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Part 1: A Biblical Look at Oneness
Broken Liberty (Bell)
In a city known for brotherly love, the Liberty Bell’s compound fracture proclaimed otherwise. The jagged divide up the side of the symbol for equality and liberty could not be any more profound in its revelation of dualistic realities. There is a gap in the Liberty Bell, a missing point of connection preventing it from ringing clearly with the smooth tones of a complete union—of oneness.
Like the problem with the bell, a compound fracture has zigzagged through the body of Christ, keeping us largely divided along racial and class lines.
Authentic oneness comes as an outgrowth of shared lives, not simply through a cross-cultural experience here or there.
Bridging the Divide
The kingdom agenda is the visible manifestation of the comprehensive rule of God over every area of life. One of the elements of God’s rule and His “business” is His heart for oneness, also known as unity. Unity can be defined in its simplest of terms as oneness of purpose. It is working together in harmony toward a shared vision and goal. Unity is not uniformity, nor is it sameness. Just as the Godhead is made up of three distinct Persons—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit—each unique in personhood and yet at the same time one in essence, unity reflects a oneness that does not negate individuality.
Unity occurs when we combine our unique differences together as we head toward a common goal.
The church is the only authentic cross-racial, cross-cultural, and cross-generational basis for oneness in existence. Satan spends most of his time trying to divide us in the body of Christ. Why? Because he knows that God’s power and glory are both accessed and magnified through unity.
Biblical Models of Oneness
In meeting a Samaritan woman at a water well, Jesus didn’t let His history, culture, race, and background get in the way of ministering to a woman who had a spiritual need and who would meet him on common ground. Likewise, Jesus allowed the woman to retain her history, culture, and experiences as a Samaritan. One of our problems today is that we have not allowed the freedom for healthy integration in a context of mutual diversification.
God intended there to be differences. God has people from every background, group, and demographic representing His kingdom. Acknowledging and embracing our differences in a context of oneness more accurately reflects the kingdom of heaven than any other thing.
Jesus could turn anything into an illustration. What He did is take the simple conversation about a drink and turn it into an evangelistic opportunity. In His willingness to drink from her cup, He gained an opportunity to witness to her soul. Don’t miss that. If He had not been willing to engage her socially, He would not have had the opportunity to talk to her spiritually.
Jesus refused to allow culture to interfere with His higher priority of representing God’s truth.
Just as it was in Samaria, oneness across racial lines is the greatest evangelistic teaser to the presentation of the gospel that we could ever broadcast both locally and abroad. When we are one, we will overcome. When we are not one, we will be overrun.
Taking Sides or Taking Over
Jesus said, “By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35).
Disunity and separatism have been etched between cultures in our nation over generations. Something so intrinsically imbedded in the social, psychological, and spiritual structures of our land can only be mended through a willful and active compliance on the part of those who have been strategically placed in our culture today to bring about authentic and lasting transformation—the body of Christ.
As Martin Luther King Jr. penned in his last book, Where Do We Go from Here, “Whites, it must frankly be said, are not putting in a mass effort to re-educate themselves out of their racial ignorance.… [They] believe they have so little to learn.” Evans goes on to say, “But I would argue that we all have something to learn, about each other and ourselves.”
Part 2: A Historical View of the Black Church
The Myth of Black Inferiority
Acceptance of the myth that African-Americans are inferior to Anglos has had catastrophic consequences for the psyche of black people, the worldview of white people, and harmony among the races. Worst of all, it has hindered the church from being salt and light in America.
Dr. William Banks, author of The Black Church in the United States, describes how traders rationalized their actions through religious purposes, “The Portuguese and Spanish were the first Europeans to deal in the black slave trade. Rationalizing that it was God’s will to bring black heathens into contact with Christianity, even if it meant a lifetime of enforced servitude, their ships carried slaves to labor in the Caribbean colonies as early as 1517. With the approval of their governments and the Roman Catholic Church, the sellers of flesh maintained that ‘christianized’ slaves were better off than free heathens.”
Because Ham was the father of black people, and because his descendants were cursed to be slaves because of his sin against Noah, some Christians said, “Africans and their descendants are destined to be servants, and should accept their status as slaves in fulfillment of biblical prophecy.” The curse of Ham theory created a myth of inferiority with apparent biblical roots.
Never mind, of course, that the Bible says that Canaan, Ham’s son, was cursed, not Ham himself. Thus, only one of Ham’s four sons, not all four, was cursed. How then could all black people everywhere be cursed? Never mind that the Bible places limitations on curses—only three or four generations at most (Exodus 20:5).
Because the myth of inferiority needed as much theological support as possible to make it stick, some Christians turned to the New Testament to corroborate the Old Testament verses on masters and slaves. They quoted biblical passages on slaves submitting to their masters (e.g., Ephesians 6:5–8; Colossians 3:22) to contemporize the myth to the economic framework of the New World.
If Christian whites had devoted the same energy toward protecting the rights of the newborn slave because of his or her value before God that they have devoted toward protecting the unborn baby today, the church would have set a standard that most certainly would have changed race relations in America.
The Black Presence in the Bible
The Rev. Walter McCray, author of The Black Presence in the Bible, wrote, “The preponderance of contemporary evidence being gathered by archaeologists and ancient historians says that Africa (in Egypt’s Nile Valley) was the origination of humanity and civilization. It was from here that humanity, an indigenous ‘black’ humanity, had its beginnings. The preponderance of archaeological and historical facts say that the roots of all people are in Africa!—Egypt, Africa.”
Influential Blacks in the Bible: Noah’s son Ham had four sons: Cush, Mizraim, Put, and Canaan. Cush was the progenitor of the Ethiopian people. This is validated by the fact that the names Cush and Ethiopia are used interchangeably in the Scriptures (Genesis 2:13; 10:6). Mizraim was the progenitor of the Egyptian people, who are understood in Scripture to have been a Hamitic people, and thus African (Psalm 78:51; 105:23, 26–27; 106:21–22). Put was the progenitor of Libya, and Canaan was the progenitor of the Canaanites, one of the most problematic foes of God’s chosen people, the Israelites.
Joseph’s wife, an Egyptian woman (Genesis 41:45, 50–52), was the mother of Manasseh and Ephraim, who later became leaders of Jewish tribes. In fact, the tribe of Ephraim produced one of the greatest leaders Israel ever had—Moses’ successor, Joshua (Numbers 13:8; 1 Chronicles 7:22–27). This Jewish-African link is very strong in Scripture. The prophet Amos said, “‘Are you not as the sons of Ethiopia to Me, O sons of Israel?’ declares the Lord” (Amos 9:7).
Caleb was the son of Jephunneh the Kennizzite, who were a part of the Canaanite tribes (Genesis 15:19) and descendants of Ham. Caleb also came from the tribe of Judah (Joshua 14:6, 14). Judah, the progenitor of the tribe, fathered twin sons by Tamar, a Hamitic woman (Genesis 38). Caleb joined with Joshua as one of the two spies who went to explore Canaan and brought back a positive report to enter the land and take possession of it, as God had declared (Numbers 13–14).
Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, from whom Moses received the greatest single piece of advice regarding national leadership, ministry organization, political strategy, and personal planning (Exodus 18:13–27) ever recorded, was a Kenite (Judges 1:16), part of the Canaanite tribes (Genesis 15:19) who descended from Ham. At that time, the Kenites had settled in the land of Midian.
King David is known not only as a man after God’s own heart (1 Samuel 13:14) but as one of the greatest kings in Israel’s history. David’s great-grandmother was a Canaanite woman, Rahab, who is also listed in the Hall of Faith (Hebrews 11:31). David’s grandmother was Ruth, a Moabite, from a people who were Canaanites as well. David, one of the heroes of the faith, hailed from mixed Jewish and Hamitic ancestry and stands as a leader of whom blacks can call their own.
Solomon was David’s son with Bathsheba, a Hamitic woman. Bathsheba literally means the daughter of Sheba. The Table of Nations identifies Sheba in the line of Ham, making Sheba a descendant from an African nation (Genesis 10:7).
The scriptural account of the Ethiopian official is significant for two reasons. First, it acknowledges the existence of a kingdom of dark-skinned peoples at the time of first-century Christianity. Second, it records the continuation of Christianity in Africa after having been initiated through the first African-Jewish proselytes who were converts at Pentecost (Acts 2:10).
Simon of Cyrene, who helped Jesus carry His cross, was of African descent. This we know because Cyrene is a country in North Africa (Matthew 27:32).
Of the five women mentioned in Matthew’s genealogy (Matthew 1:1–16), four are of Hamitic descent—Tamar, Rahab, Bathsheba, and Ruth.
Augustine, who was by far the most scholarly and influential of all the church fathers and is known as the Father of Theologians, was not only African, but was most probably also black. Many refer to Augustine as the “father of orthodox theology.” The thought and contribution of Augustine became the theological foundation for the Protestant Reformation as well as contemporary Reformed Calvinistic theology.
The Black Church’s Link with Africa
The worldview of the majority of black Americans is the same as that of the captured African slave: God is central.
The African slave brought the following from their religious experience:
- The focus on oral communication;
- The tendency toward orthodoxy and a supreme view of God; and
- An essential connection between theology and life.
The Uniqueness of the Black Church
The birth of the African-American church was the result of a confluence of five strategic factors:
- The slaves’ search for meaning;
- Evangelization
- A natural integration of their religious foundations;
- The Bible; and
- The black preacher.
The Bible became the first book to which the slaves were exposed. They became acutely aware that the Bible was deeply concerned with the subject of freedom in history as well as in eternity. God had worked in the past with another group of people called the Israelites, who were, like the Africans, under bondage in a foreign land.
The black church saw in Jesus One who suffered as they were suffering; One who had experienced oppression as they were experiencing oppression. Yet, they also saw One who was able, by virtue of His divine power, to overcome the chains of enslavement.
The Role of the Black Preacher
The key word that summarizes the leadership role of the black preacher is link. He has the perpetual responsibility of tying together the old and the new. This is clearly demonstrated on the four cataclysmic fronts of the cultural transformations black people have experienced:
- The transition from African freedom to American slavery;
- The transition from American slavery to American freedom during Reconstruction;
- The transition from the South to the North during and following World War I; and
- The transition from segregation to integration during the civil rights movement.
In the black religious experience, preaching is an event. Preaching in the black church thrives on the participation of the congregation. Sermons are not unilateral but bilateral. The term bilateral refers to the discourse going on between the preacher and the congregation, known as the “call and response pattern.”
In many cases, the music is a way of drawing people into the black church. Thus a partnership is formed between the pulpit and the choir that results in a unique form of evangelism.
Evans encourages his Anglo brothers and sisters in Christ to, at the least, seek out ways to be discipled and taught by black preachers in the church body—either through books, radio, TV, sermon downloads, or online viewing of sermons. He argues, “I guarantee that you will be richly fed and go back for more. But don’t stop there. Be intentional in meeting your need for a broader understanding and experience of your faith by looking for ways you can worship and learn under leaders who do not always share your cultural identity or background. Look for African-American churches in your area that you cannot only visit, but also attend and even join.”
The Black Church, Black Power, and Black Theology
Three themes in particular provide the historical, theological, and social backdrop: the conservative nature of the black church; the theological contradiction of the white church; and the influence of the black revolution and its religious consequences.
The broader evangelical community has not taken the African-American church seriously and has encouraged black Christians not to do so either because its theological expression has been an oral tradition, rather than a literary tradition that results in textbooks and formal theological statements.
During the age of slavery, the conflict between faith and suffering was exacerbated by the fact that most of the brutality inflicted upon black people was done by white persons who also called themselves Christians. Whites who humiliated blacks during the week went to church on Sunday and prayed to the God of Moses and of Jesus. Although blacks and whites expressed their faith in their separate worship services in quite different ways, the verbal content of their faith seemed similar. That was why many blacks asked: How could whites be Christian and yet do such horrible things to black people? And why does God permit white people to do evil things in the name of Jesus Christ?
It became common to hear black people referring to Christianity as a “white man’s religion” that failed to address the sum total of experiences, institutions, actions, mentality, and conditions that affected black people in their journey from slavery onward.
The Rise of Black Evangelicism
Black evangelicalism refers to a movement among African-American Christians that emerged out of the civil rights era and the rise of evangelicalism in the white community, which seeks to wed the strengths of the black church with an emphasis on a systematic approach to theology, ministry, and social impact.
James Cone, nearly three decades after first publishing his thoughts on black theology, summarized a common concern still lingering among many, “What deepens my anger today is the appalling silence of the white theologians on racism in the United States and the modern world.”
Both white theologians’ silence and black theology’s victim mentality promote separatism, thus limiting, through self-imposed means, the ability for the achievement of authentic biblical oneness.
While reconciliation has always been a desire of the black church, black evangelicals have taken an aggressive posture in order to implement this process with the broader white community.
Christian whites have historically benefited from the systematic effects of racism, and yet those benefits are often so far removed from direct personal cause that a need for repentance in the area of racial reconciliation often goes unnoticed.
Reconciliation can never be forced. It comes as the result of an authentic relationship built on mutual respect and understanding. Authenticity necessitates honesty.
Part 3: A Kingdom Vision for Societal Impact
Tony Evans’ Evangelical Journey to the Kingdom Agenda
Evans grew up in Baltimore, lived in Atlanta, then started a church in the southern section of Dallas. He also became an adjunct professor at Dallas Theological Seminary.
Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship was organized on June 6, 1976, with about ten people for a weekly Bible study. Evans strove to integrate the best of the black church with the best of the white church. He also set about to create an environment of intentionality concerning racial diversity in the church by adding non-African-American staff and leadership to his church’s governing body.
Evans’ The Urban Alternative has turned into a national ministry. As national exposure expanded, increasing numbers of opportunities came to address both black and white audiences on a kingdom theology as well as its implication on the subject of race.
In the mid-1980s, following his graduation from DTS with a ThD, Evans was invited to be on Focus on the Family with Dr. James Dobson. Dr. Dobson generously opened up the whole of Focus resources for the expansion of Evans’ vision, which included financial support. Dr. Dobson also wrote a letter to radio stations that previously rejected Evans’ program largely for racial reasons. His encouragement opened up new doors of exposure and opportunity.
As Evans puts it, “Connecting the social with the spiritual underneath the overarching rule of God is my mission to live out and proclaim the kingdom agenda.”
The Kingdom-Minded Church
How is it possible for the number of churches in our nation to be ever increasing while the impact of the church only wanes? How can we have so much preaching, praising, and programs and yet so little demonstrated power? Why does the church merely react to society’s agenda rather than offering a kingdom agenda for society to embrace?
The reality is that the church today bears little resemblance to the kingdom from which we came.
When we live by the principles of the kingdom agenda, we experience God’s hand in every area of life and thereby witness His promise to work all things together for good (Romans 8:28).
While there is racism, classism, and sexism in the world, there ought to be authentic oneness in the church (Colossians 3:10, 11). Thus the world is presented with the option of Christ by being what the church is supposed to be in the world—an alternative model for the world—a community functioning under the rule of God in the mediatory kingdom on earth. Members of the biblical church model this alternative on the basis that we are citizens of the kingdom (Colossians 1:13), having been designated as workers for the kingdom (Colossians 4:11), promised victory because of the unshakeable nature of the kingdom (Hebrews 12:28), as well as heirs of the kingdom (James 2:5).
If we, as the church, are going to be the church that Jesus is building, we have no other choice but to embrace our call to oneness.
Jesus made it clear that He would build His church. That doesn’t mean we become “one race,” ignoring our different preferences in worship, music, preaching, fellowship, or even how long we want to meet together on a Sunday morning in what we call “church.” The kingdom of heaven where we will one day go as the bride of Christ will be made up of diversity (Revelation 21:24); therefore we ought not to try to strip ourselves of our unique differences now.
Unless we view oneness as a kingdom strategy ordained by God against the schemes of the devil, we will continue to falter in our personal lives, family lives, churches, and communities simply because we fail to realize that the call to become one goes deeper than emotion. We need each other (1 Corinthians 12:21–22).
If we try to do church individually rather than be the church collectively, we’re going to remain powerless and ineffective. This is because a preeminent rule for being the church is that we are one. That is foundational: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28).
A Kingdom Approach to Biblical Justice
The Statue of Liberty is a lady standing in her harbor whose crown has seven spikes representing the seven seas and seven continents whose inhabitants have been invited to come. Lady Liberty proclaims freedom every day to anyone with a heart to hear her. Freedom can be defined as a release from illegitimate bondage in order to make the choice to exercise responsibility in actualizing and maximizing all that you were created to be.
The kingdom agenda involves promoting this freedom in Christ through the vehicle of what is often called, in our contemporary society, social justice.
Evans uses the term biblical justice rather than social justice because biblical justice provides society with a divine frame of reference from which to operate. The word justice in Scripture means to prescribe the right way. Since God is just (Deuteronomy 32:4) and is the ultimate lawgiver (James 4:12), His laws and judgments are just and righteous (Psalms 19:7–9; 111:7–8). Biblical justice, therefore, is the equitable and impartial application of the rule of God’s moral law in society.
Each of the four jurisdictions in God’s kingdom—personal, family, church, and state—is called upon to promote justice and responsibility under God in its own distinct way.
The role of the church, as a participant in God’s socio-political kingdom and as His bride, is to execute divine justice on behalf of the defenseless, poor, and oppressed. A strong biblical connection exists between our knowledge and relationship with God and our concern for the poor and the oppressed (Jeremiah 22:16; Matthew 25:34–40).
The church is in the unique position of implementing biblical justice in a country in desperate need of an alternative. Biblical justice can only bear its fruit with regard to the issue of race in America, in particular, when we acknowledge the sin of our division, repent of it, offer and receive forgiveness for it, address any appropriate restitution, and build a bridge of oneness with each other in place of it through mutual service toward the common goal of advancing God’s kingdom. Then will we experience the freedom, power, and purpose that the functioning, healthy, holistic body of Christ was designed to know.
A Kingdom Approach for Social Outreach
Why is the church having such little impact? One of the main reasons we are not is because we do not unite around a common goal or goals. Rarely do we go outside of our own church walls and join collective arms to bring about a lasting impact. Yet that is essential if we are going to change our culture for the good of others and the glory of God.
A kingdom ambassador brings the pure salt of the kingdom to a world in desperate need of Christ.
Making an impact in our culture is not something that will come easily, though. As Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable.… Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals.”
Evans proposed a three-point plan for invoking a national impact by the church. This plan involves:
- A national and localized solemn assembly among churches
- Community-based good works done collectively for greater impact
- Churches speaking publicly with one unified voice on the significant cultural issues of our day
Have you ever noticed how special-interest groups in our country carry far more weight in influencing our land (policies, opinions, etc.) even though their numbers are but a small fraction of the number of evangelicals and believers in America? The reason they carry so much weight and influence is because they unite.
If church and organizational leadership would come together in humility and unity, we could actually see the hand of God move in our midst in a way we may have never imagined. The problem is not merely our waiting on God to involve Himself in our country’s demise, but it is also that God is waiting on us to call on Him collectively, and according to His prescribed manner.
Far too often in the Christian church today, we come across to the outside culture and world as if we are not even speaking the same language. We don’t even look like we are on the same page when it comes to various issues facing our land. Part of the cause of this is because we have neglected to work across denominational and racial boundaries in order to create and pursue a synergistic strategy toward cultural impact.
Oneness across racial, class, generational, and gender lines is essential to God’s divine plan of bringing about lasting transformation in a world tainted by sin and its effects. There is power in oneness because oneness mirrors the heart of God in a way that few other things ever could.
Glorifying God is our ultimate goal. Oneness exists in order to enable us to reach our goal.