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Anchors of Faith: Black Christianity in America with Walter Strickland · Future Christian

0:07
>> Paul: Welcome to the Future Christian Podcast, your
0:10
source for insights and ideas on how to lead your church in the
0:13
21st century. At the Future Christian
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Podcast, we talk to pastors, authors
0:19
and other faith leaders for helpful advice and practical
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wisdom to help you and your community of faith
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walk boldly into the future. Whether
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you're a pastor, church leader, or a passionate member
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of your faith community, this podcast is
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designed to challenge, inspire, and equip you
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with the tools you need for impactful ministry.
0:39
And now for a little bit about the guest for this episode.
0:44
>> Martha Tatarnic: Welcome to the Future Christian Podcast. Today, Loren
0:46
Richmond Jr. Welcomes Walter Strickland II to
0:49
the program. Walter is associate
0:52
professor of systematic and contextual
0:55
Theology at, uh, Southeastern Baptist
0:58
Theological Seminary. He has co
1:00
authored or contributed to several books,
1:03
including For God so Love the A
1:05
Blueprint for Kingdom Diversity. He
1:08
is a host of the White Horse Inn
1:11
podcast and founder of Cultural
1:14
Engagement and Aptree Learning.
1:16
Today he is discussing his new book, Swing
1:19
Low, a history of Black Christianity in the
1:22
United States. A reminder, before we
1:25
start today's conversation, please take a moment to
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subscribe to the podcast, leave a review and
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share Future Christian with a friend. Connect with
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pro.com with comments, questions
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or ideas for future episodes. We
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appreciate your voice in how we faithfully discern
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the future of, uh, the church.
2:01
>> Dr. Walter Strickland II: All right.
2:02
>> Loren: Welcome to the Future Christian Podcast. This is Loren Richmond
2:04
Jr. And today I am pleased to be welcoming
2:07
Dr. Walter Strickland to the podcast. Thanks so
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much for being here.
2:12
>> Dr. Walter Strickland II: Yeah, it's such a great opportunity to be with you today.
2:15
>> Loren: Well, thanks for, uh, as I mentioned to
2:18
Walter here for our guests, I'm recording
2:21
at home. It's a snow day, so if there's some extra
2:24
ambient noise, we'll say, uh, for our
2:27
guests, please. Or for our listeners, please be patient,
2:29
understanding. But again, thanks for being here. Share, if you would, just a
2:32
little bit, anything else you want to share about yourself and then we'll,
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we'll get into your. Your background and faith journey.
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>> Dr. Walter Strickland II: Awesome. Yeah. So, uh, I currently teach,
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uh, theology at Southeastern Seminary in Wake Forest, North
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Carolina. Also Judson College is the
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undergraduate institution there. Uh, I'm a pastor at a
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mongode church. I'm one of our elders there.
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Um, and I've been doing, um, I've been in
2:55
the classroom for over a decade now, which I can't believe. How
2:58
fast time flies. And then also, uh,
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I went to seminary to be a pastor. So pastoring, uh,
3:04
alongside of doing Academic work is a joy.
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>> Loren: Yeah. Uh share if you would then
3:11
talk about your journey of faith. What that looked like in the past and what
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that looks like today.
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>> Dr. Walter Strickland II: So I was born into a family with
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parents who love Jesus. So I
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uh. That was such a blessing and I didn't really
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understand what that meant uh until I
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began to see, to uh be in friends
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households uh where their parents were, you know just they
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just treated them differently than my parents were. My parents were just so loving and
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warm and forgiving and uh, just putting on
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Christ in so many ways. Uh they were not perfect
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by any means but they were just so um
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uh just transparent with their
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own journey of faith uh that it just really seemed
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intriguing to me. So as I, as my sister and
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I had grown up a little bit we were
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driving to my grandparents house uh in
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California. I grew up in Bakersfield primarily
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uh but we were driving up Interstate 5 going to
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Oakland so right up the middle of the state
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and uh, my father begins to share the story
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of salvation with us. You know uh, Christ
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died for our sin, you know I'm a sinner, you're a
4:17
sinner, uh we're all in need of grace.
4:20
And uh, he wanted to extend that grace
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to me on behalf of Christ. And
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um, my sister, my older sister and I
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prayed to receive Christ in the, in our
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van going to our grandparents house in
4:33
Northern California. So uh, as
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my world grew my God grew
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bigger than it still. Um and so it was childlike
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faith but it didn't stay like childlike faith
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uh as I interacted with the world and as I
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saw evil in the world, as I saw difficulty and faced
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hardship, God uh still
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remained uh Lord over all those things.
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And uh, I know I'm condensing it down very quickly
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but um. Yeah as I grew up
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the Lord became uh very specific with me
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as far as my own personal calling to ministry
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and um, through a basketball uh
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injury and uh just directing my steps along
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the way. And so uh, I'm a kid who couldn't read until
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I was nine and didn't read a book cover to
5:19
cover until I was 18. Now I uh, by
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God's grace and by his empowerment I'm you know
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teaching and writing things that people are actually
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reading. So um, my faith uh
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now in contrast Even with
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about 15 years ago is that I, I
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saw faith became a very bookish
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journey when uh I was in seminary.
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It was very intellectually driven, very cognitive.
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Uh I, I miss, I misconstrued
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intimacy and abiding with Christ as we see in
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John 8 with information acquisition,
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um, but now I truly see that to get to know
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somebody, it's more than just facts and
6:00
details. It's really being
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relational with the Lord.
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Um, and so I tell folks all the time,
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I can give you a bunch of details about my
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wife, but I can still have no relationship with
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her. But um, I know those things about
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her and those things are now a catalyst into relationship
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with her. So I uh, think that in the
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last couple of years I've really grown in that way,
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being able to abide in Christ in a way that's more, uh,
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deep and abiding than just informational.
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>> Loren: Mhm. That's great. I appreciate you sharing that.
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I also want to say, like, as a pastor and a
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professor, I feel like you have my dream job there, but
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nice, um, share if you would, kind of just anything about
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spiritual practices, spiritual disciplines that are meaningful
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or important to you.
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>> Dr. Walter Strickland II: For sure. Um,
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I have a. I'll just go out and share them.
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I might be weird, but hey, we're all messed up
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and in need of grace. And so, uh,
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I read a lot of books for my vocation.
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And um, because of that, um,
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I find reading scripture
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devotionally, uh, became more of
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that academic sort of heady enterprise as
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opposed to a just abiding and being
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with the Lord and just saturating myself in the
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words of Christ. And so, uh, what I often do
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is I listen to Scripture being read to me, which
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interestingly enough, that's how you know, the original readers heard it or
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the original audience heard it anyway.
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So, uh, uh, I listen to
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scripture, um, I walk, uh, in the
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mornings every day and pray because I
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can't really pray sitting still. Um, there's something
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about being in creation, enjoying
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general revelation as I'm communing with the Lord that
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I found very, very, uh, abiding and
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special. Um, even watching the seasons
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change. I was just describing that right now in North Carolina,
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where I am, it's in the 70s. And the reason why I'm frustrated with
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that is because the seasons should be changing and
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the Lord is revealing Himself even through,
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um, the seasons changing. And so I long
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for that. So all to say, I think prayer
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and reading, uh, and reading Scripture or
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engaging with Scripture are two practices that
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I think are very helpful. But I've had to learn how
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to do that in such a way that was
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um, most beneficial for me. And sometimes I feel like
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an odd duck saying that I listen more than I read
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scripture, although I still read it because I, I prepare to preach
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and Things like that. But if I'm just, you
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know, wanting to just commune with the Lord, I
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usually end up, um, uh,
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listening. So I'm thinking those
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are some of the nuggets that I, I picked up along the way.
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>> Loren: Yeah, I'm thinking of. I don't know if you're familiar with J. Kim. He's
8:49
an author and pastor out in California. I
8:52
think M He's written in his book
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about like something kind of radical and
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analog about like, just as a church, just like listening
9:00
to scripture being read. Because like, that's
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how, you know so many of the. The epistles would have just
9:06
been read to an early church.
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>> Dr. Walter Strickland II: Oh yeah.
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>> Loren: M. It's counterintuitive, but makes
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sense.
9:13
>> Dr. Walter Strickland II: Yeah. I mean, even. Even when Josiah found the law, I
9:15
mean they just read it to the people and
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they repented, um, and they began to
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change their ways. So it's kind of a
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special thing to sort of revisit that ancient practice,
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um, but in a contemporary setting.
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>> Loren: And ah, perhaps it's a good
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segue into your book. Uh, Walter is the
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author of Swing Low, two volume series
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here. We're going to be talking primarily about volume
9:41
one, Swing Low, A history of Black
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Christianity in the United States. But
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in this story you talk about the
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early formative years of
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African American faith in the early church,
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or, excuse me, early in American church.
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And you know, one of the, as I remember at least,
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was the ways of
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sharing the gospel. Since, if
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I'm understanding correctly, so many were oppressed and not
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allowed to, to read or receive an education was
10:13
through storytelling and verbally sharing the scripture,
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right?
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>> Dr. Walter Strickland II: Oh, certainly, yeah. So it uh, was illegal
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for African Americans, uh, to learn how to
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read, to uh, be taught how to read. And so even if somebody was
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teaching them, they would be, um, vulnerable
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to penalty under the law. So, uh,
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really what was going on was this ancient practice of
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orality that was,
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uh, very popular in Africa. Uh, they were an
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oral society. And so a lot of the stories and
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fables and uh, religious sort of realities
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were passed down via, uh, storytelling. And it
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was amazingly accurate
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as far as passing a story from one generation to the
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next. So, uh, that same way of
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storytelling began to manifest in the early years of
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African American Christianity because
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there was many times when, uh, either missionaries
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or slave owners would communicate, they
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would read the scripture to slaves.
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But what would happen is that the application
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of that reading was one of remain
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subservient, remain docile.
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Your body, uh, belongs to me, but now
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your soul is free in Christ. And those sort of
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dichotomizing what God has made whole.
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Um, but what they would do is that because
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I believe that the Holy Spirit was working through the reading
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of Scripture, despite the,
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I believe, unbiblical implications drawn out
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by the slave masters, they would, uh, be
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able to sort of hear the stories and retell
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them. And then what would happen is that they would
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retell them and apply them in such a way that
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where they were applying the riches of Scripture to their
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own sort of spiritual context and so enlivened, uh,
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context. And that would often happen at what we call the
12:00
invisible institution.
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>> Loren: Yeah, well, we've kind of jumped into it. Do you want to
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take a moment here to describe sort of what
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brought the book about your kind of drive to write it and
12:13
inspired to write it?
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>> Dr. Walter Strickland II: Yeah, certainly. So, um, as I was,
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uh, writing my dissertation as a PhD
12:20
student, I began to
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offer an introduction, like a historical
12:26
and contextual introduction to the theology I'd be talking
12:28
about for the lion's share of my
12:31
writing my dissertation. So, uh, and
12:34
that, um, historical context
12:37
became so intriguing to me that I just kept writing
12:40
and writing and writing. And, uh, the
12:43
reality is that I was finding
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figures, um, and information and people that I never heard
12:49
about. I mean, I have a bachelor's degree in
12:52
Biblical Theological Studies. I have two master's degrees, an M.
12:54
Div. And a THM and it wasn't
12:57
until my doctoral research that I really
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began to uncover a lot of these gems. And I was
13:03
just heartbroken. I said, where have these people been?
13:06
Where have. Where has Charles Octavius Booth been? Why
13:09
haven't I heard of, you know, really Daddy King in the way that he
13:12
would have been engaging? And, um, given
13:15
that sort of prominence in his time, where was,
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um, you know, uh, uh,
13:21
Betsy Stockton? Where were these people that are just, you
13:23
know, uh, M. Maria Stewart, these giants of the faith?
13:27
And why were they not in the, uh,
13:29
primary tellings of American Christian history?
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Um, and I think we know the answer to those questions, but,
13:35
uh, we can engage those later. But suffice it to
13:38
say that there was a whole register
13:41
of the American Christian tradition that was
13:44
missing. And I thought it would be helpful to
13:46
offer a telling of that story from a theological
13:49
perspective. So that's why I wrote Swing Low, Volume one.
13:53
And what I wanted to also do is offer
13:55
the resources, those primary sources that drove the
13:58
narrative in volume two. So that's why there's two
14:01
volumes. They're kind of cousins. They speak to each other a little
14:03
bit. And so if you're reading volume one, I'LL say, hey,
14:07
check this out in volume two. Because if you're reading through
14:09
volume one, you're reading about Frederick Douglass,
14:12
and there's actually Frederick Douglass's primary source
14:15
in volume two. And that just kind of repeats itself
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with, uh, all kinds of sermons and theological
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treaties, oratory, autobiography, correspondence and so
14:24
on. And so really I wanted to,
14:27
uh, understand the American Christian story like a
14:30
choir. And as I was reading
14:33
about this tradition, let's call
14:36
them the Baritones. The Baritones were missing
14:39
from the choir. And so what I wanted to do
14:42
is offer the story of the baritones,
14:45
which will then therefore fill out the fullness of the choir
14:48
so we can have a better telling of the story, a more whole
14:50
sound, uh, a more robustly
14:53
perspectival understanding of the Christian faith as it
14:56
manifested in America. Uh, that gives us a better
14:59
and more accurate telling of the story as well. So that was
15:02
really the motivation behind it.
15:04
>> Loren: Yeah, I think one of the things that I found really interesting about volume
15:07
one is you talk about anchors
15:10
of black Christianity. Would you kind of talk through what those
15:13
are and then share how you came to those
15:15
anchors?
15:17
>> Dr. Walter Strickland II: So these anchors are, uh, are
15:20
helping sort of tell the story from a theological
15:23
perspective. So just to zoom out real quick, and then I'll come back
15:26
into answering, uh, exactly what those anchors are.
15:29
Um, there's. There's several books that tell
15:31
this particular story from a social, uh,
15:34
change perspective, a sort of a political theology
15:37
perspective, uh, seeing how the African American
15:40
Christian faith has interfaced with
15:43
social movements. There's people who have told the
15:46
story based upon denominational development. You know, you
15:49
had the. The AME Church, which is the African Methodist Episcopal
15:52
Church. Then you had the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church. Then you had the
15:55
National Baptist Convention, the Progressive National Baptist Commission.
15:58
So that's, you know, which is a story that needs to be told.
16:01
But what I would like to do, or what I try to do in Swing
16:04
Low is, yes, offer the historical
16:07
accuracy of denominational development about,
16:10
um, sort of social and political
16:12
engagement. But what I wanted to do
16:15
is to root that in the theology
16:18
that drove all of that activity. And
16:21
so what I. What I tried to do was, is as I
16:24
surveyed all those primary sources, many of which
16:27
are in volume two, I said, you know what? There's. There's
16:30
going to be folks who have not really
16:32
engaged with this tradition before. So I want to
16:35
give them, like, some places to put their feet, some footing,
16:38
to be able to understand some major
16:41
themes that I think appear in the story
16:44
that if you have these themes, you'll be able to understand
16:46
what's going on a little bit easier. So, uh, the first
16:50
anchor is Big God. And by the way, the
16:52
nomenclature, like what I've called these anchors is
16:55
uh, indigenous to the story. So big
16:58
God is the first one, which really gets us
17:00
at an understanding of a God who is,
17:03
um, who is able, uh, who is
17:06
sovereign, uh, who can do what he
17:09
wants to do and do what he sets out to do. Uh, the
17:12
second anchor is Jesus, um, and this
17:15
is Jesus as savior, deliverer,
17:18
liberator, uh, he's the Jesus.
17:20
There's an emphasis in the conversation
17:23
about Jesus with his identification with
17:26
people through their sufferings. In particular
17:29
with African Americans. This is important because
17:32
there's a lot of, uh,
17:35
you know, historically and even in the current moment, there's a lot
17:38
of sufferings, um, there.
17:41
And oftentimes Jesus is told
17:44
through this, uh, a motif of victory, which
17:47
is fantastic because Christ was ultimately
17:49
victorious. However, um, you
17:52
know, as we look at the creeds, as we look
17:55
at the hymnity of the church, um, we
17:58
skipped from Good Friday to Sunday,
18:01
not really spending a lot of time on the
18:04
grief of Saturday, or what do we do
18:07
on Saturday. Uh, and so, uh, Martin
18:10
Luther King Jr. Would say, no, we're a Saturday people.
18:12
We have endured, uh, difficulty, but
18:15
we have hope for Sunday. So
18:18
although there is trouble in the moment,
18:21
we're not going to stay here forever. And so, but so the blood
18:24
of Jesus is an identifying
18:27
sort of marker that says, you know what,
18:30
there's been a lot of African American blood that
18:32
was unjustly shed. If you, you know, we were talking about the antebellum
18:35
period a moment ago, talking about, uh, slaves
18:38
being strapped to fence posts and barrels
18:41
whipped. But there's another one whose blood is
18:44
redeeming blood and his blood is going to
18:47
uh, beget that victory that we're hoping for. So
18:50
that's the second anchor. The third anchor I'll move more quickly now
18:53
is conversion and then walking in the spirit,
18:56
uh, sort of two sides of the same coin. And then the
18:59
third, the fourth one is the Good Book, which is the Bible. There's been
19:02
a, uh, long standing affirmation of the authority
19:05
of scripture, uh, in the tradition.
19:07
Um, and then the final one, the fifth one
19:10
is deliverance. And so, uh, that God
19:13
is able to deliver his people from
19:16
any sort of spiritual, uh, social, political
19:19
oppression. And that's those five
19:22
anchors. So if you understand those,
19:25
they appear with different emphases throughout the
19:28
story. Uh, they appear with different sort of
19:31
intensity. Um, and then they are Sometimes
19:34
reordered in some senses. But if you get
19:37
those five major categories, then you have a
19:40
pretty good footing to then understand the story in that
19:43
way.
19:44
>> Loren: Yeah, I thought it was interesting how you continually weave
19:47
those five anchors throughout the book, you know,
19:50
and draw those parallels and connections to the
19:53
various historical journey.
19:56
I want to move to what I thought was
19:59
interesting in reading about how
20:02
these different social and cultural trends
20:05
helped or I don't know, maybe help is not the right word,
20:08
but they shaped or influenced the black church.
20:10
So three that stood out to me.
20:13
Um, and we can, we can go through these individual.
20:16
Here is the Great Migration, how that
20:19
impacted the church, uh, the separation
20:21
or maybe that's not the right word, but the distinction
20:24
between you, uh, say black intelligentsia and then
20:27
the growing black middle class looking for alternative
20:30
institutions. And then during the civil rights
20:33
movement, the tension between engaging social
20:36
ills and then verbally proclaiming the gospel.
20:39
So let's go through these one at a time if
20:41
we can, because I think there's very. Again, I read
20:44
this as historically speaking, but I also
20:47
was interested in how that history
20:50
can inform the American church today.
20:53
So talk about uh, the Great Migration maybe
20:55
historically and if you see any parallels again
20:58
to. We're in the time of great cultural change
21:01
now.
21:03
>> Dr. Walter Strickland II: Yeah, so the Great Migration was uh, sort of
21:06
a two wave movement in the early part of
21:09
the 19, uh, hundreds. And so you have
21:12
a primary wave and then a secondary wave. Uh,
21:14
1914 is kind of the zenith of the first,
21:17
like 1920, early
21:20
1920s is like the emphasis of the second one.
21:23
And what you have there is that you have a demographic
21:26
sort of reshuffling of the deck. Um, a lot of
21:29
African Americans were in the rural south at that point.
21:32
There was uh, many who were in the Northeast.
21:35
Um, but the rural south is really where a lot of the
21:38
shifting took place. And there was a,
21:40
um, lot of African Americans in the south were sharecroppers.
21:43
Um, there was a massive boll weevil,
21:46
um, sort of epidemic or it's not an epidemic, it's just an
21:49
infestation where they're essentially
21:53
uh, eating up all the crops. And so if you're a
21:55
sharecropper, often not even getting the wages
21:58
promised for your work, and then you have
22:00
these bugs coming and eating away at the
22:03
crop. You're not making ends meet.
22:06
So there was a real need to do something
22:09
with that. Uh, another sort of factor in
22:12
this was is that as folks were leaving for,
22:14
ah, as people, soldiers were leaving for
22:17
World War I, it left a lot of jobs Open
22:20
in major cities in the south, but really sort of in the
22:23
Midwest where it was very industrialized. And so
22:26
uh, the um, people call the Rust Belt now
22:28
unfortunately, but, uh, the steel belt there then.
22:31
And so, um, there's a lot of manufacturing there.
22:34
Uh, and actually the law was such
22:37
that African Americans were uh, uh,
22:40
equal by the law in the Midwest. And
22:43
so what you have because of this conflation of
22:45
issues, you have a lot of African
22:48
Americans moving up to. Up north,
22:51
uh, to places like Gary, Indiana,
22:54
Chicago, which is where I was born. Uh, you
22:57
have people in Detroit, uh,
23:00
Indianapolis, in places like that. And so a
23:02
lot of these, uh, cities, you'll see a
23:05
large African American presence because people were
23:08
flooding there from the Great Migration. So one of the
23:11
implications of that is that there was this
23:14
pretty vast, uh, sort of ecclesiological
23:17
sort of safety net that was sort of spanning the
23:20
South. So the church is a place where you would
23:22
go for your needs to be met. Because again, at that
23:25
time you couldn't go to government as an African American
23:28
to be that safety net.
23:30
Um, there wasn't other social programs
23:33
that were sort of aimed at helping you in that
23:36
way. It was the church. So that was the.
23:39
That was the most central institution of the
23:42
black community. So then when you have this reshuffling
23:45
of the deck. There were African American churches in the
23:48
Midwest and up north, but they were a lot smaller.
23:50
Um, there. They weren't as. They weren't ready
23:53
for that sort of influx of people. Uh,
23:56
and then, you know, soon after, you know, around
23:59
the um, the Great Depression, you begin
24:02
to see the emergence of a lot of social
24:04
programs that be, you know, which African Americans can. The
24:07
beneficiary. What beneficiaries of as they're now
24:10
settling into these, uh, urban centers in,
24:13
uh, up North. So it was a very rural,
24:16
uh, community that became very urban
24:19
as a part of the Great Migration. And so, uh.
24:22
And a lot of that shifting can still see
24:25
the implications of it today as far as how the demographics
24:28
of the African American community are shaken out.
24:31
>> Loren: Yeah, that's interesting. Uh, talk more
24:33
about this quote. Uh, this. This part of your book too.
24:36
>> Dr. Walter Strickland II: We.
24:36
>> Loren: When you read about the black intelligentsia and growing black middle
24:39
class, began looking for alternative
24:42
institutions. I mean, again, I think that's kind of a trend
24:44
we're seeing broadly speaking in our culture today, across
24:47
American culture of this mistrust
24:50
distrust of like traditional institutions. And
24:53
there's kind of these. This. Almost
24:56
this kind of uh, creation of these new. Again, they
24:58
wouldn't use the word Institutions, but these kind of new,
25:01
uh, power centers, cultural centers.
25:04
>> Dr. Walter Strickland II: Yeah. So. So what. What was happening at that
25:07
point is, uh, when this really began to emerge.
25:10
Someone, uh, like a WEB Du Bois is kind of a central
25:13
figure who embodies a lot of this, grew up in the
25:15
Congregationalist church, but as he began to go to
25:18
Fisk University for his bachelor's degree and then
25:21
later to Harvard, and then he did, you know, he studied in
25:24
Germany and uh, then came back to America. He. He
25:27
was, uh. He was somebody that was one of these
25:30
first generations born free. So they
25:32
looked back at the faith of those who came out of
25:35
slavery, who didn't have the access to education, and they
25:38
sort of frowned upon some of the sort of feism,
25:41
like this sort of, like, faith that they had that they thought
25:44
was, you know, faith upon faith, uh, and
25:47
not on anything substantive. And so, uh, people like
25:50
Du Bois really became this generation of folks who
25:53
really began to try to look, uh, to
25:55
other institutions, like institutions of higher education
25:59
theories, uh, that came from sociological
26:02
engagement for, uh, the sake of healing and
26:04
engaging social problems, whereas before people
26:07
would do so primarily through the church and that. And that's
26:10
a major shift at that time, which is really sort of
26:13
indicative of what's continuing to happen now.
26:16
And I think that what happened was, is
26:18
that those who were leading the church,
26:21
uh, weren't really, um.
26:25
They had the Bible in one hand, and they
26:28
really sort of lost track of the new
26:31
issues that were emerging for young
26:34
people as they were growing up in an age where they
26:37
were born free. But they were still feeling the
26:39
sting of, uh. The residue of,
26:42
you know, racial oppression. And so there was
26:45
questions that I think Du Bois had. There was issues
26:48
that he was facing and others like him were facing,
26:51
um, who were now literate. And they had these
26:54
pastors who were illiterate, um, you know,
26:57
uh, their inability to engage with the
26:59
issues and the conversations that were happening in the academy
27:02
with folks who are thinking at that kind of a level, and
27:05
they just saw the faith as being irrelevant. And so I
27:08
think to sort of your point and desire to make this
27:11
more contemporary, uh, I think this teaches us
27:14
a lot. I think, um. There's a
27:17
tendency that I've seen and, you know, of course,
27:20
throughout the country and different denominations and faith traditions,
27:23
this is. This is. It differs. But one thing that
27:26
I've seen enough of, at least to.
27:29
For it to be a point in my mind, is
27:31
that pastors,
27:34
Christian leaders, have to be very much attuned
27:37
to what's emerging in the, uh. In the
27:40
ivory towers. And the reason why I say that is because
27:43
whatever's in the academy is going to be public, you know,
27:46
made public, uh, and just more pedestrian.
27:49
Uh, what used to be 20 years down the line,
27:52
but then was 15 years down the line. And what's now because of social
27:55
media in the way that, you know, gurus and
27:57
professors, they have YouTube channels and they're getting information like
28:00
that and because, you know. Oh,
28:03
yeah, certainly like we're doing now. Right.
28:06
Um, uh, and then. And then not. Not even to
28:08
mention the millions of American young people who are
28:11
in, you know, university, um, right
28:14
now, those ideas are things that they're going to
28:17
have to grapple with. So
28:20
as those who are, uh,
28:22
Christian leaders, we can't just be
28:25
Christian leaders in a very sort of
28:27
abstracted sense from the
28:30
cultural and intellectual issues of the day.
28:33
And so, uh, you know, whatever's coming out, we have to read those
28:36
things, we have to understand how to grapple with those things,
28:39
and we have to bring the Christian scripture to bear on those
28:42
things or else our faith becomes irrelevant.
28:45
Even though I think it's relevant, but it seems irrelevant
28:48
for the person whose questions are not answered.
28:50
>> Loren: Yeah, let's stay with that. Because you write later in the
28:53
book about the contrast between
28:56
black academics and ministers in urban
28:58
centers. And again, I'm thinking of my conversation
29:01
with Dr. Ah, Elesha Coffman,
29:04
who. I asked her about
29:06
Wheaton. I can't remember if she was a graduate. I think she.
29:09
Anyway, um, and the disconnect between,
29:12
like Wheaton as sort of a
29:15
leading evangelical academic
29:17
school, and the disconnect between
29:21
the thinkers at, uh, Wheaton versus what's actually
29:24
taking place amongst pastors
29:27
in evangelical churches. I'm thinking also just
29:30
in my own context, in a mainline context,
29:33
how. I mean, I think the clergy are
29:35
often very well educated from seminary, but there's
29:38
often a big disconnect from the
29:41
clergy and the ideas in academia
29:44
versus, like the folks in the pews. Um, so
29:47
talk more. I don't know, what
29:49
are your thoughts and how to bridging that gap
29:52
there?
29:54
>> Dr. Walter Strickland II: Yeah, I think that's a great question and a challenge that the church has
29:56
faced since the time of Du Bois, uh, I
29:59
mean, even prior to that. But as far as this narrative, you really
30:02
see it materializing in that generation because
30:05
that's when the Harlem Renaissance began to,
30:08
uh, take root, uh, and then sort of produce a bunch
30:11
of, um, literature for
30:13
the African American community and beyond. So,
30:16
um, I do think that,
30:19
um, there has to be the work of
30:22
the academy. There's an
30:24
Integrity to that work that
30:27
um, then instructs people,
30:29
clergy, how to think carefully
30:32
to give them the lay of the land, uh, in a
30:35
specific area of thought to which they can
30:38
then draw from for years down the line.
30:41
So just to give you my own
30:43
perspective on this, I don't teach my students
30:46
what to think, but I try to teach them how to
30:49
think. Mhm. Because if I offer them
30:52
a robust and rich tradition
30:55
and way, uh, of viewing the world that
30:58
I think is based upon Scripture, no matter what
31:01
comes along, they'll be able to engage with
31:03
it as a Christian as opposed to
31:06
saying, you know what? I have no idea because my professor didn't teach me that or didn't.
31:09
Didn't tell me that. So. And the way that the world is
31:12
changing so rapidly, I think that's one of the
31:15
fundamental um, uh,
31:18
distinctions that we ought to
31:20
um, engage uh, as we're thinking
31:23
about translating what goes on in the integrity of the
31:26
academy to clergy so then they can interact
31:28
with laity. So um, especially
31:31
with the, with the quick speed of change
31:34
and the way uh, that information is disseminated is
31:37
so much more rapid these days.
31:40
I do think that uh,
31:43
majoring on like someone like me as a
31:45
professor offering foundational
31:48
theological ideas and categories for them to then
31:51
engage problems that don't even
31:54
exist yet is so important. So
31:57
I think the, and this is going from like the
31:59
indoctrination sort of model to the sort of
32:02
like thinking Christianly sort of idea,
32:05
for lack of a better way to say it. So uh, those
32:08
sort of simplistic indoctrination sort of
32:11
um, sort of realities are not going to help
32:13
us long term as we're translating what
32:16
goes on the academy to clergy, then to laity.
32:19
So I think that's a, that's a big part of it that
32:22
I think we've um,
32:24
uh, tried to make
32:27
the academy so relevant immediately that
32:30
we skipped a step. And now clergy are
32:33
not able to uh. As much as I think,
32:36
you know, some clergy perhaps aren't able to sort of
32:39
um, interact with AI because they weren't given the
32:42
categories to do so. To do so. Yeah, because AI
32:45
wasn't even in existence when they were in seminary. Or people
32:48
can engage with the newest sort of
32:50
scientific reproductive technologies and those conversations. To think
32:53
carefully about that there's, there's really poor
32:56
thought about that. That's being publicized all the time. But how
32:59
do we think with, with nuance, uh, about those things?
33:02
And I think um, you know that. I think that this is one way
33:05
that we can do that by really acknowledging that
33:08
integrity of the academy, offering strong
33:11
footing for people to begin to sort of place their
33:13
feet then, uh, that clergy going out into
33:16
the world and being able to articulate a biblical
33:19
theological, uh, sort of articulation about
33:22
those ideas to people who are facing real problems on a day to day basis.
33:25
And so I think that's probably part of at least part of
33:28
the solution. Uh, and we can leave it there for now. Unless you have some
33:31
more questions about that.
33:33
>> Loren: I mean I do, but I appreciate your
33:36
response and I know we're.
33:37
>> Dr. Walter Strickland II: Yeah, feel free, feel free.
33:38
>> Loren: And there's more I want to get to. But let's,
33:41
let's, let's go to this for right now.
33:44
Um, one of the other things that stood out to me was
33:47
you write about during the civil rights movement this tension
33:50
between uh, amongst some of
33:53
engaging social ills and verbally proclaiming the gospel.
33:56
I know that's still a tension that
33:58
um, exists in our world today, especially over the
34:01
last several years. So can you give some again some historical
34:04
context to that and some thoughts broadly speaking
34:07
for uh, today?
34:10
>> Dr. Walter Strickland II: Yeah, and a lot of this has to do with what we think the
34:12
gospel is doing. The good news of Jesus, what is it for,
34:15
what it's going, what is it supposed to accomplish?
34:18
What did Jesus die and rise for? Um, you
34:21
know, so uh, for some they would
34:24
say, well Jesus is here, you know, to
34:27
save me, to save my soul, so that one
34:30
day I won't be in this place where there is
34:33
sin and brokenness and suffering
34:35
of various kinds. And so for that person they would
34:38
say the best thing I can do for somebody is to tell
34:41
them uh, about Jesus. Because there will come a day in the sweet by
34:44
and by where there's going to be no more sin,
34:47
sorrow, death, dying and those sorts of things. To
34:49
quote the uh, summarizes that scripture passage,
34:53
uh, others would say, well you know what the good news of
34:55
Jesus is that Christ died and rose from the dead to
34:58
restore all things to himself, which
35:01
encompassed in that is the souls of people.
35:04
But they're saying as those who are
35:07
supposed to be uh, carrying the aroma of Christ
35:10
with us. Jesus was definitely socially
35:13
active. Uh, Jesus is the one who did preach
35:16
the Sermon on the Mount. So Jesus wasn't
35:19
leaving social ills
35:21
undone. And so he was doing those
35:24
things as a demonstration of the fact
35:27
that the kingdom is upon us. And
35:30
so, uh, during that time with
35:33
African, uh, American Protestants, there was
35:36
this dialogue about okay, so
35:39
should we engage in the social
35:41
struggle for black freedom which would
35:44
then sort of Complicate our lives in the moment because there
35:47
would be backlash against that.
35:50
Um, or should we be content to share the Gospel of
35:53
Jesus Christ? People accept that
35:56
message. They would be then those who are looking
35:58
for, uh, that salvation in the sweet by and by
36:01
as well. So, uh, that's
36:04
definitely the context in which we have that
36:07
tension. But, um, m. Most. I would
36:10
say most African American Christians did lean in towards the
36:13
fact that, you know, what the God of the Bible is, the
36:16
God of the Exodus. So it was, you
36:19
know, um, let my people go free.
36:22
Yes, that's part one. So they can do
36:25
what. So they can worship Me, which is a spiritual reality.
36:28
So God is the God who created
36:30
us. Good, even very good.
36:33
And he created us sort of, uh, holistic
36:36
beings who are spiritual beings, but also
36:39
embodied beings as well. And so the
36:41
idea of him freeing them from their
36:44
servitude to worship him is
36:47
addressing that reality which the Exodus
36:50
became a paradigm for, uh, African Americans
36:53
to understand the totality of the scriptures and
36:55
also how God works then and
36:58
works now. So, uh, participating
37:01
in that as agents of the Lord Jesus,
37:04
uh, drove many African Americans to say, you know what,
37:07
There has to be that proclamation of the Gospel, but there also
37:10
has to be us living out that
37:12
deliverance in the moment as a testimony
37:15
to what's going to happen in full later. And
37:18
so I think that's where we see that tension within the community of
37:21
verbal proclamation of the gospel. Uh, or is it
37:24
a more holistic endeavor
37:27
to free people from, yes,
37:29
their. Their sinfulness, but also their.
37:32
Their social brokenness also?
37:36
>> Loren: You know, I'm appreciating you using the word tension that. The
37:39
word that I've. I've heard
37:41
throughout my kind of ministry and academic career
37:44
of the importance of holding things in tension.
37:47
And that's certainly a lot easier said
37:50
than done. Right? And it sounds like, uh,
37:53
the black church has really done a pretty good job of
37:55
doing that. Is it a fair assessment?
37:59
>> Dr. Walter Strickland II: You know, I think that is a pretty fair
38:01
assessment. And I think that,
38:04
um, it was by sort of contextual and
38:07
historical necessity, um, that
38:10
was sort of forged in the fire, if you
38:12
will. It was because
38:16
if God didn't answer to the
38:18
evils, I mean, going back to the antebellum period, if
38:21
God had no answer to the
38:24
fact that wives and daughters were
38:27
being raped and then children were being sold
38:30
away from their parents, families were being broken up, uh, that
38:33
men were being whipped and emasculated and all
38:35
these. If the Gospel had nothing to say to
38:38
that, then
38:42
it just seems like it's going to fall on deaf ears.
38:45
But the gospel does have something to say to
38:48
that. And it also upholds
38:51
people, uh, inwardly
38:53
as they're standing in the midst of that
38:56
situation where that brokenness and sinfulness and
38:59
hatred is, uh, they're enduring that.
39:01
So it really is that sort of both. And like
39:04
God has to uphold his people in their
39:07
spirits, but he also is
39:10
doing that for the sake of them being his hands and
39:13
his feet in a world that is dying and
39:16
broken. And when Jesus was here, he was doing the work of
39:19
helping to address those things both spiritually and
39:21
physically. And so I think what the
39:24
context that African American Christianity was forged
39:27
in resist that sort of agnostic
39:29
lean to make us assume that
39:32
Christianity was primarily a
39:34
spiritual thing, freeing, uh, us from this body
39:37
of death, uh, in this body that
39:40
carries our sinfulness. Well, no, no, no.
39:43
We're sinful because we live in a post
39:46
Genesis 3 world, uh, and
39:49
things like that. But that doesn't mean that
39:52
the world in which we live in, in the bodies that
39:55
we inhabit in it are unredeemable. Which is why I believe that we're going to
39:58
have. This world's going to be restored and our
40:01
bodies are going to be raised and we are going to be in the
40:04
kingdom embodied as God intended it, and not some
40:07
spirits abstracted from the world that God
40:09
created. Good. And the bodies that God created. Very good.
40:13
>> Loren: Yeah, that's helpful. Thank you for sharing that.
40:16
So I ask this question often
40:18
to leaders of color and I'm curious if
40:21
you're willing to share here too,
40:25
what are some lessons, I'm curious, that the white
40:28
American church might learn, again just from
40:31
broadly speaking,
40:33
these historical lessons and how they could
40:36
be, uh,
40:38
impactful for again, today's
40:41
broadly white American church.
40:44
>> Dr. Walter Strickland II: Yeah, that's, that's a fantastic question. I think one
40:47
of the, one of the major
40:50
points of um, uh, or
40:53
an aha moment could be after reading a book like
40:55
Swing Low is, you know what, uh, as
40:58
the number of professing Christians in
41:01
America dwindles proportionally,
41:04
there's still the opportunity to make
41:07
change, to interact and interface with the world around
41:09
us. Um, and because,
41:12
you know, African American Christians did that from the margins of
41:15
society.
41:16
>> Loren: Mhm.
41:17
>> Dr. Walter Strickland II: Um, so if you're looking at a people, as
41:20
Howard Thurman says, with their back against the wall, those people have
41:23
made a lot of change in the American cultural
41:25
landscape. But from a position of
41:28
powerlessness, so, uh, are seeming sort
41:31
of social power powerlessness. They were
41:33
empowered by the Holy Spirit for sure. And so I
41:36
think that's a major point that we can say, hey, you know
41:39
what? Um, all is not
41:42
lost. God is still working
41:45
through his church. Um, and that's lesson number one.
41:47
I think a second lesson, uh, is that
41:51
if you look at African American Christianity,
41:54
um, versus sort of, ah, like white Christianity or
41:57
Anglo Christianity, however you want to say that there usually is
42:00
this sort of theological conservatism
42:03
and then like theological liberalism sort of
42:05
spectrum, uh, or
42:08
that maps right on top of, you know, political
42:11
conservatism and political progressivism
42:14
amongst African American Christians. We see that
42:16
that's not an appropriate way to assess
42:19
the tradition because, um,
42:22
historically speaking, the lion's share
42:25
of African American Christians have been able to, you know,
42:28
sign on the dotted line of any of the sort of
42:31
historic confessions of the faith. Nica ah,
42:33
um, you know, uh, is one that just jumps to mind.
42:36
You know, these are the, uh,
42:39
theological statements of the major African American
42:42
conventions. So, uh, but you
42:44
have these historically orthodox
42:47
Christians, but they were socially progressive.
42:50
That. Because if we thought about, you know, okay, you
42:53
had these orthodox African American Christians, if they were
42:56
conservative in the antebellum period, uh,
42:58
political or socially speaking, if they were conservative,
43:01
uh, amongst. During Jim Crow, that mean they would have
43:04
tried to maintain Jim Crow, segregation
43:07
or the status quo, but their faith
43:10
was actually driving them to do something other than that.
43:14
And so does that mean that every African
43:16
American is with, uh, every sort of
43:19
progressive sort of idea in the moment today?
43:22
No, not necessarily. Uh, but what that
43:25
does mean is that that same sort of, uh,
43:28
parallel of political and theological
43:31
conservatism and then political and theological
43:34
progressivism as a spectrum, the two spectrums
43:37
paralleling each other, that usually works
43:39
fairly well amongst, um,
43:42
uh, white Christian does not work amongst black
43:45
Christians. So there's a lot of times when
43:48
you'll have an African American Christian
43:50
who is, um, up in arms about
43:53
something socially, uh,
43:56
and many sort of, especially in my
44:00
spaces, uh, where I traverse evangelical Christians would
44:03
say, oh, that person must be theologically liberal. But that's
44:06
not the case at all. They're actually theologically
44:08
conservative or theologically orthodox, I should
44:11
say historic Christians is what I
44:13
would want to say, uh, who would affirm the anchors, as
44:16
I'm saying, of the African American tradition.
44:19
But that's driving them to engage
44:22
in such a way that is calling out
44:25
things that are, uh, antithetical to African American
44:28
flourishing.
44:30
>> Loren: Yeah, I appreciate you sharing that because something that
44:33
I noted from the book, you talk about the mistake of
44:36
conflating black Christians as theological
44:39
liberals and you know, as we're
44:42
recording this, when it's November 8th, certainly the
44:44
election just took place and I think there was,
44:47
I mean again, broadly speaking, some.
44:50
The sort of, kind of the usual.
44:53
I don't want to get too much into this, but uh, it seems like this
44:57
election has been like the sort of like expected.
44:59
Um, what am I thinking? Collaborations
45:02
or partnerships among
45:05
um, political
45:08
parties, like those kind of collaborations are falling by the wayside and
45:11
those kind of normal norms don't usually
45:13
apply. Uh. So yeah, I'm intrigued by
45:16
this, this idea of this M. What you're right about
45:19
this, this conflation. I mean,
45:24
let me say this. Like it feels. Maybe this
45:27
is, maybe this is unfair, but I guess
45:30
I'm speaking from my perspective. Like it feels like unfair
45:33
that it seems like it's almost like white people who are like
45:36
telling black Christians, like how they have to be.
45:39
I don't know if that's too strong, but
45:42
what, what are your, what more do you have on this, this
45:44
topic? Thought.
45:46
>> Dr. Walter Strickland II: Yeah. So, I mean I, I've been in, I've been in
45:49
churches that are. Love
45:51
Jesus, that are, you know, for
45:54
me I'm, I'm predominant. I'm in a Baptist context.
45:57
So they're, they're baptizing people, uh,
46:00
because. To make a public profession of a faith that they believe
46:03
is an inward change. Again, that's Baptist polity. But
46:06
all I'm trying to say is that I've been in a variety of Baptist churches that
46:09
are doing those historic Baptist practices,
46:12
celebrating, uh, salvation, sending missionaries all over the
46:15
world and doing great work in their communities.
46:18
Um, and depending on which church I'm in,
46:21
one church would say you are not a Christian if
46:24
you vote Republican. The other one would say
46:27
you're not a Christian if you vote Democratic. So,
46:30
um, you know, so it's. And I, and
46:33
I, and I think that what we're seeing
46:36
is that uh, Neither political
46:39
party 100%
46:41
affirms all of
46:44
the uh, ethic of
46:46
Jesus.
46:48
>> Loren: Mhm.
46:48
>> Dr. Walter Strickland II: So what we're doing is that we are, you
46:51
know, for. On both sides of that equation.
46:54
For those who are saying you can't be a Christian and vote Democratic
46:57
or Republican or whatever it is, I think both have
47:00
their particular emphases
47:03
that they're choosing to raise to the top
47:06
and saying, you know what? I'm going to vote for a party who
47:08
affirms these things. And on both
47:11
sides there's uh, things that I'm just going to have to choke
47:14
on for the sake of those things that I'm
47:16
prioritizing and because they're
47:18
prioritizing two different kinds of things,
47:21
they end up saying that about each other. And I think it's
47:24
just, um, you know, we have to understand that
47:27
this, the, the two party political system in
47:29
America is not one that is based
47:32
upon sort of any sort of uh,
47:35
biblical theological sort of principles, uh,
47:38
that are, um, that make it
47:41
very clear this party is the party of
47:44
Jesus and this party is discernibly not.
47:47
And so I think that's, that's, that's one thing that
47:50
I think Swing Low has kind of helped me to. Or the story that
47:53
swing. It captures, uh, writing. It has helped me
47:55
really begin to see how um, you know,
47:58
there's, there's, it's, there's um.
48:01
Like, you know, I'll say this. On the
48:04
whole, um, in many African
48:07
American households, the issue of,
48:10
you know, like um,
48:12
um, abortion, let's say that's
48:14
a issue that's taken care of in the
48:17
house. You know, like, that's a, that's an issue
48:20
that's engaged, but it's engaged at the
48:23
dinner table, it's engaged within
48:26
the household. So it's not necessarily that,
48:29
hey, we need to have legislation that then
48:32
guards against that. It's like, hey, that's taken care of in this
48:35
context and the political context is to take care of other
48:37
issues. And so African American Christians
48:41
have made that calculus and some
48:44
have been voting Democratic for that reason, which some,
48:47
uh, um, evangelicals would say, how can you be
48:49
Christian, uh, and vote for a party that doesn't
48:52
affirm, uh, is not, is not um, inherently
48:55
pro life. So anyway, I'm trying to
48:58
stand back from the whole discussion and offer some
49:01
feedback and sort of diagnostic. But
49:04
um, then for the evangelical
49:07
who, um, you know, and by evangelicals I mean just because
49:10
statistically we know that many have voted for the
49:12
Republican Party. Uh, they would say
49:15
because their primary issue that they are looking at
49:18
is life and primarily life in the
49:21
womb. They would say that, well, that
49:23
that issue is central.
49:26
Therefore this is the only party I can vote for
49:29
with good conscience. And so I think
49:31
that, you know, the understanding those historical
49:34
developments really uh, allows us to
49:37
understand how we've gotten to this point. And that's
49:40
really all I'm trying to articulate in this moment.
49:42
>> Loren: Yeah, yeah, you mentioned when we were talking
49:45
offline about kind of how historically, uh, African
49:48
American Christians have utilized voting in the voting box.
49:51
Can you share more about uh, that kind of tradition and history
49:54
there too?
49:55
>> Dr. Walter Strickland II: Yeah, and so, and I was just kind of getting at that. The
49:58
Calculus for going into the voting booth is just
50:01
a little bit different in different communities. M.
50:04
Okay. The way the issues
50:07
that. So, uh, certain communities go into the
50:10
voting booth with the mindset that the
50:12
government takes care of certain issues.
50:15
>> Loren: Uh-huh.
50:15
>> Dr. Walter Strickland II: Um, and so we're not basing, you know, the African
50:18
Americans have historically said, you know, or even other groups have said,
50:21
we're not basing our engagement in the ballot box on
50:24
those issues that are taken care of in the house or at church.
50:28
It's more. There's. There's a way. There's an area
50:30
where, you know, where politics engages and we're going to vote
50:33
on primarily those things, and everyone really does that. It's just a
50:36
matter of where you draw those lines. And that really
50:39
sort of, uh, elevates and de. Elevate
50:42
certain issues as we go to the voting booth. Um, and
50:45
so I think that's a very, very important thing for us to learn
50:48
because, um, as
50:51
Christians who are on different sides of the political aisle,
50:54
look at each other, I think there's a
50:57
very quick, uh, tendency to
51:00
broad brush each other as, oh, they
51:03
voted for here, they voted for there. They must, uh, hate
51:06
these people and love this, or they must hate this
51:09
and don't have any, you know, care for life in the womb. And.
51:12
And so, uh, interestingly, you know, and this is
51:15
another historical fact, um, if
51:18
you go back to California in
51:20
2008, and Mary, uh, Beth Swetnam
51:23
Matthews tells this whole story in the introduction
51:26
to her book Doctrine and Race. Very, very helpful.
51:29
So she says that,
51:31
um, African, uh, Americans
51:34
disproportionately voted for Barack Obama in the
51:37
presidential election. So there was
51:40
a. There was a vote to sort of legalize same, uh,
51:43
sex marriage in California. Uh,
51:46
and so, uh, proponents for that, um,
51:49
for that change in the law went to African American
51:52
voters and said, or churches and said,
51:55
hey, pastors, get on board with this. But
51:58
because that's not a historic Christian position,
52:00
they said, no, we're not going to do that. But they said, but you
52:03
voted for a Democratic candidate. And so
52:07
therein lies that sort of, hey,
52:09
so I guess we can't assume things about people
52:12
on different sides of the political aisle. It just revealed
52:15
how they prioritize different issues in the
52:18
ballot box in different ways. And so. And again, I'm
52:21
just trying to give some historical
52:23
texture to how the lines are drawn and
52:26
where they're drawn, um, not only with the political
52:29
party, but how people prioritize different
52:32
conversations within their being in parties, which is. Which
52:35
allows them to elevate certain issues and then like,
52:38
choke on issues in their party that they don't agree with.
52:41
But because they've elevated other issues, they just, you
52:44
know, they just are laying the bed that they made for themselves.
52:46
Uh, and on those other issues that they don't
52:49
like how their party engages with them.
52:52
>> Loren: Yeah, I appreciate you sharing that context,
52:55
uh, and nuance. Let's do one more question here before
52:58
we take a break. I thought one thing that was really interesting
53:01
about the book was how you kind of, uh, develop
53:04
and lay out the development of black
53:07
theology from, at least, if I'm remembering correctly, kind
53:10
of post 1970s on. And I think also
53:12
what I was especially intrigued to learn more about
53:15
was, you know, you certainly go through, like,
53:18
the black liberation theology, uh, leaders
53:21
like Cohn, uh, and Katie Cannon
53:24
and Weems and, you know, many more.
53:27
Uh, I was intrigued to learn more about also some
53:29
more conservative evangelical scholars from that
53:32
context, talk more about that
53:34
broader, uh, development of the black
53:37
theology.
53:39
>> Dr. Walter Strickland II: Yeah, this is a very exciting,
53:41
uh, area because, um, as you said
53:44
post 1970s, if you're in
53:47
seminary or if you're a person
53:50
who's a very curious layperson who says,
53:54
I want a theology book written by an African American,
53:56
what you would usually be given is James cone or
53:59
Katie Cannon or, um.
54:02
Uh, Gayrod Wilmore or. I mean, just
54:05
people who are, uh, classic liberationists,
54:08
Black liberationists or womanists, which are women, uh,
54:11
black female, uh, scholars,
54:14
uh, of a liberationist sort of perspective.
54:16
So one thing that I did
54:19
in the book is that part, like
54:22
before the interlude, there was a continuous sort
54:25
of, uh, chronological sort of development
54:28
of the African American church. But then I have an
54:30
interlude that sort of theologizes black
54:33
consciousness and says there's two sort of
54:36
movements that emerge off of that. Uh, one is black
54:39
liberation theology. And so James cone is, you know,
54:42
always said in the literature to be the, uh.
54:45
Um, father of that movement. Which, I mean, by all accounts he
54:48
is, because he just was so prolific. Meaning that he just wrote a
54:51
lot. Uh, he has several doctoral
54:54
students who have also written a lot. And so his
54:57
influence in 20th century African American theology is
54:59
undeniable. And so, uh. And not. Not
55:02
only that, to say he. A lot of his students
55:05
are, uh, deans and presidents of
55:07
HBCUs and other institutions of higher education
55:11
today or to this day. So, um. So
55:13
that's like one trajectory. Um,
55:16
the other trajectory is, um, black
55:19
evangelicalism. As I noted in the book, which
55:22
in my own studies, my academic studies, I was completely
55:24
unaware of this. Um, even
55:27
though that's where I
55:30
would probably. If you looked at the book and you looked at me and you
55:33
hear my sermons and stuff like that, you probably say that's where Walter
55:36
lands. But the reality is
55:39
this. When, um, William H.
55:42
Bentley and uh, William
55:44
Pennell and Columbus, uh,
55:47
Sally and others said black evangelicalism,
55:49
it's probably not what we're thinking when, uh, we think
55:52
of evangelical today. They weren't just parodying,
55:55
you know, uh, um, Carl F.H.
55:58
henry. They weren't just parroting, you know,
56:01
Harold Akengay. Um, they
56:04
were trying to intentionally have a
56:06
historically orthodox faith that was
56:09
evangelical, this good news. But what was the
56:12
utility of that good news? They were trying to sort of articulate that for
56:15
the black community. So one thing that I
56:19
saw is that,
56:21
uh, Black Liberation theology, which is a sort of
56:24
James cone sort of path and all of his sort of
56:26
descendants that was very much, uh, anchored in
56:29
the academy. So, um, you know,
56:32
even. Even somebody like,
56:34
um. Well, I'll just keep
56:37
it. I don't want to mix it up and get people in trouble.
56:41
Uh, so it's very
56:44
well documented.
56:46
Uh, there's a lot of
56:49
critique amongst black liberationists in the
56:51
academy of the black church. So there was almost
56:54
this belittling of the church is kind of the
56:57
disposition and uh. I'll just say it. So Jeremiah
57:00
Wright, uh, you know, he. When he was in
57:02
seminary and so he was. He was a pastor in Chicago for a long
57:05
time when, when it was said, hey,
57:08
I want to be a pastor. Even for Raphael Warnock,
57:11
who's now in Atlanta, he said, I want to be a pastor, right? Because, uh,
57:14
Raphael Warnock study under James cone, he said, I'm going to be a
57:17
pastor. And so I'm staying connected to the local church.
57:20
And he was sort of ostracized in liberationist
57:23
circles for that. Um, there's a Cambridge Campaign
57:26
to Black Theology, uh, that
57:28
where um. Um.
57:31
Um. Jeremiah Wright was
57:34
basically articulating all of this. So this is
57:37
not new to me or this is not original to me. This is
57:40
Jeremiah Wright saying because he wanted to be tethered to the
57:42
church thinking in liberationist circles, that was
57:45
sort of, uh, seen as a knock against him. And he was sort
57:48
of ridiculed for that. Not like persecuted, but just kind
57:51
of ridiculed for that. On the other hand, with black
57:54
evangelicalism, the reason why
57:56
the written literature is so sort of
57:59
obscured and very little is because these were
58:02
primarily pastors, uh, and they were
58:05
primarily working in the streets. They were
58:07
leading their communities. They were not writing books in the
58:10
Academy, like the black liberationists were.
58:13
So you have this, I think,
58:16
um, a group that is
58:19
more representative of the average black Christian
58:22
amongst, you know, as a black evangelical, and again, in the sort of
58:25
William Bentley sort of way, not in the sort
58:27
of what we would assume as like a. Just politically sort of today.
58:30
But, um, so they.
58:33
They are less published, but they represent the lion's
58:36
share of African American Christians. So if we
58:39
can sort of step back and say, well, the majority of the
58:42
scholarship written by African Americans is
58:45
sort of settled and engaging in a
58:48
context that was other than what the
58:50
average sort of African American Christian was
58:53
engaging. But the folks who were doing that, they were
58:56
not as prolific and their writings weren't as
58:58
publicized, uh, and published as much
59:01
because they were primarily pastors. And so that's definitely a
59:04
dichotomy that I think is sort of at work in a lot of this.
59:07
And I. And I'm seeing, uh, a
59:10
lot more written on African American evangelicals. There's three chapters
59:13
in Swing Low. Um, there's a dissertation
59:16
by Seungchon Ra, who's at Northern Seminary or North Park Seminary
59:19
in Chicago. He wrote his dissertation at Duke
59:22
on this phenomenon as well. Uh,
59:24
there's, uh, Vince, uh, Baycote,
59:27
who's at Wheaton right now. He's doing a documentary that's coming
59:30
out on black evangelical leaders like Bentley and
59:33
Pinnell and Tom Skinner and uh, others like that.
59:36
So, uh, there's some more coming out about that.
59:39
But that's a very interesting sort
59:42
of development as you look at those two contemporaneous
59:45
streams of thought emerging. Um, and,
59:48
like, in the post sort of 1970s
59:50
moment.
59:52
>> Loren: Yeah, and I, I appreciate you engaging with that
59:55
with me, because I think that's something interesting that I'm
59:58
seeing broadly speaking, in, like, white
1:00:00
mainline church and maybe
1:00:03
even, you know, white church,
1:00:06
American church, broadly speaking. Is this kind of like.
1:00:09
I don't. I don't know if I'd, you know, I'm not sure what
1:00:12
even word to use, but there's this kind of, like, elevation, it seems
1:00:15
like, of academia and this. Like,
1:00:18
it. You know, I feel like I certainly,
1:00:21
like, I love reading your book and, uh, other academic
1:00:24
books, but, like, I. I feel like I'm a pastor and
1:00:27
like, I know a lot of pastors on the ground who I really appreciate and
1:00:30
respect, and there is this kind of, like, divide between, like,
1:00:33
you know, between. I feel like this. The academia
1:00:36
and, you know, this like, oh, why would you want
1:00:39
to be in a local church type thing? So it is really
1:00:41
interesting to hear that that's something
1:00:44
a, uh, disconnect or, uh, I'm not sure that's the right word,
1:00:47
but divide or a challenge that, again, these
1:00:50
African American leaders have been navigating for a while
1:00:53
and important to learn from.
1:00:55
>> Dr. Walter Strickland II: Yeah. And interestingly, uh, if you look at
1:00:58
the, uh, you know, the, uh, pulpit versus
1:01:01
lectern sort of divide in the American
1:01:03
church, if you go to, uh,
1:01:06
most like, white Christian context,
1:01:09
the lectern is elevated over the
1:01:12
pulpit in that the best and the brightest,
1:01:15
uh, are professors. And then the other ones who
1:01:18
are good, they certainly
1:01:21
do well. But they're
1:01:24
not the professors. They're the pastors and the clergy and so
1:01:26
forth. Uh, but in the African American
1:01:29
tradition, because the church
1:01:32
was the center of the African American community
1:01:35
for so long. And I think despite the
1:01:38
sort of waning influence of the African American church in
1:01:41
the community, I think it still remains a central
1:01:44
institution because there's just so much diversification in that.
1:01:47
But, um, because of the centrality
1:01:49
of the pastoral office in the African
1:01:52
American community at large, the best and the brightest
1:01:55
didn't aspire to the. To the pew or to the, uh,
1:01:58
lectern. They aspired to the pulpit.
1:02:00
So. So, I mean, if you look at Martin Luther King Jr.
1:02:03
That's. That was. It wasn't his aspiration to go and
1:02:06
be a professor at Morehouse, where he graduated from his bachelor's
1:02:09
degree. It was to go be a pastor at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church
1:02:12
and later at Ebony, uh, Baptist Church. And so he
1:02:15
led that movement from a local church seat, not from
1:02:17
a. Some uh, sort of auxiliary parachurch
1:02:20
institution.
1:02:22
>> Loren: Yeah. Uh, that's interesting. Well, we're. We're
1:02:25
an hour into this, so I don't want to keep you any
1:02:27
longer. Um, let's just take a
1:02:30
quick break and we'll come back with some closing questions.
1:02:36
>> Dr. Walter Strickland II: All right.
1:02:36
>> Loren: We're back with Dr. Walter Strickland. I really appreciate your
1:02:39
time. Thank you for engaging with me, uh, over the
1:02:42
course of that conversation. Uh, let's do
1:02:45
this. I, um, want to start
1:02:48
with this. I'm going to go out of order here. I'm thinking
1:02:51
if there's someone in the book you
1:02:54
could have. That you described in the book who you would want to
1:02:56
meet or bring back to life. Like, who would it
1:02:59
be? And
1:03:02
maybe I'm being too imposing here, but I want like a. I
1:03:05
want like a deep pull here. Maybe, uh, you know, like,
1:03:08
who is a deep. What's the word they use in music? A deep cut of the
1:03:11
album.
1:03:11
>> Dr. Walter Strickland II: A deep cut. Yeah. Yeah. There you go. There you go. Uh,
1:03:14
you know, um, so Fanny
1:03:17
Jackson Coppen is a woman I
1:03:20
think I would want to hang out with. She
1:03:23
is, um, she is somebody
1:03:25
who is one of the first African American women to
1:03:28
graduate from college. She, um,
1:03:31
then was an educator, started an all black female
1:03:34
school. Later the
1:03:37
influence of that school became for men as well.
1:03:40
Uh, she then created an institution
1:03:43
of uh, sort of like a finishing school
1:03:46
that actually preceded, um, this sort
1:03:49
of,
1:03:50
um, services, um, services
1:03:53
training that um, Booker T. Washington
1:03:55
established at the Tuskegee Institute. So she basically
1:03:58
was, she basically established the Tuskegee
1:04:01
Institute before Booker T. Washington did. But
1:04:04
because Booker T. Washington was Booker T. Washington, it was like,
1:04:07
oh, this new thing, vocational training,
1:04:09
uh, is here now. But really, Fannie,
1:04:12
Ms. M. Fannie, as they called her, she was doing that a long time before
1:04:15
that. And so, um, all I have to say, so she, she is
1:04:18
a, an educator as I
1:04:21
aspire to be. She's an entrepreneur that
1:04:23
I aspire to be that as well. And she was really
1:04:26
one doing things that were revolutionary for her
1:04:29
time. Uh, just, you
1:04:32
know, as a woman, African American woman,
1:04:34
uh, in that time period that is mind boggling. I
1:04:37
would just want to, I want to have coffee with her, I want to have dinner and
1:04:40
just hang out.
1:04:41
>> Loren: Pick her brain. Pick her brain.
1:04:43
>> Dr. Walter Strickland II: Yeah. So that's, that's a pretty, that's a pretty deep cut.
1:04:46
>> Loren: I hate to do this, but I have to like get onto another podcast here in
1:04:49
like seven minutes. So I have to cut this short, I'm afraid. Uh, share
1:04:52
if you would, how people can connect with you, get a copy of the book, all
1:04:55
that stuff.
1:04:56
>> Dr. Walter Strickland II: Wonderful. Uh, Walter Strickland is my name and so you can go to Walter
1:04:59
Strickland.com to sort of follow some of the latest with
1:05:02
me. Uh, I'm on X, formerly known as Twitter
1:05:05
at W Underscore Strickland.
1:05:08
And um, those are probably the best ways to stay, um,
1:05:11
abreast of what I'm doing. Also LinkedIn, Walter R.
1:05:14
Strickland the second. Uh, and then if you,
1:05:17
uh, was your question, oh, Swing Low. You can get it on
1:05:20
Amazon at Barnes and Noble, uh, through
1:05:23
the IVP University Press website. You can
1:05:26
get it through all those mediums, uh, and pretty much
1:05:28
anywhere where books are sold. There's
1:05:31
also, um, an audio, uh, book on Audible
1:05:34
as well.
1:05:35
>> Loren: Okay. Okay, good. Well, uh, I really appreciate
1:05:38
your time again. I've kept you super long, so thanks,
1:05:41
thanks so much for engaging me again. The book is
1:05:44
Swing Low, A History of Black Christianity in the United
1:05:47
States, Volume one. And two recommend those from
1:05:50
ivp. Again, thank you so much for your time. Really appreciate
1:05:53
your perspectives and insights. Um, and I always leave
1:05:56
folks with a word of peace. So may God's peace be with you.
1:05:59
>> Dr. Walter Strickland II: And also with you.
1:06:07
>> Loren Richmond: Thanks for joining us on the Future Christian Podcast.
1:06:10
The Future Christian Podcast is produced by Resonate
1:06:13
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1:06:15
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1:06:18
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1:06:21
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1:06:24
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1:06:27
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1:06:35
Thanks and go in peace.