Someone call the fire department: A brief exchange between two powerhouse pastors on the true origin of the Black Church
And an excerpt from Call & Response that you didn't see coming
This morning, I woke up to this on my Instagram feed:
A fifteen-second snippet of an exchange on a podcast between two storied pastors: Rev. E. Dewey Smith of the House of Hope in Atlanta, Georgia, and Dr. Frederick D. Haynes III of the Friendship West Baptist Church in Dallas.
Why did I want to call fire and rescue immediately? Because it would take someone like Dr. Haynes to leave Pastor Smith speechless and calling on the Lord. There was a figurative, yet spontaneous conflagration and near cardiac arrest.
Funny how the plain truth can have that effect.
What did he say… you really should see it for yourself.
If you’ve never experienced it before, this is the prophetic voice…and it’s the truth.
As I’ve been sharing behind the scenes thoughts, essays and content from the writing of Call & Response: 10 Leadership Lessons from the Black Church (Amistad Books, an imprint of HarperCollins/JVL Media, LLC), every once in a while (and usually on YouTube) some white commenters says, “But there is no Black Church. There is one church in the body of Christ. Stop saying this!”
The irony is that white supremacy created the Black Church through exclusion much like it did Historically Black Colleges & Universities (HBCUs) the “Divine 9” (Black sororities and fraternities) and just about every historically Black institution in the United States. Now that the Black Church is here, thriving and changing lives and communities, it’s a problem?
Some would argue, yes, exclusion is how it began, but there’s no need for that now—and then point to Obama as an indication of a new post-racial society.
Clearly, there continues to be a need for the cultural sanctuary that is the Black Church which it uniquely provides for our Black souls. We could start by pointing to the current administration and its policies in attempts to destroy all progress in Civil Rights made in our country over the past 60 years.
Here’s the excerpt from Call & Response that you didn’t see coming. This is from Chapter 8: Social Justice: A Legacy of Overcoming.
Did you know that only 32 percent of those Black leaders that I surveyed for Call & Response identified social justice as a leadership lesson they learned in the Black Church? I didn’t anticipate the number to be that low. It was literally No. 8 on the list of the top leadership lessons. So, you can imagine the confusion of some younger generations when they walk into churches and witness pastors like Smith and Haynes sharing these facts in their sermons. They are accustomed to more modern and multicultural church experiences where not a word is uttered about social issues. It’s jarring to them because many churches with Black pastors and majority Black congregations have begun to move away from it. Some never have embraced it.
The reality is that many “Black” churches have abandoned the one thing that sets the institution apart. It isn’t skin color, it’s culture. It is a tradition of the prophetic voice and of liberation theology, for seeking justice, wielding empathy and chasing fairness for everyone, something that every Black leader I spoke to said was central to their training from the institution. All of them saying it made a difference in how they lead others.
Call & Response issues a call that we need to get back to intentionally infusing leadership lessons like social justice into our church experiences so that we continue to bring up business leaders who know and advocate for fairness and also know by example how to call a thing a thing, speaking truth to power. The book also calls on leaders no matter their background, race or association or non-association with the church to build muscle in these crucial leadership areas—for better business leadership and leadership in general so that we can have a better society.
How will you respond?
Pastors E. Dewey Smith and Dr. F. D. Haynes have cameo appearances in Call & Response: 10 Leadership Lessons from the Black Church. It goes on presale this fall.