Thabiti Anyabwile (an African American converted to Christ out of Islam) persuasively argues that “it’s well past time to reform the model of black pastoral leadership at play at the national and local church levels.”
Anyabwile describes the morphing of Black pastoral leadership from the days of Lemuel Haynes:
“Since the earliest days of an independent Black church, Black church pastors have played the role of community leader, organizer, and public intellectual. Historically, those roles were necessarily played by pastors because the church was the one institution controlled by African Americans and often pastors were among the better gifted and educated leaders in the community. There was no sufficient political infrastructure for mustering resistance to social and political injustice outside of the local church prior to the late 1960s. And once Dr. King became the icon of the Civil Rights movement, with television broadcasting the poignant protests of church leaders and community members into American living rooms, the pastor-as-Civil-Rights-leader became the dominant paradigm for successful pastoral leadership.”
African Americans must return to an older model of pastoral leadership, says Anyabwile, one that cares more for the conversion of sinners and the purity of the church (both doctrinally and morally) rather than the mere elevation of the political (either liberal or conservative).
The entire essay is a worthy read.
(HT: Justin Taylor)