NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)—An African American Advisory Council has been created to communicate the perspectives of black churches and their leaders to Southern Baptist Convention entity leaders, Executive Committee President Frank S. Page has announced.
“Part of the work of the Executive Committee is ... to provide quality connections and relationships,” Page said in a statement to SBC LIFE, journal of the Executive Committee. “I am very excited about working with the members of this council, which includes Dr. Ken Weathersby who is helping with all of our ethnic groups in raising awareness and involvement of our ethnic brothers and sisters in Cooperative Program promotion and development.”
Weathersby is the North American Mission Board’s presidential ambassador for ethnic church relations.
The African American Advisory Council will be a three-year initiative (2012-2015) established by Page, as EC president, and Kevin Ezell, as NAMB president, in an ongoing effort, as SBC LIFE described it, “to engage the many faces of the SBC in meaningful dialogue about working together as full and equal partners in the harvest.”
Page first noted the council’s formation in addressing the Executive Committee’s Cooperative Program Subcommittee on Feb. 20. Last September, Page announced the creation of a Hispanic Advisory Council, which held its inaugural meeting in early February in Fort Worth, Texas. Other ethnically-oriented advisory groups may be named as deemed appropriate.
Among the African American Advisory Council’s chief aims is to help the EC, NAMB and other SBC entity heads understand the perspectives that African American Southern Baptists bring to the common task of reaching the United States and the nations with the Gospel.
“The council is representative of the regions of the country and reflects the cultural diversity of the African American population,” SBC LIFE reported. “Its purpose is consultation, communication and cooperation. It will neither launch nor execute ministries. It will provide information, insight and counsel through NAMB and EC staff to the broader Southern Baptist community relative to the special needs and concerns of African American churches and church leaders in the Southern Baptist family of churches.”
The council will use surveys, phone conferences, Internet communication, personal meetings and other means to gather and communicate information from consultative African American groups and leaders. Among those with whom it will communicate are key African American pastors and laymen; the National African American
Fellowship, SBC; the Black Southern Baptist Denominational Servants Network; the Black Church Leadership Network; and African American leaders serving in elected roles in state Baptist conventions and on state Baptist convention staffs.
“... [T]he council will enable the presidents and staff of the EC and NAMB to maintain vital contact with the African American Baptist family through participation in strategic meetings and personal conferences,” SBC LIFE reported. “One of the council’s goals is more fully to incorporate African American Baptist churches and church leaders into the total fabric of Southern Baptist life and ministry.”
The council will be chaired by K. Marshall Williams, pastor of Nazarene Baptist Church in Philadelphia, Pa.
Also serving on the council, in addition to Ken Weatersby, will be:
Roscoe Belton of Middlebelt Baptist Church, Inkster, Mich.
Chandra Bennett, Greater Grace Temple Community Church, Nashville, Tenn.
Mark Croston, East End Baptist Church, Suffolk, Va.
James Dixon, El Bethel Baptist Church, Fort Washington, Md.
Leroy Fountain, Philadelphia Baptist Church, Lithonia, Ga.
Mark Hammond, Village Baptist Church, Norwalk, Calif.
Kim Hardy, Connections Community Church, Ypsilanti, Mich.
Keith Jefferson, Parkway Baptist Church, Moseley, Va.
Dennis Mitchell, Greenforest Community Baptist Church, Decatur, Ga.
Marvin Parker, Broadview Baptist Church, Broadview, Ill.
Kevin Smith, Watson Memorial Baptist Church, Louisville, Ky.
Bucas Sterling III, Kettering Baptist Church, Upper Marlboro, Md.
Terry Turner, Mesquite Friendship Baptist Church, Mesquite, Texas.
Alton B. Vines, New Seasons Church, Spring Valley, Calif.
Frank Williams, Bronx Baptist Church, Bronx, N.Y.
Friday, March 30, 2012
Point of View: Trayvon Martin, Race, and the Gospel
Racial tensions continue to rise just as I prepare to go to New York next week to talk with Anthony Bradley and Tim Keller about race and the Christian. I watched a video on Wednesday of an African American pastor who said that recently he was denied service at a convenience store. The woman behind the counter said, “We don’t serve your kind.” That’s 2012 not 1962.
From Miami to New York to the Twin Cities frustration over the Trayvon Martin case grows. Seventeen year old Martin was killed on February 26 in Sanford, Florida by George Zimmerman. Martin was black. Zimmerman is Hispanic.
Zimmerman was a volunteer neighborhood watchman in a gated community, armed with a semiautomatic handgun. Martin was unarmed. Zimmerman claims self-defense.
What has enflamed this situation are the pieces that simply don’t add up. Zimmerman is a hundred pounds bigger and ten years older. He had the gun, not Martin. Reportedly he has been arrested before on assault charges. As he was following Martin in his truck, he called 911 and was told “we don’t need you to do that.” The police were on the way. But Zimmerman followed him anyway. His comments on the 911 recording (I listened to them) suggested possible racial frustration that “they always get away.” Martin’s call to his girlfriend suggested he was troubled by being followed. Not all the witnesses corroborate Zimmerman’s story.
In spite of all this, Zimmerman was never arrested, and is now in hiding. He was not routinely tested for toxicity. And there appears to have been little effort to discern if his self-defense claim is valid. The author of the stand-your-ground self-defense law in Florida said that the law was never meant to cover a situation where the assailant is being followed.
In the context, this probably refers to persecuted fellow Christians. But notice the nature of the argument: You also are in the body. The appeal is to heartfelt empathy with the mistreated, because you have a body!
Not a white body. Not a black body. Just a human body. This is a cry for Christian whites and blacks and Asians and Latinos to feel the human flesh on their faith in Jesus. Trayvon’s flesh. His dad’s flesh. George’s flesh. His dad’s flesh. That kind of getting in their flesh will yield a long night’s groaning.
Jesus died for sinners to forgive sins through faith. He died to reconcile sinners to God. That’s all of us — all who receive Jesus as the stunning treasure he is. Stunning because “You were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every people” (Revelation 5:9). Every people. At the cost of being slain.
Jesus died and rose again to say no to racial reactions that result in dead boys. Not just to say no. But to empower no. And the power is not in shedding others’ blood but his own. The power is in humbling every race to be more suspicious of our own racial instincts than we are of others’ racial intentions.
Being a Christian means being crucified with Christ. My old arrogant self. My old ethnocentric self. My old fearful, suspicious, unloving self. That self died with Jesus. Jesus said, “Take up your cross daily.” That means daily reckoning my old self dead.
O what a difference it would have made if George Zimmerman had thought: “I have a gun. For Christ’s sake — for the sake of love — I better not follow this young man. I might wind up using it. Law enforcement is on the way. I have done my duty. Lord, I pray that this man will be treated with respect, and that justice will be done, and that your name will be great in this place.”
Evidently that was not his prayer. Now we face the consequences. What are you praying?
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Zimmerman was a volunteer neighborhood watchman in a gated community, armed with a semiautomatic handgun. Martin was unarmed. Zimmerman claims self-defense.
What has enflamed this situation are the pieces that simply don’t add up. Zimmerman is a hundred pounds bigger and ten years older. He had the gun, not Martin. Reportedly he has been arrested before on assault charges. As he was following Martin in his truck, he called 911 and was told “we don’t need you to do that.” The police were on the way. But Zimmerman followed him anyway. His comments on the 911 recording (I listened to them) suggested possible racial frustration that “they always get away.” Martin’s call to his girlfriend suggested he was troubled by being followed. Not all the witnesses corroborate Zimmerman’s story.
In spite of all this, Zimmerman was never arrested, and is now in hiding. He was not routinely tested for toxicity. And there appears to have been little effort to discern if his self-defense claim is valid. The author of the stand-your-ground self-defense law in Florida said that the law was never meant to cover a situation where the assailant is being followed.
How Christians Should Think
Of the dozens of things that Christians need to be thinking and saying about this, some are awakened by what the Bible says in Hebrews 13:3, “Remember those who . . . are mistreated, since you also are in the body.”In the context, this probably refers to persecuted fellow Christians. But notice the nature of the argument: You also are in the body. The appeal is to heartfelt empathy with the mistreated, because you have a body!
Not a white body. Not a black body. Just a human body. This is a cry for Christian whites and blacks and Asians and Latinos to feel the human flesh on their faith in Jesus. Trayvon’s flesh. His dad’s flesh. George’s flesh. His dad’s flesh. That kind of getting in their flesh will yield a long night’s groaning.
Jesus died for sinners to forgive sins through faith. He died to reconcile sinners to God. That’s all of us — all who receive Jesus as the stunning treasure he is. Stunning because “You were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every people” (Revelation 5:9). Every people. At the cost of being slain.
Jesus died and rose again to say no to racial reactions that result in dead boys. Not just to say no. But to empower no. And the power is not in shedding others’ blood but his own. The power is in humbling every race to be more suspicious of our own racial instincts than we are of others’ racial intentions.
Being a Christian means being crucified with Christ. My old arrogant self. My old ethnocentric self. My old fearful, suspicious, unloving self. That self died with Jesus. Jesus said, “Take up your cross daily.” That means daily reckoning my old self dead.
In Love and for Love
Jesus died in love and for love. Love bears all things, hopes all things, believes all things, endures all things. It’s not gullible. But it would rather be gullible than guilty of murder. Jesus-like love — Jesus-empowered love — would rather be shamed than shoot.O what a difference it would have made if George Zimmerman had thought: “I have a gun. For Christ’s sake — for the sake of love — I better not follow this young man. I might wind up using it. Law enforcement is on the way. I have done my duty. Lord, I pray that this man will be treated with respect, and that justice will be done, and that your name will be great in this place.”
Evidently that was not his prayer. Now we face the consequences. What are you praying?
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