Why the American Church Still Needs Black History Month
- Dr. Isaac Hayes
- 3 days ago
- 5 min read
In an era of resurfacing racial division within the American church, we must embrace our "inescapable network of mutuality" in Christ and honor the history that shaped our shared struggle for true spiritual unity.
“There’s no place like home.” Dorothy Gale spoke these words in the classic The Wizard of Oz. But what is home? For Dorothy, it was Kansas, where her family and friends were, but for descendants of African slaves in America, that question remains to be answered.
Approximately 48 million Blacks live in the United States.[1] Very few of us who are descendants of African slaves in America know the country our ancestors came from. So, when we are told, “Go back where you came from,” we are perplexed on two fronts: first, we didn’t come here; we were brought here against our will, and second, we don’t know where “where” is, because Africa is not a country; it is a continent. Therefore, America is all Black Americans know, and America is our home.
Division and Discrimination in the American Church
The problem is that our “home” doesn’t feel much like home when those who are responsible for the land of Oz that has become our home insist that we can only live here when they are the masters and we are the servants. This not only plays out in the social institutions of our secular society but also in the local church.
I recently viewed a video where a White pastor alleged that the majority of Black pastors lack theological competence, and therefore, Black congregants should leave the care of their Black pastors and find a White pastor so that they can ensure their salvation. To say it mildly, I was deeply grieved in my spirit. It reeked of White patriarchy. How could we arrive at any other conclusion when a White man is telling Black Christians that they will go to hell unless they find a White pastor? This is the definition of White superiority, White supremacy, and, yes, White privilege.
As someone who has graduated from two of the top evangelical seminaries in the country, I have a great appreciation for the mix of races, ethnicities, and nationalities with whom I worshiped and studied God. One of my most formative moments was singing How Great Thou Art during my first chapel at Moody Theological Seminary, alongside my brothers and sisters in Christ from all over the world. Each of us was united in service to our God and Savior, Jesus Christ, to prepare to take the gospel to the four corners of the globe.
That was twenty years ago. But the original sin of America refuses to be nailed to the cross of Christ. What sin, you may ask? The sin of White superiority and Black inferiority—racism. It’s the mole we continue to whack away at. And when we think we have bludgeoned it to death, it rears its ugly head once again. That video was one of those moments for me.
It is no secret that President Donald Trump has become a racial fault line in America. We see it in every sector of American life. But what is more disturbing is that he has unearthed a duct-taped division that lay beneath the American church. The White and Black churches have retreated to their historical corners. And before someone asks, “Why do we need a Black church?” It is because we could not worship as equals in Christ and were forced to start our own churches so that we did not have to endure the defacing of divine image bearers through racial segregation and discrimination during a worship service.[2]
Unity and Community in Christ’s Church
Similarly, the church in Ephesus was struggling with racism, and the Apostle Paul devoted considerable attention to it in chapters one through three. In Ephesians 4:1-6, he wrote:
Therefore I, the prisoner of the Lord, implore you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, showing tolerance for one another in love, being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as also you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all.
I want to focus on one aspect of this powerful exhortation: Walk in a manner worthy of your calling to be one new humanity in Christ … by being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
Ephesians 1:22-23 informs us that Jesus is the head of the church, which is His body.
Ephesians 2:13-22 informs us that, in Jesus, all believers are one new citizenry. Ephesians 3:6 informs us that, in Jesus, all believers share in all the promises of God. Thus, when we come to chapter 4, all believers—Jews, Gentiles, White, Black, Brown, and Yellow—are to live worthy of the call to their new humanity in Jesus. The new humanity is not our old social associations, but our new spiritual association in Christ.
One way we live worthy of the call is by being overly intentional about preserving the oneness that Jesus has made possible. It means we must speak about race and not dismiss the expressed concerns and grievances of those who don’t look like us. It means we must celebrate our progress and acknowledge the areas where we still have work to do. It means we must not blame everyone for every evil we have experienced, and we must recognize that there are those in the body who want to help us all heal from the tragedies of the past.
Paul identified the Holy Spirit as the Agent responsible for bringing about the harmony He desires us to have by the bond we share in Him. The word “bond” means “that which brings various entities into a unified relationship.”[3] If we are going to be the church, we must bind ourselves together through the Spirit of Christ. It will not happen by telling Democrats to become Republicans, Conservatives to become Progressives, or Black parishioners to leave Black pastors for White pastors. It will only occur when we renounce our allegiances to our social strata and reconcile our identities to our new race in Jesus.
We’re All Connected and Affected
In Jesus, all believers are connected. The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr wrote:
In a real sense, all life is interrelated. All men are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be, and you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be. This is the interrelated structure of reality.[4]
If only the churches in America could grasp this truth.
We are living in a time where people are calling for the elimination of Black History Month. Still, it is incidents like the White pastor who insulted the theological acumen of Black pastors and insinuated the theological superiority of White pastors that warrant the unending celebration of the struggles and triumphs of Blacks in America until Jesus inaugurates His eternal kingdom, where racism, discrimination, and prejudice will be wiped from the face of the earth.
Dr. Isaac Hayes is an Assistant Pastor at the Apostolic Church of God in Chicago, Illinois, and author of Men After God’s Heart: 10 Principles of Brotherly Love. He also has a Doctor of Ministry degree from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. Follow Dr. Hayes on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube at @RevIsaacHayes.
[3] William Arndt et al., A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 966.
[4] Martin Luther King Jr., Strength to Love (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2010), 69.
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