Uncle Tim's Cabin

Tucked away in a cabin in the woods of Michigan I was able to finish off a couple of books. Mother Kirk (Doug Wilson) was an excellent "gap-filler" for anyone who, like me, once thought that "Reformed" meant nothing more than affirming God's sovereignty in salvation.

The other book was On Being Black and Reformed by Anthony Carter. Since this topic is rarely considered, a brief review is worthwhile. There are two separate messages in the book for two different audiences. First, it's a well-thought out appeal for African-American Christians to adopt the biblical and historic Christian faith. Second, it's an appeal to white, reformed Christians to learn from the African-American experience. And that's where I want to dwell.

According to the author, theology is local. Whether it's German Lutheran, Dutch or Scottish Reformed or even Northern and Southern Presbyterianism, theology has consistently had a distinct ethnicity or culture. And for America, our articulation of reformed theology needs to include the African-American Christian experience.

Specifically, the African-American experience is one of a dominated people forced to live on the fringe of an affluent society. It's the cry of a people who live lives of want and need in a land of plenty. It is the cry of the nation of Israel in exile. Yet, white American Christianity is so far removed from "sojourning" that it rarely connects with this important motif of the Christian life. This hinders our understanding and expression of the Christian life as a pilgrimage through a foreign land.

Through African-American history God has sovereignly given to American Christianity a people who have experienced pilgrimage in a foreign land. "How shall we sing the Lord's song in a foreign land (Ps 137:4)?" Look to the black Christian experience as an example.