Urban Apologetics

Restoring Black Dignity with the Gospel

Eric Mason, Eric Mason

• Publisher: Zondervan
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9780310100959
• Topic: Teología y religión
• Subtopic: Teología cristiana

Urban Apologetics examines the legitimate issues that Black communities have with Western Christianity and shows how the gospel of Jesus Christ—rather than popular, socioreligious alternatives—restores our identity.

African Americans have long confronted the challenge of dignity destruction caused by white supremacy. While many have found meaning and restoration of dignity in the black church, others have found it in ethnocentric socioreligious groups and philosophies.

These ideologies have grown and developed deep traction in the black community and beyond. Revisionist history, conspiracy theories, and misinformation about Jesus and Christianity are the order of the day. Many young African Americans are disinterested in Christianity and others are leaving the church in search of what these false religious ideas appear to offer, a spirituality more indigenous to their history and ethnicity.

Edited by Dr. Eric Mason and featuring a top-notch lineup of contributors, Urban Apologetics is the first book focused entirely on cults, religious groups, and ethnocentric ideologies prevalent in the black community. The book is divided into three main parts:

• Discussions on the unique context for urban apologetics so that you can better understand the cultural arguments against Christianity among the Black community.
• Detailed information on cults, religious groups, and ethnic identity groups that many urban evangelists encounter—such as the Nation of Islam, Kemetic spirituality, African mysticism, Hebrew Israelites, Black nationalism, and atheism.
• Specific tools for urban apologetics and community outreach.

Ultimately, Urban Apologetics applies the gospel to black identity to show that Jesus is the only one who can restore it. This is an essential resource to equip those doing the work of ministry and apology in urban communities with the best available information.

PART 1
THE CONTEXT FOR
URBAN APOLOGETICS

CHAPTER 1

RESTORING BLACK DIGNITY
Eric Mason

THIS CHAPTER introduces the pressing need to recover the biblical concept of dignity for Blacks. While much work remains to be done, this chapter provides four examples of specific ways we can work to reintroduce the value of Black dignity.

The show A Different World, which ran from 1987–1993, was one of the most highly rated shows of its time and remains heavily syndicated. This show offered viewers of all ethnicities a sneak peek into the life of students at a historically Black college (hereafter HBCU). More significantly, the show tackled deep issues that Black college students often face, like drugs, rape, white supremacy, AIDS, economics, careers, and history. For many African Americans, A Different World was our show. It dealt with our issues and was willing to take risks to give voice to Blacks in America without adopting a blaxploitation format.

A Different World played a role in communicating Black dignity in a way that still rings true to many of us today. By including characters who were not from the “hood” or from single parent homes, it sought to show that African Americans aren’t monolithic. Black college enrollment increased exponentially during the time of this show. I participated in this trend, going to Bowie State University, which is the third oldest HBCU in the country and a college that began in a Black church.

This show’s role in restoring African American dignity is important because dignity has historically been stripped from African Americans. As a people we were unbiblically kidnapped¹ and sold unwillingly into slavery by Europeans, carried across the blue chasm, raped, left for dead, or thrown overboard to become shark food. Once on shore, we were sold again—often while naked or scantily clothed. We were introduced to the land of the free as broken, reeking, undignified persons and considered subhuman, belonging to everyone but the living God.

Our dignity has lingered in a state of confusion for generations in this country as we’ve faced constant harassment, false theologies, white supremacy, syncretistic evangelicalism, and civic suppression. Our dignity has been molested from every side: misuse of the Bible and civic commendation, the Curse of Ham, the Thirteenth Amendment, the KKK, the criminalization of Black boys, underfunded education, redlined housing, unjust gentrification, horrendous food, drugs, guns—the list goes on. From the time of slavery to today, our country has created a perfect storm to annihilate Black people. The traumatic effects of white supremacy and the traumatization of Blacks generationally have made it difficult for Blacks to assimilate into white culture and have led many to develop coping mechanisms to make sense of the mad experience called the “United States of America.”

AFRICAN INFLUENCE IN THE EARLY CHURCH

Black students are always shocked to learn that many of the early Christian church fathers were African. Tertullian, Augustine, Athanasius, Cyprian, Origen, and others were all from North Africa, and while they were not all necessarily dark skinned, they were probably not white. Athanasius bore the nickname “Black Dwarf” (although the author who claims this has not provided a citation).² As Oden writes of Athanasius:

Christians living before Athanasius were long settled in the middle Nile as far south as Oxyrhynchus and the Fayyum. Athanasius, according to his own statement, came from an environment of very modest means, not from a foreign elite. As a child he was noticed playing on the beach by Alexander, the bishop of Alexandria, and virtually adopted as if an orphan, according to an early tradition. This leaves entirely mute the genetics of the great leader, but there are many indications that he kept close and active ties with middle Nile ethnics of many varieties who spoke proto-Coptic or cognate Nilotic-based languages. When he was forced into exile, he sought refuge in the desert areas far away from the cosmopolitan, Greek-speaking urban ban ethos of Alexandria.³

More than likely many of these church fathers had variations in skin colors—yet when I look at illustrations of them in books and commentaries, they are usually portrayed as white men.

Most of us assume “Latin” means “Roman” and assume that anyone writing in Latin was white. Biblical scholars like Adolf von Harnack and many others carried along these fallacies without any opposition, and the picture of the early church fathers as white men continues to exist in much of global academia.⁴ Scholar Thomas Oden indicates that this was intentional:

If the writings of Philo, Synesius, Victor of Vita and Shenute of Atripe had all been written in France, they would be called European. But they were not. They were written in Africa. So why shouldn’t they be called African? There is a prejudice at work here: suspect anything of intellectual value that comes from the African continent as having some sort of secret European origin.

What convincing argument can be set forth to deny their Africanness? How black were the Christians of North Africa? Black enough, if blackness is understood in terms of intergenerational suffering and oppression.⁵

Generally speaking, the more central the figure is to the history of Christian history and theological development, the greater the temptation has been for European historians and theologians to ignore that person’s ethnicity. Historians like to paint history in their own image.

Ignoring details like these have contributed to the whitewashing of history. This is just one of many ways that white people have been misleading the church. The pen of Christian history has been placed in white hands. In my own experience, for as much as I loved my theological education, the contributions of those who were not white Europeans were largely neglected. Not only was there miseducation but also brash ignorance. For example, a seminary student once asked his professor, “What have Blacks contributed to theology and Christian history?” In response, the professor joked, “You all can really sing!” This was a professor who had been in the classroom for almost four decades. Needless to say, this comment did little to help. It only further contributed to the student’s pain of being educated by the descendants of his ancestor’s oppressors.

Many professors will only grudgingly admit that many of those who shaped western philosophy, rhetoric, exegesis, apologetics, missionary efforts, and our doctrinal understandings were people of color. We must recover and highlight this fact. I encourage you to say this right now, out loud to yourself: “Most of the pioneers of early Christian formation were not whites, but people of color.”

Our desire in this book is not to repaint history Black, however. Rather, we want to be people of integrity and truth, as Scripture calls us to be:

LORD, who can dwell in your tent? . . . The one who lives blamelessly, practices righteousness, and acknowledges the truth in his heart. (Ps. 15:1, 2 CSB)

Whoever speaks the truth declares what is right, but a false witness speaks deceit. (Prov. 12:17 CSB)

A truthful witness rescues lives, but one who utters lies is deceitful. (Prov. 14:25 CSB)

BLACK DIGNITY THROUGHOUT AMERICAN HISTORY

With the end of slavery in the United States, many Blacks were searching for an ethnic identity. Much of what they saw and experienced of Christianity was culturally white. African American church leaders faced the hard work of decontextualizing the culturally captive components of Christianity into their raw form and then properly recontextualizing them for the Blacks in this country. Because our African-ness had been tortured out of us, and some had even grown to despise it, there was a daunting tension inherent in being Black in a white country. Black American Christians struggled to understand who we are as human beings. The Bible is clear that we were made to be creators of culture (Gen. 1:28), yet since the ancient boundaries of our land, language, and culture had all been removed, we found ourselves in a deep state of confusion.

American culture trains us to have an imperialist’s view of other cultures (i.e. “we are the best”) while simultaneously acting like America has none of its own cultural shortcomings or biases. Our brown siblings are ostracized if they struggle with English; Asians are mocked for their stereotypical academic intelligence; while Africans are viewed as bush people. We aren’t trained in America to allow people to express their culture; this suppression of culture was compounded for freed slaves, contributing to their confusion over who they are. Because God is the one who made our ethnicities, they matter and need to be redeemed. If you are unclear about your ethnicity, you will find yourself confused over what about you needs redeeming.

The Black church is the cultural innovation of Black people in America. Because Blacks were rejected by whites, we created our own traditions so that we could possess a sense of indigenous culture—something of our own. Yet many Blacks view the Black church as an African expression of a white man’s religion, a mixture of what was remembered from the African culture of our homeland and adaptations from white, American Christianity. Others, like Bishop Mason, founder of the Church of God in Christ, tried to contextualize various cultural expressions from Africa and redeem them for the Black church worship experience. Although some would still argue that the Black church is a European expression of Christianity, the Church of God in Christ’s founder clearly sought something different.

[Bishop] Mason especially insisted upon the centrality of personal inner transformation without shedding distinctive African cultural expressions. Mainline black churches saw adherence to African worldviews and religious folk culture associated with rural life or Slave Religion, which reflected a low cultural standing. Rising middle-class educated blacks seeking assimilation in the majority white culture preferred European worldviews shaped by the Enlightenment.⁶

As a point of embarrassment, many saw the Black church as a counterfeit spirituality. They viewed it as counterfeit because they believed it was “forced” on Black people, and today we are still trying to make sense of our identity. Several of those who (wrongly) didn’t view Christianity as an indigenous African spirituality began exploring other options, and this led to the rise of Black mystery religions, ideologies, and cults. You will learn that all of these movements share two major—and seemingly attractive—views. They believe that Christianity is the religion of the oppressors, and they teach and promote the idea that Blacks need dignity formation—without the interference of white people.

During the time of the Great Migration of the twentieth century, there were many religious shifts spurred by immigration and migration, and these were not limited to the various movements of African American Christianity. During this time, and especially in urban contexts, notable numbers of people of African descent began to establish and participate in movements outside of Protestant Christianity. Many turned to theologies that provided new ways of thinking about history, racial identity, ritual, community life, and the collective future of Black people.⁷ As you will see throughout this book, race and spirituality are inseparable to most of these groups.

A BIBLICAL UNDERSTANDING OF DIGNITY

What is the appeal of these groups on the issue of Black dignity? Let’s begin with an understanding of what we mean by “dignity.” Dignity is something we see in the Bible from the beginning. It is core to the creation narrative in Genesis 1, and it is God’s top priority to restore creation’s dignity after Genesis 3. When we refer to “dignity,” we are talking about God-invested value. Dignity has many layers, and Christians believe that our dignity and value is rooted in God’s creation of mankind and his purpose for his creation. Genesis 1 explains that God created all the animals according to their own kind (Gen. 1:21–25), but he created humans according to his own image and likeness (Gen. 1:26–27). All human dignity is derived from God by virtue of him saying that we are “very good” (Gen. 1:31) and by the care he took in his creation of us: fashioning man from the dust, blowing life into him, fashioning woman from man and blowing life into her, and giving us purpose in connection with God. Both body and breath are valuable to God, and they should be valuable to us as well. The fall of human beings into sinful disobedience only disrupted and removed our connection to God; it did not take away our inherent value and worth.

The book of Genesis uses two terms, “likeness” and “image,” to describe human beings who in some way reflect the form and the function of the creator. We likely reflect God’s form in a spiritual sense rather than a physical sense. The phrase “image of God” refers to “the God-given mental and spiritual capacities that enable people to relate to God and to serve him by ruling over the created order as his earthly vice-regents.”⁸ We also reflect this image through our created bodies. Psalm 139 affirms this: “For it was you who created my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I will praise you because I have been remarkably and wondrously made. Your works are wondrous, and I know this very well” (Ps. 139:13−14 CSB). The psalmist finds his self-value in God’s value of him.

In the psalmist’s mind, humanity finds value not just in our being redeemed through Jesus, but in our being created by God. This is particularly important because while we affirm that our identity is in Christ, our value didn’t start at justification but at creation. Our identity in Christ is a culmination of our value—it is not the beginning of our value. God valued us even while we were si...