The Best of Multicultural Ministry and Intercultural Relationships, Part Two

Kellemen’s Christian The Best Of Guide
The Best of Multicultural Ministry and Intercultural Relationships
Part Two

Kellemen’s Christian The Best of Guide: Making your life easier by finding, summarizing, evaluating, and posting the best resources on a wide variety of topics from a Christian perspective. Posted each Monday on my blog at http://bit.ly/h0XGH

Note: Today's post is excerpted from African American History, Life, Christianity, and Ministry: An Annotated Resource Guide, By Robert W. Kellemen, Ph.D., LCPC. For information on the full version: http://bit.ly/f1AvT

*Note: For Part One, please visit: http://bit.ly/2BXt0

*Esterline, David, ed. Shaping Beloved Community: Multicultural Theological Education. Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, 2006.

Many Christians talk about multicultural ministry. Esterline and his team outline how to teach, train, and equip ministers in a multicultural seminary setting. Personally, teaching in a seminary with no majority culture in the Washington, D. C. area, I found Esterline’s views practical, helpful, and realistic.

*Gilbreath, Edward. Reconciliation Blues: A Black Evangelical’s Inside View of White Christianity. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2006.

Edward Gilbreath has written a powerful and priceless book on reconciliation in Evangelical circles—or the sad, disappointing lack thereof. Writing with openness and candor, Gilbreath shares his own experiences in Evangelicalism and the process and progress of his journey. He then narrates the wider Evangelical scene historically and today, especially in para-church and church life. His book combines hope and realism, human action and trust in God’s direction. The practical examples of churches that do it and barriers that hinder reconciliation are worth the price of the book.

*Griffin, John. Black Like Me. Reprint Edition. New York: NAL Trade, 2003.

In 1959, John Howard Griffin temporarily abandoned his privileged life as a Southern White male, medically darkened his skin, and posed as a Black man in the deep South. Some rightly question whether a short period of immersion such as this can allow the pain of racism to etch onto and penetrate into one’s soul. Of course it cannot. It cannot allow for the decade after decade after decade build-up of racist attitudes and history. Nor can it allow for the day after day after day of soul-numbing hatred. Still, for its time, this book was revolutionary. And even for our time today, Black Like Me can at least provide Whites with some small slice of the horrors of racism.

*June, Lee, Sabrina Black, and Willie Richardson. Counseling in African-American Communities: Biblical Perspectives on Tough Issues. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2002.

Counseling in African-American Communities: Biblical Perspectives on Tough Issues presents a well-researched, practically-developed, biblical methodology for pastors, lay people, and counselors working from a Christian perspective and/or working with the Christian client. Though focused on African-Americans, the material can quite effectively be used cross-culturally.

The editors, June and Black, divide the book into four parts. Part I delves into various addictions, their nature, development, and treatment. Part II focuses upon family issues. Part III highlights mental health matters. Part IV is entitled, “Confronting Other Critical Issues,” and includes matters such as conflict, faith, demonology, unemployment, and research in clinical practice.

In each chapter within each section, the research is presented in easy-to-digest form, almost always with helpful charts. Interspersed within each chapter, the reader finds real-life vignettes that bring the material to life. The foundation of every chapter is the biblical counseling diagnosis and treatment plan. The authors use theological concepts as well as specific principles from pertinent passages to build a biblical approach to the topic. Finally, every chapter includes a brief, helpful bibliography for further research.

The book’s audience is clearly the helper—the professional counselor, pastor, or lay care-giver. The lay person himself/herself, struggling with a particular issue, could benefit through reading the pertinent chapter(s). However, the intent of the book is not primarily to be a “self-help” manual. Counseling in African-American Communities provides a comprehensive introduction to a biblical perspective on a wide-range of issues facing counselors, pastors, and spiritual friends.

*Kellemen, Robert W. and Karole A. Edwards. Beyond the Suffering: Embracing the Legacy of African American Soul Care and Spiritual Direction. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2007.

Beyond the Suffering is a one-of-a-kind African American narrative. It is not simply a history of America, not simply a history of African Americans, not simply a history of African American Christianity, but a narrative of how African American Christians ministered to one another. As the title suggests, the book tells how African American believers helped one another to move beyond their horrific suffering to a place of healing and hope.

The characters are the African American believers themselves. The plot is their real-life battles told in their empowering words. The authors are a co-authoring team, one an African American female, the other a Caucasian male. Together, they embrace the legacy of how African Americans sustained, healed, reconciled, and guided one another in the faith.

Written in an engaging style that allows African Americans to tell their own story, Beyond the Suffering reads like a novel. It empowers African Americans and all people of all races and nationalities to love like Christ loved even in the worst of circumstances. Readers not only are riveted by the powerful historical chronicles, but are also equipped to apply soul care and spiritual direction principles to their own lives and ministries.

*McNeil, Brenda Salter. The Heart of Racial Justice: How Soul Change Leads to Societal Change. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2004.

Brenda Salter McNeil has written a ground-breaking book on racial reconciliation. The subtitle alone speaks volumes about the core change needed: soul change. Only when the individual is changed by the infinite love of Christ can society then even begin to be changed. Writing with wit and wisdom, experience and truth, and speaking the truth in love, The Heart of Racial Justice offers a stirring, practical model for positive racial change and reconciliation.
*Ortiz, Manuel. One New People: Models for Developing Multiethnic Churches. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1996.

Manuel Ortiz has written a very practical “why and how to” book on developing multicultural congregations. He provides transcultural and time-tested models for moving a church (change management) culture from monolithic to multicultural. Though dated (and thus the demographics tend to be outdated), the principles and practices are timeless.

*Sande, Ken. The Peacemaker: A Biblical Guide to Resolving Personal Conflict. Third revised updated edition. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2004.

Ken Sande has spent a lifetime studying, teaching, and applying biblical principles of conflict resolution. His credentials as a lawyer and student of the Bible combine to make him eminently qualify to write this work. Though the subtitle emphasizes the resolution of personal conflict, The Peacemaker and its principles can be used in corporate/church conflict resolution situations, also. With each principle, Sande presents the biblical foundation as well as practical applications.

*Steele, Shelby. White Guilt: How Blacks and Whites Together Destroyed the Promise of the Civil Rights Era. San Francisco: Harper Collins, 2006.

Shelby Steele writes about race in the style and substance of Bill Cosby. Both men speak as successful Black men who have lived their “up-by-the-boot-straps” philosophy. Both men also insist that African Americans must maintain personal responsibility for their present condition, while recognizing that White Americans were responsible for the horrors of the Black past.

Steele’s basic premise concludes that, yes, African Americans were horribly treated and that at the onset of the 60s Civil Rights movement, a “balancing act” was necessary to provide disenfranchised Blacks with a “fair start.” However, Steele affirms that along the way, something went wrong. This something, he calls “White Guilt.” Liberal Whites, in particular, attempted, in Steele’s view, to gain the moral high ground by punishing current White Americans for the past guilt of White America.

In the process, and as a result, Blacks who now, according to Steele, had a more or less level playing field, were re-classified as an entire race of people in need of a White hand up and a White hand out. Thus, liberal White guilt was still White racism: “We are better than you and you need our help to survive.” When African Americans accepted this Faustian bargain, they wandered off the path of meritocracy (you earn success) to mediocrity (you are given an easy way toward success), according to Steele.

Being raised in Gary, Indiana in the 60s and 70s, and living in the 90s and early 00s in D.C., and now having returned to the Gary region, I have, as a White male, witnessed the eras of which Steele speaks. Much of what he says resonates with me. In fact, I would give him five stars for White Guilt except for a few issues.

First, I don’t see the end of racism of which he seems to speak. I still hear it and see it, albeit, in subtle ways, and even more subtle policy-making. Additionally, I’m not convinced that the playing field is always level. Certainly, I am convinced that African Americans have total equality of ability. I’m simply not sure that everywhere in America they have total equality of opportunity. One final point of departure: by his definition of White guile, we may take away from the historical reality that there was true White guilt. False guilty feelings and faulty guilt-driven policies may mask the reality that there was (and is) true guilt. European Americans did indeed despicably mistreat and literally beat down African Americans. I would be saddened if Steele’s title caused anyone to minimize the suffering. In fact, it is in admitting and facing the suffering that we see the true resilience and character of individual and corporate African Americans who rose above and went beyond the suffering.

*Walker, Clarence. Biblical Counseling with African Americans. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1992.

Biblical Counseling with African Americans is an excellent contribution to multicultural counseling from a Christian perspective. Walker integrates biblical theology, research on African American culture, and his own extensive counseling practice to weave together a very practical and thorough book. Some books of this genre tend to be heavy on theory or on methodology. Walker nicely balances the two, linking understanding to practice. The book is now a little dated in terms of research works quoted (most coming from the 70s and 80s), but besides that it has withstood the test of time.

*Wimberly, Edward. African American Pastoral Care. Nashville: Abingdon, 1991.

African American Pastoral Care is Wimberly’s 1991 “sequel” to his 1979 Pastoral Care in the Black Church. In his newer work, Wimberly continues his important focus on sustaining, healing, reconciling, and guiding, while highlighting a new emphasis: pastoral care through narrative. Narrative therapy has been a growing model for at least two decades. Wimberly nicely blends the historical African American use of oral tradition with the insights of post-modern narrative therapy.

In his introduction and first chapter, Wimberly concisely explains the nature of narrative story-telling in African American pastoral care. In each subsequent chapter, he demonstrates how this model can be used in various counseling issues such as addiction, bereavement, life stages, marriage, and family matters.

Important Stuff

*Your Guide: Bob Kellemen, Ph.D., LCPC, is the Founder and CEO of RPM Ministries (www.rpmministries.org) through which he writes, speaks, and consults to equip God’s people to change lives with Christ’s changeless truth. He blogs daily at http://rpmministries.blogspot.com.

*My Necessary Disclaimer: Of course, I don’t endorse everything in every article, book, or link that you’ll find in Kellemen’s Christian The Best of Guide. I report, you decide.

*Your Suggestions Are Welcomed: Feel free to post comments and/or send emails (rpm.ministries@gmail.com) about resources that you think deserve attention in various categories covered in Kellemen’s Christian The Best of Guide.

Why White Biblical Counselors Need the Black Church

Why Some Biblical Counseling Is Only Half Biblical!
Part Six:

Why White Biblical Counselors Need the Black Church

*Note: If you’re disappointed that I’m saying that some biblical counseling is only half biblical, then please read my comments at the end of my first post in this series: http://tinyurl.com/n8k799.

My Premise

Some modern biblical counseling considers the seriousness of sin—sinning, but spends much less time equipping people to minister to the gravity of grinding affliction—suffering. When we provide counseling for sin, but fail to provide counseling and counselor training for suffering, then such biblical counseling is only half biblical.

Why and How We Lost Our Way

So, why do I think biblical counseling lost its way? What historical, cultural, and personal realities help to explain why some modern biblical counseling is only half biblical?

E. Brooks Holifield, in his excellent study, A History of Pastoral Care in America (http://tinyurl.com/mo6ww8), demonstrates how pastoral ministry moved from a focus on salvation to a focus on self-realization. It moved from Christ to self, from Scripture to humanism.

In my own study of pastoral counseling in America, I’ve found that biblical counseling from the end of the Civil War (1865) to the passage of the Civil Rights Act (1964) moved from a focus on suffering and sin to a focus on self.

Interesting, isn’t it, that for these 100 years, framed by the Civil War and Civil Rights, we lost our way with Christian counseling and pastoral ministry.

In coming posts, I’ll share about the impact of liberalism and fundamentalism on pastoral ministry during this era. I’ll also describe how the modern biblical counseling movement pulled the pendulum back to a focus on sin, but not always to an equal focus on suffering.

Why White Biblical Counseling Needs the Black Church

Here’s my conviction about why pastoral ministry moved from suffering and sin to self, and why modern biblical counseling pulled the focus back to sin but not as much to suffering: church segregation.

From the end of the Civil War to the Civil Rights Act, and continuing to today, Sunday morning remains the most segregated hour in America. We lose so much by this church segregation.

White Evangelical biblical counselors lose the amazing, beautiful, biblical blending of suffering and sin that so characterizes the Black Evangelical Church from its inception in enslavement right up to our day.

In my book, Beyond the Suffering: Embracing the Legacy of African American Soul Care and Spiritual Direction, readers enjoy 100s of lively narratives that consistently depict how the Evangelical Black Church never compartmentalized suffering and sin. Instead, the Black Church consistently integrated, mingled, blended, and kept united soul care for suffering and spiritual direction for sinning.

Samples and the Full Meal

If you want to read a free sample chapter on the Black Church’s personal ministry of the Word, go here: http://tinyurl.com/nykc3h.

If you want your own copy of the entire book in order to be equipped and empowered by African American biblical counselors, go here: http://tinyurl.com/cm96x6.

Conclusion

Because we White Evangelical biblical counselors pulled the pendulum back from a focus on self and because we did so in segregation from our Black brothers and sisters, we compartmentalized sin and suffering and ignored the development of biblical counseling approaches that help us to move beyond the suffering.

Where Do We Go From Here?

In my next post, I’ll share what White Evangelical male biblical counselors lost when we minimized the contribution of female soul care-givers and spiritual directors.

Flying Closer to the Flame

Flying Closer to the Flame: A Passion for the Holy Spirit

Book Details

Author: Charles R. Swindoll

Publisher: Word (1993)

Category: Theology, Church, Spirituality, Holy Spirit, Christian Living

Reviewed 05/09/09 By: Bob Kellemen, Ph.D., LCPC, Authof of Soul Physicians, Spiritual Friends, Beyond the Suffering, Sacred Friendships

Recommended: A ground-breaking, irenic, balanced book on how Cessationists can experience the Person and ministry of the Holy Spirit today.

Review: Enjoying and Experiencing the Holy Spirit

Though somewhat dated (published in 1993) Flying Closer to the Flame: A Passion for the Holy Spirit, in many ways can be considered a classic in the genre. When he wrote it, Chuck Swindoll, was President of the non-Charismatic, cessationist Dallas Theological Seminary and thus shocked the Evangelical world by his authorship of this book.

As the title suggests, Swindoll encourages his fellow cessationist (Christian who believe that the sign gifts such as healers, miracle workers, speaking in tongues, and prophesy have ceased) to hold those theological views while remaining open to experiencing the full power and presence of the Holy Spirit today. In Swindoll’s thinking, cessationists have often minimized the ongoing role of the Holy Spirit in the believer’s life, and thus minimized their passion for the Holy Spirit.

Swindoll writes not primarily a theological workbook or a “two-fisted, negative warning against all the errors floating around” (p. 13). Instead, in the heat of the theological battle, he wants to urge non-charismatics closer to the heat of the Holy Spirit.

With careful exegesis presented at the lay level, with careful balance avoiding extremes, and with an irenic spirit, Swindoll invites non-charismatics and charismatics alike to consider what the Bible does say about the Spirit’s non-sign-gift-work today. He rightly teaches that there is much that the Bible promises about the Spirit’s ministry that is still alive and well today.

Laying this foundational biblical theology, Swindoll moves into practical/pastoral theology of the spiritual life. He explores with readers the role of the Spirit in decision-making, guiding, and leading the believer. He examines the filling and fruit of the Spirit and how the Spirit produces spiritual maturity in believers today.

He is unafraid to touch on areas often ignored by non-charismatics such as “unidentified inner promptings,” the Spirit and our emotions, and sickness and healing. While never straying from historic non-charismatic teachings, and while always tying his assertions directly to the text, Swindoll explains how the Spirit of God uses the Word of God to speak to our spirit.

As a counselor, I appreciate Swindoll’s repeated return to a comprehensive understanding of the image of God in us. His theological understanding of the imago Dei guides his exegesis both when addressing inner promptings and when explaining the Spirit and our emotions.

For readers wanting an updated and more scholarly focused study of the same topic from a cessationist perspective, Who’s Afraid of the Holy Spirit? by Wallace and Sawyer is the recommended text. What Flying Closer to the Flame is for the general non-charismatic Protestant lay person, Who’s Afraid of the Holy Spirit is for the scholarly non-charismatic Protestant pastor, professor, and student.

How Can Any Christian African American Vote for Obama?

Guest Blogger: Pastor Eric Redmond

How Can Any Christian African American Vote for Obama?:
Throwing the Race Card on an All Black Table

Today, with his permission, I re-post a blog originally written by Pastor Eric Redmond. Eric is a brother in Christ, an Evangelical African American pastor, an author (Where Are All the Brothers?), a friend, and a colleague in ministry at Capital Bible Seminary.

Eric writes today not to give an endorsement, but to open a dialogue and to increase multi-cultural understanding. Allow Eric, whether you agree with his perspective totally or not, to stretch your/our mind(s) and to challenge you/us to build bridges of racial understanding.

http://ericredmond.wordpress.com/2008/07/11/how-can-any-christian-african-american-vote-for-obama-throwing-the-race-card-on-an-all-black-table/

Posted by ericredmond on July 11, 2008

© Eric C. Redmond, 2008

How Can Any Christian African American Vote for Obama?:
Throwing the Race Card on an All Black Table

Herein lie buried many things, which if read with patience may sow the strange meaning of being black here in the dawning of the twentieth century. This meaning is not without interest to you, Gentle Reader; for the problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line. (W. E. B. DuBois, The Souls of Black Folk [New York: Pocket Books, 2005]: 3.)

“But how can a Christian vote for Obama?”

I am paraphrasing a question asked of me while in attendance at the Hampton University Ministers’ Conference five weeks ago. It had become obvious to my interrogator that an African American, Democratic version of wrapping the Cross of Christ in the Stars and Stripes had taken a prominent place in the sermons of those preaching at the conference. We were being challenged by speakers to be diligent not to squander our moral responsibility to push Obama into the White House. Roaring responses of clapping and shouting followed these charges as if all of the thousands of African American church leaders and laity present were in full agreement.

Such laudation of the senator from Illinois, by those proclaiming to know the Creator through the Incarnate Son, bothered my friend. An Illinois citizen and theologically conservative Christian, he could not reconcile a vote cast for Obama with anyone who professed the name of Christ. To him, it was very obvious that Obama’s views on abortion and same-sex marriage are so far from what Scripture requires of us that, seemingly, to vote for Obama would be to deny the very things Christians believe. So he turned to me for some explanation of how African American Christians could vote in good faith for Obama without sensing conviction for endorsing one who takes anti-Christian positions on the sanctity of life and the sanctity of marriage.

The Issue of Hope

I started by explaining that for African Americans, there is a sense of hope no longer being deferred. Instead, hope is at the front door knocking furiously, waiting to see if African Americans will answer. If we open the door, forty million African Americans are going to witness a fellow African American getting the largest slice of the American Dream Pie—a dessert many had hoped to see people of color eat in their lifetime, but the many fell asleep having embraced such promises from afar. As the struggle for social and economic equality has been a struggle for all African Americans, regardless of belief system(s), we all share in the joy when one of our own achieves the (presumptive) nomination for the highest office in the land—an office that has been reserved for white males only until now. Obama’s candidacy would allow all African Americans to say to our forefathers, “we finally did it! Your attempts at escaping slavery, deaths by lynching, scars from the scourge of slave masters’ whips, pain from the full blast of unleashed water hoses and muzzle-free police dogs, humiliation by white hecklers at lunch counters, degradation at “coloreds only” fountains and restrooms, indignation on the back of buses, forced acceptance of poorer educational materials and facilities, and marches at the threat of beatings and bombings have not been for naught! Hope, yea victory, is finally here! We are equal at the highest level!”

Factoring all of the historical pockmarks into the hope equation seems to be African Americans’ expression of the reality of “the problem of the Twentieth Century” (DuBois). For African Americans, Christians and non-Christians alike, race, racial prejudice, racial segregation, racial discrimination, racial injustice, racial hatred, racial educational and economic disparity, racial self-consciousness, the racialization of society and all attempts to address problems attributed to the majority culture’s mistreatment of African Americans in any form based on race alone only serve to remind African Americans of their “double-consciousness” (DuBois). As Dubois wrote, in this society African Americans are:

a sort of seventh son, born with a veil, and gifted with second-sight in this American world— a world which yields him no true self-consciousness, but only lets him see himself through the revelation of the other world… It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his two-ness— an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder, (3).

The Issue of Identity

If we take DuBois’ musings as an accurate analysis of African American existence, we can see another factor involved in Christian African Americans’ support of Obama: identity. We now have a candidate who we think identifies with the experience of African Americans. He has experienced the struggle of the great-great-great-grandchildren of slaves (even though he is not one). So surely, it is supposed, he will fight for policies and programs that will be sensitive to the plight of his people and that work toward uplifting the entire race of people to the place where the playing field is level. Surely, as one of us, he will sign into law measures that will protect the gains made during the Civil Rights and post-Civil Rights Eras. Because he is one of us, we have hope that we will no longer have to look at ourselves through the contemptuous eyes of others—i.e., white Americans. We now can look at ourselves through the eyes of the man who could hold the most well-known office in the free-world, and he can look at the world through our eyes. Such looking is inherent when one is in the majority culture; in that culture it is never hoped for or awaited. It is part of being in the majority. For African Americans, to deny Obama would then be, in some sense, to deny one’s own identity. Yet it remains true that no one ever thinks a white man not voting for Clinton, Bush or McCain is a denial of whiteness.

I would suggest that Obama, more than any other candidate, has the ability to say to African Americans, “my fellow Americans,” and do so with the implicit trust of African Americans. His Father’s Day speech demonstrated this ability, for he is the only presidential candidate who can risk bringing up a major social problem in the African American community in an African American pulpit without fear of ostracizing himself. He was able to play a black race card on an all black table in such a way that to outsiders it simply looked as if he still had his card in his hand. But those at the table gladly folded their cards having seen the winning hand.

Being able to see the potential for mutual embracing of identities in a candidate further means that African Americans will not feel the need to settle on the candidate who represents the lesser of two evils. By common consent, many African Americans feel that their votes are taken for granted by one major political party, and only courted as tokenism by the other major party. The votes do not result in policy changes that benefit African Americans as a whole no matter which party’s candidate wins office. As a result, African Americans often resign simply to give a vote to one of the two white candidates, without feeling that their best interests will be taken up truly. An Obama candidacy immediately changes the hopeless feelings of resignation as the fall approaches. His candidacy means African Americans will have the opportunity to make a choice excitedly and confidently. Higher than average African American attendance at the polls in November could be a reflection of the joy brought on by the ability to pick a candidate without mental or emotional reservation and resignation.

The Issue of Justice

I think there is a third reason African American hail Obama: justice. That is, we have placed faith in liberal government to save us when we perceived that those who were conservative politically were weak in running to aid those experiencing race-related injustices. Historically, it seemed that change in race-relations in America was slow to come about through personal moral change on a wide scale. As a result, African Americans looked to Federal policy to institute change in institutional structures. That is, “if you will not find it in your heart to grant me the same access to bid on business contracts, I will look to the government to enact legislation to make you give me access to bid equally on business contracts regardless of my skin color.”

An Obama nomination looks like a nomination for social justice – far more than does a nomination for someone from the other party. If the Illinois senator will carry both white and Black voters in November, unlike Democratic candidates from other ethnicities, he will not be able to make promises to African Americans without accountability to keep his promises. Instead, he will be under pressure not to let his people down judicially. He will have to reject policies that stand against the Democratic version of racial progress, and he will have to sign into law policies that stand for such progress. Anything short of this will bring more ire from African Americans than that directed toward any other president who fell short on his promises. Because the hope is greater, the expectation will be greater, and the backlash for perceived failure will be greater. But African Americans do not expect Obama to fail. They expect social and economic justice policies to find favor with this candidate, for Affirmative Action to be strengthened, for racial profiling and racial inequities in the legal systems to be brought into account and see diminishing statistics, and for “equal justice for all” to be more than words on the halls of justice.

An Obama presidency would portray justice in another odd sort of way. Akin to the issue of hope above, his election would be seen as vindication. It would have a self-correcting effect on the errors of America’s history, with its sins of chattel slavery, Jim Crow laws, and ongoing civil injustices. What better way for African Americans to hear the country say, “join us in life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness!” What greater way is there for African Americans in turn to say, “We have overcome!” What an Obama in the White House would do for African Americans is allow us to feel we can say, “Now this country is going to treat us equally, fairly, justly.”

In order to understand the sentiment of African Americans as a whole – of whom Christian African Americans are a part – one would do well to consider that African Americans have not yet been free in this country for as long as we were slaves, (1654-1865, [211 years] vs. 1865-2008. [143 years]). Moreover, the Civil Rights Era only ended 33 years ago with the extension of the Voting Rights Act (1975). It was only ten years prior to this extension that Jim Crow laws were brought to an end with the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Many of the citizens who rode through this era on the back of the bus are still alive waiting on even more gains for African Americans—gains they feel will not come at the hands of white leadership. These same citizens, who often daily drank in the fears of an Emmett Till episode or a Birmingham bombing—this while whites separately drank in American prosperity free from fear, at the expense of African Americans— diligently taught their children to trust African Americans to uplift African Americans. That generation, and their children to the third and fourth generations, sees in Barak Obama one for whom we can say, “finally, we’re driving this bus.” This attitude even has been expressed by African American conservatives, such as J. C. Watts and Armstrong Williams, who are considering jumping party lines in order to cast a vote for Senator Obama.

The Cross and the Ballot

The above thoughts do not make a judgment on whether Christian African Americans should or should not vote for Obama. The intention of this work is only to offer some reasons that explain why Christian African Americans might vote for Obama in the fall. It does not address the suggested contradiction between voting for a pro-choice candidate and claiming to be a voter who holds a pro-life position. Personally, I think that sanctity of life issues only deal with one of ten areas of sin in the Decalogue, so they are not to be elevated above all of the other prohibitions and commandments. I hold this belief in spite of the fact that my favorite modern Christian author, John Piper, who is a pastor, theologian, Christian statesman, and friend that I highly respect and with whom I rarely find disagreement, proposes a different view of the significance of one issue in an election process, writing “everybody knows a single issue that for them would disqualify a candidate for office.” (See the antecedent hyperlink for the full article and bibliographical information.)

I should also say that even the most simul justus et peccator among us vote both righteously and selfishly at the same time. As I have said elsewhere,

Preserving what we each value the most serves as the motivation for almost everyone’s vote. It would be difficult to find anyone who votes from a purely selfless stance, i.e., “this is in the best interest of the entire country.” Rather, we each vote from either a “survival” or “success” stance. Those who have experienced financial and/or material success generally care about issues that will ensure that such success is maintained. Issues of survival seem trite to them. In contrast, those attempting to survive, or to get to a certain level of social achievement—whether that is to gain the American Dream so as to get out of coal mining and Black Lung disease, to get out of a neighborhood of poorer schools and crime to the suburbs, or to keep from losing all they have earned in life—generally do not concern themselves with the issues of the successful. They want mobility, access, opportunity and aid.

What person of success would selflessly vote in the interest of those needing aid at his own expense? And what citizen simply trying to survive would vote for smaller government, although this would certainly be the wisest and best choice for any successful business owner? Yet believers are called to consider others better than themselves, to deny themselves, and to care for the poor, needy and oppressed. This calling cannot be set aside as one exercises one’s right to suffrage (”Believers at the Ballot Box,” Beauty for Ashes Magazine [July/August, 2008]).

While it might seem a contradiction for Christian African Americans to vote for Senator Obama, each of us votes with many contradictions in both the righteous and selfish hopes of having the best possible earthly government and society. Such hopes yield appointments of pro-life justices and unjust war decisions. But when we “pull the lever,” we vote our consciences, our blind spots, and unknown future actions of our candidates and those in their selected cabinets and staff. At best, going to the ballot box as believers is one great act of hope in the God who rules all things for good, who “removes kings and sets up kings,” and whose “dominion is an everlasting dominion” (Dan. 2:21; 4:34). It is best that we look to his Son for true hope, identity and justice. This is the only way any of us will stop throwing cards on the table each election cycle.

A Voice for the Voiceless

A Voice for the Voiceless

Erin Haines (an African American reporter for the AP who has covered race and civil rights since 2005) published an intriguing article this Friday on Barack Obama and American culture. She accurately, I think, noted that, “Obama’s candidacy is about race and it isn’t. It has illuminated the fact that black and white America don’t really know each other all that well, and has forced both sides to rethink what they thought they knew about each other and themselves.”

Add to this the “near miss” that Hillary Clinton experienced in her run to be the first female nominee for President in a major American political party, and we all wonder whether racial and gender prejudices are finally crumbling in America.

You don’t have to be pro-Democrat, pro-Obama, or pro-Hillary-Clinton to be hesitantly excited about the prospects that Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech may becoming a reality. Is the day at last dawning when the color of our skin and our gender is no longer looked upon as something that makes us lesser-than?

Being a “voice for the voiceless” is in my DNA. That’s why, with Karole Edwards, I co-authored Beyond the Suffering: Embracing the Legacy of African American Soul Care and Spiritual Direction. That’s why with Susan Ellis I am co-authoring Sacred Friendships: Listening to the Voices of Feminine Soul Care-Givers and Spiritual Directors.

African Americans have a treasure of Christian spiritual care to offer all Americans. Christian women throughout Church history have a treasure to offer all Christians.

Reading the incredible wisdom of African Americans and women throughout church history buoys my spirits. It reminds me that God grants great spiritual abilities to all people of all races and both genders.

And . . . he gives great leadership abilities to all people of all races and both genders. Again, whether one is pro-Obama, pro-Hillary, or not, is not the specific issue for me personally. I am pro-respect, value, voice-for-the-voiceless. And I would like to think, along with Erin Haines, that maybe, just maybe, we Americans are at long last coming to a point where prejudices are crumbling in the face of mutual respect.

Martin Luther King's Predecessors

Richard Allen and Absalom Jones:

The Martin Luther King, Jr. of Their Day

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) was, of course, one of the main leaders of the American Civil Rights movement. What is lesser known today is King’s training and ministry as a Baptist pastor. Even fewer people know the long history of African American ministers promoting civil rights.

That history begins with the Reverends Richard Allen (1760-1831) and Absalom Jones (1746-1818). Allen and Jones were foremost founding fathers of the African American independent churches and of the American Civil Rights movement.

Allen’s Ministry

Allen traveled extensively, preaching in Delaware and Pennsylvania. In February, 1786, he preached at St. George’s Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia. Thinking that he would be there one or two weeks, ministry needs led Allen to a settled place of service in Philadelphia.

Concerned for the wellbeing of African Americans in this parish, he established prayer meetings. “I raised a society in 1786 of forty-two members. I saw the necessity of erecting a place of worship for the coloured people.”

It was at this time that the Rev. Jones united with Rev. Allen. Their little band met great opposition, including “very degrading and insulting language to us, to try and prevent us from going on.”

Notwithstanding, they established prayer meetings and meetings of exhortation, with many people becoming Christians. Their growing congregation, still without a building, often attended services at St. George’s Church. When the black worshippers became more numerous, the white leaders “moved us from the seats we usually sat on, and placed us around the wall.”

Jones’ Convictions

It was at this juncture that one of the most noteworthy events in the American Civil Rights movement occurred. Taking seats that they thought were appropriate, prayer began. Allen describes the scene.

“We had not long been upon our knees before I heard considerable scuffling and low talking. I raised my head up and saw one of the trustees, H. M., having hold of the Rev. Absalom Jones, pulling him up off of his knees, and saying, ‘You must get up—you must not kneel here.’ Mr. Jones replied, ‘Wait until prayer is over.’ Mr. H. M. said ‘No, you must get up now, or I will call for aid and I will force you away.’ Mr. Jones said, ‘Wait until prayer is over, and I will get up and trouble you no more.’”

By the time the second usher arrived, prayer was over, and, according to Allen, “We all went out of the church in a body, and they were no more plagued with us in the church. This raised a great excitement and inquiry among the citizens, in so much that I believe they were ashamed of their conduct.”

The Birth of the Black Church

As a result, Allen and Jones birthed the first independent Black Church in the North when they hired a store room and held worship by themselves. Facing excommunication from the “mother church,” they remained united and strong.
Allen stirringly recounts the situation. “Here we were pursued with threats of being disowned, and read publicly out of meeting if we did continue to worship in the place we had hired; but we believed the Lord would be our friend. . . . Here was the beginning and rise of the first African church in America.”

Some twenty years later, when increasing numbers of African Americans could not worship without harassment in the Methodist Church, Allen and others called a conference which established the first African denomination in America. It was resolved, “That the people of Philadelphia, Baltimore, etc., should become one body, under the name of the African Methodist Episcopal Church.”

While Americans rightfully pause to remember the historic work of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., it is equally important to reflect on precursors to his work. The Revs. Richard Allen and Absalom Jones paved the way for heroic African American ministers to pursue civil rights, equality, and religious freedom for all Americans.

African American Spirituals

African American Spirituals: Telling the Rest of the Story[i]

To appreciate the meaning, message, and mutual ministry of the slave spirituals, it is vital to understand how and why they were composed. Carey Davenport, a retired Black Methodist minister from Texas, had been born enslaved in 1855. He vividly depicts the spontaneous nature of slave spirituals. Sometimes the Colored folks would go down in dugouts and hollows and hold their own service, and they used to sing songs that come a-gushing up from the heart.”

These were not polished, practiced anthems designed to entertain. They were personal, powerful psalms designed to sustain. “Songs were not carefully composed and copyrighted as they are today; they were ‘raised’ by anyone who had a song in their hearts.”

Slave spirituals were shared songs composed on the spot to empathize with and encourage real people in real trouble. Anderson Edwards, a slave preacher, remembers, “We didn’t have any song books and the Lord gave us our songs and when we sang them at night it just whispering so nobody would hear us.”

The creation of individual slave spirituals poignantly portrays care-giving at its best. When James McKim asked a slave the origin of a particular spiritual, the slave explained, “I’ll tell you; it’s this way. My master called me up and ordered me a hundred lashes. My friends saw it and are sorry for me. When they come to the praise meeting that night they sing about it. Some are very good singers and know how; and they work it in, work it in, you know; till they get it right; and that’s the way.” Spirituals were born from slaves observing and empathizing with the suffering of their fellow slaves as a way of demonstrating identification and solidarity with the wronged slave.

Creating and singing spirituals in the middle of their predicament became a means for reciprocal bonding. Slaves wove the words into the fabric of their worship and into the tapestry of their everyday life together. This resulted in communal empathy. The flexible, improvisational structure of the spirituals gave them the capacity to fit an individual slave’s specific experience into the group’s experience. One person’s sorrow or joy became everyone’s through song. Singing the spirituals was therefore both an intensely personal and vividly communal experience in which an individual received consolation for sorrow and gained a heightening of joy because his experience was shared. It was a lasting portrait of the truth that shared sorrow is endurable sorrow.

In the very structure of the spirituals, we see articulated the idea of communal support. Frequently the spirituals mentioned individual members present, either by name—“Sister Tilda, Brother Tony,”—or by description—“the stranger over there in the corner.” This co-creation included everyone in the experience of mutual exhortation and communal support. Drawing from the Bible, Protestant hymns, and sermons, the slaves fashioned spiritual music which expressed their faith in moving, immediate, and dramatic terms.

The spontaneous creation of the spirituals exemplifies what people-helpers call “staying in the moment,” “being present,” and “immediacy.” The African American spirituals demonstrate that caring for people is not so much about skills, but about artful connecting through real and raw relating.

[i]Excerpted with permission of Baker Books from Beyond the Suffering: Embracing the Legacy of African American Soul Care and Spiritual Direction.

Maria Stewart: A Voice for the Voiceless

Maria Stewart: A Voice for the Voiceless[i]

In September 1832, in Boston, Massachusetts, Maria Stewart (1803-1879) did something that no American-born woman of any race before her undertook. She mounted a lecture platform and raised a political argument before an audience composed of both men and women.

According to her personal testimony, she was a woman of profound Christian faith, moved by the Spirit to “willingly sacrifice my life for the cause of God and my brethren.” In the climate of that day, she did indeed take her life in her hands. In her characteristic fiery style, familiar to readers of her articles in The Liberator, she argued against the colonization movement to ship African Americans to West Africa. Using biblical imagery she challenged her racially mixed audience asking, “Why sit ye here and die?”

She called Blacks and Whites to action, in particular urging Black Americans to demand their God-given rights. Her message was unsparing and controversial, intended as a goad to her people to organize against the tyranny of slavery in the South and to resist and defy the restrictions of bigotry in the North.

To fully comprehend Stewart’s staggering accomplishments, we have to backtrack to her less than advantageous upbringing. As she tells her story:

I was born in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1803; was left an orphan at five years of age; was bound out in a clergyman’s family; had the seeds of piety and virtue early sown in my mind, but was deprived of the advantages of education, though my soul thirsted for knowledge. Left them at fifteen years of age; attended Sabbath schools until I was twenty; in 1826 was married to James W. Stewart; was left a widow in 1829; was, as I humbly hope and trust, brought to the knowledge of the truth, as it is in Jesus, in 1830; in 1831 I made a public profession of my faith in Christ.

Married at 23, widowed at 26, converted at 27; she challenged a nation at 28. In the fall of 1831, she entered the offices of William Lloyd Garrison, the editor of the newly established abolitionist newspaper The Liberator. Stewart handed Garrison the manuscript of her challenge to African Americans to sue for their rights. Relegated to the paper’s “Ladies Department,” both ladies and gentlemen received her confrontation.

Stewart entitled her work Religion and the Pure Principles of Morality: The Sure Foundation on Which We Must Build. She told her readers that she “presented them before you in order to arouse you to exertion, and to enforce upon your minds the great necessity of turning your attention to knowledge and improvement.” Here we have a young, female, African American widow writing in a White male abolitionist tabloid as a spiritual director to motivate her people to learning and action.

Stewart adeptly inspires her audience by helping them to envision and unearth their buried talents and abilities. “All the nations of the earth are crying out for liberty and equality. Away, away with tyranny and oppression! And shall Afric’s sons be silent any longer? Far be it from me to recommend to you either to kill, burn, or destroy. But I would strongly recommend to you to improve your talents; let not one lie buried in the earth. Show forth your powers of mind. Prove to the world that though black your skins as shades of night, your hearts are pure, your souls are white.”

Stewart grounds her exhortations in her understanding of racial equality. “Many think, because your skins are tinged with a sable hue, that you are an inferior race of beings; but God does not consider you as such. He hath formed and fashioned you in his own glorious image, and hath bestowed upon you reason and strong powers of intellect. He hath made you to have dominion over the beasts of the field, the fowls of the air, and the fish of the sea (Genesis 1:26). He hath crowned you with glory and honor; hath made you but a little lower than the angels (Psalms 8:5) . . .” Using the biblical truth of the imago Dei (image of God), Stewart guides her readers toward the counter-cultural but scriptural truth that, “It is not the color of the skin that makes the man, but it is the principles formed within the soul.”

Stewart also confronts past failures and challenges toward future exploits. “O, ye daughters of Africa, awake! Awake! Arise! No longer sleep nor slumber, but distinguish yourselves. Show forth to the world that ye are endowed with noble and exalted faculties. O, ye daughters of Africa! What have you done to immortalize your names beyond the grave? What examples have ye set before the rising generation? What foundation have ye laid for generations yet unborn?”

In perhaps her most frank comments, Stewart challenges Black women not to “bury their minds and talents beneath a load of iron pots and kettles.” She explains that Whites “have practiced nothing but head-work these 200 years, and we have done their drudgery. And is it not high time for us to imitate their examples, and practice head-work too, and keep what we have got, and get what we can?”

How prescient. How far ahead of her time.

And she’s just warming up. Stewart also exhorts to a spirit not of aggressive anger, nor of passive resignation, but of assertive courage. “And we have possessed by far too mean and cowardly a disposition, though I highly disapprove of an insolent or impertinent one. Do you ask the disposition I would have you possess? Possess the spirit of independence. The Americans do, and why should not you? Possess the spirit of men, bold and enterprising, fearless and undaunted.”

What an inspiring challenge. Stewart is reminding African American women that God endowed them with an equal measure of spiritual power, love, and wisdom. They do not have to take a backseat to anyone. Her message rings true still today.

[i]Excerpted with permission of Baker Books from Beyond the Suffering: Embracing the Legacy of African American Soul Care and Spiritual Direction.

African Americans and Biblical Counseling

African Americans and Biblical Counseling

I’ve been reflecting a lot lately on African Americans and biblical counseling. Leaders in various biblical counseling movements lament the low percentage of African Americans attending their conferences.

Why? I think my study of Black Church history provides a convincing answer. Working on my book Beyond the Suffering: Embracing the Legacy of African American Soul Care and Spiritual Direction, my co-author and I were looking for any and all instances of what today we call biblical counseling—whether by pastors or lay people.

We looked for examples of:

*Soul Care for Suffering and Sanctification: Sustaining and Healing—Comforting those sinned against in a fallen world.

*Spiritual Direction for Sinning and Sanctification: Reconciling and Guiding—Confronting those sinning.

We certainly found reconciling and guiding.

However, we found a greater preponderance of sustaining and healing.

Here’s the issue. Some current models of biblical counseling focus almost exclusively on confronting sin. In fact, some leaders in some of these movements will tell you that people simply don’t come to them for issues related to suffering. Of course, this may have much to do with the message being communicated that biblical counseling is about sin and not about suffering (a false message, by the way).

African Americans, given their history of suffering, have grave concerns with any model of biblical counseling that spends the bulk of its time confronting sin while ignoring suffering. For African Americans, progressive sanctification is just as vitally related to suffering as to sinning.

For African Americans, pastoral counseling and pastoral care is equated at least as much with sustaining and healing sufferers who have been sinned against as it is with confronting Christians who are sinning against God and others. This in no way minimizes their hatred of sin, their view of depravity, or their focus on God’s glory. African Americans, however, understand from the Bible, Church history, and their national history, that true pastoral counseling, lay counseling, biblical counseling, and pastoral care must deal both with the sins we have committed and with the evils we have suffered.

Beyond the Suffering Seminar

On Saturday, February 23, from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., on the Main Lanham Campus of Washington Bible College/Capital Bible Seminary in Lanham, MD, I will present a seminar based on my latest book, Beyond the Suffering: Embracing the Legacy of African American Soul Care and Spiritual Direction.

Interactive Seminar

This interactive seminar will discuss ways lay people, pastors, and Christian counselors of all races can learn from the history of African American soul care to grow in Christ and to minister to those who are suffering pain or loss.

Lay people, pastors, counselors, and students of all races will:

• Be empowered to apply proven ways to help people find healing hope in the midst of deep pain and sorrow.

• Be equipped to minister more effectively in cross-cultural settings.

• Be enabled to skillfully practice historic soul care.

• Be enlightened about how to be a godly male leader by the founding fathers of the African American church.

• Be enthused about how to be a powerful female spiritual friend by the heroic sisters of the spirit of the African American church.

• Be enriched by past African American husbands, wives, fathers, and mothers concerning how to nurture and enjoy godly living in the home.

Beyond the Suffering Seminar Schedule

8:00–8:45 a.m. Registration and Continental Breakfast
8:45–9:00 a.m. Worship with WBC OneVoice
9:00–9:10 a.m. Greetings and Prayer: WBC/CBS President Larry Mercer
9:10–10:30 a.m. Session One: So Great a Cloud of Witnesses: Following the Ancient Paths
10:30–10:45 a.m. Break
10:45–12:00 p.m. Session Two: Watered with Our Tears: Redeeming Pain and Suffering
12:00–1:05 p.m. Lunch Provided
1:05–1:15 p.m. Worship: WBC OneVoice
1:15–2:30 p.m. Session Three: The Old Ship of Zion: Uniting in Christ
2:30–2:45 p.m. Break
2:45–3:55 p.m. Session Four: This Far by Faith: Living the Drama of Deliverance
3:55–4:00 p.m. Closing Comments
4:00–5:00 p.m. Optional Campus Tour and Book Signing

Seminar Registration Fee:

$50.00 ($80.00 for two): Breakfast, Lunch, Copy of Beyond the Suffering, Seminar Notes, and Seminar Sessions are included.

Register Now! http://www.bible.edu/index.cfm?PAGE_ID=2296

Brief Synopsis of Beyond the Suffering:

The African American Church has always helped hurting and hardened people through the personal and corporate ministries of sustaining, healing, reconciling, and guiding. This four-dimensional model is the traditional and widely recognized pattern for understanding lay spiritual friendship, pastoral care, and professional Christian counseling. Beyond the Suffering uncovers the buried treasure of wisdom about soul care and spiritual direction contained in the history of African American Christianity. Written with the blended perspectives of an African American woman and a Caucasian man, Beyond the Suffering offers an in-depth exploration of this rich tradition, showing Christians proven ways to help people find hope in the midst of deep pain and sorrow. Pastors, counselors, and lay people, as well as African Americans hungry for the legacy of their ancestors, will appreciate both the history and the practical applications found in this book.