A Glimpse of the African-American Church: Classic

Say It: Celebrating Expository Preaching in the African American Tradition

Darrell Bock

Welcome to the table. We discuss issues of God and culture. I'm Darrell Bock, executive director for cultural engagement at Dallas Theological Seminary as well as Senior Research Professor of New Testament Studies here at Dallas. And as you can see, we are connected by Skype with Eric Redmond who is Associate Professor of Bible at Moody in downtown Chicago. Right?

Eric Redmond

Yes, I am.

Darrell Bock

Yeah. So it's a real privilege to have Eric. We've talked on numerous occasions about doing some stuff together. So this is kind of our first attempt at that. And I'm really pleased that Eric has found to do this. Eric not only teaches Bible at Moody, but he is working his way towards the release of a book that he's edited called, "Say It," celebrating expository preaching in the African-American tradition. And we're going to be talking about that some as well as just the black church in America in general. So with that, I'll ask my traditional first question; which is, how did a nice guy like you get into a gig like this?

Eric Redmond

[Laughs] Well it's so good to be on the program and just have this conversation with you. You know, in asking that I think about my beginnings with preaching. And when I was in Bible College, I didn't plan to go into preaching. In fact, I went to school for engineering before Bible College. And others recognized that I had a call to preach.

Darrell Bock

And so, you got – what – exhorted in? Would that be the way to say it or…?

Eric Redmond

It might be. It has to do with the African-American church tradition. When I went to explain to my pastor that I wanted to spend my life in ministry, vocational ministry service, my assistant pastor and then youth pastor both stopped me and said, "Pastor is not going to understand that language. Just tell him your call to preach." To which I replied, "I'm not called to preach." "Just tell him you're called to preach. Let him handle it." And that's what happened.

Darrell Bock

Okay. So that's a good starting point for thinking about the experience of the black church and how it kind of functions in America. What would you say – I mean, obviously to a broad audience – what would you say are kind of the distinctive's of the way in which the black church functions perhaps in contrast to the way, say, many Evangelical churches might function? And then obviously the similarities.

Eric Redmond

Some of the functions that are different more broadly is that there is a closer identification with ethnicity in our Gospel construct; meaning this – I was just looking at a flyer recently and how African-Americans of many different denominational stripes were in a conference together. And everyone there wouldn’t wear the label Evangelical. But we participate together because we recognize culturally we have so much in agreement. So that would be a major thing. And the other thing would be our emphasis on justice and hope. Not that those don't appear in Scripture, but just a social, cultural emphasis on that would be very unique for us.

Darrell Bock

So just to say it this way…the social context of being a church that's built around being a minority both culturally, ethnically, et cetera creates a space where people can function in the context of their own culture in a comfortable way and in a way that is affirming – mutually affirming – both in terms of their Christian walk and those features of life that are particular to living in a minority context. And so, you know, we read at the – in the center, we read materials about…well we're reading a book right now by Peter Berger called, "The Modern Altars of Modernity." And it's a sociological look at the impact of pluralism on religion. And one of the discussions is, "Well shouldn't the church be, you know, ethnically diverse, et cetera?" But one of the features that this book points out is, "The reason people tend to gather in their ethnic groups is because there is a closeness – in the case of minorities, there is a space where people can fully be who they are and be comfortable in that."

Eric Redmond

Yeah. I would say that is an accurate portrayal of what happens in the African-American church. So I can speak as one who grew up in African-American church, has served as a pastor to African-American church on staff and African-American churches – but also served in predominantly white settings even where I am on staff right now. And one of the things that my wife and I experience from time to time is just missing African-American Gospel music because of the familiarity we have with it, the comfort levels we have with it. And sometimes, being in a non-African-American context we also experience a level of discomfort when something happens; like the OJ Simpson trial or when Laquan McDonald, an African-American youth in Chicago, is shot here. And we have different cultural ways of looking at the experiences and the aftermath and our assessments of what's going on. The African-American church, like many ethnic minority churches, allows you to feel comfortable with what you're familiar with.

Darrell Bock

And so, the point being then that that's sometimes what's driving people gathering together because they get to function in the context of their spirituality in an environment that is reflective of their overall experience. And because the African-American experience in the United States is so distinct from the experience of many other groups – not just white groups, but other minorities as well – that…being able to give a Christian frame to that is important in terms of how a person develops.

Eric Redmond

I would agree. If I or anyone else consistently experiences a level of discomfort among fellow believers or maybe feels that we're just not understood at the majority of our time or that we have to downplay a portion of our identity – who we are within – in order to exist in another experience…after a while, that can become tiring for many people; whereas in your own ethnic, cultural environment – even your own economic environment or your own regional environment – you don't experience that need to work so hard to be something different.

Darrell Bock

Okay. That's the difference between what sociologists will call assimilation versus integration. Assimilation is, the minority assimilates or moves towards the majority culture in such a way that they actually end up suppressing some of who they are; whereas integration is actually the space to be more genuinely who you are.

Eric Redmond

Yeah. Yes. I would say yes on that one. We're wrestling with that at our current church right now. The way we talk about it is, "Are we a church that is welcoming of all people? Are we really a diverse church, or are we just multi-ethnic and the optics show us to be multi-ethnic? But when we come a layer lower and we have to talk about the things most important to us and things that have significance to us spiritually, can we bring in issues and matters of culture and still be united and loving?" So we're having those discussions. That's a good way to describe it.

Darrell Bock

So if I can just make a picture, there are two kinds of stew. [Laughs] One kind has each lump of group in its own square even though you're in the same pot, and the other actually is a much more integrated and much more mixed together. And you're always going to have a little bit of that mix because of the different perspectives. But how you do that and how you view, those differences become very, very important in how you negotiate that space.

Eric Redmond

And even how comfortable everyone is in that space when we're trying to navigate those issues. Part of our growing is just learning to navigate those things together so that each one of us is growing more and more comfortable with the things that initially caused discomfort.

Darrell Bock

Right. Yeah. And of course, that's the huge challenge both whether you're in a particular community or at large. You know, dealing with the nature of differences is part of the trick. Let me…I'm going to try and go at the other distinctive that you mentioned; the justice and hope angle. I'm going to try and go at it at a slightly different way than often times it gets discussed today by actually trying to approach it through the avenue of the history and the roots of black music. And there's a reason why I want to go there. I have a line that I like to use when people get uncomfortable when you start to talk about justice in relationship to race.

And my line goes, "Christianity predates Marxism by just a little bit." [Laughs] And so, when you think about this then emphasis on the Old Testament on justice – even the emphasis on the New Testament about how you deal with people who are different than you, the call to love your enemy, that kind of thing – there are themes that come out of the Bible that predate any of the ideological boxes that we tend to want to put them in today that feed into the way that Christians are supposed to interact. And the thing that fascinates me about African-American music is that these themes existed long before you had Marxism and Communism and all that kind of stuff. So can you elaborate on that a little bit in terms of what gets sung about and why it gets sung about and how far back that goes and all those kinds of things?

Eric Redmond

Oh, wow. How far back it goes? You need a much better historian. Even though I would say in my studies of black church history, if we go all the way back to the slave plantation and the times when the African slaves – now African-American – would go to the woods under a brush arbor, had their services there, have a ring shout music, the chanting, what later grew into becoming the Watch hymns – had already begun back then. It was a carry-over of much of the music.

And of course, having its roots there in the slavery culture where there was always a hope of being free, so much of the music has this hope of freedom, hope of deliverance, hope of redemption theme in it. It's also, though, going to have a lot of focus on how sorrowful life is and how God is a great healer, and He is the way-maker and the cheer and the joy that God brings. Because suffering was so tied to African-American experience that we just sung about it. So it wasn’t just something that was in Blues culture. Blues culture is first cousin of Gospel culture. It was just part of what characterizes the songs that we have sung and even sing to this day.

Darrell Bock

So what I'm thinking about is the way in which the music and the words almost reflect the emotion of the experience and the perspective of the experience. And talking about themes that, generally speaking – and this is generic remark, which can be dangerous, but still – deals with themes and issues generally-speaking that if you came over to the Christian music tradition of the predominantly white church, which is doctrinal and hymnic and staying for more propositions…it isn't that experience isn't there. But it's there in a different – through a different lens and through a different set of experiences. It strikes me how down-to-Earth – if I can say it that way – the black experience is expressed in this music and what it represents for the nature of the community and its identity. And its sense of identity.

Eric Redmond

Yes. So let's even think of some of our more contemporary singers' names that I think most of the listeners would be familiar with. When I think of music even by Fred Hammond – who originally broke away from the group with which he played so that he could focus more on praise and worship music…when you listen to Fred's music, so much of his music is characterized by, "I've had an experience of suffering. My heavenly Father is the one who is there for me." It has words about overcoming and difficulties that are laced in his music. And I would say the same for many other very well-known contemporary African-American Christian artists in a way that's not trying to do what our brothers and sisters of a different hue are trying to do and inlay out the doctrine we see in Nicene or Apostolic creed. That, according to song and the points of orthodox theology – using orthodoxy just for sound here – to lay that out in singing so that we're rehearsing doctrine in song. We're rehearsing a relationship with God and a God that's been there with us in our song. So again. That is what is Germaine to much of our music.

Darrell Bock

So it's – you know, I can make the analogy it's songs of experience. Which actually, the moment I say it that way makes me think of – that's what the psalter is. You know, the psalms are these – in many cases – these cries out to God in the midst of challenge or suffering or pain or lament. I mean, we even have a section of the psalter that are called…groups of songs that are called laments.

Eric Redmond

Yeah.

Darrell Bock

And so, the idea of singing your experience to God and engaging with him at the level of what you're going through has rich biblical roots. And I'll just repeat the observation I made earlier. I think the psalms were written a little earlier than any political ideologies that we talk about today. [Laughs]

Eric Redmond

I would say the same thing. I would say we never had to wrestle with – I the African-American tradition – whether or not it was okay to feel while you're in worship and to express feelings and for there to be emotions without emotionalism and for you to have a right, sensual experience with God without it being sensationalism or manipulation. Which you do have that, and you do have that, and you do have those extremes. But that was just so part and parcel of our experiences to express lament and wail and shouts and shouts of hope and joy that it didn't really come into question. It just became, "And if we're going to have a worship experience and have music that goes with this, this will be part of the music."

Darrell Bock

Okay. Now this actually brings up a second theme that I'd like to raise in a more generic sense before we turn to preaching in particular. Although it's going to be a bridge. You know, one of the things that I enjoy when I go and speak to an African-American church is that I don't have a monologue. I kind of have a dialogue with the audience. They are talking to me at the same time I am interacting with them. And I may be – I don't know if I'm like or unlike other whites who come in and preach in black churches. But usually when that happens, I'll engage and not just, you know, press on. Which I always find to be a really engaging way to connect with the audience and to be responsive to their – the way they're responding to me and the word that I'm presenting. You have any idea where that came from and, you know…? That's such a lively part of an African-American worship service.

Eric Redmond

So, Dr. Bock, you know this. There are multiple strands coming together to make that call and response happen going all the way back to fields where slaves sung together and there were songs where there was a leader and there would be affirming, to going back to the code and signaling that would take place so that a white master on the plantation could not understand what had been sung. But everyone else is saying, "Yes. We get you, song leader. You're coding to us." That there's much more going on, and escape is possible here." But then you add that we are an honor and shame a culture — and affirming is a big part of honoring. When you put all these strands in there together and you just bring the embodied person of that honor and shame – post-slave, great-great grandson or daughter of slaves into worship – you get people who affirm sermons also. And that's just been part of it. And so, it's a dialogue for us in which we're implicitly saying, "You do get that's what God is saying." And the audience says, "Yep. We absolutely agree that that's what God is saying. And you're doing a great job the way you're saying it, by the way."

Darrell Bock

Yeah. You tell me to go for it, and I say, "You ain't seen nothing yet." [Laughter] And so, yeah. It's a very interesting part and a very distinctive part in many ways of the difference of what happens in the context of the ministry of the word as people are ministering in a certain context. Let me talk about one element of this conversation that also is kind of working at the same time. A lot of the roots of this do go back to the periods of slave – you talked about speaking in code while you're in the fields. The humorous side of me says, "So this is your form of the book of Revelation." You know?

Eric Redmond

Yes. Apocalyptic.

Darrell Bock

Exactly right. And so, dealing with suffering. I mean, the book of Revelation is dealing with suffering. There's an element of theodicy to it. And so, some of this emotional response is out of a place that needs a theodicy – if I can say it that way – and that rests in a trust of God in the midst of suffering, et cetera. Now one of the things that someone might observe is say, "Well all that and all those roots – if they go back to the period of the slaves, et cetera – why is it continued in the post-slavery period?" And that may be a challenging question, but why do you think it's continued in a post-slavery period?"

Eric Redmond

Well I think a major theme or a major experience of African-Americans that continues to happen in American culture is the experience of injustice and suffering. And that creates or continues a need for African-Americans to dialogue in a way that we understand what we're talking about, and we can affirm and say, "We're distant from the experience. That experience we're having outside of the church is not who we are. We are more than that. We have human dignity. And we affirm." And then, we want to talk about what's going on in culture without explicitly saying, "And, you know, we're really angry about that," or, "We don't like that," or, "You are in that way."

And so, when you leave slavery you get Jim Crow. And when you leave Jim Crow, you get the Civil Rights Era. And then you get the post-Civil Rights Era where…you know, the injustices are not so overtly discriminatory or racial. But they still – they are still there. And so, it still continues as part of our experience. Let me add this really quick. It's also part of our experience because we never want to forget where we came from and don't want to end up back in a situation like that; which also — if I could beat you to the punch this time, Dr. Bock — sounds like the end of the historical books.

Darrell Bock

Mm-hmm. Yes. Good. One other theme and then we'll transition to the preaching directly. You mentioned the honor and shame culture. And something I often hear out of the African-American community in general is this – I'm not quite sure how to cast the description – but this…I don't know if it's a plea, a demand or a recognition for respect which comes with the idea of honoring someone and accepting them for who they are and being willing to accept them as they are.

Those kinds of things. I take it those two things are connected; that the honor and shame culture which drives the African-American community in this constant conversation to the outside groups of, "We want respect. We want – this is important to us in terms of who we are. This is part of the affirmation of who we are as human beings made in the image of God," et cetera – that that's a very important connection that may or may not be as explicitly present in other cultures, because the struggle for that recognition hasn't been as great as it has been the African-American community.

Eric Redmond

Yeah. So again. There are multiple layers here. And the last part is very important; in which, you said in other communities having respect in society has not been something for which that group has had to struggle or had to demand. It has that in a general sense. It has that respect. It's in positions of authority and of power. It's in positions where there is equity or par financially to… even some mindsets to look at that people in that culture is to think, "Those persons are better." And we know the old sociological exams, they used to show that. Used to put up a white face, and, "What do you think here?" And black face, "What do you think here?"

And it would have higher words for the white or even a lighter-skin face. But also, let's just think about what's happened in African-American history. You have somebody like an Emmet Till who's accused of whistling at a white lady. And he loses his life in a horrible way over it. Well, African-American culture was taught, "Look. When you're dealing with the other culture, you have to be super respectful." And so, there's a sense in which we've raised our families to be respectful of that culture. But we're not going to have less respect in our own culture. We're certainly going to respect one another in our culture, and it just so happened that because the African-American preacher used to be one of the most educated people in the community, he got the highest respect and he spoke for God. He got higher respect.

But then, we look at the other culture and how we're being treated and said, "Hey. This shouldn't go one way. You guys should respect us as people here." And so, we're not begging anymore. You know that by the fact that African-American culture more than any other culture has said, "Look. We'll have our own TV shows. Thank you. We'll have our own schools. Thank you. We'll have our own products. Thank you. If you won't respect us, we'll just go over here." But the call to society is constantly recognize us as people made in the image of God, people who deserve dignity.

Darrell Bock

Okay. Now there's one – I said that…I lied that that was going to be my last question, sir. 'Cause I thought of another one. [Laughs] And we get to lie on occasion on this show. So I did think of one more, and that is the role of the pastor in the church as a combination pastor and community leader is certainly more commonly the case that the pastor in a black church is going to have a foot in each of those spaces; whereas sometimes it is the case, more often is not, that a pastor in a white church doesn't have that scope of perceived cultural responsibility in the leadership role that they possess. One, is that observation true in your judgement? And secondly, if it is, why is that so?

Eric Redmond

That observation is so true, even right now in Chicago. We're having attorney General candidates for the state. They are running for office, and a group of African-American pastors in the city just gathered and backed the African-American state's attorney. Which is a big deal. That's like saying, "Okay. The entire African-American community is behind you here, because the pastors have come here." And we're not going to see a coalition of non-African-American pastors go and back the other candidate. That's just not something that we're going to see. And this would be common all across the United States.

So the “why?" behind it – let's just think about what is and what isn't in the African-American community in comparison to other communities. Bonner, Poll – Gallup Polls will tell you African-Americans are more religious as an ethnic group than any other group in the country. By far, percentage-wise there are more of us in church here. It is the center or the hub of much of African-American life. It's where the strength is, and it's the wealthiest entity in the African-American community. And historically when institutions are power-players and are places that make politicians stand up, you continue in that vein and that's the African-American church. We don't have – we don't own big corporations here. Our universities are not considered to have the power that many predominant cultured universities are considered. But the church is. and so, the head of the church – the pastors – then become very important power players and representatives for the African-American community. A voice for us. And that's been so historically.

Darrell Bock

Interesting. Okay. So we've kind of done the background of African-American church, at least, in a way that might introduce some distinctives of the African-American experience. Let's turn our attention now to preaching. And I like the book title, "Say It!: Expository Preaching in the African-American Tradition,” celebrating expository preaching in the African-American tradition. Which implies, if I'm reading it carefully, that there are aspects of preaching – the way preaching is done in the African-American tradition in the African-American communities that are worth celebrating in part because they are distinctive.

Eric Redmond

Absolutely. You are reading that correctly here. But that seems like we're leading somewhere. So ask me the next thing.

Darrell Bock

Okay. [Laughs] Well my question is – so what is distinctive about that, and what is…what are the distinctive parts of what you're celebrating? But the other half of that question's important too; which is, what is it that expository preaching in the African-American tradition shares with the larger church that allows us to connect across – and this is an important theme in light of everything that we've been discussing up to this point – that allows us to connect with the rest of the church in ways that lies a foundation or having a sense of a larger unity in the midst of our diversity.

Eric Redmond

That is a great question here. So let's talk African-American tradition so we can put that on the table. When we speak of the African-American tradition and the African-American church, we're talking about a specific style of worship – a worship that is characterized by much expression by African-American music that would be home in a predominantly African-American church. Largely we're speaking in Baptistic and Methodist traditions, and that the preaching is characterized by your call and response, your themes of justice and hope.

Stylistically it looks very different than other types of preaching. Well some have thought either, A, that cannot be wed with what we're going to identify as exposition in just a minute; or B, if you do wed them together, what's going to happen to the African-American preacher I that his preaching is going to be quote-unquote "white," which is like the label that you just do not want to have for African-American preaching. So exposition is simply explaining the text and is doing it based on the author's idea indicated by the terms and the text, the theology of the text and the structure of the text. Those unified to say, the author is talking about something.

Darrell Bock

You're preaching the message.

Eric Redmond

Yeah. Yeah. And our job is to explain that. Now the characterization from the outside is that African-American preaching in the tradition does not do that – which is not necessarily so. What we're saying is, you can have the best of African-American culture, style and rhetoric and it can and does explain the text. And that's not unique experience. What I just – that I'm just blessed to be able to pull people together who are representative of that, but there is so many more people I could've included so that we understand it's both possible and is being done and is rich – even richer when it's combined in the tradition.

Darrell Bock

Now I'm going to go in two directions. So I'm just signaling to you that there's going to be a follow-up to this no matter what. Let's talk about the service in the African-American church first in the context and which the preaching happens. I think a normal question might be – particularly for someone who isn't familiar with the African-American church – is the service like or unlike the service I might walk into if I weren't in an African-American church in terms of length, in terms of structure, the amount of singing, that kind of thing…? What could one expect, or is there – are there a variety of ways that happens? What's the context for the preaching in the church?

Eric Redmond

There are varieties or ways it can happen. But you will have – if I could say – in a different sort of way, the music will be a setup for the preaching. You might have a special hymn or song that takes place to bring people's emotions and attention to a place that it is easier for the preacher to connect. We say…instead of the preacher having to preach uphill, [laughs] the preacher has an environment that is ripe with the help of the music and all else that has happened for him to communicate the truth of God's word. But you can expect to talk back and to express their emotions while going on. You can, in a traditional church, expect there to be grand celebration and much more musical intonation involved in the preaching. And that might not be something you've experienced in other cultures. So it's something to be expected and to be enjoyed and welcomed.

Darrell Bock

So length of service. This isn’t the second track, but length of service. I mean, in the average church in the states I think in white communities, your service is going to run from an hour to maybe 75 minutes long. Is that a short, "Reader’s Digest” version of black church, or is that about the same kind of length? Or again, does it depend?

Eric Redmond

It does depend. It depends regionally, and in the modern area it depends on this. If you're an African-American church that's running multiple services, you have to do the same thing as any other multi-service church. Between services, you've got to clear that parking lot so the next group of people can get in. You've got to switch the children's workers and the children that were in the first hour versus second hour…where does the teens go? Where – the middle-schoolers and high-schoolers to switch – whatever you want to call it. Community groups, Sunday school class. And all that goes on. And to do that, you have to have a system.

And the system means that, "Preacher, you don't get to preach 50 minutes. Because the children can't stay in children's church that long, and the workers don't know what to do with them. And you're backing up the parking lot." [Laughs] So this service has to be 75, 80 minutes long. Done. Clear the vestibule, clear the sanctuary. Next group comes in, and we go to the next service and/or the third service or the fourth service and the fifth service. So in some places, it's going to be timed out and programmed like that with people who are experts in managing that. But in other places regionally, it may just be, "Hey. We have one service, and we're carrying on the traditional time that we've had for more than 60, 70, even 100 years in some cases. And this is going to be a good two-and-a-half, three-hour experience here." Everyone there is going to be fine with it.

Darrell Bock

That's an interesting range. And I find that common in churches, particularly churches that are built around a minority presence because there is an intense fellowship element and mutual support element that builds around the service that's a part of that community because this is the one time of the week where they can gather together and be themselves.

Eric Redmond

Yeah. So let's explore that for just a hot second, Dr. Bock. So I'm going to give shop talk that doesn’t normally come outside of our community. But some people in the African-American church will actually say what you just said. "This is the one place we get to be ourselves. So if we spend six days a week or five in the majority of culture, we get to be ourselves and they'll just add." And without them…them meaning the majority culture. And the intent is not to have a racist statement. It's just to say, "Boy. We had to so just change who we are and conform to something else those days. Here? Ah. I can just let my hair down. I'm just me. You understand what I'm saying. I don't need to explain myself. Right?" "Right. You don't need to explain yourself." "And, you know, we share these experiences. Right?" "Right." "Okay. Good." All right. Back to Monday.

Darrell Bock

[Laughs] Yeah. Exactly. Okay. So here's my second half of the question when we started down this track; which is, so despite the differences of the experience and the different distinctives of practice and maybe the different distinctives of emphasis…so maybe in the different distinctives of feel because of the nature of that experience. What allows for the bridge that builds across the church so that, on the one hand we can celebrate differences that exist among us because we have different experiences on the one hand and yet affirm and make an effort to connect at the level of the unity that ultimately the scripture calls us to possess?

Eric Redmond

So no one culture has claim on scripture to itself. That's just a fact. God is Lord over all cultures. And he is the one who's breathed into the Word of God. He's breathed the Word of God from His own mouth. So He's the owner. There's no cultural ownership of the Word of God. So when we go and we're doing exposition – since that's what we're talking about – the labor for any group to discern what God's voice is in the text, what this text means and explain it – is a common labor of grace for anybody that's marked out and identified with Christ. On that way, we're all striving by grace for the same.

God, we want to honor you by communicating what you have said so that the people that we're called to serve and to shepherd, to love can be obedient to you. That transcends culture. I want to be obedient, whatever ethnic group I am, wherever I am living in the world. If Christ has called me to salvation, we want to be obedient. Well that unites us. Now how do I express that when I come into a place that is unfamiliar to me? Doesn’t have to be just ethnically, but that's what we're talking about here. How do I love the people differently than me, respect what is going on there and yet not lose who I am in my identification? Well I don't bring all illustrations and stories and examples and applications from something that would only apply to my region, my type of family, my economic status, my place…give me a second here, Dr. Bock.

So one time, a pastor at my current church gave an example of taking his family's boat out [laughs] one time when he was a young child. Now even most people in our middle-class congregation couldn’t identify with the experience of taking the family boat out. But I would never take that illustration to a place where, one, people don't boat and, two, they can't afford boats. I wouldn't do that. That would be so unkind, and it wouldn’t connect in there. So I have to be sensitive to those while saying, “Hey, let me just admit. You know, I'm a little bit different here. And I can learn from you in this experience. But we're all striving for the same thing. We're trying to proclaim the Gospel."

Darrell Bock

And in the midst of proclaiming the Gospel, there is someone pretty significant that we share. And that's our Lord.

Eric Redmond

Amen.

Darrell Bock

And in the midst of that, we know that he calls to all levels of people. You know, he speaks to people who are socially prominent, who are wealthy, et cetera. He speaks to people who are in the fringes or on the edges. He speaks to people in between. We think of the vision in heaven. This is the thing that keeps me rolling on this topic. I think about what heaven's going to be when all tribes and all nations are going to be gathered together.

Eric Redmond

Yes.

Darrell Bock

We're all going to be proclaiming the name of the Lord together side-by-side, locking arms, raising hands together, et cetera and realizing that the differences that God has made us with is a very important part of that story that needs – to the extent that those differences aren't allowed to come between us, needs affirmation for the way God made all of us and how sometimes those differences can teach us about blind spots that we ourselves have.

Eric Redmond

They do teach us about that. And again. I would say that trans-culturally believers are driven by that vision that we see in the end in glory where we are praising God in Revelation 5:9-10 because he has redeemed us from every tribe. And we're recognizing there's a tribe thing there from every language. And we're recognizing the differences there from all lands. We're recognizing that the ethne or the gentile. And it consists of people from all places around the world. And so, we share that vision and we identify around that. I think that's so very significant to us maintaining the unity of the body and not letting culture come to the level of the Gospel.

Darrell Bock

Mm-hmm. Yeah. and the way I like to say it is, you know, you don't appreciate what reconciliation is until you understand the differences that have been reconciled in Christ. And, you know, without that – if you try and make everybody the same and kind of wash it all out, then you actually undercut the work of God that's been done to bring these different people together into one place; whereas when before they were estranged, now they're actually walking side-by-side and sharing something together.

Eric Redmond

Yes. God has done a beautiful work in bringing people of all walks of life together. And this is something that you see. And so, working exposition one time through Romans 16, I saw this in Paul's greeting to the church of Rome how Paul emphasized both spiritual identity and social identity for all the people he's greeting and recognizing, "You know, the social identity – Erastus the treasurer here, she was a mother to me." He will say, "Those things matter, and they're a part of the redemptive story. And to minimize that or only say, "Well we're color blind" – "Yes, in one sense. But in another sense, no. We're not." To minimize it would be not to recognize part of what God is doing in redemption.

Darrell Bock

Yeah. And you see that in portions of scripture where people have different cultural practices about how they walk with God. And Paul says, "Man. If that's not a first-level problem, then don't fight over it. Let everybody do what's right in their own conscious."

Eric Redmond

That's right. And continue to love one another, that emphasis that is in all throughout the New Testament; that love is the trunk in there, the affected way we're displaying the Gospel. And love will help us figure out how to navigate those second-tier issues as we were saying.

Darrell Bock

Yeah. Well, Eric, our time is winding down here. I just want to thank you for kind of giving us this glimpse. You know, as I said. We've shared personally, privately about wanting to do stuff together, communicating and trying to kind of show and model the kind of conversation and bridges that are possible between communities within the Lord. And I think you've helped us with that, so I really do appreciate you taking the time to share and really gifting us with a sense of perspective about what a different experience might be for some people. Of course, other people are listening who are at African-American church who go, "Yeah. That's exactly what I understand. That's what I go through." But that can help us, I think, work towards both the appreciation of what is distinctive on the one hand, and yet the affirmation of what unites us on the other.

Eric Redmond

Well thank you so much for creating a safe and a very courageous space. Let me just say that again, Dr. Bock. Very courageous of you to entertain issues like this. All sorts of cultural issues that you do on the table. It's an outstanding broadcast, and I appreciate your sensitivity to the entire body and the willingness to discuss things that sometimes are difficult to even discuss in the classroom and in our churches and to do it in a way that tries to consider the entire body of Christ. Thank you so much for that.

Darrell Bock

Oh. Well you're welcome, and the privilege is mine. 'Cause I really feel that the gift is coming from you in terms of helping someone like me to understand a world that I didn't grow up in, that I didn't experience but that I know many people do. And so, that ability to build that bridge requires the people be willing to speak up and share their perspective – sometimes at great risk. So I do appreciate that very, very much.

Eric Redmond

Good. So in the last few seconds here, let me just say to you, Dr. Bock, I am waiting for you when you get your hands on the book to say, “Hey, you know, this book raised some interesting questions right here." And I hope your listeners will also enjoy thinking about those questions too.

Darrell Bock

Well I fully anticipate that anyone who picks this up will have things where they'll go, "Oh. I've never thought about that before. [Laughs] And that's interesting. And, boy, that's a different angle," et cetera. And the possibility of open that up is something we're looking forward to. Thanks again, Eric, for being a part of the show. We really do appreciate it.

Eric Redmond

Thank you. God bless you.

Darrell Bock

Yeah. And we want to thank you for joining us on the table. And if you have a topic that you'd like for us to consider for a future episode, please E-mail us at [email protected]. That's [email protected]. We take those requests seriously. We figure out, "All right. Is this a workable topic? And who should be the expert who helps us think our way through this?" And then we go after it. So we're looking to your feedback. We appreciate you being a part of the show, and we look forward to seeing you again soon.