I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to hear Pastor John again. I want to hear more about Wilberforce.

There’s something I want to start off with you this evening. It’s a tongue-in-cheek kind of thing, but I think it illustrates what I’ve been talking about. But I don’t know, after hearing that choir though, I’m a little confused. You all are clapping on two and four. I never heard of it. I’m not quite used to this. Well, anyway, praise the Lord. There might be some hope for all of this stuff.

Styles of Preaching

Again, it’s a pleasure to be here with you and I’m very honored to have had dinner and to share fellowship with Pastor John and some of you. I know I’ve been in and out a lot, but after this, I’m footloose and fancy-free. I don’t have to get all geared up so I can stay up all night to talk with you all if you want to. Don’t take that literally. I meant that in a Neo-Orthodox sense.

I thought I would introduce tonight a little thing I did sitting in an airport once waiting for a plane, and I think it illustrates something of the difference between the soul dynamic and the more classical approach to theology from the European perspective. We’re going to look at the traditional preaching styles. Now, I know there’s all kinds of exceptions to this. Don’t take this too seriously, but this does illustrate something. Let’s say we want to look at the African-American versus the Anglo preaching style. How would we graphically represent something like that? How could you graphically represent that? Well, I figure we can use the two axes of time and energy.

Now you know where I’m coming from, right? As I said, we’re looking at the traditional preaching styles. Now, when I went to Westminster, I learned what they teach you about preaching sermons. Now, I can’t say that I found that all to be useful where I live, but I found it to be interesting. I think it’s a good tradition. Well, let’s look at the difference. Now, let’s take the Anglo preaching style first. In the Anglo tradition, you first start off with a passage and a title, right? And then you go through three points, right? And a little more energy comes up at each one of the three points, right? I have a twisted mind you guys. I have a twisted mind. And then at the end of the three points, what do you do? A gripping illustration and close. Is that the position?

I want you to notice that in the Anglo style of preaching, it falls well within the limits of time and energy. It is done decently and in order. It’s a good tradition, isn’t it? Okay, now, behold, I show you a mystery. We shall not all sleep. All right. Now we’re going to leave the remnants of the Anglo style up there and we are going to compare it with the African-American tradition. Now, not all of us follow the tradition, but here is the tradition. Now, in the African-American tradition, you don’t start off with a passage, but you start off with a verse or a piece of a verse: “Our text comes from Ephesians 1:3, ‘Praise be.’” Are y’all following me?

Now after the verse, then you have a title, a very gripping title, and a pregnant calm. So maybe the title is Partying with God. Everybody says, oh, and there’s a pregnant calm. All right, so here’s the pregnant calm, here it comes, here it comes, here it comes. And everything gets still and quiet. Now, in the African American tradition, you don’t have a three point sermon; you have a one-point message. But this one point is seen from different perspectives.

Now, at a certain strategic time, see in the Anglo style, the message and the preaching is one piece. But in the African American style, the message is one thing and the preaching is another. And at a certain strategic time, after the preacher’s going, after a while, the notes close. Once the notes close, then he slips down into the oral tradition, then he goes, and then after a while the organ kicks in. And then he goes on up into outer space. And then he closes. Okay, I hope that could illustrate something there.

So in the African American style, you have the message and then you have the preaching. See, you don’t need any notes when you do the preaching, right? Because you slide into the oral tradition and you just go to town. Does that illustrate something? Both traditions have a lot to tell us, right? But that just illustrates what the differences are and all that.

Comparisons of Soul Dynamic

So when we talk about African-American historic theology, we talk about the soul dynamic. You see, that’s the kind of thing I’m talking about — the soul dynamic. Now, there are aspects of the soul dynamic as I compare it with the theological tradition that we’ve gotten from Europe. I would make these comparisons between the soul dynamic and European theology. And both are theology in their own right. The soul dynamic is an art rather than a science. It is intuitive. It deals with intuitive knowledge as opposed to cognitive knowledge. It’s concrete rather than abstract. It is multidimensional rather than linear. It deals in mental images rather than concepts. And finally, it is ethics oriented as opposed to epistemologically oriented.

You see, when European theology developed, it developed under the challenge of unbelieving philosophy and science. And so European theology tends to deal in the areas of epistemology. How do we know and how do we know that we know? Even it comes down to our children. Our children are taught epistemological theology. You know that song: “Jesus loves me, this I know, for my epistemological base tells me so.” Whereas African-American theology developed under the challenge of the ethical wrongs of slavery and oppression. And therefore, it tends to be more ethics oriented. So when we talk about theology, we look at two sides of the same coin. There’s the ethics side and there’s the epistemological side. They’re both part of the same thing.

And when we look at different perspectives on this soul dynamic, we can look at it from the normative perspective, from the situational perspective, and from the existential perspective. I paraphrase some of the things I say in Free At Last here. In terms of the normative perspective, we’re talking about the actual content. And one of the things that African-American theology has dealt with is the whole issue of redemptive history. But it was not treated as information to be analyzed and imparted. But the events of redemptive history in the tradition are dramatized by the preacher. So the whole congregation can join in and celebrate in God’s present grace and faithfulness as they reflect on the grace and faithfulness of God in the scriptures. I alluded to it last night, “Didn’t my Lord deliver Daniel? Well, I know he’ll deliver me.”

There is a situational perspective in terms of the content. The emphasis in the soul dynamic has been on the event of worship and being empowered by the Spirit. And that’s why expressions in the soul dynamic are chosen not so much for their rational value, but for their emotive value. It’s not so much for their accuracy, but for their beauty. And that’s just a different way of looking at it. This theology has never been a spectator sport because the response to the listener is just as much a part of the proclamation as the proclamation itself. So celebration became a very important part.

And then finally, from the existential perspective, we’re dealing with experience. Historic African-American theology has been experiential and collective. Salvation has been seen in collective terms. The church has seen this as the arc of safety, instead of individuals receiving Jesus and all that, it was us. Together we receive Jesus. So in good preaching, the preacher then becomes the prophet for the people. So as he speaks, the people speak through him and he speaks through the people. And that’s why the call and response is so good.

Issues in the Soul Dynamic

One of the issues that we have faced as the soul dynamic has come down through the ages is the issue of identity. And we talked about that earlier. We’re going to get into that a little bit more. I’m always amazed that some of my African-American brothers and sisters who go back to the continent of Africa, the motherland, and they step off the church and say, “I’m back home, I’m African.” And all that has to do is one African brother just comes and asks them one question to burst his bubble. Do you know what that question is? Well, if you’re African, what tribe are you from? And that’s the end of that.

Now, granted, we are only 350 years old as a people. We’re a new people group. And one of the things about new people groups is that identity is a very big issue. Some of y’all get confused. I get this all the time. What do you call yourself now? Well, we were Negroes and then we were Afro-Americans, then we were black, and then we were African American. What’s the next thing? Is there a next thing? What tribe are you from? We don’t know. There’s no way of knowing that. And there’s been a lot of guys who have tried to understand. We’re trying to search for our identity. And then we’ve made the fundamental mistake as a new people trying to see our identity in our history.

As I said, we’re only 350 years old. We’re not the first new people group in the world. I can think of a remarkable family that had a profound effect on the course of human history. This family was in trouble from the very beginning. Without divine intervention, this family had no chance of even forming in the first place. Despite their impressive beginning, they were plagued with multi-generational dysfunctionality.

For example, some of the things that went on in this family for generations were deception, plotting, wife lending, evangelistic mass murder, drug abuse, thievery, and selling family members into slavery. Now, some of y’all might say, well now he’s stretching it too far. Drug abuse. Come on, give me a break. You read. You know who I’m talking about. We’re talking about the family of Abraham, better known as the children of Israel.

Remember that little incident where Rachel had finally gotten Jacob to stop doing any homework with Leah? Let’s put it nicely. You understand what I’m saying when. She stopped having children. She was one of these ladies who if you look at her funny, she’d get pregnant. You know what I’m saying? She stopped having children and Rachel had them all to herself. But one day her oldest son came home with some mandrakes. Remember that? She said, “I want some of those mandrakes.” And Leah says to Rachel, “Isn’t it enough that you’ve taken my husband away from me and now you want my son’s mandrakes?” So she says, “I’ll let him minister to you tonight if you let me have those mandrakes.”

I got to thinking, what is it about mandrakes that would cause a woman to give up her husband to another woman? Well, any encyclopedia will tell you that mandrakes were a powerful, potent, hallucinogenic narcotic. Any encyclopedia will tell you that. And of course, there was a rumor about mandrakes that they would have fertility properties. So here’s Rachel. She’s so miserable that she can’t have any children. She’s trying anything to have children and she wants the mandrakes also to drown her pain.

Israel’s Identity

Yet here they were, this terrible dysfunctional family. But yet by God’s grace, he did some remarkable things to them. They ended up in Egypt, having first gotten there, they were living large. They were doing quite well. They were well-connected politically. They were living in the land of Goshen and doing quite well. Two chariots in every driveway — one a sport utility chariot. And they had a Weber grill in the backyard. They were doing all right, but they made the fundamental mistake of tying their entire fortune to the existing Pharaoh administration and you know the rest of the story.

Now, here they are, 400 years later in bondage and God gets them out of Egypt. They had forgotten by this time who they were. And as God got them out, he restored their identity. But their identity was not based on their history. Their identity was to be based on their destiny. Now, one of the things the soul dynamic has been saying throughout the ages has been something to that effect. It is not our history that makes us who we are; it is our destiny. And how do we know our destiny? We know our destiny as it is found in God himself.

Like the children of Israel, African-Americans have had the same issue. Our origin as a people was not very pretty, just like the children of Israel. Our origin was the plantations, not Egypt. There are those who want to get into Egyptian holidays. No, we’re not Egyptians. Come on, give me a break. But the point that the Bible makes and the point that the soul dynamic is pointing to as I’ve seen it, is that it indicates that God has a significant purpose for every existing people group. Not only does he have a significant purpose for you as an individual, and he does, but he has a significant purpose for the people group you belong to however you wanted to define that.

Because you can see from Scripture and from the testimony of Nebuchadnezzar that when God is finished with the people group, they go out of existence. People groups are biodegradable, aren’t they? Where are the Hittites today? They don’t exist anymore. Why? Because God’s purposes have been fulfilled in them. Well, as we look at the development of the soul dynamic, which has given us a lot of insights, and has indicated a lot of things, we look at the other half of theological development in the African-American context.

Northern Antebellum Theology

This morning, I talked about Southern Antebellum theology. Well, there is a northern antebellum theology and it has some very interesting things because remember up north, slavery as an institution had died. The issue that they were facing was not an issue of slavery, but the issue they were facing was an issue of marginalization. Remember we talked about theological emergences. Remember that. You have an interaction between your situation and your biblical truth. And when those interact, they produce what? Practice. Remember how we defined practice. But it becomes communicable when this practice is expressed through a biblical paradigm.

So up north, when they developed this theology it was not a theology of suffering as it was in the south, but it became a theology of empowerment. Why? Because when you have marginalized people, one of the things that they’re trying to deal with is how do you level the playing field? How do you solve the power differential? How do you get to a point where you are on par with everybody else? The paradigm that this theology was expressed through was the paradigm of the exile, not the exodus. It was in these days that you began to have the emergence of concepts like the African diaspora. We saw ourselves as being an exile from our motherland.

And what were the core cultural issues that were swirling around the African-Americans up north? They were human dignity. Remember I said that’s one of those things that goes throughout history. Another one was African identity. What? I’m talking about the 1780s here and the 1790s. How do I know this? Because if you look at all the early African American institutions, they all had one word in their names, and that word was “African.” The surrounding culture was calling us Negroes.

But what these thinkers were saying was, “We understand what the apostle Paul says in Romans 12:2 when he says, ‘Be not conform to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.’ The surrounding culture is calling us Negroes and defining us.” Whenever you let human beings define you, especially those who are in a dominant position over you, all human beings who define you by the sanity of themselves will automatically define you in inferior terms. Anytime we judge anybody by the standard of ourselves, they are by definition inferior to us because no one can be us as well as we can be us. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that out, and one does not have to be racist to be that way. It’s one of those aspects of our fallen nature.

So they said, “We are not Negroes because God didn’t create us as Negroes, but he created us as Africans.” That’s why all these early institutions were African this and African that and African the other.

Divine Significance

By the way, before I get off of that. Have you ever heard of the term Afro-centrism? That was originally a Christian concept based on Romans 12:2. The third great cultural core issue that the northern theologians began to deal with was the divine significance of the African-American experience. In other words, why are we here? Now, if we had come as immigrants, the question would never come up, but we didn’t come as immigrants. That reminds you of another group of people — the Israelites in Babylon. They asked that same question, why are we here?

Well, they were there in Babylon for the sake of four young men: Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. And through those four young men, the whole world heard the gospel by way of the BBC (the Babylonian Broadcasting Company). And later by way of PBS (The Persian Broadcasting System). And that was one of the reasons that they were there so that the gospel will go to the whole wide world. When Nebuchadnezzar came to his senses that day, God saves. He put out a testimony to the whole wide world. It’s when Darius the Mede was tricked into signing the cat food bill. He sent out a message to the whole known world.

Why are we here? That’s a question asked by Joseph when he was in Egypt, not realizing that Joseph was in Egypt, not for the sake of the salvation of his family alone, but for the sake of the salvation of the world from death through starvation, because the famine was worldwide and Egypt was the only place where food was. So that was a question asked by a lot of our people, why are we here?

A lot of northerners began to think, “Well, I know why we’re here. We are here for the same reason that Joseph was in Egypt. We are here for the same reason that Daniel was in Babylon. It has a divine significance. God has called us to take the gospel of Jesus Christ to the rest of the African diaspora and beyond. And they did that. Even by the late 19th century you had African-American missionaries in Czarist Russia of all places. There were strong missions movement.

Post-Civil War Theology

Now after the Civil War, the southern church having seen the fulfillment of the exodus paradigm, you see adopted therefore the northern churches developing theology of empowerment. And this led to the explosive growth of the African American church from the years 1870 to 1910. The growth of the African-American Church between those years was probably the most dramatic example of church growth in the history of the church. I often tease Muslims sometimes as I dialogue with them, I say, “Well, Islam didn’t get started in the African-American community till 1913 with Noble Drew Ali. You know that.” Oh no, no, brother, see, you got to get the knowledge. You have to get the knowledge. I say, “Well, brother, give me the knowledge. We had Muslims coming over in the 1800s.” I say, “Oh, really?” Of course I know that. But what happened to those Muslims? They all became Christians. Because it was a church based on the soul dynamic that was dealing with the personal core issues, the social core issues, and the cultural core issues.

This theology also gave rise to a tremendous mission movement, as I mentioned. The church was growing fast because the cultural core issues were being dealt with theologically. If you want to get the attention of any people group, find out what their cultural core issues are and address them from the word of God. You’ll get their attention, I guarantee you. This tremendous missions thing, especially in Africa, grew. And many of these missionaries out of the African American church were armed with something they called the three Cs — Christianity, commerce, and civilization. Therein was the problem that third C, civilization. Because who defines what civilization is? And that’s when some of the African-American missionaries began to get into a little trouble in Africa because they had an incompatible understanding of what civilization meant.

The Dissolution of the Soul Dynamic

Well, why don’t we see that today? Why isn’t the soul dynamic this driving force today, this thing that really speaks to our issues, why isn’t that the case today? Because of three traumatic events in the 19th century between the years of 1875 and 1900, which changed the course of history.

These three events were, first, the end of the post-Civil war reconstruction. If you know anything about history, you’ll remember that African-Americans were making pretty good progress. They had the vote and they had all these other things. And then around 1880, you began to have the series of laws that took the vote away, that established segregation. You had the rise of terrorism and all these kinds of things in the south. Trauma number one.

Trauma number two was the industrial revolution in the north. It started cranking up about that time. Who had all the skills? It was the former slaves, but the industrialists in the north wanted no part of them. And so they encouraged massive European immigration. And from that arose white only trade unions, which knocked African-Americans out of the skilled labor force within one generation. That’s trauma number two.

Trauma number three was the consolidation of colonial hold over Sub-Saharan Africa. At a series of meetings in Berlin in 1878, 1884 and 1885, they drew the final borders of the colonies because then they were encroaching on each other’s territory. They came to an agreement. No Africans were present at the meetings. And having consolidated their hold over Sub-Saharan Africa, one of the first things they did was to expel all African-American missionaries from their colonies and to bar entry of new ones.

So as a result of these three traumas, the church reverted to the old theology of suffering adopted during slavery because all of a sudden, African-Americans found themselves back into another situation that was almost as traumatic as slavery, and therefore, a theological vacuum developed in terms of empowerment and the related issues to empowerment of dignity, identity, and significance. The church was no longer dealing with those issues. And in the fullness of time, that’s when you begin to see the proliferation into the 20th century of Islamic groups because they wrapped themselves around those issues. And that’s why they got the attention of a lot of people.

The church, as a result, had no adequate theological foundation for the realities of the urban north. So the church in the urban north either went into a separatist, cloistered mode, or they got involved in the community sociologically, but there was no theological base. So you have the rise of political churches and secular churches and all the rest of that kind of thing. And this is when you begin to see the decline of the soul dynamic. It’s a shame because if that theology of empowerment was in place, then Malcolm X would’ve been a Christian, but Malcolm X didn’t have a Christian theology that related to his issues. That’s why he became a Muslim. The soul dynamic confined to the issue of suffering never made it very well in the north. As I said, though, Martin Luther King used it as a very powerful weapon during the Civil War.

The Road Forward

Now, where do we go from here? Because I don’t want to keep you all night like I did this morning all right. As I said, the dynamic is still a powerful thing. It’s still a wonderful gift that God has given us to give to the world church. But today, we are seeing fewer and fewer of our people being ministered to by it. We need new models of the church, and I think that’s where a conference like this becomes so important because you see these new models of the church don’t have to be all black, y’all. You know what I’m saying? There’s all kinds of things we can do. There’s all kinds of creative things we can do. There are some strengths that I got from a place like Westminster. There are some wonderful things that I learned from Westminster. There are some wonderful things that I’ve learned from my evangelical brothers and sisters that I treasure to this very day. There are some wonderful things that I’ve learned from Aunt Jane too by the way.

Today in the African-American community, the church remains the strongest institution, but that does not mean that it cannot be in decline, which it is. The church is in decline. It’s like a bunch of flowers. When you make a bouquet for somebody, the flowers look beautiful, but they’re cut off from their root system and they’re actually dead. If I can illustrate what I’m talking about, we’re going to look at the African-American church situation in 1900, and this is where we were. We’re looking at the cultural involvement of the African American community and the theological reach of the African American church in1900. Now, let’s imagine that that box represents all the possible things that one can do in America. You can be a butcher, baker, or candlestick maker. You can do whatever you want to do. Those are all the possibilities that America gives you.

In 1900, African-Americans were confined to a much smaller box. There were some things that African-Americans couldn’t do. My dad was a Tuskegee Airman, and if you know anything about the Tuskegee airmen, they racked up one of the best records of any fighter squadron in World War II. And there were guys he trained how to fly, who have been retiring in the last 20 years as 747 pilots on transoceanic flights. But my dad could never be an airline pilot. That was a career not open to him. My mechanical drawing teacher in high school was a PhD in engineering, but he couldn’t be an engineer. He had to be a mechanical drawing teacher. That’s what I’m talking about. There was a time when we were limited. There were certain things we couldn’t do. That was the situation in 1900.

New Models of the Church

What does the situation look like today? There’s still cultural involvement of the African-American community. There’s still the theological reach of the African-American Church. But today, what do we have? There’s the way it was in 1900, but as a result of the Civil rights movement, we have seen a great expansion of involvement of African-Americans in the culture. Yes, my father could be an airline pilot today. Yes, my mechanical drawing teacher could be an engineer. Yes, Mr. Jones down the street could be CEO of General Motors, maybe. But where has the reach of the African-American Church extended? The reach of the African-American church, the theological reach, is still confined to that small box. The reach of the sole dynamic is still confined to that small box.

And therefore what has happened is that we’ve created a vacuum out there and that’s the trouble we’re in. And what’s filling this vacuum? The Nation of Islam, secularism, New Age, materialism, mainline Islam, and whatever you want to name. All kinds of things are happening. What we need today are new models of the church that will address the issue. Fifty years ago, the issue of whether or not I should pad up my executive expense account was not an issue faced by African Americans. Today, it is. Isn’t that right? What do you do with your 401k? Your what? That’s an issue faced by African Americans. So today, we need new models of the church that will address the issues that are out there theologically.

By the way, if you look at these new models of the church, there’s all kinds of new models out there. Some of these churches will be predominantly white with a little bit of soul in them. Others will throw conferences and have their choirs sing, clapping on two and four. Others will have the flavor of the old traditional church, but with a little new twist. Others will be all over the map. We live in an exciting time. I just got back from London and I met with some people from all over the Muslim world, and we were talking about what’s been happening with the church in places like Iran and Indonesia and Malaysia and Morocco and Algeria. What’s happening with the church in the Muslim world. Somehow, the church is starting to come alive. God is raising up a whole new church out there.

It began to dawn on me as I looked at the Western church and I looked at the non-Western church, the Western Church might just be at the same place that Israel was in the first century. We have grown fat, we have grown complacent, and we have grown insulated from the sufferings of our brothers and sisters in other parts of the world. And the question we face is, is that where we want to go? Maybe the ax is at the root. God is raising up some new churches in the non-Western world. Who are we going to identify with? I think as we look at the development of the soul dynamics, you’ll see a glimpse of some kind of an alternative even happening within this society.

A New Direction

So the question remains before us: Which way will we go? Even in the African-American church that’s a big question. Some unfortunately have gotten into the Laodicean prosperity gospel. That’s a shame. But you see, and not only that, but we’re also seeing even within the African American church, a reemergence of interest and missions. But let’s hope we don’t make those same mistakes of going over with that third C.

Now let me conclude by saying this. I so much appreciated what my Korean brother said last night. He articulated something that I’ve been trying to articulate for years. He said, “Diversity is all right. But oftentimes, in situations of so-called “diversity,” those of us in the subdominant culture become a mere garnish to the dominant culture.” I thought that was an excellent articulation of that. That’s exactly right. You see, unfortunately, what we have in the church in America are Christians who act more like dominant culture than Christians. And we have Christians who act more like subdominant culture than Christians. I look at my Bible and that distinction is ridiculous. Look, what did Jesus say? Pilate said, “Are you a king?” Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world system.” This is not our system. I said this earlier today. The system we live in delivers the goods to some of us, but let us not be blinded by that system because as it delivers the goods to some of us, it hurts others.

We should have nerve endings in each other so that if any part of the body hurts, we all hurt. We have to recognize the fact that the dominant-subdominant dynamic has no place in the church. Because you know what? All of us, together, the body of Christ, are a subdominant culture together. This is not our world system. This is not our kingdom. We are citizens of a new kingdom that’s coming. As I said, we are saboteurs. We are fifth columnists. We are Navy SEALs. We are Green Berets. We are called by God to be lean and mean. And one of the great contributions that the soul dynamic has given us some glimpses into how we can function in that role.

Addressing Cultural Core Issues

Let me close by saying this, showing you about those cultural core issues. Remember we talked about the cultural core issues. Remember? The empowerment issues? We already know about those empowerment issues, don’t we? Remember? The ones related to empowerment from the 1700s to today? What are they? Human dignity, identity, and the divine significance of the African-American experience. Those are still with us. And those have yet to be addressed by the soul dynamic.

Some of the things I learned at Westminster have given me the ability to address those things. The soul dynamic never gave me that because these are things that developed outside of that. But today, since 1970, we’ve had three other issues related to another theme pop up. It’s not the theme of empowerment, but the theme of dysfunctionality. How do you cope with dysfunctionality? Since 1970, we’ve seen some new cultural core issues arise, and they are the easing of pain, the mitigation of rage, and the quest for re-masculation. In other words, what on earth is a true man?

Now, one of the reasons why we need new models of the church, and one of the reasons we need to work together on this, is because that second set of core issues is not limited to African Americans. Columbine didn’t happen in the hood. Neither did Pearl, Mississippi. When you look at all these things, you ask these kids, what’s going on? These kids are angry. There’s a lot of pain out there. Do you know that 85 percent of hip hop CDs are bought by white kids in the suburbs? Have you seen the reports on Johnny Walker, the American Taliban? He went to that hip hop stage. Why is that the case? I would suggest to you that while Malcolm X was the best articulator of those empowerment core issues, perhaps Tupac Shakur was the best articulator of the dysfunctionality ones. You see these kids out here and these grownups are dealing with these issues, and they are longing to hear what God says about it. We can’t do it alone. But this second set of issues have been universal.

I will never forget one time I was in Davenport, Iowa. I’ve said this before, I met a bunch of white kids. Some were in the Bloods and others were in the Crips. It blew my mind. I couldn’t believe it. What’s going on here? It just might be that the issues that are facing us are going to force us to work together, force us to do some adequate theology, taking some cues and some wisdom from the soul dynamic and taking some wisdom from the theological traditions that come out of Europe. We can’t do it alone, and we’re all facing the same thing.

Ask your kids, they’re angry. They’re hurting. I don’t know why, but I tell you what, does the Bible deal with the issue of pain? It sure does. Hosea, if that isn’t the blues, I don’t know what is. Rage, look at David — “God, I hate those people.” Look at Nehemia — “God, don’t you forgive them. Zap them.” Remember the thunder boys with Jesus? The terrorists? What do you mean you don’t accept our kind? Hey Jesus, why don’t we nuke them?

Re-Masculation

What about the quest for re-masculation. What on earth is a man? We all look at the rappers and we say how terrible it is that they denigrate women and it is terrible. But what they’re looking for is manhood. They don’t have access to manhood, so they take the next thing, machismo. But we need to reintroduce those folks to Jesus — the Jesus of the Bible, who was a carpenter, but the same Greek word also can be translated stone mason. We’re not looking at a 90 pound weakling. We’re looking at a guy with dirt under his fingernails and hair on his chest — a guy who was so bad, he could attract two terrorists to follow him. He even had a guy who could cuss like a sailor because he was one. You know who I’m talking about? Peter Rocky Bar Jonah, son of John. He even had a philosopher following him because he had issues of epistemology. How do I know that he’s alive? You see what I’m saying? We worship a Jesus who could reach the rappers. We worship a Jesus who could reach the nationalists. He could reach anybody.

Let us break out of our theological boxes and get out into the fresh air and the open field of biblical truth and let’s go to work applying biblical truth to the core issues that appear. But we’re going to have to read our Bible in some new ways. So yes, the soul dynamic has a lot to offer us because it came about as a gift of God’s sovereignty. So we put that alongside some of the other things that God has given us, and together, we can come up with something that is absolutely unbelievable. It just might be that it might start a reformation of the church leading to spiritual revitalization, leading to a spiritual revolution, and it just might make this country great, not in terms of money and power, but in terms of righteousness that exalts a nation.

Question and Answer

Earlier this morning, you talked about reformed theology and blacks and also some Anglo’s aversion to it. Could you address the impact of the non-existence of the conservative church in these matters? That certainly would include the reformed tradition’s absence in the participation of the Civil Rights movement and also the Dutch Reformed church’s role in bringing Apartheid into South Africa.

Here are two things. One, the Bible-believing church in the white community, namely the evangelicals, the fundamentalists, and the reformed people missed the civil rights movement because of an inadequate view of theology. Remember the window? We were confined to one pane in the window, and we didn’t recognize that the civil rights movement was a movement against oppression, which is sin, and it was for justice, which is a manifestation of righteousness, by the way. But we didn’t recognize that because you see, when you’re in the dominant culture, your tendency is not to think in terms of those who are in the subdominant culture. That’s just the way it is. And so we got theologically lazy and we missed it.

Now, about the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa, that used to bother me because I had studied all this stuff at Westminster and all that. People used to ask me if I was a Calvinist and I wasn’t sure about it. But I read Calvin and I didn’t have too much of a problem with what he said, but I knew the Dutch Reformed Church espoused the same theology. I was ready to chuck the whole thing. I was having another crisis like I had back in the late 1960s. I was going to throw the whole thing out until I went to South Africa and I started talking to some Afrikaners. I said, I really want to know where these folks are coming from.

Well, the first thing that really struck me was I thought of the Afrikaners as this group of people that were haughty and conceited and all that stuff. And I found out that they thought of themselves as an oppressed minority. That took me out. But then I began to understand. I looked at their theology and they stacked their cards pretty much the same way as the guys at Westminster did. And I thought, there’s something wrong here. Until I began to realize that the God they worshiped was a tribal deity. So when you have a well-thought-out, well-reasoned, well-structured system like reformed theology, and you put a false God at a pinnacle, what you have created is a devastating, toxic, poison. Do you see? So you can take something good and make a lie out of it. So I think that’s what happened with the Dutch Reformed Church.

Because if you look at the history of South Africa, these folks really thought they made this covenant with God. I visited the Voortrekker Monument and all that kind of stuff. It’s deep. They really saw themselves as God’s chosen people. And you see, and they made the same mistake that the Israelites made in the Old Testament. See, they were supposed to be Jews because they were chosen, but they thought they were chosen because they were Jews, and they made the same mistake. You have a Baal at the top of your theology and your whole theological system becomes a very poisonous, dangerous, destructive thing. And I think that’s what we’ve got to watch out for. And we all have to watch out for that because we all have a tendency to turn God into a tribal deity. We all have a tendency to do that. All right? So that’s why we need to fellowship with one another and get our paradigms messed up. I’m sure some of you all have had some paradigm shifts here.

To “break out of our theological boxes,” that was an interesting phrase. You said you received a great deal of help at Westminster from the white European perspective. To what extent would it be helpful for me or my sons to attend a black college to receive the other end that we would not hear in a predominantly white Bible college?

Do it. That’s great. Become a part of the subdominant culture for a change, and you’ll find it to be liberating. You’ll find it to be liberating. Because when you’re in the dominant culture, that’s its own bondage. That’s why I can always relate very well to folks who have been overseas for a while as missionaries. They come back with a different perspective. Whatever it is. Get into another culture sometimes, that’s radically different from yours where you have to be the one who has to adapt.

Can I tell you a story that my father shared with me? He was stationed over in Italy and in those days, the army was segregated, right? And he said, “But you can always tell, when you went to an Italian town, you can always tell which towns were liberated by black soldiers and which towns were liberated by white soldiers.” You see, when the liberation first came, whatever the protocols were established between the Americans and the Italians would carry on. Do you know how he could tell? If in the town the Americans were trying to speak Italian, he knew that town was liberated by black soldiers because the black soldiers were used to always having to adapt, being in the subdominant culture. But if the Italians were trying to speak English to the Americans, he knew that that town was liberated by whites. It had nothing to do with color. It had something to do with the protocols of dominance and the protocols of subdominant, you see?

So put yourself in that sometimes. I talk about when I went to Hawaii. When I went to Hawaii for a couple of weeks, a few years ago, I got there and it was so beautiful like I expected and so forth and so on. But I felt very uneasy. I felt very uneasy. I had this terrible burden that I was carrying. I couldn’t figure out what it was. And it took me a few days to figure it out.

Here I was in the United States of America and everybody was brown. Now, of course, when I’m in the hood, that’s the way it is sometimes, right? But I’m talking about the mainline here. I went to the suburban mall and everybody was brown. And suddenly, I realized that I was a part of the dominant look. Hawaiians assumed I was from somewhere on one of the islands or something. And I just had never had that feeling before. And suddenly, for the first time in my life, I wasn’t African-American. I had no consciousness of that. I was just me. And it surprised me at how unconcerned I suddenly became about the white minority in Hawaii.

What I saw taught me a lesson. I said, “Oh, okay, all right. Now I know what it’s like to be in a dominant culture, okay.” So it’s very easy. You understand that that shows that we’re all made of the same stuff. Put in the same position, we do the same thing. So anyway, that’s just a little something that I share.

I have a question about indigenous vs. alien sin. How do we minister to someone who maybe has these two things mixed together?

Let me say this. When I talked this morning about indigenous and alien, I don’t want you to get the impression that these are absolutely always distinct and separate, all right? Because there’s always some mixing in there. I made the contrast to get you into some concepts, but it’s never quite that neat in human experience. Sometimes it’s hard to tell where one stops and where the other begins.

The manhood piece, why did he do that? Because he had a defective understanding of what manhood was all about. It just might be that maybe we need to think through that. We have to have a theology of manhood. Now, I’m not leaving the sisters out. I was talking to some people at a seminary in a major city and they were asking me about that whole issue about women in ministry and all the rest of that. And I said, “Where I come from, the church is male unfriendly.”

Some of the sisters sitting in the room said, “Yeah, they’re female unfriendly too.” And it dawned on me that we’re missing it on both tracks here. But we’ve got to really begin to develop some very practical understandings as we look at biblical character as to what true manhood really is. Ultimately, it’s fulfilled in Jesus Christ. But unfortunately, the images that we project of Jesus are wrong. Michael Jackson does not exactly inspire me to be strong. Do you understand what I’m saying? Give me the choice between Arnold Schwarzenegger and Michael Jackson, I’ll go with Arnold any day. I can relate to him. Michael, I don’t know, pray for that boy.

But those are the images that we project of Jesus. That Jesus wouldn’t last 49 seconds in my old neighborhood, but he wasn’t that way. So we need to rethink some of that stuff. And we really need to begin to intentionally develop a theology of manhood and personhood and all the rest of that. What is the proper use of force? Even the Bible doesn’t tell us that we can’t use force. The Bible says we must never take revenge. That’s what turning the other cheek is all about. Look, I used force on my kids. I’m a single dad. I’m trying to raise two teenagers here. I think God’s blessed that. But there were times when they were younger, I had to use a little force. I had to apply to the Board of Education to the seat of the problem. You know what I’m saying? If I’m going to turn the other cheek, what am I doing here?

But anyway, I think there are appropriate uses for force and all the rest of that. I think those are some of the things that are of concern for men, cultural things. So anyway, that’s something we need to do. We need to develop a whole curriculum on that.

I appreciate what my brother just said about them being educated in a setting that would be predominantly of African descent, sending his kids to a black Bible college. My question is, what happened? Why is it today that we look over America and we have two black Bible colleges? Why was that gap never noticed, never met as we came into the 20th century and in the early 1900s?

Well, I think the African-American theological outlook had its strengths but also had its weaknesses. Remember I said we developed a sacred profane scheme as opposed to a sacred secular scheme. Well, I think within the African-American outlook, we never made much of a distinction there. And so what happened, I think, as time went and as things began to change and as we gave up on the theology of empowerment, if the church was involved, even though it was involved only sociologically, we still looked at that as Christian. I think we just lost the theological framework of it all.

I think it happened in the white community too. You go out to the Midwest and you see all these little state colleges. They were started as Bible colleges. And the same thing happened as you see the secularization of society. In this country I think, if you go back a couple of hundred years, you found people who were concerned about bringing God glory in every aspect of life. And that’s why you have a lot of Christians who founded a lot of institutions, hospitals, schools, colleges and things like that, designed to bring God glory in every area of life. So they weren’t thinking of just training people for the ministry, they were thinking about training people for carpentry, for business, for whatever, from a biblical point of view.

But somehow the Christian Church stopped functioning in those broader areas of cultural involvement and we confined ourselves to just areas of private fire insurance. And we let all that other stuff go. Going back to the windows, we abandoned three-fourths of the window things. And so we just let these things go adrift. And I think that’s why secularism took over. As secularism took over in the white community, Islam was trying to take over in the African American community. But it’s the same phenomenon. It’s because we have abandoned things and these things grew in the vacuum. That’s how I look at it.

So when you say, “Where do we go from here?” are you saying that we should go and create some spiritual inroads to a lot of the blacks that will be in that new box? The CEOs and the ones who have advanced sociologically? Or should that vision also include a new paradigm to raise up some new leaders, some new thinkers?

You notice there was lateral mobility too? There were people who went that way who remained poor, but got outside the reach of the church. But to answer your question, it’s both. You have to do both. You got to do both. That’s why I’m excited about some of the stuff you’re doing. We’ve got to develop some new concepts of Christian education and we should be training people for more than just being missionaries, although that’s a good thing.

Look at what’s happening in Africa, all that crazy stuff going on in Africa. One of the faults I have with a lot of the missions that went over there is that they taught the Africans a pietistic Christianity. They didn’t produce Christian statesmen, Christian businessmen, and Christian whatever. So look at all the chaos that’s going on. There’s a crisis of leadership, and I think that’s what’s happening here. So yes, we need to hit it on all levels and not just churches, but we need to redo the things that they did 100 years ago in terms of starting institutions that are reflective of the word of God.

What is the soul dynamic?

I thought I explained that this morning. What happens when you oppress people? What is oppression? It is sin plus power. It is sin that is imposed upon someone else. It is the consequences of sin that is imposed upon someone else. That’s what oppression is. So when you oppress somebody, the oppression apart from God’s grace would destroy your humanity, but it doesn’t because of Genesis 3:15. All right?

So when you oppress people, they begin to resist the oppression by trying to affirm the humanity that the oppression is trying to destroy. And they get deeper into the raw image of God. They get deeper into their humanity. And the culture that comes out from a people who are driven that deep inside is a very powerful, potent, penetrating culture. That’s what I call the cultural dynamic.

Now we go to the other side. In the African-American context, the church was the only institution we were allowed to have. And therefore, what happened was that we began to develop, not having access to Scripture, an oral tradition that carried much of the truth of Scripture. Now, it wasn’t canonical, all right? It wasn’t inerrant — and neither is our theology — but it carried in essence, what the Bible said. So that’s what I call a theological dynamic, an oral tradition of theology. Now, you take the cultural dynamic and you wrap it around the theological dynamic, which is this oral tradition, and it comes together and not only do they multiply each other, but they emerge and become the soul dynamic.

In the African-American context. We call that having church. Now, you don’t even have to be in church to have church because it’s part of that dynamic and it’s a very powerful thing. I’ll tell you something that’s amazing. The first time I went to South Africa I was driving to the airport in Chattanooga, and this was in 1991. I don’t know if you remember that song by Crystal Waters. Some of y’all remember that. I’m listening to that song as I’M going to the airport. I get on the plane and we make a couple of stops. We’re in the van, going to Soweto. I turn on the radio. What do I hear? The same song. It blew me away. I said, “Well, what else do you guys have?” They said, “Oh, we have Whitney Houston,” and so forth and so on. That’s amazing because all of this comes out of that dynamic, all right? At the end of my time in South Africa, I went to Paris, stayed for a week, rented a car to go see Chartres Cathedral, got out in the countryside, turned on the radio. You know what I heard. Anyway, what I am trying to say is that that soul dynamic that came out of that experience became a very powerful thing, not only within the African-American community, but it became a very powerful thing in terms of its invigorated music and it infected that or invaded that. And it became a worldwide phenomenon. So that’s what the soul dynamic is. I am sorry if I didn’t make that clear, but that’s what it is.

Does it naturally entail the theology of suffering that you described?

Yes, it has that theme of suffering in it, but it tends not to have the theme of empowerment because that was cut short at the beginning of the 20th century.

Carl, I want to say thank you very much for your presentation and to Dr. Piper for being a very bold man to host this conference. I kept hearing questions this morning that troubled me because it seemed like the focus was on the church, that 11 o’clock hour of segregation and how we were going to make that work. I don’t think that’s the problem. And if you agree with that, would you expound upon the fact that this is not a church problem, but a social-civil problem. I’m not interested so much in standing beside a white, Asian, Indian, or any other black and singing Amazing Grace if when I come to your office to do business, I’m treated differently because of the color of my skin. And to me, that’s the issue that we need to address before we ever get to the merging of theology or any other fact that’s going to change what the church can do. If you agree with that, would you address it, please?

I would agree with that. I would say this. Jesus tells us that the world has the right to judge whether we’re Christians or not by the way we love one another. So if we’re going to be dysfunctional with others, each other in this arena, then what’s the use of being a Christian? Because really, what’s the difference between a non-Christian and a dysfunctional Christian at the place of the Christian’s dysfunctionality? There’s no difference. So what’s the point? I hope you didn’t understand me to say that this problem was solved by us going to church together. What I’m saying is that we need to permeate and sabotage the evil structures and whatever else stands in the way of the kingdom of God as Christians. But we need to work together to do that.

There are places some of you can go that I can’t go and what’s going on there and vice versa. So we need to come together and plan strategy and figure out how we’re going to carry out our work of the kingdom and the Great Commission, teaching all nations to obey everything that Jesus commands. Part of the Great Commission involves not only addressing those kinds of issues, but dealing with the structures and the behaviors and the protocols that are sinful. So yeah, I would say that. I couldn’t care less about churches having a variety of people in them if that’s all it’s going to be. If we go out there and treat each other dogs out there then it doesn’t mean a whole lot. So when I talk about the church, I don’t mean the church as it gathers on Sunday morning, I’m talking of the church as it is in the world at all times.

You alluded to Islam creating mythology about Ham. Would you explain that, please?

First of all, Muhammad, the founder of Islam, owned black slaves. That’s a fact. And he practiced slavery. He never freed all of his slaves or anything. So in Islam, you cannot forbid what the prophet practiced. So there’s slavery going on in the Muslim world today. But having said that, long before America was founded, Muslims were enslaving Africans up and down the East Coast. This is a well-documented fact. Eventually, the Islamic slavery went all the way across to Western Africa and what happened? They destabilized some of the kingdoms and they arabized some of the tribes — tribes like the Hausas and the Fulanis. They Arabized them. Now, what do I mean by an Arabized African tribe? They were like the Arab version of Oreos. They thought themselves to be Arabs, but they were not.

They Arabized them and being Muslim, began to capture some of their fellow Africans and sell them to the Arab Muslims. And so somewhere around the eighth century, a man named Wahhab Ibn Manabi took some stuff that was in the Talmud and formulated the Ham myth as we know it today, that Ham was a handsome white man, and he looked at his father’s nakedness and mocked him. And as a result, Noah cursed him and turned his skin black, and he became the ancestors of all the black people. And they are destined to be slaves because he said that they’re supposed to be slaves. That’s an Islamic myth that somehow, when they began to do business with the European and American slave traders, the myth came along too. And it was accepted by parts of the church in this country. But Wahhab Ibn Manabi was an eighth century Muslim apologist who actually formulated that myth as we know it today. So it is an Islamic myth.

I’m a college pastor and in my attempts to establish relationships with black male students, I’ve fallen on my face a bit. Could you maybe just give me some advice on some of the cultural distinctives of maybe a young black males or even how I could establish a relationship in a way that is relevant?

Okay, can we talk? All right, here’s the deal. When I used to go on double dates or group dates, I used to wonder why the girls would always want to powder their nose, every time we got out there and they wanted to powder their nose. I never could understand that. And later on in my old age, as my spirit started growing gray, I got some wisdom on that. It turns out that they would powder their nose, not because they needed to put powder on their nose, but they get together to do some girl talk. Because when they were with the rest of us, guess who became the dominant culture? The guys. And we’d talk about the football games and all that kind of stuff, right? So they had to get away from male domination every now and then.

So if I’m an African-American male student at a college or whatever, and you’re trying to hang in there, in my mind, either you want me to educate you, which I’m tired of doing because I’ve been asked stupid questions by a million other white guys — Do I get suntans? And do I have a tail and all that kind of mess? — the thought is, “I want to get away from white domination,” and your presence would remind me of white domination. Now, I’m just giving you, if I was in their place, that’s what I would think.

But if you just hang in there and be persistent, they’ll throw some cold pricklies at you, and if you’re like Jesus, you’ll just duck them a little and just hang in there. Pretty soon, they’ll say, “Oh okay, this guy’s for real.” I don’t want to be bothered with another white person who wants to know, oh, what’s the problem? And so we get to talk about the problem, and I finally start opening up my heart. I start sharing all this pain and this anger in me, and then my white brother says, “Oh, that’s just too painful. I am out of here.” But see, he has the option of leaving. I don’t, I’m stuck with it. Do you get me? I expect to have a marriage here and not a one night stand. So hang in, listen, learn, and be persistent. Back in 1950, if you were trying to do that they’d love to tell you and educate you because all of us, we all felt ourselves to be ambassadors to white folks to let y’all know that we’re okay. But that’s not the front anymore. All right? And so just hang in there. It takes a while. I would run into the same thing the other way around, by the way. Just hang in there and show the love of Jesus and do some reading.

You might want to ask questions every now and then that are intelligent. One of my colleagues in Project Joseph is a white brother. His name is Bill Garvey. And I always kid him whenever I introduce him, I say he’s Marcus Garvey’s grandson. If you know who Marcus Garvey is, that’s an inside joke, but you should know. Anyway, Bill has this incredible ability to work with members of the Nation of Islam. Now, if you know anything about the doctrine of the Nation of Islam, one of their fundamental doctrines is that the white man is the devil.

Here’s Bill as white as he wants to be, working with these guys in the nation of Islam, and he’s led a number of them to Christ and they love him. Why? Because he comes off in an entirely different way. He is just totally outside of the box of what whiteness is all about. He’ll come to one of these guys and say, “Well, what do you think? Do you think Wallace Fard really went back to California at the end of his time?” They say, “How do you know about that?” He does some reading. He understands. He understands these issues, and he asks questions in such a way that it shows a deep understanding on his part. After a while they say, “This guy is messing up my system.” He throws a monkey wrench into their works and eventually, they begin to realize, “What is this? Why are you doing this?” And then they find out about the love of Jesus and it just knocks them out.So what I’m trying to say is don’t give up just because you fall on your face the first couple of times because there’s a lot of pain there, a lot of anger, a lot of rage. Just hang in. You’d be surprised. Eventually, people will start saying, “Okay, this is one of those for real people.” But don’t expect to be just accepted. It’s a shame that it’s like that, but that’s the way it is.