The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill

“Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?” ~ Matthew 7:1-3

 

If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other. ~ Galatians 5:15

 

These words of Jesus Christ and the Apostle Paul from 2,000 years ago hit so hard right now. The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill is a post-mortem on the fall and destruction of one of the most prolific churches in the 21^st century. This was a tough one to listen to but I’m grateful I finally listened to it. It took me three years to consider listening and I’m glad I waited, because the lessons here sank deep. Chaulk full of 25 episodes with interviews and helpful and prescriptive contemplations, The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill explored the death of one of the most influential and successful churches in America. It is also a convicting examination into my own heart and mind: the intentions, compromises, misunderstandings, and impulses. These are lessons for doing better in every space I operate in, with very real and well-intentioned people who operate in ways that are great examples of the very good, very bad, and very ugly. After listening to this helpful investigation, I had to find out who else was talking about it and how others were feeling about it. Carey Nieuwhof had one of the best takeaways I found, writing from a leadership perspective. I value good leaders, and being a good leader, so Niewhof’s lessons are prescriptive to me:

 

Originally published by Carey Nieuwhof

 

“Like so many leaders in the church space, I listened to The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill podcast…To say it was hard to listen to is an understatement.

It took me a month or two to even decide whether I would listen to it or not.

For those who may not know, The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill is a podcast produced by Christianity Today that chronicles the humble beginnings, explosive growth, and very public dissolution of Mars Hill, a megachurch that once had multiple campuses in Seattle, Washington (one of the most unchurched cities in the U.S.). 

Filled with interviews with former staff and church members, the focal point of the series is the leadership style of lead pastor Mark Driscoll.

Like many people I know, when I started listening, there were times when I shut an episode off, thinking I couldn’t go any further, only to resume it a day or a week later. The story is so painful for the multiple layers of hurt involved and yet crucial for what we can learn moving forward.

Eventually, I finished the series, but the ambivalence never really disappeared.

So, why this post?

Mainly because this is a leadership blog, and the patterns described around Mars Hill are not unique to Mars Hill. They’re not even unique to churches. 

The patterns can happen—and do happen—in varying degrees in many different churches and businesses.

While The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill podcast isn’t a definitive account of what happened in Seattle (for example, despite attempts, former Mars Hill Lead Pastor Mark Driscoll didn’t agree to be interviewed for the show), it provided enough of a picture of the unhealthy happenings in churches and the dysfunctional happenings within leaders to convict me of my own sin (again).

For me, the most disturbing part of listening to the Rise and Fall of Mars Hill is that I saw some of myself in the story.

I recognized some of the same impulses in me.

There’s a shadow side of leadership, pride, and power lurking in most of us. Perhaps in all of us. At least, it definitely lurks in me.

And if you identify the unhealthy patterns in your own life, maybe you can catch it early enough to prevent it from harming others.

So, let me go first to say that everything I’m describing below is things I’ve had to wrestle down in my own heart and my own leadership. I hope and pray for progress and victory for all of us who lead, including the leaders and people who were part of Mars Hill.

Exposing the darkness in ourselves is one of the greatest ways to find more light.

Here are five reflections I’m processing after finishing the podcast.

There's a shadow side of leadership, pride, and power that lurks in most of us. Perhaps in all of us.

1. The Ends Actually Don’t Justify the Means

I’ve worked in a few places over the years: a law firm, at radio and tv stations, at a church, and for the last few years as an author, speaker, and a podcaster myself, running a small communications company.

You’d think it was easier to lead like the ends justified the means in a law firm or private company.

Nope.

It was easiest as a pastor.

For exactly the reasons described in the podcast, you end up saying things like:

• Well, more people are coming to faith than are leaving.
• I can’t be responsible for the consequences…that’s up to God.
• If it means more people come to faith, then let’s do it.

The church I led was not even close to the size of Mars Hill, nor did it have the influence of Mars Hill. But in the first decade of ministry, we became one of the fastest growing and one of the largest congregations in our denomination.

In the midst of all of that, some people got hurt. Often I moved fast and broke things. Sometimes I broke people.

Eventually, I realized that the ends don’t justify the means—that often different means produce much better ends.

I also realized that health and growth don’t have to compete with each other. You can have both. And if you can’t have both, choose health.

Listening to the podcast, I realized that what made those first few years of leadership so confusing was that great things were happening, and we were doing all of this ‘for God.’

In my heart of hearts, I believed that whatever we did that resulted in more people coming to Christ was a good thing.

Over time though, I realized that how you do what you do is just as (if not more) important as what you do.

In the church, more people is a good thing. But more love is even better.

As you have probably figured out, more love often leads to more people. But if it doesn’t, you’re still left with more love.

2. The Body Count Matters

I won’t go into the details outlined in the podcast, but one of the recurring themes was the body count at Mars Hill—the people who ‘fell off the bus’ or got pushed off the bus as it moved to new places and new heights.

For a season in my earlier years of ministry, we were growing quickly. But the underbelly of that season of growth was that we were simply growing faster than we were losing people.

It got so bad in some rapid growth years that I have a distinct memory of telling my team not to use pictures older than six months since there were too many people in the photo who had left.

I wince when I think about that now.

I don’t know why everyone who left ended up leaving (high growth and high churn seasons can be like that), and not everyone who left was mad or hurt—many tried it for a while and realized what we were doing wasn’t for them—but I do know that in all the churn, I started to form callouses around my heart.

When people leave or criticize you, it hurts.

The natural thing to do is to grow cynical, to stop listening to the disappointments and the complaints. And for a season, I did just that.

Had I let that go further, it’s likely I was only a few steps away from allowing the churn to be a badge of honor. Ugh.

Fortunately, I burned out after a few years of very rapid growth. I say ‘fortunately’ because, even though my burnout was the deepest pain I’ve ever gone through personally, I realize now that God was re-forming me in the midst of it.

I now think of my burnout as a divine intervention of sorts.

On the other side of burnout, I became much more sensitive to the pain and hurt I was causing, especially unintentionally. Often as leaders, we don’t mean to hurt people or even realize we’re doing it. Or we harden our hearts because we can’t stand the pain of people rejecting us.

I realized (and am still learning) how much of a mistake it is to close your heart to people or act like their leaving doesn’t matter. It does.

And while caring is hard, the ultimate damage of not caring is far greater.

Caring carries risk. So, leaders, please hear me. Your heart will get mangled, and you’ll be tempted to stop caring and trusting people altogether. Don’t.

So, you might ask, does opening your heart and caring about people stop people from leaving?

Nope. People still leave. Maybe not as many, but still, people leave. And it still hurts. (Toxic people are a different category, but most people aren’t toxic people. They just see things differently than you do).

People who disagree with you should be treated well and loved regardless of whether they are ‘with you’ or not. It’s not about you or me. It’s just not.

After I burned out and started to recover, we launched Connexus Church.

I look back on some of those launch photos a decade and a half later and smile. To my surprise and delight, most of the people who helped us launch are still with us.

And for those who left…well, if people were valuable to you when they came to your church, treat them as though they are just as valuable when they leave.

3. Charisma is a Double-Edged Sword

Culturally, we use the term ‘charismatic’ to describe leaders who have a magnetic pull to their personalities.

Leadership tends to attract and reward charismatic people. In the case of preachers, I imagine the concentration of charismatic leaders is even higher than in the marketplace as a whole.

Why? Many preachers are excellent communicators, and the ability to communicate is a significant factor in charisma.

So, what’s the challenge?

The good thing about being a charismatic leader is that people follow you. The bad side of being a charismatic leader is that people follow you.

As a charismatic leader, you have the potential to lead thousands of people to a much better future and the potential to lead thousands of people right off a cliff.

From the time I was young, people told me I had charisma. Honestly, I didn’t know what that meant at that point, but having led for decades now, I realize charisma is a double-edged sword.

The temptation to use your charisma to consolidate power and use it to your benefit is real. Another temptation is to form an inner circle of fans, sycophants, and enablers who won’t challenge you or pose a threat to your viewpoint.

I got to a point early in my leadership where I was so sensitive to criticism that I felt the impulse to create an inner circle like that.

Fortunately, prayer, counseling, and people who knew me and loved me enough to help me see the truth helped me realize that ultimately that’s a path that leads to death, not life.

This brings us back to the original meaning of ‘charisma’ for all of us who at some point have been called charismatic leaders.

Charisma is a Greek transliteration into English; it means both ‘gift’ or ‘favor’ and carries a sense of having a grace given to you by God.

In other words, to the extent you possess any, your charisma is a gift and a favor from God to be used and stewarded not for your glory but God’s.

Of all the character traits we can cultivate, humility might be the greatest when it comes to stewarding charisma. As I’ve learned, again and again, only humility can get you out of what pride got you into.

If you find yourself surfing off your own giftedness, humble yourself.

This takes quite a bit of intentionality. But I’ve learned you can get to humility through two paths:

1. Voluntarily
2. Involuntary

How does involuntary humility happen? Simple: When you’re humiliated by others or a situation.

Humiliation is simply involuntary humility. When you won’t humble yourself, others are happy to do it for you.

I’m trying to take the voluntary path moving forward. I don’t always get it right, but I’m trying.

4. Your Character Needs to Grow Faster Than Your Platform

As I listened to story after story during the podcast, I realized that the real issue is character. It was at Mars Hill and it is in all of our lives.

The challenge is that in an age of instant celebrity, your platform can grow faster than your character.

I think that’s one of the reasons so many megachurch pastors fail (here’s a post with some thoughts on why it keeps happening).

As we’ve seen too often in the church (so painfully), all the competency in the world can’t compensate for a lack of character.

Character is the great leveler. You may be smart, but if people don’t trust you, they won’t want to work with you. You may be the best preacher in your city, but if you treat others as less than, people will stop listening.

Lack of character kills careers, shatters families, ruins friendships, and destroys influence. And even if you never get fired or divorced over the compromises you make, your lack of character will limit the intimacy, joy, and depth you experience with God and with people.

Competency gets you in the room. Character keeps you in the room. As a result, it’s character—not competency—that determines your capacity.

Although I hear the argument all the time, I personally don’t believe there is anything inherently bad about a large church or organization.

But there is something inherently difficult in it. And to some extent, the larger something is, the harder it is.

Please know, this doesn’t mean leading a small church or venture is easy. I have led small churches. I get it. Few things in leadership are easy.

But I’ve also led some larger ministries and organizations, and the larger it is, the greater the pressure and the more there’s at stake.

I remember when our church grew past 300; my mind was blown. Now, it’s five times the size.

Or look at this blog or my podcast. Honestly, 100,000 readers or listeners was inconceivable a decade ago. Then millions showed up.

Nothing gets you ready for that.

It’s way too easy for your platform to outgrow your character. And that’s where all the danger lies.

Add to it one more fact: You and I are not naturally made to lead thousands or millions.

It doesn’t mean you can’t do it. It just means you’ll have to grow your character faster. Much faster.

5. Many Leaders Want to Be Celebrities—And The Internet is the Bullet Train

The podcast focused a lot on pride, narcissism, and the desire for celebrity.

It’s super easy to point the finger at a leader like Mark Driscoll, but that still leaves us with four fingers pointing back at ourselves.

And even if you don’t have a platform of your own, it’s easy to get a platform (a big one) by criticizing and destroying other people.

Before you deny that this applies to you, do a little gut check. Ask yourself, How good would you be with complete obscurity, with an irrelevance so deep nobody notices you or cares? 

Yep…very few of us are good with that. After all, God designed us to be social creatures and to live lives of meaning and purpose.

Interaction and making some kind of a difference are core to a meaningful life.

The challenge becomes, of course, that the internet is the bullet train to celebrity. Just ask any 12-year-old YouTuber.

There’s more than a little irony that The Rise and Fall of Mars Hills podcast criticized Mark Driscoll and Mars Hill for using the internet and social media to rapidly grow their ministry, while The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill podcast itself was using exactly the same platforms as it became the most listened-to podcast in the Christian space.

And before you or I claim innocence or protest too loudly, well, you’re reading this blog post and perhaps you listen to my podcast or follow me on social and you’ll leave your comments online and…

You see?

Yeah.

It’s easy to criticize people with bigger platforms than yours, and in doing so let yourself off the hook.

A better approach is to dig deep and probe your own motives.

After listening to the podcast, I found myself asking questions like Why do I like the fact that my podcast gets downloaded so much, or how many people read my blog/buy my book/come to my talks?

There’s something ugly under that.

Alternatively, you can be so allergic (and self-righteous) about remaining obscure that your option becomes what…do nothing? Say nothing? Attempt nothing? That’s not faithfulness either.

Once again, humility and character are the keys here.

So what do you do?

Work twice as hard on your character as you do on your platform.

If we all did that, our posts would be more kind, our comments more grateful, our content more purely motivated.”

Source: https://careynieuwhof.com/some-reflections-on-the-rise-and-fall-of-mars-hill/

To the Pastors of the TikTok Generation

 January 19, 2022

By Brea Perry

Preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with great patience and instruction. - 2 Timothy 4:2

By now, you’ve probably encountered the infamous video of Pastor Mike Todd of Transformation Church in Tulsa, OK. No, not that one, the other one. No, no, no, even more recent than that. There you go, THAT one.

I could sit here and break down bar for bar what made Pastor Todd’s sermon illustration so absurd that all of Christian Twitter assembled like the Sanctified Avengers to clown him, but there are people with far more theological eloquence that are better suited for that task.

We could discuss how spiritually abusive it is for a pastor to humiliate a person by smearing his saliva in their face–NOT to heal a blind man of his affliction and expose the ills of a society that treats disabled folks as disposable, as Jesus did–but to illustrate a point that had little to do with the text he was deploying. (Yes, the person with spit all over their face is Mike Todd’s biological brother. No, it doesn’t change anything about what he did. This also is not the first time he’s done this “illustration.”)

We could talk about how this is not the first time that Todd’s pulpit antics have led to widespread criticism or that he has been accused of perpetuating egregious harms from the pulpit.

But I’m not here to talk about him at all really. Mike Todd is but a cog in the well-oiled machine of making excuses for the sake of power. I’m not in the business of zeroing in on individuals when there are entire power structures to rebuke and tear down.

Every few years, older church folks gather to coalition-build and tackle the task of “getting these young folks back in church.” They told the 20-year-olds of the 90s/early 2000s that “gospel music has gone too far” when Kirk Franklin came out with Stomp and Revolution. But eventually, they conceded and added reformed Christian hip-hop to the mix because at least they got ‘em talking about Jesus instead of drugs, right?

More recently, “getting these young folks back in church” has consisted of pandering to 20-year-olds via smoke machines, gigantic billboard screens, and pastors stomping around in Bred 11’s and tailored plaid suits, quoting Tik-Toks, and performing goofy skits to make weak sermon points. 

I’d be lying if I said it never worked. There are folks out there who are more than willing to dedicate 10% of their paycheck every month to make sure their church is equipped with the best purple spotlights and handheld microphones that money can buy.

Sometimes the “cool church” aesthetic becomes smoke and mirrors that distract churchgoers from the decontextualized scripture passages coming from the pulpit. There’s only so much that the best musicians and a charismatic preacher wearing the latest Forces can do for a young person seeking answers to their deep theological wrestlings. There are only so many vapid spiritual platitudes that church leaders can give before we start to see through the ruse.

To the pastors of the TikTok Generation: 

Where do we go when we hunger for a gospel that is undebased by hot takes and corny cliches? 

Who is Jesus when you are not parading him around as the mascot for consumerism? 

Do you have a point to make when you’re not performing for our likes, comments, and shares to prove to your publishers that we’ll buy the book you’re proposing?

What’s left of the good news when misogynistic fear-mongering has started to bore us because we’ve been hearing the same ‘ole tune since we were first made aware of our bodies? Do you have a stronger antidote to a culture that reduces women to the sum of our body parts than deploying the same attitudes in the pulpit and throwing some Holy Ghost shame on it for extra seasoning?

Is there healing available for those who have come to see that what passed as faith for all of their natural life was really spiritual abuse at the hands of narcissistic leaders?

How do we contend with a sacred text that has provided the fuel for every egregious act of violence under the sun, from colonialism to chattel slavery to domestic abuse to upholding structures designed to keep people in poverty?

Is there a good God under all of that somewhere?

Our rejection of the institutional church has led some saints to believe we’ve given up on Jesus. We’re not leaving Jesus. We’re leaving misogyny masquerading as mission, capitalism claiming to be calling, and narcissism naming itself fresh revelation. 

Many of us would happily go back to the hymns and the pews if space to wrestle through the questions that have been cast aside as “off-limits” came with it and the space for spiritual abuse was left out. But we are past the point of sticking around while pastors obey their own whims, slap the name of Jesus on it, and dare us to question their authority to do so.

There has to be more to [church] than clout-chasing and viral sermon clips. 

Source: https://thewitnessbcc.com/to-the-pastors-of-the-tiktok-generation/

After You #Leaveloud, Don't Forget to Rest

April 29, 2021

by Kristina Button

I think that it is very hard to know where or even what our next step is when we #LeaveLOUD. Many of us find ourselves wandering in the wilderness; the space between our previous spiritual community and our next church home. Leaving an unhealthy church and entering into the wilderness gives a sense of freedom, yet, it is also filled with uncertainty. The biggest questions that those of us in the wilderness seem to have are, “We outchea, but where do we go and what do we do? How long do we stay in the wilderness?” I firmly believe that the next step is to rest. 

Black Christians should normalize and prioritize taking a sabbatical after leaving white and multiethnic organizations. A sabbatical is nothing more than a time of rest (the root word of sabbatical is “sabbath,” which means to rest as God did on the seventh day of Creation). You might have heard of a pastor or other spiritual leader taking a sabbatical where they take time to disconnect from the world to hear from God. 

We need a break from the regular microaggressions and tokenization that comes with being in white and multiethnic churches. I used to feel shame if I wasn’t in church every week or at least seeking a place of worship for my family. This toxic line of thinking resulted in my family worshipping in churches that were just as toxic as the ones before. I came to the realization that, in order for me to be whole, I have to prioritize and be aggressive about seeking healing and rest. 

For a long time, I didn’t know how to go about resting; the idea felt daunting. It’s been trial and error along the way, but this past year has taught me how to prioritize healing and rest. 

The racial stereotyping and microaggressions that Black people experience in white and multiethnic churches cause weathering. We carry that trauma with us for the rest of our lives. This is why rest is so important. This is why we need to take a sabbatical after we #LeaveLOUD. 

Seek the Lord, pray, fast, go to therapy, or take a break from church. Go on a vacation. Connect with the outdoors (#BlackPeopleHike). Find a Black mentor. Find other justice-minded believers and build community with them. 

White supremacy got us out here thinking that we are alone in our struggle. Don’t go off alone. Know that you are not alone. Your struggle might not look like everyone else’s struggle, and so your sabbath might not look like everyone else’s sabbath. Once you decide to make your exit, your goal should be to prioritize healing and rest. You deserve rest. You deserve healing. You deserve restoration.

Source: https://thewitnessbcc.com/after-you-leaveloud-dont-forget-to-rest/

Spirituality is a Potent Asset for our Crucial and Radical Transformation

By Rev Edward Buri

Victoria Falls, Zambezi River

     If there is one place that is driven by newness it is the marketplace. Companies are always launching new products and if not new products, they are re-launching old ones. We are bombarded with images of newness all the time on television, newspapers, radio and on the web. Companies do a lot to persuade us that even their old products are somehow new and superior to previous versions.  The more I consume the images of new product launches, the more I ask myself: how much do we invest in renewing our people? How does our community invest in creating women and men of improved character?

     Softie, a film of photojournalists and activist Boniface Mwangi, captures the sad reality where Kenyans expect money from political aspirants as part of the luring process. They describe him as a good man without money. Some sing praises of other competitors who always give them money. Good policies and good heartedness are not forefront qualities in the winning equation. All that bad people need is big money. The money then becomes the sustainer of evil and not a tool for good. How can people unlearn this?

     I recall from my high school Geography class a concept called river rejuvenation. When a river is streaming down the Aberdares, Mount Kenya or the Mau it will usually carry clean water with hardly any dirt. It is young and therefore bubbly as it gallops fast down the mountain. As it flows on, it is joined by other streams – tributaries – making it larger. As it is joined by other rivers, the size slows it down. The increase in the volume of water makes it lazy and the water gets dirtier because of the soil and other debris the river has harvested as it heads into the ocean.

     But this aging river can get a new life. How? If on its path it meets a sudden sharp change in ground level with a lengthy fall the result is a waterfall. The waterfall makes the aging monotonous river a spectacular site. People travel from far not to see the lazy river upstream, but the long, misty waterfall. Because the massive volume of water drops with a mighty force, upon hitting the bottom it automatically gains speed, making the river bubbly and vibrant again. The waterfall makes the old river young again.

     Similar is the hope spirituality brings to a people. God promises renewal to meaningless and messed up lives. But truth be told, newness is often disorienting and even threatening, especially because it uproots you from familiar ground and gives you a new mission. Renewal sometimes is so radical that it even drops your earlier name – you are no longer just Size 8 but Size 8 reborn.

     The story of Size 8 Reborn is very inspiring. From a pit of self-confessed vice to the pulpit of Good News. Reverend Linnet Munyali Muraya of the Mateke fame has been public about her reformation story.  Before her transformation, she thrived as the queen of secular music. She was as secular as secular can get and pushed the limits to unveil thicker layers of the night. But a widely publicized encounter with God made her life take a sharp turn towards the light. Her conversion experience coded in her Mateke song implies an aggressive disengagement with a life of sin, which results in “uhuru” – an experience of freedom. Some may argue that “Mateke” theology, but it is hard to argue about her vivid transformation. God is still radically changing people!

      This is a story you would best read from the Gospel narratives. Some may have wanted to lock her in the life of night. But light has converting power too! Some may have wanted a lukewarm transformation where she can play hot or cold. But light is radical too! Her transformation is a sharp critique of vice-driven lives. Many will be following her priestly career in search of slip ups. But let us give her a chance.

     Rev Linnet Muraya is a loud exhibit of the potency of the church and spirituality. This experience of radical transformation needs to be expanded beyond personal transformation and find application in the larger cultural reforms of the community. This potency is universally applicable even in the realm of politics where both politicians and citizens need a thorough transformation. Prodigal politicians need to come to their senses and embrace a  form of politics in which deception is unnecessary. Citizens too need a radical perspective where principle-based voting paralyses voter bribery. Some may preach that such radical transformation is not possible, hoping to clip radical ambitions. But a good look at divine interventions affirms the validity of dreaming the impossible dream. If only the church and its priests could find a consistent way of involving the power in the truth that “nothing is impossible with God!”

      Walking around our neighborhood recently, I passed by a construction site where a building was being pulled down to make way for a new construction. Heavy machinery was tearing the old house down and what caught my eye was a sign at the construction gate that said, “demolition for progress.” Sometimes soft adjustments will not move us – only radical changes will shift us. Where it takes radical only radical will do. There are times change comes by giving a house anew color. But sometimes it comes by demolishing it and building up a whole new structure. Let us not paint what are meant to demolish.

Source: https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/opinion/article/2001432209/spirituality-is-a-potent-asset-for-our-crucial-and-radical-transformation

The Day I Discovered an African American Theologian

"Plain Theology for Plain People" by Charles Octavius Boothe

By Walter R. Strickland II

March 7, 2018  

History is recounted by the wealthy and powerful. Throughout America’s history of racism, slavery and segregation prohibited blacks from being protagonists in the Christian narrative. For example, there is often mention of Jonathan Edwards and John Frame in the American Christian story, but rarely an acknowledgment of John Chavis or John Jasper. In general, the American Christian story told in most evangelical college and seminary classrooms include African Americans as marginal characters and only in relation to the dominant culture.

This results in false perceptions of God’s work—namely, that God primarily works through the wealthy and powerful. People assume that the white protagonists have everything to teach and little to learn from those who have been excluded. Learning about historical figures like African-American pastor Charles Octavius Boothe (1845–1924) not only shows God at work outside the dominant culture, but it also exalts Christ as the redeemer of every ethné.

Who Is Charles Octavius Boothe?

Boothe was born on June 13, 1845, in Mobile County, Alabama, as the legal property of Nathaniel Howard. At the age of 3, Boothe learned the alphabet from lettering on a tin plate. At 14, he was sold to attorney James S. Terrel, and he began working as an office boy at a law firm in Clark County, Mississippi.

Mid-19th-century legal practice was rooted in biblical logic, which required young Boothe to explore Scripture on a regular basis. Over time, his exposure to Scripture drew him to salvation. In 1860 he testified that he “reached an experience of grace which so strengthened me as to fix me on the side of God’s people.”

At the conclusion of the Civil War, Boothe’s passion was racial uplift in a society that denied blacks’ humanity before God and the Constitution. At the age of 22, Boothe began teaching for the Freedmen’s Bureau and lecturing regularly at Booker T. Washington’s famed Tuskegee Institute. In the early 1870s, Boothe was a preliminary member of the Colored Baptist Missionary Convention that founded Selma University. He later served as the university’s second president (1901–02). Boothe desired to promote literacy so former slaves could read the Bible for themselves and escape the oppressive interpretative practices that had made the Christian faith a tool of black subservience.

Boothe’s devotion for education notwithstanding, he was, most importantly, a churchman. He established and ministered in two churches: First Colored Baptist Church of Meridian, Mississippi, and Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. (In recent decades, Dexter Avenue Baptist Church received international attention because of its role in the civil-rights struggle and the leadership of its 20th pastor, Martin Luther King Jr., after whom the church was renamed—King Memorial Baptist Church.)

While in the pastorate, Boothe maintained an itinerant teaching ministry, conducting literacy and theological training for emancipated slaves and their children. He wrote Plain Theology for Plain People as an aid for his theological seminars. Writing with the average sharecropper in mind, Boothe set out to spare others the frustration of traversing the lofty theological rhetoric of other texts. His book provides a definite system of organization while allowing simplicity of language and structure to prevail. It wasn’t until my doctoral studies that I discovered Plain Theology for Plain People.[1]

Boothe’s Significance for Me

My theological education offered me a love for Scripture and a theological framework, but it unintentionally taught me that people of color have little to contribute to theological discussions. I had well-intended white professors who assigned white authors and invited white guest lecturers. In order to become more like my Caucasian professors, I began to squelch everything in me that didn’t correspond to them in order to do “real theology.” I began stripping away my blackness in order to fit the evangelical theological mold. At that time, I only entertained theological inquiry that emerged from culturally white space; I developed a bias against African-American theologians; and I belittled the rich heritage of the black church. I was miserable.

But when I encountered Boothe’s writing, it helped me resist the assumption that whiteness equals faithfulness, and it granted me freedom to be instructed by believers outside of my racial and cultural background without feeling like I needed to lose parts of myself in the process.

Plain Theology for Plain People is significant for my story, and it should influence the evangelical approach to theology.

Boothe for Evangelicalism

Boothe demonstrates that theology can emerge from various contexts. In evangelical circles, however, certain contexts have been given almost exclusive priority. Formal theology has been disproportionately conducted by white men, and their perspective has been standardized. Thus “well-read” evangelicals can gain that label despite never interacting with theologically faithful traditions outside the dominant evangelical culture.

By normalizing a particular context, issues that arise outside of that context are often dismissed as illegitimate. In fact, theological development from non-white contexts are often only deemed “proper” when they engage issues pertinent to white culture and conform to “authorized” conclusions. This explains why issues that disproportionately affect non-white communities—like systemic injustice, racial oppression, economic inequality, and human rights—have received scattered engagement among evangelical theologians and ethicists.

The reality of white cultural dominance in evangelical spaces is consistent with what we know to be true of fallen humanity—we’re self-interested creatures. All people (white and non-white alike) are interested in the issues most pressing to us and aren’t likely to deeply contemplate the circumstances of another. So cultivating diverse church communities is important, since it necessarily expands our concerns beyond our experience.

Reimagining the evangelical tradition to include voices that have been obscured isn’t just good for marginalized Christians—it’s good for all Christians. Theology from every context offers valuable contributions. The mature theologian takes his or her seat at the table of theological discourse and both enriches and is enriched by the exchange. Different perspectives taken together embody a more robust vision of faithfulness and affection for Christ than they could ever manage alone.

PS - "To be clear, this was not the first time that I discovered any African-American theologian, but it was the first time I discovered Boothe."

Source: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/day-i-discovered-african-american-theologian/

America’s Racial Crisis is a Result of the Failure of the Church to Deal with Racism

The evangelical church needs to speak up where it has been silent on injustice and racism.

By Tony Evans

Jun 15, 2020

This column is part of Dallas Morning News’ ongoing opinion commentary on faith, called Living Our Faith.

³ “For many days [America] was without the true God and without a teaching priest and without law. ⁴ But in their distress they turned to the Lord God of Israel, and they sought Him, and He let them find Him. ⁵ In those times there was no peace to him who went out or to him who came in, for many disturbances afflicted all the inhabitants of the lands. ⁶ Nation was crushed by nation, and city by city, for God troubled them with every kind of distress. ⁷ But you, be strong and do not lose courage, for there is reward for your work.” (2 Chronicles 15:3-6)

We are in the middle of multiple, simultaneous pandemics. COVID-19 has created a medical pandemic, while recent racially motivated violence has kick-started a cultural pandemic and the devolution of our society. But amid all of this, it is obvious we are in a spiritual pandemic.

We have wandered away from a value system that was established by God for how human beings are to live, act and relate to one another. Across racial and class lines, we have come up with our own standards for how to treat each other, and it has not done us good. It is absolutely clear right now that there needs to be a reset, and this is the time to do it — when it has everyone’s attention at the very same time.

Psalm 89: 14 says that from God’s throne comes righteousness and justice. They are always to be balanced side-by-side.

Righteousness is the moral standard of right and wrong to which God holds people accountable based on His divine standard. Justice is the equitable and impartial application of God’s moral law in society.

God desires and requires his children to juxtapose both in our own daily doings. God wants to protect the life of the unborn in the womb, but He wants to see the justice of life once born, to the tomb. In other words, God wants a whole life agenda and not a term agenda. But unfortunately, all lives aren’t valued the same way in our country right now, and they ought to be, because every person is created in the image of almighty God.

It is now time, on a personal level and a systemic level, that we reverse the course of history that has brought us to this point and that we reverse it on every level. This is a defining moment for us as citizens to decide whether we want to be one nation under God or a divided nation apart from God. If we don’t answer that question right and if we don’t answer it quickly, we won’t be much of a nation at all.

God has four distinct spheres in which life is to be lived, and therefore, there are four areas in which changes need to be made, according to his kingdom agenda. The kingdom agenda is the visible manifestation of the comprehensive rule of God over every area of life.

This change first begins with the individual. We cannot change the nation if we don’t first allow God to change our hearts. We have to develop a heart that cares for our fellow man because they are created in the image of God. Not because they look like us or have what we have, but because they have the stamp of divine creation on them. And that means that you have the responsibility to reach out to somebody different than you, hear from that person, and build a relationship.

The harsh reality, yet one we must face, is that unfortunately, all lives aren’t valued the same way. All lives ought to be, because every person is created in the image of God. We are not to try and change others, if God can’t even change our own hearts. Unity starts with the individual. Each of us plays a part in healing our racial divide.

This individual transformation then must flow into the family as parents transfer these values to their children. We cannot expect people to think differently and act differently if they aren’t hearing differently from their parents, if they are not getting a righteous value system of judging people by the content of their character, not the color of their skin.

But this is only the first step; families must then make connections with other families who are different from them and partner together to serve yet another family that is worse-off than theirs. This is where reconciliation happens, not in seminars but in service.

Additionally, the evangelical church needs to speak up where it has been silent on injustice and racism.

The biggest problem in the culture today is the failure of the church. We wouldn’t even have a racial crisis in America if the church had not consistently failed to deal with racism as the severe sin it is. But because the church has historically ignored and downplayed it, the issue still exists. Where the church is called to set an example, we have cowered.

The church must address racial, economic, health care and opportunity inequity, as well as recognize the systems that work against the fair treatment of people. In doing so, they help to create opportunities for all to responsibly take advantage of all that God has blessed us with in this nation. We must further hold people accountable to be responsible for their decision-making.

The church must speak with one voice, because God doesn’t ride the backs of donkeys or elephants. We have one God, one Lord Jesus Christ and one inerrant Word to speak from. And yes, we should protest evil in a righteous way. We should let our voices be heard, but then we must act because if we don’t act, all we did was have a speech. We must implement righteous principles, modeling them through the church, so the world can see what it looks like in the broader society. And we in the body of Christ must collectively call racism what it is: sin. Racism isn’t a bad habit. It isn’t a mistake. It is sin. The answer is not sociology, it’s theology.

And then, finally, we must challenge our civil leaders on all levels of government to be agents of healing and not division and to speak in such a way where unity is reinforced and not divisiveness. We must demand that the words that come out of their mouths and the way they say the words that come out of their mouths, be words of strength and kindness, not vitriol and meanness. Additionally, they should represent God’s standard for how civil government should function.

When those four areas — the individual, the family, the church and the community — begin to operate based on God’s standard, then He can feel comfortable to get back in the midst of us and make us repairers of the breach and healers of the land.

It is time for us to fervently pray and repent of where we fail to do what God says to do, and the way he says do it. We must ask God to realign ourselves under his authority while pursuing a relationship with him so that his word can overrule our ideas, perspectives and agendas.

Until we take seriously God’s word and its application in all the categories of our lives, we won’t see what he can do in turning this mess into a healing miracle — the miracle we’ve all longed for. Remember, if God is your problem, only God is your solution (2 Chronicles 15:3-6).

Tony Evans is senior pastor of Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship, president of The Urban Alternative, and an author and evangelical speaker. He wrote this column for The Dallas Morning News.

Why You Will Join the Wrong Church

by Sam Emadi

I guess I really don’t understand fully what a covenant is…versus a contract. The idea of a covenant, originated by Yahweh, is that it is a pledge that mutually binds the individuals involved to the commitment of future everlasting love especially when the chips are down. I feel like the point is, that fire will come. And the positive side of the argument here is equally poignant: “While our affections for our church and its members can be fickle, easily dissipating as soon as circumstances shift unfavorably, our covenant commitments never fade.”

Enough said…here’s Sam:

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“The most read New York Times article from 2016 had nothing to do with politics, culture wars, or comic book movies. Instead, the most-read article of 2016 was all about commitment.

The piece, titled “Why You Will Marry the Wrong Person,” was written by Alain de Botton. In it, de Botton takes shots at our culture’s idea that the ultimate foundation for commitment in marriage is romantic affection, that feeling of compatibility that means the other person will finally fulfill my needs and make me truly happy.

We all know this is misguided, so much so that de Botton predicts every married person will eventually find inadequacies so severe in their spouse that it will prompt them to ask, “Did I marry the wrong person?” He humorously notes, the relational arc of a marriage leans away from idealistic romantic sizzle as “maddening children . . . kill the passion from which they emerged.”

CHURCH AND OUR CULTURE

As I read de Botton’s article, I couldn’t help but see how much of our culture’s view of love and commitment mirrors how many Christians view church membership. Many Christians’ broken relationships with their churches resemble patterns of the divorce culture and its attendant assumptions about authority, love, and compatibility.

Almost every Christian knows what it’s like to question whether they joined the “right church.” After an initial “honeymoon stage,” we begin to see our church’s problems with greater clarity than we see its strengths. The sermons start to seem too intellectual, or not intellectual enough. The church begins budgeting for ministries that don’t seem deserving of the dollar figure on the spreadsheet. The small groups don’t meet our needs in the ways we’d hoped.

More personally, the needs of other church members begin to encroach increasingly on our own personal freedoms. Some members sin against us—even without knowing just how deeply we’ve been wounded. Without even realizing it’s happening, we begin to wonder whether our local assembly is the “right” place for us. Of course, we remind ourselves that there’s no such thing as a perfect church—something we’ve even told our fellow church members. And yet, we can’t help but grapple with the nagging question: “Did I join the wrong church?”

“DID I JOIN THE WRONG CHURCH?”

The problem with this question is that it assumes church life shouldn’t be hard. It assumes the “honeymoon stage” should continue in perpetuity or that something has gone awry if we experience significant disappointment or hurt from our relationships with other members or the church’s leadership.

But these assumptions reveal a deep and unthinking commitment to consumerism: only if the perks of membership outweigh its inconveniences will we think it’s worth it to stick it out. Regrettably, many Christians seem trapped in a perpetual cycle of this type of cost-benefit analysis.

I’ve found that Christians most often push eject on their membership not because they’re upset at the church’s budget or because they disagree on matters of polity. Instead, Christians leave their churches for the same reason people leave their marriages: a lack of relational depth and affection. In other words, many Christians leave their churches because they just don’t seem compatible with the church or because the relationships leave them feeling a little dry.

Personal relationships, however, were never meant to serve as the foundation for our sense of church commitment. If we pursue relationships as the foundation of our belonging, we’re more likely to be inescapably trapped in the consumerism and “met-needs” mentality at the heart of our divorce culture. However, instead of valuing consumerism, the Bible roots our membership in the idea of a covenant, which offers an infinitely superior alternative.

COVENANT PRECEDES COMMUNITY

Tim Keller notes in his book on marriage that a covenant “creates a particular kind of bond . . . a relationship far more intimate and personal than a merely legal, business relationship. Yet at the same time, it is far more durable, binding, and unconditional than one based on mere feeling and affection. A covenant relationship is a stunning blend of law and love.”

When the Bible speaks about the church, it refers to it as a covenant community. Church members aren’t just part of a shared interest group. They’re covenanted to one another by a sacred promise to oversee one another’s membership in the kingdom and faithfulness to King Jesus (Matt. 18:15–20). The New Testament unfolds the details of that sacred promise: We regularly gather together (Heb. 10:24–25), bear one another’s burdens and sorrows (Gal. 6:2), encourage one another (Heb. 3:12–14), pray for one another (Jas. 5:16), and forgive one another (Col. 3:13). Many churches helpfully formalize these biblical instructions into a church covenant, a set of promises members make to one another when they enter into membership.

These covenant obligations are the foundations of our church commitment and should function as the backbone to church life. Covenant precedes community. We might even say covenant creates community. The covenant promises members make to one another blossom into the life-giving relationships our hearts crave.

Rooting commitment in our covenant promises doesn’t mean that church relationships are nothing but soulless duty. Instead, covenant commitments are the food that nourishes our relationships with other members. The more we hold ourselves to our covenant promises, the more our relationships blossom and endure through seasons of difficulty. Again, as de Botton perceptively notes in his article, “Compatibility is an achievement of love, it must not be its precondition.” The world argues that affection is pre-requisite to commitment. But the biblical picture is actually quite the opposite: commitment and service create affection.

I’m amazed at how this principle works out even in my own life. A few years ago, after a couple in our church had a baby, my wife and I signed up through the church’s member care ministry to bring them a meal. Our act of service, however, wasn’t rooted in a pre-existing relationship with this couple. In fact, we barely knew them. We simply wanted to be faithful to our covenant promises to “bear one another’s burdens.” Yet that service, rooted in our covenant commitment, ultimately blossomed into a sweet friendship between our two families. We weren’t expecting a relationship to bloom, but that’s what happens when you hold yourself to covenant promises, even with people you barely know.

COVENANTS CARRY YOU THROUGH SUFFERING

The reason God roots the most important relationships in the world—like marriage and church membership—in covenants is to ensure they endure through fire. Have you ever noticed how traditional marriage vows were designed to ensure couples prepare to love one another well in the midst of suffering? Couples pledge themselves to one another even in “poverty” and “sickness” until parted by death.

This same expectation of future trials also marks the promises church members make to one another. We pledge to “bear one another’s burdens,” (Gal. 6:2) and patiently bear with and forgive the sins of our brothers and sisters who wrong us (Col. 3:13; Eph. 4:32). If we make our covenant commitments the ground of our life and relationships in the church, we come to expect the rough patches and prepare to face them with godliness.

While our affections for our church and its members can be fickle, easily dissipating as soon as circumstances shift unfavorably, our covenant commitments never fade. As Keller notes, covenants are by their very nature oriented toward the future. They “are not a declaration of present love but a mutually binding promise of future love.” In some sense, the whole point of a covenant is to pledge our love and fidelity for the rough times ahead. Thus, covenants carry us through suffering. Once more, de Botton incisively notes, “Choosing whom to commit ourselves to is merely a case of identifying which particular variety of suffering we would most like to sacrifice ourselves for.”

FOR YOUR OWN GOOD, STICK WITH THE “WRONG” CHURCH

Joining a church, like seeking a spouse, is daunting. Loving others makes us vulnerable and committing ourselves to a church immerses us in the needs of other sinners. Eventually, every congregation will find a way to get under our skin, frustrate us, or even wound us—and we will do the same to them.

Our relationships will ebb and flow, as will our affection for the church. But the solution is not always looking for a better fit. Instead, we renew our passion and reignite our sense of belonging by holding ourselves to our membership covenant—sacred promises that bind even the “wrong” people together.”

Samuel Emadi is a member of Third Avenue Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky and a PhD candidate in biblical studies at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He also serves as the director of theological research for the president of the Southern Seminary. You can find him on Twitter at @scemadi.