DEAR BLACK CHURCH: LET'S BEGIN SHIFTING OUR GEARS                

November 21, 2024

The opposing themes in our "Black Thematic Universe" have shifted from capitalism, racism, and consumerism... to bigotry, classism, and hyper-homophobia. By the way, the theme also has changed from "Black Thematic Universe"... to "People of Color Thematic Universe." Theologians, Pastors, and Black Church Leadership Studies (such as myself) propose that by adding the new people/new sufferers (cultures and statuses) according to our emerged challenges, all create fresh opportunities for witnessing the miracles of God in new ways. This divine move also generates reframed mission positions, recentered vision statements, as well as fresh messages/ sermons that will include a broader audience who share the exact same plight as African Americans. Admittedly, I hold many religious positions from my Congregational/Baptist upbringing, and through my own lens, that of a preacher, researcher, and family-man, I include all people as equal, equitable, and worthy partakers of God's salvation and Church membership. 

 

In my following articles, "Dear Black Church," I will address various implications, consequences, risks, and neutralities as a result of societal shifts, and propose updated practices from researched praxes of the Black Church from Antebellum and Postbellum eras in the United States.  These articles will chiefly glean from the accounts of witnesses of new miracles in the Bible, via their historical changed contexts: Mark 7:24-29, Matt.15:21-28, Acts 1:8, 11: 20-26, 13:1-3. These scriptures will speak to/address contemporary changed contexts from an array of researches, scholars, practitioners, and theologians, in comparison to positions of Robert L. Smith, Jr., a Practical Theologian who employs Paulo Freire's thematic universe proposal, in "Pedagogy of the Oppressed."    

Dr. Troy L. Denson

MTS, M.Div., M.Ed. Admin, D.Min., (Ph.D.)

Executive Director of National Collaborative Institute of Leadership

References: 

[1] Robert L. Smith, From Strength to Strength: Shaping Black Practical Theology for the 21^st Century (New York: Peter Lang, 2007), 75.

              [2] Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed (New York: Bloomsbury, 2018), 96.