Never mind the content of the state of the union address, January 28, 2010. But the context, that, we should take notice. Remember Congressman Joe Wilsons’ private war? During the health care speech, Mr. Wilson called the president a “liar.” Vice President Biden turned like a bald eagle toward the utterance. Speaker Nancy Pelosi too looked, she looked both embarrassingly and protectively of her beloved president. You and I remember that little if anything happened to Mr. Wilson but it was an early sign of things to come.
Fast forward – Mrs. Obama ceremoniously arrives into her box; she appears hesitant and resistant to customary applause, a bit tepid in my view. “Madam Speaker, the President of the United States.” The man comes down the aisle. They stand and clap but we feel the tension and terse sentiments in the atmosphere. He shakes their hands and move toward the lecture to address us; what will he say? Cont….
This sermon was delivered on December 9, 2009 for the Academy of Homiletics to the African American Caucus and the academy at large.
Recently, Patricia and I saw the new Star Trek movie. We have been life long fans of the originial television series. We grew up watching James Tiberius Kirk, Mr. Spock, Dr. McCoy, and Scottie and of course Aurora. The new edition was an account of the beginning of the beginning. Though I thought it had its flaws, it was thoroughly entertaining. There were some not so subtle changes in the narrative and characters that we have come to know.
The most interesting was Mr. Spock, he was a new creation. It seems that the writers and maybe the director thought he was out of date and maybe not appealing to the newest of audiences. They may have thought you and I would overlook this and understand the market and culture and yes, that our political sensibilities have moved into the new times.
You may remember that Mr. Spock was the epitome of modernity. He was logical and looked for exact answers to every situation. He was nearly unfeeling. He was unswerving. But this Mr. Spock differs. He was new. He was physically attracted to an accommodating Aurora, the only major female character in the movie cast. ( I thought that they characterized the black female to seen well, fast and …) I was not ready for that. However, she was attractive and what ever sexual tension that occurred in the 1960’s between Kirk and she in the original television series, that was replaced with her outwardly emotional affection for Mr. Spock. By no means did he object either.
In the final scenes the originial Mr. Spock, Leonard Nimoy, returns, well as, Mr. Spock, sort of…. You will have to see the movie. But he explains to a younger version of himself, that he no longer must rationally think for answers but do what he feels. You heard me! Mr. Spock has now changed with the times. He learns to have an appreciation for earthlings like James Kirk. Kirk’s character is the model leader of the new age and he is an intuitive feeling leader who follows his instincts and hunches. He breaks rule and seems to have a low regard for authority. Does this sound familiar?
Here is the point, everyone who watches the film is introduced to post modernity. Truth and feelings are subjective and the right answers are those that seem right to the group but mostly to the individual who feels a certain way at the time. The movie is anti - epistimological (anti roots of absolute truth). Star Trek 2009 is an example of our culture transforming from modernity (scientific or soft objective proofs) to postmodernity (subjective proofs). Stunning and maybe a trope for our newest cultural beliefs. I will say more later…
Borrowing from Longinus’ sublimity, I contend that whatever worship is, it is “elevated by style” and it is most effective because of an essence of “simplicity.” This is vogue for the “jazz - people.” Some call them hip – hop, but it is some kind of neo-jazz, a hybrid of post -structuralism and deconstruction, a conversation for another time. For now, I believe that form over function continues to communicate. I also believe that Baptist’ culture does not communicate its theology; and in part, because many have not preached and presented Baptist theology but Baptist culture and that culture once was common social culture in African American ranks; however, that social culture has changed into something other and without Baptists changing with it.
What is more, young African Americans, (18-35), are not doctrinal Christians, a direct result of Baptist’s not teaching biblical doctrine. Instead, they are pragmatic (Obama is pragmatic and tapped into this current need for religion and truth but not necessarily from a definable committed doctrinal sectarian worldview). After the dark night of discrimination and its socio-econcomic, political psychological effects, Young African Americans want what seems to work. They accept what Josiah Royce; the noted Christian pragmatist called the “Absolute Knower,” moreover “an actual infinite mind that encompasses the totality of all actual truths and possible errors.” See, Sources of Religious Insight, The Problem with Christianity and The Hope of the Great Community.
Later and as a more mature figure, Royce, who lost his friend William James and his eldest son Christopher to typhoid nearly at once, needed more than truth; he needed wisdom and understanding of truth. This seems to me, the core of what young African Americans need, they need and want truth beyond contradiction but wisdom and understanding of what otherwise maybe a stale, cold and benign set of facts that are verifiable. They want and need truth that brings life.
They accept that last weeks’ sermon will help them with last weeks’ challenges; but it will not fix all their needs. An effective sermon is not designed to address all of their needs. What is more, they do not necessarily appreciate traditional African American “blues – people” crescendo in a climax of a sermon. For them, a happy sermon ending is not needed if one is not warranted. They do want and need applicable truth or truth claims; they want and need to make sense out of their lives. “Jazz – people” are trying to make sense of the world through new and innovative vibes, rhythms and sounds.
They prefer brief worship services that are impactful. I have tried to persuade our church’s leaders, that a service longer than 75 minutes is too long for this generation; brevity is the genius of sublimity. In addition, most prefer simple worship styles that communicate a theme, a point to be made, for the day.
Dr. Warren Lewis’ Baptist Church culturally has had its memorial. It had a long and meaningful day, but today’s Baptist churches culturally must change. We are driving our young people into less significant churches, who concede doctrine for convenience or ignorance, or both. Some who rightly have interpreted the culture’s form over function willing manipulate the sheep. Therefore, Baptists must preach doctrinally, absolutely must! But with cultural sensitivity and savvy it must teach and preach doctrinally. The best way to do so is narrative- exposition. But it can do so with praise dancers, drummers, trumpeters, violinists, harpists and other instruments that accompany the organs and pianos.
They can preach and teach doctrinally but in shorter burst – worship services with sublime presentations of impactful brevity – form over function. They can focus on large issues like environment, “green is ethical” or women’s rights issues across the world and other impactful scenarios that people need answers. I am not necessarily a critic of my denomination I am critiquing it. I believe that theologically, it is among the strongest in Church history. To remain in that category, it cannot be a cultural phenomenon of the past only; but a viable force theologically well into the future by understanding the differences between culture and theological cardinal principles. Simply make it sublime and brief.
Over the last two decades, we have experienced a cultural paradigm shift among African Americans. If this is certain, this effects and prompts a shift in African American Baptist’s culture as a predominate worldview. On the first hand, younger African Americans are no longer a monolithic “blues – people,” which African American Baptists of all stripes have represented. Historically and predominantly, African Americans nearly have had a common narrative; we have interpreted life through a lens of oppression.
Racism has been our single defining experience. Dr. Gardner C. Taylor once said that our founders were squeamish about the status of people of color, the notion of equality among people based on a notion of race was “like a serpent coiled beneath the constitutional convention table” during deliberation in Philadelphia, in the long ago. As a result, the founders cowardly embraced a three – fifths of a man (person), compromise defining African American humanity as debase to a larger world. Since the beginning, this frames American socio-economic, socio-psychological and jurist –prudence culture and existence.
Gradually this self – esteem condition is changing. It is not over; but now African Americans are coming out of the dark night of slavery, and the condition of unmitigated pain and suffering the crime caused. So gradual is this change, few African Americans realize the progress. The election of Barack Obama to the presidency of the United States is an example. Affirming Dr. King’s prophetic words in “I Have a Dream” the young and some intellectuals on the fringes, thought it possible initially. Those same citizens are “jazz people.”
That term simply indicates different feelings about the past. Many have left it there – in the past. They do not avoid their pain as much as they seek different ways to resolve painful experiences; instead, they choose to live in the now and the future. In this instance, anti-epistomology or anti - knowledge of history may help them. If they do not claim their ancestors’ past narrative, it may free them to live a different kind of life.
These are some of the reasons that African American Baptist’s culture needs to change and embrace new ways and methods for reaching people who know pain and suffering but solely not based on negative historical racial categories. I will wrap this up next time…
During the memorial service for Dr. Warren Lewis, my mind wandered backward to days of my youth and days of his strength. He was the single largest figure in the life of most of us in my small town. He was polemic and controversial. Our majority community was fearful of him; he was graduate school educated and capable of thinking ahead of them. He demanded busing for African American students, he argued for African American presence on the school board and city council. He created a Baptist worldview and most African Americans, whether they attended Mount Tabor or not, engendered these values in their homes. He was one of the most refined, polished, classical rhetoricians I have heard or formally studied.
Our minority community was fearful of him too. He challenged each family to encourage their children to study and then send their children to colleges and universities. Theologically, he did not compromise. He did not wink at slothfulness; he did not make excuses about putting other things before Christian service. He pushed common people to do noble things; he believed this was possible and that Scripture mandated these kinds of initiatives from believers. Like the synagogue is for Jewish brethren, it was his goal to make the church the center of consciousness.
At other times, my mind traveled towards the future, I noted that few people in attendance if any were younger than me. That is not necessarily good. I am not so young anymore; President Obama and I are the same age, separated by a few days. I wondered. Where are the new and younger Baptists? Earlier I indicated, Lewis’ death may be a metaphor or a trope for something larger. It may be that a cultural era has ended; a culture where Baptists are the mainstream of African American national ethos, pathos and life.
For instance, Dr. Lewis did not believe that women should preach, he did not believe that women should wear pants in worship services or in churches, he did not believe in drums in worship services. I used to believe that too. That is what I was conditioned to believe within the veil. But can or should this be sustained today? How many young women attend colleges and universities and experience life outside of their former cultural relativism and former life within the veil – believe that outer adornment is necessary for Christian worship or service? I do not mean distasteful clothing and cosmetics. I mean types and kinds of dress that is governed by moderation. Many times, however, I have witnessed older and respected women share with younger women modes of dress for worship and the differences between market places and pews. But you see my point don’t you?
For Baptists to advance, it seems to me, is to reconsider the differences in theology and cultural mandates and determine those that are cardinal principles to faith and practice and those that are cultural motifs that will continue to change. Later let’s look at the my suggestions for Baptist.
“Religion, if banished to the realm of mere feeling, has ceased to be dangerous for any
rational and practical human enterprise. But, we must add, it also has lost its seriousness, its truth, and its ultimate meaning. In the atmosphere of mere subjectivity of feeling without a definite objective of emotion, without an ultimate content, religion dies….”
“Basic Considerations” in Theology of Culture
Paul Tillich
There is a secular – passionate back lash against Warren Lewis’ Baptist Church. This is a tragic consequence, Tillich might say, because to react negatively against religion of any form, is to negatively respond through secularism. For Tillich, a secular feeling is a substitute for religion, and that substitute opens this generation to an unaccountable subjectivism and to those who will follow. What is more, in the future, those who may differ from the current generation will have a different and harsher critique of this generation’s feelings. Thus secularism turns on secularism, always finding the flaws of those who came before them without balancing their assumptions with credible evidence.
However, until God in Christ fully redeems humanity, all sectarian religion is partly secular. It is compromised by cultural traditions old and new. Younger generations are secular, postmodern secular. They have been ripped from historical points of departure and this implies many of them are anti-authorial and anti-epistemological. By this I mean that truth begins with them and what came before them holds minimal significance. In other words, they too are subject to cultural relativism as they charge, as I charge too.
On the other hand:
Judaism, however, is not only religion and it is not only ethics: it is the sum total of all the needs of the nation, placed on religious basis…. Judaism is the national life, a life which the national religion and human ethical principles embrace without engulfing.
“The Enduring Problem” in Christ and Culture
H.R. Niebuhr
For African Americans, replace “Judaism” with “Baptist” and you will have African American culture. For most and historically, Baptist’s cultural worldview has defined community ethics, national life and religion and human ethical principles. During that time, most blacks were and to a large extent – a blues people. Today we are rapidly becoming – a jazz people. Pain and suffering still are common aspects of African American identity but younger African Americans, do not sense racism as their only source of pain. They see high rates of divorce and grandparents to young to raise them. They are struggling with complex sexual, religious ethics and identities. This is a generation that has been told that guilt is not necessary but they do. Still, this generation of blacks does not see a monolithic culture that Baptists have represented well. So we need to redefine culture and theology as we acknowledge Christ as Savior. I want to say more but not now….
Sleep on Old Soldier, Sleep On, How long? Not Long! This is a rhetorical pathos - phrase; it is an emotional appeal that belongs to African American funeral oratory. Aristotle calls this epideictic speech or ceremonial discourse. It is a way to appeal for future hope, it is a way to praise and avoid blame of an individual, group or subject. It is well known as a rhetorical device in African American Baptist’s culture. However, these words are preserved for giants of the faith like pastors, church officers and pillars of the church.
Warren Lewis was one of those giants. For more than forty two years, he served as pastor of Mount Tabor Church in Lewisburg, West Virginia; he began his pastorate there during his middle – twenties. What is more, he served as the secretary of the West Virginia Baptist State Convention for more than five decades; more than likely, he holds the longest tenure in the history of the Baptist state’s convention. Strangely, Lewis’ death is a larger story. His life’s work as a Baptist leader also is a kind of metaphor. What else died with Lewis? An era died as did a cultural understanding of how we do church.
There is a common way that most African American Baptists worship. Many local assemblies of Baptists do not permit drums or dancing in their churches; many do not permit or at least they discourage women and young girls from wearing pants in public services, and many do not permit women to preach. All these values are perceived to be correct biblical interpretation.
I support this as a right. Baptists believe in autonomy of a local congregation; this means they have the privilege and awesome responsibility to interpret scripture and therefore govern themselves by their discoveries, despite traditional and conventional hermeneutics and despite new hermeneutic reform. By this I mean, some biblical interpretation is conventional and well understood by all and other interpretation is less conventional and differently interpreted. For these reasons, culture may play a large role in understanding and implementation for faith into practice in a local body of believers. They have the right to be wrong; they have a right to be right too.
When King Hussein of Jordan died, his wife Queen Norah alongside then first lady Hillary Clinton, where not permitted to accompany Hussein’s body through final stages of the burial rites and ceremony. Only men were given that privilege and responsibility, but not their queen, not the king’s wife. By contrast, women were among the first to visit our risen Lord’s tomb, and they shared the good news with the disciples as the gospels boldly claim.
In early stages of the 21st century, most people in the world are painfully observing treatment of women in Afghanistan, Iraq and other Middle East countries, not to mention the misogynous atrocities that occur in Africa. Most emotionally object to this kind of treatment and moreover, find this behavior irrational to Western sense and sensibilities. Well at least today, once Western and American culture in particular, did not see any contradiction in how we discriminated against citizens. Slavery ended in 1865 and women did not receive the right to vote well into the 1920’s.
We see through a glass dimly and need the light of God’s Spirit to illumine for us the correct paths to take. What African American Baptists must grapple with is whether our theology is cultural or biblical. What are the absolute necessities for worship, faith and practice in an ever changing society? Does one size fit all? Alternatively, can we agree that some of what we do is not biblical theology, but cultural norms that lag behind? I am in the process or re-familiarizing myself with three seminal works: Christianity and Culture by T. S. Eliot, Christ and Culture by H. Richard Niebuhr and Theology of Culture by Paul Tillich. These books help us determine the differences between theology and culture. It may help us to understand the end of an era that died with its giants. Stay tuned….
Dr. Joseph Evans and Min. Marquez Ball discuss evangelism. Evangelism Part 2
Tags: Evangelims
I stood to speak to an aging delegation, they were people that I have known all of my life – it seems. I had worried that I may not rhetorically connect with them, since it had been so long that I stood before them. I am different; I am older and more seasoned and sure of my theological and rhetorical claims, some may not approve. I have come to praise not to blame. What is more, this was no ordinary occasion. It was a memorial service for my pastor who happened to be a leading figure in West Virginia Baptist’s circles for more than five decades.
Warren S. Lewis was a dominate figure with charismatic character and a clarion John the Baptist’s voice. He towered above his peers though he stood barely above five and half feet. It was his passion about his vocation that added to his height. In my view, he would have been the same, whether he were a minister or not. Often I saw him as an educator, perhaps a dean or president of a historically black college or university. At other times, I could see him as a litigator or maybe, a politician. He was gifted to do any and all of these things, but he chose ministry or as he often would say, “ministry chose him.”
In the early years, the crowds at the state’s convention were large and luminous. The convention had many heroes and heroines. I saw them as a boy; I was in awe of many of the ministers of our local churches. I met missionaries on furlough, and I would hear them speak of strange occurrences in strange lands, and often how they would battle unclean spirits with the Word of God! I would hear Warren Lewis give his executive secretary’s address to standing room only; sometimes the people would be in the class rooms listening, the petitions were withdrawn for them; others would stand just outside beneath a roofed in porch to hear the master of perspicuity deliver an address filled with figures, figures of speech, and challenges toward the future and how the people figured into them.
As I stood to speak, still after all of these years, under the spell of romantic memory, I was looking for heroes and heroines as a boy, I did. They were there but few in numbers. The people’s energy was far less; some appeared indifferent and others ambivalent about the future of the convention. The young did not replace the ranks; and in the next few days, I want to address some of the reasons why I think that is true….