Dr. Vincent Bacote on the role of the Black Church in American Christianity and the Need for Diverse Voices in our Theology

♪ In a bridge, we bridge to the other side ♪ - Hey, Be the Bridge community. It is great to be here in this black history month and we have a treat for you. I met this person a couple years ago at an event and we have stayed connected. He, his name is Dr. Vincent Beco. He is the professor of theology and the director of the Center for Applied Christian Ethics at Wheaton College. And we are so honored to have him here. He is an author of reckoning with race and performing the good news in search of a better evangelical theology, the political disciple of theology of public life, the spirit and public theology, appropriate in the legacy of Abram Kuiper and has contributed to books including Onkuiper, aliens in the Promised Land, keep your head up and prophetic evangelicals. He is a regular columnist for the Common Magazine and contributes to other magazines including books and culture and Christianity today. And so we are so happy to have you here. You're also a member of the Evangelical Theological Society and the Society of Christian Ethics and you reside in Chicago area with your family and I got a chance to meet your entire family and hang out for a little bit at this event. Welcome to the Be the Bridge community. It's an honor to have you here. Thank you. It's a real privilege to have this conversation. Yeah, there's so much we can talk about but it's so funny I met you a couple years ago and I remember the name and I think one of someone from our team was having some ongoing conversations with your wife because I found out what you did and I was like, well, I would like to learn more. And then I was in class and there was an article that we were assigned to read and I looked at the name and I was like, they call, oh, I know him. Listen. (laughing) It's not real. No, it's a small world. It's a small world. And in this, you know, you talked about contextualizing what it means to like theology is always contextualized. And I mean, you were saying some things that, you know, we, it's like we understand that theology does not happen in a vacuum. It happens in culture and all of those things. I would love to just hear from you. We'll talk about the article a little bit later but what, you know, this is Black History Month. And so you talk about this in reference when we start talking about how things are labeled like Black theology or, you know, Black author, all of those things. What can the broader church in America learn from the historical Black church? That was a great question. Well, at this moment, for example, you know, or in these times-- You feel free to say you're free to talk. And sometimes you feel comfortable. Our audience have been just hyphil in to this conversation. Okay. You feel free. You don't have to hold back. Say what you're made. Say what you're made for, Professor. What? It's like, it's like what I felt like he was saying more than he was writing on in these interesting times as I like to call them. Yeah. There's even more reason. People to see something that's quite biblical, but something that can happen when you are either already comfortable in the culture or you presume that there's been what I would call a kind of time where you were always at home in the culture. No question should ever expect between Genesis 3 and Revelation 21 that we are, of course, going to feel completely at home. Wherever we are. We would like to, but we can't. And so sometimes we really don't feel at home because things that are happening politically, culturally, et cetera may seem to be turning the screws on us, so to speak. We're kind of like in a vice from what's happening with the society. And if you're dealing with African-American Christianity, this is just part of life. And even if one wants to say, hey, these laws got passed and they build the 1960s, there's something to get better. Yes, we're not in the 1940s. But we're also nowhere near arriving to some place where everybody's just singing "Coon by Aal" the time. And so we're in an environment where, for very reasons, depending upon where you are, you can be sometimes feeling like as a Christian, OK, why am I feeling like the culture is kind of not always being so friendly to me? And the black church has had to deal with that-- obviously, obviously a priest of war, but especially the aptest of war. And sometimes people go, well, why is there a black church? Well, because these African-Americans and these predominantly white denominations were basically getting ignored. And when it came to African-American towns, I mean, why does the pastor become the community leader? Why are so many of the black leaders-- when we're looking at some rights movement, for example, why do they have reverend in front of their name? Because the incubator and the leadership lab was largely in the context of the church because it was the center of everything. It had to be the center of everything, because it was sort of the only social organization where you could be addressing these things and where you could organize around things. And of course, the point being that what people can learn is that Christians can learn how to walk through pressure and suffering and difficulty while also still asking God to do things to make things less difficult. And more opportunities for human flourishing. And so the black tradition writ large is that way. Even though within black denominations few might have argued about how political should you be, et cetera, everyone to some degree has to deal with how am I just getting through, so to speak. And I think sometimes when Christians have talked about feeling like they're up against it, now, which Christians and where, especially right now, because I people think whether all these Christians seem to be in control, et cetera. Why do you think it depends on a part of the country you're in? If you're an organ, if you're in Washington state, if you're in Massachusetts, you might feel much more that you're in a kind of post-Christian environment than if you are, say in Alabama or Texas or something. And so there are places where people might feel like, I feel like I'm still getting this pressure as a Christian. Well, my question is, have you turned to just look at the history of the Black church? - Align. - To see. - People don't know. - Yeah. - Yeah, people don't know. Like you just stayed at where people don't know why the Black church is this, you know? And understanding that the reason the Black church is this is because we were not welcome in-- - Yes. - Worked like the White church? Like the story of Richard Allen, you know? - Yes. - You know? - So it's something that I think we have to remind people of that history, we just have a lack of understanding history. And what develop around our theology, you know, that theology of long-suffering and-- - Yes. - That is understood, the lament, this understood that and the wider range of theology, there's not a deep understanding of-- - Yes. And I think obviously I think people can learn about the Black church and kind of just speak to it a little bit to what the article's about is, just the fact that the circumstances would be fine ourselves, things that are happening in what's our context. - Yeah. - Those things create theological questions. And so, even if you're just talking about God, Jesus, church, eschatology, whatever, you're talking about it amid your lived reality. And sometimes your lived reality is making you ask certain questions, how do I talk about God in the midst of this suffering? How do I say God is good in the face of this suffering? How do we really have hope in the face of these challenges? How do we think about whether we, it's ridiculous to be hopeful or is it proper to be hopeful? How can I both be truthful, real about how difficult it is, but also strangely not acting like somebody who's defeated because of what I know about what I've been proclaiming and believing for years, but now I have to believe it in a certain way because it's really, you know, it's really time for me to show that I believe that I have this hope, even though everything around me tells me that I should give into despair rather than be hopeful. - Right. - So people will write songs about that. People will preach about that. People will write books about that. And the reason I mention preaching and singing is a lot of times people will say, we know I can't find, you know, as many theology books by, you know, Black church people. Well, part of it is because a lot of the theology was theology that's emerging from the ground, from the experience. And also because a lot of people for varying reasons aren't able to be in these particular kind of theological education context that are formal ones, but you're seeing that theology expressed in preaching. You're seeing that the objects. rest, you know, in other liturgical forms, in prayers, in songs. And so it's funny, I sometimes I can tell my students, you're doing theology all the time. - Yeah. - It's not just when you're reading, you know, I don't know, John Calvin or Aquinas or somebody, right? - Right. - If you're having a conversation in the dorm and you're debating something, and you're trying to make sense of something, all right, well, what are you doing? You're doing the work of theology. - Yeah. - And you're asking these God questions in the face of particular circumstances. And so often, the reason that a lot of theological developments even happen throughout the history of the church is because what, something happens, some crisis emerges. And questions are raised around that crisis and you have to, you know, expand the work. - Have a conversation, right? - Exactly. - Exactly. - Right, right. One of the things you say in that article you talk about race matters, but with nuance. And I thought that was really good. 'Cause we, you know, like a lot of people don't understand the difference between race and ethnicity, you know? And so we know that race is man, man, man. So that's your, you're talking into the American Western context and you're saying new eyes and you said, but yes, race and culture and how it influences our theology. Can you talk about that a little bit? Because a lot of times, I think a lot of times people feel like, yes, they look at the black church and they say your theology is, you know, is completely around, you know, that's why they name it black theology like it's something separate. Versus just the lens that we're all looking through but don't see the same thing that, okay, why people create it an entire theology based off of, you know, who they are, changed the entire narrative, took out scriptures but, you know, they can't see how that's done. It's between the two. And so could you explain that a little bit? Sure. The fact is, the reason that it matters, the context matters, it race matters, or you race and ethnicity matters is because, you know, all people have to ask is, okay, hey, can you tell me about the way you talk? Can you tell me about the food you eat? Can you tell me about the thing that you just take for granted about the way that you talk about the world, the story that you tell, the assumptions that you make? Well, where did that come from? It didn't come from the first century, I can tell you that much, right? (laughs) The point, I mean, we're people we're happening this conversation in 2026, a long way away from first century Palestine. We're in the United States of America having this conversation. We're speaking English. We're on the other side of so much, so many historical events that have happened. And there's so many ways that we think about what normal life is that nobody even imagined as being part of quote unquote normal life for most of the history is behind us. And so when you have, for example, a history on the other side of the enlightenment, particularly, you have this emphasis on the individual. Yeah. Does the Bible talk about, address the individual before the enlightenment? Of course it does. Right. But there's a larger magnification of the individual and about individual independence or autonomy, whatever like that when he used there. It's about that. And by being that, that's part of being this modern world, which winds up also though making less important how being a part of a group informs the way that you're thinking about your life or the way that you're arriving at truth. Because it's about you, the individual. And to the extent that you're able to live your life that way and where you can, where it's a luxury to choose group identity, then you, strangely why I'm talking about your theology in a way where it's really all about just your personal relationship with Jesus. And you'll, you'll talk about we or us when it, if you will, convenient. Right. But on the other hand, if you are in a situation where the we is just trying to stay alive, even though on the other side of this enlightenment. And where one level here in this country it talks about the liberty of the individual, etc. But because of laws, you're not really getting the benefits of all that individual freedom. And the laws aren't protecting you from when other individuals are going after certain groups rather than others. Right. I don't think a lot more about not just me, the individual, but you also think about us. And so the when you're thinking about your theology, you've got to be thinking about, does God care about anything besides the individual in their personal relationship with Jesus? Right. When God talks about sin, when God talks about the ways people are supposed to function, is he only talking about us as a kind of group of individuals that are part of a voluntary association that chose to get together, you know, for common cause? Or is he addressing us as groups of people because part of what it is to be human is to have identities that are more than just individual identities? The part of our identities are also racial, ethnic, geographic, you know, language, etc. And so if we're going to be thinking about the significance of say, you know, black theology, well part was part of what you have to do. You have to deal with the we. Yeah. And you and you and you and what what happened is, somewhere in Galois, I have a certain prescription. Right. The lenses of my experience, what I'm looking at the Bible will make me, not only see what the Bible says about individuals, but I'm also seeing what happens when God's talking about groups of people. Or when God is identifying, saying the book of Micah, when he's criticizing his own people, but he's criticising categories of people, he's criticising the prophets, the judges. Right. So what's the point being, he's not criticizing the one or two judges that got it wrong and everybody else is okay. He just says the judges. Right. The prophets, not everybody. The acceptance. The point being is that wait. So you're telling me that there's corporate identity that matters in terms of mythology. And there are a lot of people because corporate identity is a luxury to choose, like I cope to put on or off when you need it. It's like those things don't matter as much in the Bible or that somehow you read them, but it doesn't register. Whereas if you're thinking about we a lot, you'll see all the with all the weasers showing up. Yeah. And I think a big important point about this is that we really do need the whole body of Christ. And the gifts and also how the experiences of us grind the lenses of our perception so that we're picking up on different things and emphasizing different things and elaborating on different things. How that enables us to speak about our faith in ways that somebody who has a different set of lenses of experiences, they're gonna speak about something. And it's not necessarily those things are in competition with each other. They might be just part of one bigger picture. But if I think that, okay, there's only one picture and here's the one that I'm telling you. And it's from what we have as these 21st century individualistic people, then I'm really gonna miss a lot. Yeah. And so I have to be willing to learn from people that say, well, I don't just see all this eye, eye, eye. I see a lot of we, I see a lot of us. Yeah. And as she got saying that that matters. And that matters also to how we talk about, we talk about what church is. If we talk about how sin functions beyond just what individual actions are. You're right. I can't not see the Bible takes those things seriously. If I, I tend to think about as an individual, then I might think, well, I know it says that, but the important thing is like these personal choices, the individual is making and how that's kind of cashing out in terms of conflicts and stuff. And that's really how sin functions. Well, it's one of the ways that sin functions. But the Bible definitely recognizes that people do things they create systems. They create things that are larger than the individual, even so much larger than the group. And that larger thing functions as a kind of avalanche of injustice, you might say. Right. That advantages one group and complicates things for others. Anyway, I think that's one of the ways that you can see such a difference. That's so good because I mean, I feel like you were in my head this morning. I, we were having a conversation earlier this week and I was just kind of pondering on it and really thinking about it. And I was like, we have been disciples so much of Western culture has been disciplined. And to me and Jesus versus the we, the communal covenant. And I think that's what you're getting at, you know, and what you're talking about. And I think it's like almost like a, you said, you know, the enlightenment, like theology was influenced by that. And it became more self-preservation about personal salvation, you know, like about me versus about the we when we look at scripture. And so that was an example when you talk about Micah. And it's like not one or two judges, but all the judges, you know, it's communal. And we, and I think this season, this wilderness that we're in now is calling for that. So I appreciate that. And I think, you know, one of just the kind of summing up is like, you know, all our theology must made aware of the broader biological task. That's it. - Yes, absolutely. Absolutely, because none of us sees clearly enough. The Paul says in 1st, 3rd, 13, and after all the great things about love, that we see through a glass jargon. Now if he saw through a glass darkly. - Yeah. - Now, how am I thinking because of how much education I've got, but I see some things a little bit more clearly than Paul did. - Well, if he sees a opaque glass, so do we. Which means I might see some things, but I'm missing other things. We really need the entire church and the gifts of the entire church and the vision of the entire church to give us this larger theology where we're seeing more of the fullness of the faith. Particularly, you know, most Christians would say, do you think God is great and beyond us? And there's so much about God that's hard for us to know because of how immense God is. Everybody's gonna go, "Yeah." - Yeah. - If that's the case, then why would any of us think, but my tradition, we have answered every question in totality for all conditions and circumstances. - Yeah. - And all you really need to do is just join us. And if you join us, then everything will be fine because we've got it all figured out. So what's the problem with somebody saying that? They don't know what they don't see. And all of us have to be aware of even having a kind of disposition to ask, is there something I'm not seeing? Is there something I might be missing? And which means then, can someone help me to see more? And a lot of times, somebody who's not like me can help me to see more. And we have to be willing to do that. And I think sometimes what happens, I'm sure you've probably had this kind of conversation many times. So if someone is responding to the way things have gone wrong, because of the majority culture. And they want to talk about the contributions of our tradition. Sometimes people when they say, okay, now this is the thing I'm talking about, right? And like, yes, okay. But whatever is that thing that now what you're talking about, it's still just part of the thing. It's not the whole thing. But and sometimes I think what can happen is our response to other people's narrow vision can strangely lead us to have a reaction that when we kind of begin to see a vision associated with where we come from, somehow ours becomes a totalizing vision. Nobody has the totalizing vision. We all need the rest of the church. - Right. - Because we just are finite, limited. So often unaware, not knowing what we don't know. - Yeah. - And so everyone has to be willing to do that. And I think of course, obviously the more that people have proximity to power, the more you can get into the delusion. I said, right, of thinking, well, no, I think I've kind of, I got it. It's like, well, yes, something. And it might be true what you have, but believe me, it's not the whole picture. - Yeah. - And so we all need to have a humility and recognition of how much more there is for us to learn and to know. And to think about all the different ways that God can open up doors for us to have that learning. - Adam. - Do you think the evangelical church today is still leaving? I'm asking this question. Just for the broader audience, it's still leaving theological vacuums. And if so, where, where do you think some of these theological vacuums are? - Oh, for evangelicals? Okay. So first, I want to find who I think evangelicals are. - Is that? - We're having this conversation. It was like the year 2000. I kind of know we're talking about these Protestants that will get in alley fights about eschatology and church order and whether you say sacraments or ordinances. Which are these Bible people who talk about conversion and centrality of the cross and sharing your faith. Now, you know, we're in a much more complicated public relations complication, I'll call it, where there's the presumption that evangelical first means something political. And then Jesus is kind of sponsoring those policies. And there are people who in surveys, when they think evangelical, that's what they're thinking. Those are the evangelicals I'm going to talk about when I answer this question. Because those people are even necessarily thinking about the Bible, they're not particularly moral. And they're not particularly thinking about something other than certain sociopolitical ends with a little bit of Jesus kind of baptizing it. - Okay. - I think the evangelicals that are these people that say that the Bible's number one for me. Here's the interesting thing. Okay, you say it's number one. First of all, how much of it do you actually know? - Okay. - And then in terms of knowing that, are you aware of how it tells you, you know, be transformed by renewing your mind? Work out your salvation with fear and trembling. Those are texts that tell us about the process that we're on. So one of the things that evangelical theology needs is a greater awareness of the fact that, no matter how good my training is, no matter how good the preaching is to my church, no matter what programs we're using for Christian education, all of us who are doing this are people that are very much on the way, which means there's so much stuff we don't know. I think this weird thing can happen. So you can tell me what you think this is right or close to right. A hazard of saying, we're the Bible people. It can be then that you actually have the expectation that somehow because you say you're the Bible people, you know everything that's in there and that you're close to perfectly performing everything that's in there because you have that stated commitment. And I wonder if, hey, that's who we are. Let's do it. As they're just saying, let's do it. It means that you've got this download of everything that the Bible says and also the transformation necessary to publicly display everything that's in there. - Yeah. And so I wonder whether that kind of expectation kind of happens within, you know, a good thing which is saying we're the Bible people. But if I have that expectation and I'm not willing to ask, well, what's all this stuff we might be missing? - Yeah. - Yeah. - Then I think that could be a problem, right? And so here's a great example. I think Evangelicals are good at historically, packaging the faith. Here is a pithy way for you to understand the sort of salvation transaction. Okay, here's God, here's sin. Since God be a dress, here's Jesus, you need Jesus. If you say yes to Jesus, you're saved, you're good. If you mainly think that and you don't think about what else the Bible says. And sometimes if what you're being told mainly that the entire thing is about whether you're saved by works or not. That's a really important question, a really important question. It's far from the only question the Bible's addressing. And so then I had to ask, what else is the Bible talking about? - Yeah. And so I think one of the things that can happen unfortunately is the good intentions and if you will, the well-intended framing of digestible versions of Christianity is that you almost make a virtue out of not going deep into the faith. In fact, a lot of people criticize Evangelicalism as being a mile wide and inch deep. It's really good at getting people in the door. It's not good at getting people deep and being able to swim deep in the water. And so what it means is that there's so much more for people to know and to learn about. And so much more by the way than just talking about at home, that justification. Those are important things, but there's not the only things that the Bible talks about. So how are you going to talk about more than that or even how those things have something to say to issues that maybe people just don't think about a whole lot or haven't had to think about a whole lot. - Right. - And so I guess here's I think a big challenge. It's not just for Evangelicals, but it's for Evangelicals. The Evangelical focus on getting the truth of things right. Meaning, okay, here's truth over here. Okay, how is that truth related to what walks around or to the ethics that people practice? I think often the way that people wind up doing Christian ethics is either somebody you trust tells you what the issues are that are ethical issues we should care about. Or something happens to you or somebody you care about. And then that raises the question of something that you care about. But they're both versions of something shows up when you're a doorstep. Now somebody who is neither of those situations is not something that happened to you or your family. It's not something that your trusted people told you you should care about. If somebody else tells you that something else is an important ethical issue, well, what makes you care about it? When I would argue what automate your care about it is the belief that you already say you have. Because if God says, for example, you know, that's a kind of solemnate, you know, kind of echoing what goes on in Genesis 1, 26, 28. God, it's amazing that you made us people who manage your whole world. Now, imagine the whole world's a big job. There are a lot of things that come up in managing the world. Now, somebody tells me, that for example, say racism or the glass ceiling or whatever, are things that need to be addressed. But nobody has ever said that to you. A person might say, is that what we need to talk about? And why are they saying that? Well, because, I mean, it's. because it's not been part of what's given the menu of, you know, the ethical issues of the day. Whereas I think if our beliefs are more focused on a commitment to managing all God's world, okay, here's something this mismanagement of God's world. And if I know that we should be managing it, then I've kind of got it what I call an ethical antenna so that if I see that mismanagement is happening, right? I go, nobody's ever told me about that, but I recognize that as mismanagement. And if our job includes this management of the world, then we need to pay attention to that. I need to learn about that. And somebody needs to do something about that. And so I think our beliefs can create a disposition in us that orient us towards not just stating the truth, but displaying that truth and having a sensitivity to recognize things that matter for us, even if somebody didn't put it on our doorstep. But if somebody else says, hey, you know, it was, it came with my doorstep. Okay, so I didn't know about this, but thank you for telling me that. I'm not going to tell you it doesn't really cause an issue, because it didn't just show up on my doorstep. On the doorstep of the people that I trust. But I say it matters why, because what I believe tells me it matters, even though I knew nothing about it until you introduced it to me. And I think that's, I think that's definitely a problem in terms of kind of the way of doing ethics and evangelical context. Not only evangelical context, but I feel like definitely evangelical context. Yeah. So this month is, that's, that's a really good this month is black history, but and you know, right now, like it, you know, if we are keeping our pulse on what's happening in culture, we've seen just some attempts to, you know, de-erasure black history, some diminishing and dismissing and deflection as it relates to the black church. Because we've always been, you know, a part of the moral conscience in this country. And so sometimes like, you know, there is a tradition in the black church to speak truth to power, you know, to call America into the moral conscience into the more ethics that it says it upholds. What would you say? What are some things that the broader church could learn from, you know, as it relates to the from the African-American spiritual formation? What are some things that the broader church could learn from the African-American spiritual formation? I think one of the biggest things is the fundamental dignity of every human being. And for that to be such a reflexive truth. And over, my reflexive truth, I mean, it's that we know this and we know that when somebody is antagonizing other human beings of any kind, we know that that is against God. And we will end to say that to get Scott. So that's one thing. A second thing I would say is is a courage to speak up when it's not always going to be necessarily well-received. You know, I think sometimes people when they like to tell a narrative about history that like to say, well, you know, there's still rights movement, the people got accomplished, etc., etc. And you get this idea based on a certain narrative of it or a certain version of watching eyes in the prize or something. You think that okay, so it happened and all the black people in America showed up in the March on Washington, right? I mean, and and and and and everybody thought that, you know, the civil rights thing is the way we're supposed to be. So I remember asking my godmother, who is 96 years old. Okay. So she like I was 98. There's still going still very sharp in here, very sharp. I caught her up one day a couple of years ago. That's that so. But the civil rights movement was going on. How much enthusiasm was there in the black community for the civil rights movement? And what she said was, well, a lot of people it was hard for them to have enthusiasm and I'll never forget her saying this. She said, because the oppression was so strong, it was hard to know whether or not it was going to work. Right. So it was a fear. Because we get we get this narrative that okay, so it's civil rights. You know, there's all these heroes. Everybody's marching with John Lewis across the bridge. Right. And the point is it's like, no, actually, this is not what most people were doing. And surprise, surprise. Did you know that black people can disagree with each other about things? I mean, never mind that, right? But but and so my point being that if people want to have a narrative that why everybody kind of did this and it was about nonviolence and everybody kind of wanted to, you know, say let's have unity, but a unity, what we forget about our particularity, which nobody like ever was really saying, but but but that's the certain interpretation of things. Then what happens is people want that and they're afraid of what will happen if it's not that. And so that it requires a courage to say, you know, we can really talk about how God, when he said to Abram Genesis 12 that he was going to make people, you know, that every tribe in Tonga nation was going to be blessed with him. And then ultimately that was going to mean like in Revelation 5 and 9 where it says that Jesus purchased for himself people from every tribe in Tonga nation that he really meant that. And when he said every tribe in Tonga nation didn't mean. And because they're purchased by his blood, the every tribe in Tonga nation part is just incidental actually. Right. So whatever got put into those tribes in Tonga nations, their expressions of him being creative, for example, none of that matters. And it's like, well, no, actually it does. And yes, it's hard for people to live well together. I mean, it's been this way ever since Adam said the woman you gave me to God, right? Or ever since, you know, Cain said to Abel, let's go for a walk. You know, Abel's like, okay, let's go for a walk. I mean, I like walks. He had no idea that Cain was all messed up because God liked, I mean, Abel just go for a walk. I mean, it's a senseless killing. Point is, is that that's really quite been the case since Genesis 3. So it's hard for humans to safely live well together. Which means don't be surprised that opposition happens when you try to say things so that people will do that, let me together. And you've gotten out of the civil rights movement. People want you to do that. Now, obviously, some people turn to black radicalism etc. Who want to say, look, just give us our space, please. Thank you very much. It was our money, it was our place. You can live over there. We're going to live over here. And my point isn't that everybody needs to live like a multi-athlete thing or whatever. I mean, the point though is that if you're the church, you should be practicing what is going to be the case when we're all together with the other side. Exactly. And we are far from that. Yes. Yeah. You know, it's, but it's like, we're not allowing the Bible to read us, you know, to transform us and to renew our minds. And we're seeing that. I think, you know, when we look at the world, there's like not much expectation. You can, when you look at the world's systems, but when we talk about the kingdom of God, you know, God's people, when they are, their ideologies follow that of the worlds versus the kingdom of God. That's, I think that's the disheartening part. Yes. Yes. Of all that were experiences. Now, have there been some particular theologians that have impacted our deeply shaped your own, you know, thinking who are some of the theologians that you can name that has deeply shaped your own thinking? Well, I mean, obviously, my dissertation figure, Kuiper, of course, who's out picture, but, um, but certainly, you know, just being influenced by people like a Bill Pemel or engaging some of Carl Ellis's work has been really important. You know, you know, what, uh, this documentary that I did about Blackub and Gellicles, I mean, interacting with people like, like Stan Long, um, well, thanks to this sort of theologian, but he's, well, I'd say everybody's with theologian actually, that's right, for living. But, but, but, but, but, but what he did, you know, is, you know, with creating this entire, uh, uh, you know, publishing arm you and I, why is he doing that? You know, he said, you know, there are other science school literature that might mention black people, but black people were never addressed is what he said. And so at, at my point is that this is an important theological point, addressing people as actually being there. You know, God reveals himself to us. He had to say things about us. He actually speaks to us. And, you know, it's interesting if we create literature that will talk about things, but it will never actually say anything to you, the person. Right. Right. That's, that's, that's a sad oversight if that kind of thing happens. So to me, that, that's really important that that happened. And so those are certainly some of, of the people that have been influential for me. I mean, obviously some of the usual cast of character, you know, in different ways, your Calvin's, your Luther's, your, you know, people like Augustine, Irenaeus, all those people, they're, they all played different roles and kind of this synthesis in the way that I think theologically. Okay. What is something that as we come to a close, what is something to our bridge-builder community, that you would say, what does it look like to be a faithful follower of Jesus in the public square? Like what advice would you give our bridge-building community as it relates to what does it mean to be a follower of Christ in the public square? - Sure. Well, first what it means is it means being a person to recognize that it's God's world in that hours and that God's ends, His purposes would be accomplished, no matter what is pressing against His purposes at the moment, that those things are on borrowed time. In other words, I know the end of the story. - That's good. - And then I would also say, is that because I know it's God's world and it's God's plan for His world, my responsibility is to serve in the opportunity He gives me without mistaken that opportunity to mean that if I don't do this, that somehow, you know, God's plans aren't going to happen. God chooses to give us the privilege to be part of His means for making His plans happen. He's not need us to do that, but He chooses to do that. He gives us the privilege and He empowers us to do that. And the reason that I make this point is, we don't need to have an anvil on our head that it's up to me to make everything happen. I mean, that wants to be a very unhealthy thing because then somehow I'm the one who has to do X-Wires, and if I don't, you know, God can't do X-Wires, it's like, no, actually, He can. He can. But He wants, but He can, but He also wants us to be His people serving Him in His world, being the people who words very clearly, you know, those two great commandments, we're so loyal to God that we dare not make anything else an idol, whatever causes we're part of. So we don't have to worship our causes, but we can certainly be committed to them and practice them. And as we're practicing them, that second race commandment, love your neighbor as yourself. And run with 1310, love doesn't harm to a neighbor. We're thinking about how are we, no matter who it is, our team or another team, that we're always seeking the good for other people, and that we want to humanize other people. You can disagree with people and still treat them like a human being. My disagreement is not an excuse for me to set my character aside and to just torture someone. Doesn't mean you can't go off as a boy. I mean, some people are just gonna have it. But if it happens, the point isn't, the big thing isn't, okay, going up, because I mean, do I want to win people, or do I just want to win my cause, right? And I think we want to win people. And we want God to help us to be agents of people, or one, to salvation, but also to lives of living out that salvation, so that people are walking in God's truth rather than doing things that show that they are serving other idols connected to power, or loyalty to one group, or another, or to their financial aspirations, or whatever. We want God to change those people, not to just wreak havoc on those people, because they might be pushing against what we think is the right path forward. And so here's the thing, we need to be hopeful and realistic at the same time. Hopeful for all the reasons I said, because it's God's plan and purpose and power. Also being realistic about the fact that realism means, don't be surprised that people push against you. Don't be surprised if your emotions are all over the place sometimes. Don't be surprised if your surprise at developments that happen, or if you're surprised at craziness that people do that somehow seems to persist for a while. In what history, there've been lots of craziness that has persisted for a while. But it's all on the clock. The clock's going to run out on that. And so we live like we know the clock is running out when all the things that are against God. That's good. And while we're aware of that, we can discern God, what are the ways you want me, with the gift, talents, and abilities you're giving me to do my fees to attend the works you have for me, living as one of your people in your world from the nations, part of the people that you purchase to bring you glory through, you know, what I do in the thought word, indeed. Without thinking that I need to do all the thoughts, words, and deeds. - Hmm. That's so good. I, one of the things we do as we, you know, on our podcast, we always ask all of our partners, our guests that are on here. What is something that, you know, there's so much despair now. There's so many things happening. There's so much suffering. But it's great to see the things, the little things that are bringing people hope. So, Dr. Baker, what is something that is bringing you hope in this moment right now? - You know, one thing at the risk of sounding self-promoting, this document about Black Emma Jellikos that I did that, you know, it's about a year old now, there's been zero negativity to this documentary. And people tell me all the time about how helpful it is, and how it has helped them to just understand better their own situation. Or people have said, I didn't know any of this. - Right. - And I need to learn this. And nobody has said, you know, I think that the message that you're giving in this is, you know, some kind of hit piece or whatever. That doesn't happen at all. And so I've been so encouraged by that. And I share that to say that, I mean, it's called Black Emma Jellikos. - Yes. - And given the attention, and given the way that some people in our country at this moment are making it seem like if you mentioned anything particular that's not in the majority of the majority culture, that somehow, you know, you're the problem. - Right. - Strangely, nobody has said, I don't understand what you're calling it, Black Emma Jellikos. - Yeah. - And believe me, I have felt nervousness about that. - Right. - And it hasn't happened. - Yeah. - Well, that's a good one. We'll probably put the link up in the show notes when we post, but like, I, you know, for me, even that word evangelical, I never really came in contact with that word until I was in predominantly, you know, - Yes. - You know, white spaces, I never knew. - Yes, never knew. - Never knew. - I grew up, I grew up in Nashville Baptist. - Yeah. And so, you know, and I know like, even I know we're supposed to be in there, but I do want to hear this as you, as you talked about that. You know, why do you think that, you know, black Christians, we don't identify as evangelicals like that because I know we see it as more of a political term, but it's really not. So can you explain that a little bit before we, we get off. - Yeah. So as I mentioned earlier, the best face of the term evangelical is Christians who take the Bible completely seriously, or say they do, they intend to. They aspire to take it completely seriously. And they're committed to Jesus working the cross and they're converted by encountering that work and they want to share that. And they've built institutions and you have kind of a, you know, a world of places like Wheaton College where I teach, et cetera, we have all that. Black Christians in general have those basic beliefs, but their networks and their institutional relationships are necessarily ones that are in the sociocultural context. Now, there's some people, I mean, they're black people who are cradle evangelicals, but most are, you know, your church has gone Christ, your national baptism, your AME, et cetera. And because evangelical has been identified as a political, you know, set of commitments in terms of, hey, you vote for these issues. Are you highlighting certain issues and you ignore others? Well, there are a lot of African-Americans that think, why would I ever use that term? So here's why I think people can use the term, at least strategically, is because you can say, the reward of evangelical is gospel. And I'm definitely a gospel person. The gospel is good news. I want to be a good news Christian. And so when I, so person can say, I'll say what kind of evangelical I am, the good news Christian kind of person. That's what I am, not that there is a particular type of sociopolitical, sociocultural baggage that must be entailed by that term. Because gospel predates any of the sociopolitical stuff that is associated with the evangelical movement. So, so I think, and I guess I'll say is, there are more, I think there are more black Christians in the last 30 years that have encountered evangelicals because they've gone to either some pair of church organizations that have encountered those, or they've encountered certain churches, or they listen to Christian radio. Or they hear this music. So though that kind of cross-pollination has given people some interface with it. And for some people, some formation. But for many black Christians, the way that the political identity has grown so large and so, so much as part of an assumption about what you are as a religious person. - Never, never, never. It makes a lot of people say, call me a good news Christian, but please don't call me. - Right, never, never. - It's like, well, it really is the same thing. - Yeah. - Or it should be the same thing. So I would say the very least, maybe people can say, I'll tell you what, I'll tell you what, how about this? I want to be the good news Christian. And so I will give you a new defining of what evangelical can be, and take it back from, you know, the undertow or the all the accretions of politics and culture that make people think more about that than they think. - In hijack. (laughs) - Well, that's right. Yes, exactly. - Well, thank you so much just for you. - Thank you. - And your brilliant, and it's such a great and honor to have you all be the bridge podcast. I know that this would be, just really some great understanding for our community to just go deeper and just to be form deeper. And this is good for, I love to bring voices, especially like yourself on here, just so our people can interact with, you know, theologians who just happen to be black. (laughs) You see what I did there, right? - I did, I did, I did, I did. I did. - So great. - I caught you. - Well, thank you so much. Tell the family I said hello. - And a pleasure and a happy one to be the bridge podcast. - Thank you, I really appreciate it. - Thank you. - Thank you for tuning in to the Be the Bridge podcast. The Be the Bridge podcast is brought to you from the nonprofit organization Be the Bridge, which exists to empower people and culture toward racial healing, equity, and reconciliation, to partner with us to create more resources like this in order to increase racial literacy and pursue racial justice, head to bethebridge.com/give. Latasha Morrison is the executive producer. Sarah Kanatser is the producer and editor, and the theme music is from Ellie Holcomb's song, "Bridge." Until next time, keep pressing on in Grace and Truth Bridge Builders. (upbeat music)