Ryan: For some, the mere act of speaking religious things is preaching and so in my pastoral experience I have seen many young Black men balk at the idea of "Black preaching" because they identify it with bad experiences they have had in Black majority contexts. Unfortunately, I have heard Black people confess the sentiment "I don't listen to Black preachers, because they aren't sound", or leap to ask "Is he sound?" when they hear about a black preacher. White evangelicals are even worse when it comes to these reactions, which leads to a lack of authentic Black representation in the entities and on the platforms of British reformed evangelicalism (worse even than in the USA), further fuelling the idea that Black preachers are somehow inferior. Related to this, unfortunately, plenty have racialised the prosperity gospel, failing to see it is in fact the product of white British and American theological influences imported to the continent. Several times, I have been in the unique situation as a white pastor of promoting Black preachers to disabuse people of such frankly racist notions as "Black preachers = bad". What is your perspective of this as a Black preacher, Pastor, and how would you address such young men and women as an 'uncle'?
Wale: The Lord has opened the doors of our evangelical reformed churches to the Black community and they are coming in because they have been messed up by false teachers or to put it mildly, pastors who don’t yet have a biblical grasp of the gospel and who shouldn’t be teaching at all. So when these dear Black professing Christians become members of our local churches, they don’t want to listen to Black preachers. I can empathise, because I did the same thing too over a decade ago. We usually swing our pendulum to the opposite extreme of where we have come from. It therefore takes careful mentoring over a period of time to swing the pendulum back gently for ecclesiological balance.
Let me also write that this extreme pendulum swing is not only against Black preachers but against faithful church offering giving and regular church attendance. In the Pentecostal charismatic churches, offerings are somewhat coerced, with the pastors and leaders asking for various forms of giving with spiritual sounding names - from “Alabaster Box” to “First Fruits”, from “First Born” to “Crossing over”, from “Apostolic” to “King David’s Dance”. So when we as Black people cross over from these churches into those of a more reformed persuasion, we become very happy that some of these churches don’t pass the offering bags around during services, so that’s cool because we are not then forced to give and that also means we don’t give regularly. Second, church attendance is also to a degree enforced, but we have seen the liberty and freedom in Christ in our reformed churches and so we also don’t attend church meetings regularly because it’s not strongly enforced. These two, with the push-back against Black preachers, are reactions to the heresies and abuses we have previously experienced in the churches of our black majority cultural or religious contexts, which have pushed us to the extreme. I admonish that we need to find a Biblical balance.
Ryan: I agree. It is a racialised perspective driven by one’s personal, limited experience. We must be clear that black people do not preach falsely or act abusively because they are Black, nor do they have a predisposition to false belief or foolish behaviour as Black people. To act as though this is the case is actually to casually affirm the attitudes and ideas of white supremacy - and yes, it is possible for Black folk to do such a thing. When we see sin in people’s lives, it has nothing to do with the colour of their skin, but the state of their soul and the various factors internally and externally that affect that.
Wale: American White preachers exported false teaching into Africa, particularly Nigeria, and that’s why we now have “the export of charismatic chaos”, to borrow a phrase used by Pastor Conrad Mbewe in a blog article a few years ago. I have used the better part of the past three years to educate White British evangelicals not to racialise the prosperity gospel. because it was forced on us in Africa and we have only taken over what was given to us and are doing it better. There are now more prosperity gospel churches pastored by Africans across the world than those who taught us.
I know a chunky load of Black preachers who are very Biblically sound here in the UK, USA, and in Africa. Tears sometimes well in my eyes when I hear the question repeatedly and automatically raised about Black preachers, “Is he sound?”. I decided about four years ago not to come down hard on those who ask this question, but to try to help them not to ask such when there is no more need to ask it of a Black preacher than a White preacher. I very well have a clearer understanding of why they usually ask such: it is to guard their hearts against false teaching now that they are of the reformed persuasion. But it’s not a question that should be asked within the Christian church community. Never!
Ryan: Of course, you are not encouraging people to neglect discernment. Rather, you are addressing the casual partiality that is shown in our broad ecclesiological context - which I myself have witnessed - that asks little or nothing of White English preachers operating in our circles but is full of cynical questions of ethnic minorities, and most especially black and brown folk. Why would we recommend someone who is ‘unsound’? Why would I quote him if his ministry were not helpful, or recommend his book if it were not edifying? Why is the first question in your mind when you hear of a minority pastor one that implies the strong possibility of something negative? We are now not even commenting on matters of style or preference, because these people don’t even know enough about that to comment or criticise. This problem is not even with “Black preaching”, but “Black people preaching”.
Wale: Let me share a rather sad story to buttress this. A Black pastor friend of mine wanted me to come preach at the church where he was a co-elder with two White brothers. He had heard me speak a few times. After expressing an interest in me preaching at his church, he came back to me and said, “my co-elders would like to listen to a sermon you’ve preached before we could give you an invitation”. I looked at him straight in the face and said, “Dear Brother, you have listened to me preach a few times, tell your co-elders that”. He never came back to me and I never asked him about the invitation. I got the memo! Many of us who are Black preachers don’t regularly get preaching invitations to White-led churches because of this reason, which borders on “Black preachers are somehow inferior and are not sound.” I know that this is not something that is openly discussed among Black preachers, for fear of being tagged as “trouble-makers”, but it’s a big issue. Let me state however that there are a few White-led churches who’d invite us to come preach. Praise the Lord! I have just responded to a White-led church invitation to preach at their AM service before Christmas.
I beseech fellow Black evangelical reformed Christians to give Black preachers a chance to thrive in their God-given gift of preaching. And to my White church leaders: don’t feed on stereotypes. Grab coffee with us and kindly open your church doors to us because that’s the only way to know if we can preach or not. May the Lord build His church. Amen.
After a break, we will be back with more conversation next Tuesday, with ‘Wale exploring the unique experiential perspectives Black preachers can bring to the ministry, tokenism, stylistic and vocal uniqueness, and some recommended preachers and books.
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