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Here is part 1 of this review.

A Preface and A Challenge

Before I make some criticisms of this book I want to repeat that it is an important book that needs to be read. It especially needs to be read by those who are most remote from the experience of African-American Christians in North America. Let me be even more direct, it needs to be read by the denominations and federations that I serve as a seminary teacher, i.e. the NAPARC groups. For example, to my knowledge, the URCs have reached almost no African-Americans. We have not reached into any African-American communities. So far as I know, no one has any plans to reach into African-American communties. There is no plan to train African-American pastors to reach those communities or to pastor predominantly white congregations. We have almost no presence in any urban-core neighborhoods and many of our congregations seem largely content to remain in the suburbs. I hope that I’m wrong. The PCA is making some attempts to reach urban black communities and they’ve made might efforts to reach wealthy white suburbanites, but have they done anything to reach suburban, affluent, African-American communities? I have no idea. Read the rest of this entry »

This is an important book for at least a four reasons. First, it is the first book of its kind demanding and giving compelling reasons why white Reformed Christians should think about and pay attention to and learn from the experience of black Christians. Second, it is provides a window into a community whose experience and history is (probably) quite different from that of its intended audience—though I suspect that Christians of all races could learn from this work. Third, it is an excellent starting place for a dialogue that needs to begin where it has not and that needs to continue where it has begun. Finally, for those who are interested in seeing the Reformed faith reach every people group in North America and in the rest of the world, this book is an essential starting point. Read the rest of this entry »

Thanks to Kim for the heads up. (HT: Riddleblog)

The MR offices are about 15 yards from my door, but I didn’t know that this was the topic for the latest issue!

The discussion continues over the first post, but this comment from Lawrence prompts further thoughts: Read the rest of this entry »

There is an interesting discussion at Reformingchurches.org on what it means to be black and Reformed. As a white guy with a long interest in black culture (my grammar school and Jr High had a significant black population and I spent an unusual amount of time in the “black” sections of Omaha as a kid playing ball) and an even greater interest in seeing the Reformation spread to every tongue, tribe, and nation, this is a question of great importance to me. Read the rest of this entry »

This is an interesting post at The Institute (Anthony Bradley). According to the blog, Anthony is a Covenant Theological Seminary grad, a PhD student at WTS (Phila), works for the Acton Institute, and a prof at Covenant Theological Seminary. Read the rest of this entry »