have been marginalized and oppressed because of racism.

Dr. Jemar Tisby
01:24:59:26-01:25:29:08
And so that requires not less vision, but more, not a blindness, but a sight, not a stepping back, but a stepping into the lived experiences of other people. And that is one of the ways forward for white evangelicals. But in order for white folks to step into and understand Black experiences, we need to speak, write, tell of those experiences too.

Dr. Nicole Martin
01:25:29:10-01:26:03:00
You cannot heal what has not been named. I think part of the healing has to be in the consistency of naming that pain and not just in quiet spaces off in the corner with all the Black people who understand it. But naming that pain in a way where there's a space to acknowledge it and an encouragement to seek healing from the stories that we share, from counseling, which is often taboo in our culture. But also in friendships and in conversations with people who don't look like you because that pain can't be kept in the closet.

Dr. Nicole Martin
01:26:03:05-01:26:13:29
You have to name it so that that healing can come.

Back to the Top

CHAPTER SEVEN: CELEBRATION + ANTICIPATION

Dr. Vincent Bacote
01:26:14:02-01:26:38:00
Too often I thought I was standing at this crossroads by myself. But over the years I have discovered I am far from alone. Long before me, others have wondered how they fit as Black people in this elusive evangelical space. It’s their witness in the face of adversity that gives us much to celebrate, even as we still anticipate what lies ahead.

Dr. Nicole Martin
01:26:38:03-01:26:49:18
So many people have gone before us in this journey. The future is wide open. But I also think, again with a biblical narrative, that things might get dark before they get better.

Dr. Joy Moore
01:26:49:23-01:27:02:08
The Kingdom is near, but it hasn't fully arrived. Just because I've been president of a predominantly white denominational school doesn't mean the battle isn't over, right? Historically, I think of someone like Ruth Bentley.

Dr. Ruth Lewis Bentley
01:27:02:10-01:27:16:00
Jesus prayed that we be one just as he and the father were one. And that hasn't happened. And so that would be my desire.

Dr. Joy Moore
01:27:16:00-01:27:20:04
I sit in the places I sit in because she stood as the only African American woman in places where at that time the doors weren't open.

Dr. Ruth Lewis Bentley
01:27:20:04-01:27:29:01
And it's not going to be easy to help people.

Dr. Ruth Lewis Bentley
01:27:29:03-01:27:40:28
And I went through some difficult times at Wheaton on the board, you know, trying to follow their lead. And maybe the Lord doesn't call everybody to help people in this respect. You know?

Dr. Ruth Lewis Bentley
01:27:41:00-01:27:45:16
But I felt the Lord call me to be an instrument.

Dr. Jemar Tisby
01:27:45:17-01:28:01:18
This dynamic still exists of Black Christians being in white evangelical spaces and being a hyper minority in many cases, which is why someone like Tom Skinner, Bill Pannell, Ruth Bentley, Bill Bentley, what they wrote and talked about is so resonant today.

Dr. Dwight Radcliff
01:28:01:25-01:28:20:07
There's an obligation for those of us that sit in these seats, that run these centers, that are in these historically predominately white institutions, that we have an obligation to make sure that the space is not toxic, that it's not just tolerating, but that there's room for Black thriving.

Dr. Joy Moore
01:28:20:07-01:28:38:20
Thriving is going to be taking on the ministry of reconciliation. I have a colleague who says they believe that the hope of the church is the Black church. And if we have to be divided, then I want to be in the ministry of being that hope.

Lisa Fields
01:28:38:23-01:28:47:04
The darker it gets, the better it is for us. Because if we bear light, we have the light that the world needs to look to.

Rev. Brandon Washington, Th.D. 01:28:47:08-01:28:55:24
Evangelical theology is good. We're just not embodying it well, and hopefully we can redeem the movement from the inside.

Dr. Soong-Chan Rah
01:28:55:26-01:29:01:24
The word evangelical is not a certain partisan politics. The heart of the word evangelical is evangel, the good news.

Dr. Vanessa Quainoo
01:29:01:25-01:29:12:19
So if you ask the question, what is this whole gospel? What? What does that mean? It has to point to our responsibility to one another communally.

Dr. Vincent Bacote
01:29:12:19-01:29:13:27
To love your neighbors.

Dr. Vanessa Quainoo
01:29:13:27-01:29:22:13
To love your neighbors. Because this is our season and this is our time to reclaim evangelicalism.

Dr. Stan Long
01:29:22:16-01:29:41:10
Things are changing so fast and we don't know how to deal with it. And I think it's fear that causes us to gravitate back to what we used to have or what we used to be. And we can't go back. We've got to keep dealing with the times in which God has allowed us to be alive in the world.

Dr. Stan Long
01:29:41:12-01:29:58:05
And to me, that's where we draw on, on Jesus and the values of the Kingdom. We are here now. We are God's light now. We are God's representative in the world now. And we have the responsibility of showing God's love now.

Dr. Vincent Bacote
01:29:58:08-01:30:24:21
History always brings us to the fierce urgency of now that Doctor King proclaimed at the height of the Civil Rights movement. Christian faith and Black Christian faith in particular, has always required a deliberate balancing of patience and impatience, of restlessness and rest. This spirit of hope and activism can be seen in today's emerging generation of Black evangelicals.

Dr. Vincent Bacote
01:30:24:23-01:30:35:23
Some have chosen to reject the evangelical label. Others are determined to reform it, and they come with a restless energy, very much like that of their Black evangelical forbearers.

Dr. Jemar Tisby
01:30:35:25-01:30:50:05
To me, there is a robustness in my approach to justice that arises from my faith because it's rooted, because it's in a tradition that's thousands of years old, namely the example of Jesus himself.

Rev. Brandon Washington, Th.D.
01:30:50:10-01:31:08:09
We can be a thinking people, but never at the expense of being Black. The majority church should turn to the Black church and ask them, how can we do this better? How can we look like the Kingdom in a fallen world? Because the Black church has an answer to that question.

Lisa Fields
01:31:08:12-01:31:28:16
Our faith gives people dignity because it affirms their personhood - that they're made in the image of God. It brings them joy. It brings them protection. It gives them power because we're empowered through the Spirit. It gives provision because he supplies all of our needs. And that is the Christian faith. And, we can be bold about that.

Dr. Vincent Bacote
01:31:28:19-01:32:21:28
The conversations we've shared in this history represent just a few stories about the Black evangelical experience. There are many more to be told. I suspect many of you will be the ones who live and tell them. After all, the story of Black evangelicalism is really just one part of the larger story of God's people. And just as Black evangelicals stand at a unique intersection, all of God's people stand at a crossroads pursuing a life of faithfulness in a world full of complexity - proclaiming the good news about a kingdom that is now and not yet.

BLACK + EVANGELICAL

Dr. William “Bill” Pannell
01:32:22:00-01:32:49:08
I would like people to know that Black evangelicals, in some significant ways, are evangelicals first, and also Black. And secondly, I would like them to know that Black evangelicals, in order to save their integrity as evangelicals, must become Black.

Dr. Vincent Bacote
01:32:49:10-01:32:52:22
So they can be part of a tradition, but you can bring your your full self to that tradition.

Dr. William “Bill” Pannell
01:32:52:24-01:33:03:00
Absolutely. Yes. Because it’s God created, God given, and God just grins, God smiles all over that and has for many years.

Dr. Vincent Bacote
01:33:03:00-01:33:05:00
Well, we are his workmanship after all.

Dr. William “Bill” Pannell
01:33:05:00-01:33:08:00
Yeah, yeah, aren’t we. Created in Christ Jesus unto good works.

Dr. Vincent Bacote
01:33:08:00-01:33:10:00
Exactly. Exactly.

Dr. William “Bill” Pannell
01:33:10:00-01:33:12:00
You must be reading the same book I am. That's a great book, by the way.

Dr. Vincent Bacote
01:33:12:00-01:33:13:00
Yeah, it really is.

Dr. William “Bill” Pannell
01:33:13:00-01:33:14:07
Isn’t it wonderful?

Dr. Vincent Bacote
01:33:14:07-01:33:16:12
It really is. It's a life transforming book I’ve heard.

Dr. William “Bill” Pannell
01:33:16:14-01:33:16:40
Ain’t that the truth?

Dr. Vincent Bacote
01:33:16:40-01:33:17:00
And experienced.

Dr. William “Bill” Pannell
01:33:17:00-01:33:18:13
Mercy, yes.

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