Ryan: How would you define or describe “Black preaching”?
Wale: The term
“Black preaching” is generally and commonly associated with African-American
churches in the USA as the preaching of the gospel of our Lord and Saviour
Jesus Christ to the deliberately downtrodden of the society, especially those taken
as slaves from the coastal towns and hinterlands of Africa during the
man-snatching Transatlantic Slave Trade and brought to the USA under extremely
dehumanising conditions, and their descendants. Black preaching is a Biblical
message of hope and redemption in Jesus Christ and over the years this has been
passed onto the descendants of these beautiful but heavily traumatised people
snatched out of their lands in Africa. But the person who has been asked this
question is not African-American! I am an African of Nigerian descent and of
the Yoruba stock, born and bred in the commercial city of Lagos, Nigeria and
presently a pastor in the Grace Baptist association in the multi-ethnic city of
London. So what is the definition of Black preaching to me in both context and application?
Black preaching from an African perspective is the preaching
of the Word of God by both appealing to the ‘head and heart’ of the listeners. Let
me for a moment celebrate what the best of Black preaching is and does:
Black preaching brings to the front-burners the news of the
Gospel of Jesus Christ in an intellectual yet dramatic way by allowing the
local church to leap for joy each Lord’s Day – even as the child in the womb of
Elizabeth leapt for joy when Mary entered into her house in Luke 1:44.
Black preaching is the contemporary singing of the
‘Magnificat’, connecting pulpit and pew in an emotionally electrifying way with
the magnification of Christ, as the flag of the name of the Lord is hoisted
higher and higher.
Black preaching echoes the heavenly announcement of the
incarnation of Christ to the shepherds on that cold wintry night in Luke
2:8-14. If I safely and cautiously allow my Black preaching imagination to run
wild, I can write that God sent down everyone from heaven on that day alongside
the angel to rejoice at the angel’s announcement of the birth of Jesus Christ.
This announcement is God kissing us with his gift of eternal love.
Black preaching mirrors the response of the shepherds in
Luke 2:15-20, who upon receiving the news of the birth of our Saviour Jesus
Christ, left their means of livelihood, tied their long robes well above the
knees, ran as fast as they could, galloping like horses over the Judean
mountains and hills, palpitating heavily and grinning from ear to ear until
they saw the Baby Jesus wrapped in swaddling cloths and they glorified and
praised the Lord.
Black preaching follows the action demonstrated by both
Simeon and the aged widow, Anna, as they saw Jesus Christ upon His dedication
at the Temple and rejoiced.
Black preaching is a profound dramatisation of the gospel. It marinates the sensational good news of “great is the gospel of our glorious God,
where mercy met the anger of God’s rod” in the God-gifted personality of
the preacher. It experientially delivers the message of Jesus Christ, who you
have been helped to know as the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and points those
in the pew to him as their Saviour too.
Black preaching is the exegesis, illustration, amplification,
and application of the Golden Chain of salvation by doctrinally dancing to the
glorious truth
'Tis finished! The Messiah dies,
Cut off for sins, but not His own:
Accomplished is the sacrifice,
The great redeeming work is done.
'Tis finished! all the debt is paid;
Justice divine is satisfied;
The grand and full atonement made;
God for a guilty world hath died.
Black preaching is the standing on the rooftop (Matthew 10:27)
proclamation of the crucified and resurrected Jesus Christ with all boldness
and without hindrance. It is not shouting, but it is the vocally loud
exposition of the sovereign God with a rich splash of hymnody. Black preaching
is the showcasing of our very God to a lost world. Hallelujah.
Ryan: Expository
exultation – that is, worshipping God through the very act of preaching - is (it
would seem from what you are saying) a distinctive characteristic of Black
preaching. But here’s another question that I hope you will understand I am
raising more to channel what others might say, than to express my own perspective!
What would you say to those who claim, “There is no White preaching. There is
no Black preaching. There is only true or false preaching.”
Read Wale’s response tomorrow: “In Defence of Black
Preaching”
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