The following is my book review of three books by black authors: Marvin A. McMickle, Preaching to the Black Middle Class, 2000 and Dwight Perry, Breaking Down Barriers: A Black Evangelical Explains the Black Church, 1998; Bruce Fields, Introducing Black Theology; Three Crucial Questions for the Evangelical Church, 2001.
The dilemma of the black middle class: How does a person escape the clutches of poverty and racism but avoid being ensnared by individualism and materialism?
The author of Preaching to the Black Middle Class knows from bitter personal experience what it is like to be poor and oppressed, and what the intense seduction of materialism is like. So his writings show insightful understanding of the black middle class, but also a warning and a challenge not to settle for a materialistic mess of pottage. He exhorts the black middle class to aim higher than achieving the American Dream.
But before, I examine the contemporary scene through the teachings and preachings of McMickle, I want to look at the past history of Afro Americans and the black church through the informed eyes of Rev. Dwight Perry, D. Min and Ph.D, author of Breaking Down Barriers. First a quotation:
Africans brought with them a hope for liberation, a strong oral tradition, and a sense of connectedness between their spiritual and physical lives. When Blacks converted to Christianity, these characteristics contributed to a Christian community that was, and is, distinctly different than the White church.
Contrary to many Euro evangelicals who are conservative religiously, politically and economically, many Afro Christians are "staunchly conservative from a religious point of view, while liberal politically and socially." White evangelicals are conservative politically and economically because it helps to preserve the status quo which favors them, helps them preserve white privilege; black evangelicals are liberal because they desperately need revolutionary change to stop oppression and create justice.
Perry states:
The White church in this country developed in the absence of oppression; it could afford to dichotomize the gospel, allowing it to apply to spiritual issues but not to social ones.
True, but I would state this in a stronger fashion. The Euro church was often a part of the oppression of blacks and benefited from their oppression. Therefore, it was to their advantage to divorce the spiritual from the social, especially when other ethnic groups were involved. They could appear to be individually righteous while socially evil with no contradiction, or so they falsely believed; at judgment day, they will discover how wrong they were.
Regarding the Civil War and Reconstruction, Perry notes that there was over 150 years of slavery, then suddenly freedom. Freedom, but not much justice followed. For example, most of the work of the Freedmen's Bureau centered around "temporary relief" which was badly needed, but economic issues such as "property ownership and economic equity" were not addressed. Soon a new form of slavery was instituted and institutionalized---segregation, sharecropping, prison gangs and lynching.
Perry asserts that Euro evangelicals have the "right theology but wrong sociology." By this I assume that he means the evangelicals have a good theology of personal sin and personal salvation based on the cross and resurrection, but they do not practice social justice. I would say that white evangelicals have a partial or incomplete theology which leads to a terrible practice of sociology. Their theology not address ethnocentrism and oppression as the Bible does. Their theology does not understand the kingdom of God as justice that releases the oppressed poor.
Back to McMickle, the pastor of Antioch Baptist Church in Cleveland, Ohio; he has a doctorate and teaches at Ashland Theological Seminary. The following quotation reflects the theme of his book:
There is a black middle class that is becoming more and more affluent. There is at the same time, a black underclass that is becoming increasingly impoverished. The question for this book is what the class disparity within the black community means for the ministry of black churches. More precisely, what are the ministry obligations and opportunities of black middle-class churches that are physically located within America's inner cities?
McMickle knows what it is like to be hungry and poor, also the desperate pursuit for something better---a middle class life style; here are some insights from his own personal journey:
The pursuit of prosperity and the American Dream is an especially delicate issue with the black middle class. Many of them are the first generation in their families to enjoy any measure of prosperity. . . . My family never owned its own home. When my father abandoned us, I was ten years old. From that time on, we never owned a car. I will never forget standing on the street corners in Chicago in subzero weather waiting for public transportation. . . . My memories of growing up helped me understand those persons who, like Scarlet O'Hara in Gone With The Wind, have vowed to themselves "never to be hungry again."
As a teenager, McMickle visited a plush suburban home. But as he returned to his small, dingy apartment, he sobbed and sobbed "because the life I had lived for the past two days seemed out of my reach."
McMickle adds:
I fell into the money cycle immediately following my graduation from high school. . . . Not only was I making union scale as a regular wage, but I could earn double time if I worked Sundays. After having grownup as an active member of a church in Chicago, I worked Sundays without hesitation because in a choice between God and mammon, I chose the mammon. I was determined never again to face an empty closet or a bare pantry. Had my call to the ministry not occurred in the summer of 1966 while I was working in that print shop, I wonder if I would ever have broken out of that cycle.
The intense human desire to escape poverty is understandable, but potentially dangerous. A person, a community, even a church can become quite materialistic in the process. A person may escape poverty, gain the whole world, yet lose one's soul. We must remember to give highest priority to God's kingdom and his justice; then God will take care of the necessities of life.
Most of his book consists of wise advice regarding the ministry of the black church.
Next, Introducing Black Theology by Bruce Fields.
I am angry. What could and should have been a great book, a desperately needed book, a ground breaking book for American evangelicalism, turned out to be incomplete, too theological, not biblical enough. Many theologians were quoted, but there was not much original biblical analysis.
There were some tantalizing statements which led me to believe that this would be a great book:
* "As a symbol of oppression, the concept of blackness allows for fruitful theological reflection."
* "I will address the need for the church to adopt a more prophetic stance on the specific matters of racism and the potential tolerance of systemic sin."
* The church, however, is not totally unlike its societal surroundings. We are still in days of racial tension and division, and it is sheer naivete to believe that a follower of Jesus Christ living and ministering in this present setting is automatically and completely immune to such influences."
* "Racism is a faith. It is a form of idolatry."
These statements reveal the author's personal sensitivity to oppression/justice issues, but there are major omissions in his biblical analysis.
Michael Emerson and Christian Smith in Divided by Faith, 2000, had already documented the failure of evangelicals to engage racial oppression responsibly, biblically. So here was a golden opportunity for an Afro American evangelical to chart the biblical way to stop oppression and do justice. Fields toyed with the concepts/issues, but he essentially failed his assignment. What an enormous tragedy!
If oppression and justice are central concerns of black theology, and if oppression and justice are central failures of the white evangelical church, then a bible-believing evangelical must engage in depth the Scriptures at these points. Strangely, Fields does not do so.
To my knowledge, no white or black evangelical has produced a definitive biblical analysis of ethnocentrism, oppression, justice and reconciliation, and the kingdom of God as justice that releases the oppressed in the power of the Holy Spirit. Any volunteers?
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