African-American Hermeneutic of Suspicion.

 

"The Bible has always been read through the experience of the people holding it. The meaning they draw and the ethics they build are directly related to the kind of lives they lead.  It is no wonder that for a people trapped in slavery and yearning to be free, that the Bible would mean and encourage liberation." -- Dr. Brian K. Blount in "Then the Whisper Put On flesh"

 All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness [justice], so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work. (2 Tim 3:16-17 NRSV, parenthesis mine)

I have been part of a wide variety of churches. I have been in multicultural churches, predominantly African American churches, and in predominantly White churches as I enter my 6th decade of life.  I believe that my experiences with a variety of communities allows some unique perspectives but more importantly, a cultural humility to understand that God is never culturally constrained but leverages culture in every era to express God's life-giving, liberating mission of love.  So, in this essay, I am going to share some of my experiences and will talk in broad strokes about churches and their cultures, understanding that there are most certainly exceptions to my observations.  I also want to clearly state that in comparing different types of churches, I am not suggesting in any way that God has an ethnic or cultural preference but that all people are created in the image of God and all types of communities can reflect or distort that image.  I am arguing that the Church was created in a way for radical cultural dependence, and multicultural influence and impact.  The reason that the church has never lived up to this calling (See the baptismal liturgy in Galatians 3:26-29) is largely due to how the Church has mismanaged Scripture and its application.

I grew up in a mostly African American Holiness tradition (United Holy Church, Inc) which shared a majority of its doctrine with mostly White Holiness traditions.  Holiness traditions are theologically evangelical (as opposed to culturally evangelical), meaning an emphasis on a personal relationship with Jesus, the death and resurrection of Jesus as the central salvific event, the called to share God's love for everyone via Jesus, and the authority of Scripture.  In addition to these things, Holiness traditions emphasized the work of the Holy Spirit to set the believer apart from evil, for complete devotion to the purposes of God (which is for the good of the world).  

 The African American Holiness tradition has much in common with the traditional Black Church protestant traditions, particularly in its understanding of its identity as resistance and refuge.  Resistance to the overwhelmingly oppressive spiritual, social, and economic forces that sought to disenchant, diminish and despair entire people groups.  Refuge, as a safe place, where there was insulation from the people and places where you were made to feel inferior, unworthy, and shameful. It is not coincidence that the many historic Black protestant churches were often the center of the African-American community and its civil rights activism. 

What is interesting is that Black Historical Church developed a unique approach to worship and Scripture in order to be effective resistance toward evil, and to be a truly safe place.  This not to dismiss the fact that every church has its own issues and there are internal threats to safety as well. But in order to be a safe place and to be an effective witness of Jesus against those powers that sought to destroy, diminish, and co-opt on the personal, corporate, systemic and institutional levels, a hermeneutic of suspicion developed.  Hermeneutics describe how we interpret the meaning of Scripture, understanding that everyone reads Scripture with bias.

New Testament Theologian Fernando Segovia clarifies "All exegesis (what we pull from Scripture) is ultimately eisegesis (what we bring to Scripture) ...There is no objective and impartial reader; all views of the past are contemporary constructions; all interpretation is contextual and ideological." (Segovia, Decolonizing Biblical Studies, 2000).  This does not mean that Scripture is desacralized in any way, but that one's social location has a tremendous effect on how we appreciate, appropriate, and apply Scripture's meanings.

The Greek Scriptures (New Testament) where often used to oppress African Americans, particularly those who were enslaved.  In addition, most enslaved people were forbidden to learn to read and understand the Scriptures for themselves. The parts of the Bible that expressed the liberating love of Jesus, were simply avoided with the fear that it would inspire enslaved and oppressed people to seek freedom, and even more frightening to slave owners, that the enslaved would seek justice. Several antebellum Churches attempted to redesign the Bible to eliminate anything that threatened the submission of the enslaved to their masters, including the infamous "Negro Bible" that featured select portions of 14 of the 66 books in the Bible. 

When you review the history of the evangelical church over the past 100 years, you are able to see that Scripture is still being weaponized against people of color, often justified by denominations using hermeneutical approaches that refuse interrogation, protected by the concepts of inerrancy and infallibility.  Inerrancy is the concept that the Scripture is free from error and within that definition is a wide range of what inerrancy can mean, but typically it was used by American Evangelicals to means that the written Scriptures are completely without error and that the Bible completely fulfills and reveals God's plans and purposes (infallible).  In other words, there could be no debate over the meaning of the Scriptures, because not only was the text itself sacred, but that there really was only one possible meaning for specific texts and that was the one that the denomination expressed, or the historic church had adopted.  Ironically, those in power often defined what the correct interpretation would be.

For example, a Baptist Church in South Carolina made the following resolution in 1957:

"We believe that integration is contrary to God's purposes for the races, because: (1) God made men different races and ordained the basic difference between races; (2) Race has a purpose in the Divine plan, each race having a unique purpose and distinctive mission in God's plan; (3) God meant for people of different races to maintain their race purity and racial identity and seek the highest development of their racial group.  God has determined "the bounds of their habitation" (Last part of Acts 17:26).  (Clardendon Baptist Church, Alcolu, SC, 1957)

With this interpretation, based upon a very biased and frankly racist reading of the book of Acts, it is not difficult to understand how churches like this, felt that racial integration was not simply undesirable, but unbiblical.  15th century Christian philosopher Pascal helps us to understand that "Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction".  So entire denominations have been completely built on racialized and segregationist hermeneutical lenses, who then are unable to recognize that they are using Scripture in a weaponized fashioned.  Challenges to this interpretative process are perceived as a threat to the integrity of Scripture, so there is defensiveness, which leads to anger and ultimately violence.  

In the book of Acts, which details the history of the early church, we see an expansion of the church that leads to communities that are multiethnic, multicultural, and socially diverse.  The church at Corinth is a great example of a multiethnic and economically diverse church made of former soldiers and a wide variety of enslaved and formerly enslaved persons.  The Apostle Paul writes at least 2 different letters there to promote solidarity among their diversity.  It is that unity among the diversity that is a sign and symbol to the world that the Spirit of Jesus is present. 

Yet in modern day America, churches for the most part remain more segregated than the communities in which they serve.  Sometimes we downplay this and simply write off the segregated reality of church by reducing it to preferences in worship, liturgy, music, etc.  I am not seeking to minimize the importance of cultural manifestation of our devotion to Jesus, but what I am hoping to get you to question is whether that was God's design for our churches or a result of cultural superiority that weaponizes Scripture to justify its unwillingness to minister with (not to) people beyond its cultural affinities?

I want to talk about this from the perspective of an African American leader in a predominantly White denomination.  The Free Methodist Church, in which I am privileged to serve, was founded on principles of Christian Holiness, but framed in abolitionist and justice-oriented frameworks.  In fact, it is safe to say, that the only reason that I was attracted to the Free Methodist Church, was the fact that its founding values included cross cultural collaboration as an expression of its understanding of Holiness.  This is not to say that this was the only reason I came to the Free Methodist Church as I love its people and its doctrine as well, but there are certainly other Christian organizations with great theology and wonderful people.  I can say that I needed to be in a organization that explicitly valued people who are culturally and ethnically distinct, not for the purpose of appearance, but for the purpose of being faithful witnesses to the presence of Jesus in an incredibly polarized and fearful world.

That value of cross-cultural collaboration has been deeply compromised over the 184 years of the Free Methodist Church's existence, through cultural biases, fundamentalism, segregationist lenses, and more recently, Christian nationalistic re-interpretations of scripture. This is true of most White Evangelical denominations.  While most of the congregations in the Free Methodist church are not segregationists or Christian nationalists, there is an adversity to developing a decolonial approach to its neighbor who is culturally distinctive.

African American Pastor Peter Randolph spoke of the near impossibility to truly share the gospel prior to the emancipation of those enslaved:

"The gospel was so mixed with slavery, that the people could see no beauty in it, and feel no reverence for it." (Plantation Church: Visible and Invisible, 1893) 

Colonial approaches to ministry focus on destroying the culture of those they minister to (not with) by wrapping the good news in the trappings of their own culture.  Colonial approaches reveal a subtle, and often, not too subtle idea of cultural superiority, and the idea that Christianity is ultimately tied to the culture more than the person of Jesus (who, unless you are a Palestinian, was culturally different than you).  Colonial approaches led to residential boarding schools for indigenous children, where there was a cultural genocide.  Students at some of the schools were forbidden to speak their native language or wear tribal clothing without harsh, and often times brutally violent repercussions.  Colonial approaches today look like "adopting the Hispanic church across town and ignoring the Hispanic residents in the neighborhoods of your church".  It is the essence of wanting to minister "to" but refusing to minister with or among those culturally distinct.  Colonialized churches are often multiethnic, but seek a assimilation process to accommodate to the dominant culture.  The dominant culture is thought to be the most accurate expression of the kingdom of God and others are asked to submit to it.

Churches cannot decolonize without employing the hermeneutic of suspicion.  That interpretive lens ruthlessly interrogates any interpretation that promotes ethnic, culture, or gender superiority.  Sometimes, it is difficult to see one's own cultural superiority, but anything that seems to relieve you of the responsibility to fulfill the great commandment of loving God and loving your neighbor (who in 2024, is increasingly likely to be culturally different) should be suspicious. 

Proclaiming the liberative (that which frees) message of Scripture frees everyone.  The historic Black Protestant church, regardless of affiliation has been driven by the gospel of compassionate justice, hope and freedom that promotes resistance, refuge, and I would add, incredible resilience.  

Jesus begins the good news with the words "Repent and believe" (Mk 1:15).   Repent is to change your mind or change the paradigm in which you understand reality.  We tend to think of repentance as another word for remorse or an apology but its much greater than that.  C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity wrote:

"Now repentance is not fun at all.  It is something much harder than merely eating humble pie.  It means unlearning all the self-conceit and self-will that we have been training ourselves into for thousands of years."

Unlearning is assisted when we adopt a a hermeneutic of suspicion.  It is not far from the deconstruction that many experience when they begin to see a separation between what they have been taught and reality.  It is nothing to be afraid of our ashamed of, but a process that ultimately liberates you to fully participate in the purposes of Jesus.  We serve a great big God who sent Jesus so that we would live life fully and freely (Jn 10:10).  Believe it or not, God can handle your questions and goes as far as promising that the Holy Spirit will be there to answer your questions in truth and righteousness (Jn 16:8)

While many churches are not proximate to culturally distinctive neighborhoods, we can still encourage a broader and more communal reading of the Scriptures by elevating voices of culturally distinct leaders, theologians, and Christian traditions.  Dr. Rev Alexia Salvatierra declares:

When we are tempted to make decisions on the basis of narrow self-interest, the Scriptures call us to a collective worldview rooted in the love of neighbor and aflame with passion to build a beloved community." (Faith-Rooted Organizing)

In other words, how do we read Scripture as the liberating narrative of God's restorative justice unfolding in the world (Gilliard, A Just Passion, 2022)?  It is accomplished in community and with the gift from the historic Black Church, a hermeneutic of suspicion.