Reformed Black Pastors/Theologians

[A.Joseph]

*Ahem*

Me

HA! All jokes aside, take a look at the Statement Against Social Justice online. It's website has a signature list from every signer since its inception. I found it encouraging that a plethora of African churches have signed it too. Be blessed and encouraged brother. The Gospel is the power of God for salvation for every tribe and tongue! Christ's church is alive and well in all corners of the earth!

Do you have a blog? I’ll look you up...

 

[Romans678]

Do you have a blog? I’ll look you up...

I don't boss. I'm a novice in the faith to be honest. Maybe one day if the Lord is willing!

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

 

[Timotheos]

Conrad Mbewe

This is the one I was thinking of... and Voddie B!

 

[A.Joseph]

Thanks again guys! ....

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/06/honoring_black_conservatives.html

 

[Reformed Covenanter]

If you are looking for political conservatives, do not forget about The Doctor of Common Sense (E. T. Williams). He also does some religious stuff; I am not sure about his denominational affiliation, but I think that he is an evangelical Baptist.

 

[Pilgrim]

While Jesse is a conservative and a common sense man, he is not a Christian. He is a modalist.

That's not surprising given his association (at least in the past--I don't know about currently) with Roy Masters. If Jesse is a modalist, that's actually an improvement over Masters who denies the deity of Christ outright.

EDIT: Saw the update, sadly not surprised. I first heard Jesse Lee Peterson on Masters' program over 20 years ago. I listened to Masters once a few years ago and can't believe I used to be into that nonsense. Another black associate of Masters' who likewise denies the deity of Christ is Emmanuel McLittle if he is still around. (David Kupelian is another one of much lighter pigmentation. I don't know his beliefs about Christ, but he's been more closely associated with Masters than Peterson or McLittle.)

Sadly, some "Christian conservatives" who should know better have a tendency to give black conservatives a pass on theology. If black person says that MLK was a communist and talks about the Democratic welfare plantation, he is considered a prophet and is lauded to no end. The soft bigotry of low expectations?

 

[Pilgrim]

I haven't heard him preach, but Mark Robinson has been strong against SJWism on Facebook. He seems to be an "old school" PCA minister.

In the SBC, Craig Mitchell was formerly at SWBTS and Criswell College. He signed the Statement on Social Justice. He is now the President of the Ethics and Political Economy Center. (Other than those facts, I'm really not that familiar with him.)

Others include Samuel Sey, who has written a good deal over the past few years.

Kofi Adu-Boahen has posted here in the past and is solid. He grew up in London but is in the USA now. But he and Sey are of Ghanaian heritage and aren't the descendants of slaves, so according to Anthony Bradley, they don't count as "regular blacks." But where does that leave Ekemini Uwan? An uber "Woke" ally but still not a "regular black?"

On the political side, some of you may remember the old "Black Avenger," Ken Hamblin, who was a very popular conservative radio talk show host in the 1990s. (He described himself as a lapsed Catholic and as far as I know that's still the case.) His show really took off after he was featured on C-SPAN for a few days or weeks, if not longer. Eventually, he followed Rush Limbaugh in many markets. He left the air abruptly about 15 years ago in a contract dispute and basically dropped out of sight. (I don't know whether or not the fact that he was being supplanted by Hannity in many markets had anything to do with it.) He's been on Twitter for a good while but for some reason despite his former popularity, he does not have many followers. I wondered if it was really him, but he's posted some YouTube videos that reveal that it's really him. His heritage is at least partly from Barbados, so maybe he flunks the "regular black" test too even though he used to look favorably upon the Black Panthers before his turn to conservatism. For the most part, I really enjoyed his show in the 90s. But as a Christian now, I can't endorse some of the antics that he was known for.

 

[A.Joseph]

I don’t know much about Bradley’s past but does he claim to be a Reformed Christian?

Does Bradley know who Karl Barth is? Does he know who James Cone is? What is his opinion of these men? Is his politics his religion? Where does his politics end and his faith begin? Does he have any credibility as a reformed theologian?

See this is the thing, you can write off Edwards or Whitfield or Machen, but you can’t kill systematic theology, this transcends race. This Anthony needs saving as much as that Anthony.

Is this a trump thing? Cause I’m not sure how he is a racist? Is this a republican thing? Well what are us white men and women to do when the Democratic Party has become so antiGod in their platform. We can still attempt to hold republicans to a moral standard, not true with the other party. I supported Rand Paul and Ted Cruz. Are they racist? Who determines who is a racist? Was Trump a racist before he ran for president or only when it became politically expedient to deem him one? I did not want to vote for trump. But there are legitimate links that tie the Clintons to a whole lot of evils.

What does Bradley have to say about Owens or Carson? They don’t count?

What did Obama even do for the black community?
http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/castellitto/190609

I haven't heard him preach, but Mark Robinson has been strong against SJWism on Facebook. He seems to be an "old school" PCA minister.

In the SBC, Craig Mitchell was formerly at SWBTS and Criswell College. He signed the Statement on Social Justice. He is now the President of the Ethics and Political Economy Center. (Other than those facts, I'm really not that familiar with him.)

Others include Samuel Sey, who has written a good deal over the past few years.

Kofi Adu-Boahen has posted here in the past and is solid. He grew up in London but is in the USA now. But he and Sey are of Ghanaian heritage and aren't the descendants of slaves, so according to Anthony Bradley, they don't count as "regular blacks." But where does that leave Ekemini Uwan? An uber "Woke" ally but still not a "regular black?"

On the political side, some of you may remember the old "Black Avenger," Ken Hamblin, who was a very popular conservative radio talk show host in the 1990s. (He described himself as a lapsed Catholic and as far as I know that's still the case.) His show really took off after he was featured on C-SPAN for a few days or weeks, if not longer. Eventually, he followed Rush Limbaugh in many markets. He left the air abruptly about 15 years ago in a contract dispute and basically dropped out of sight. (I don't know whether or not the fact that he was being supplanted by Hannity in many markets had anything to do with it.) He's been on Twitter for a good while but for some reason despite his former popularity, he does not have many followers. I wondered if it was really him, but he's posted some YouTube videos that reveal that it's really him. His heritage is at least partly from Barbados, so maybe he flunks the "regular black" test too even though he used to look favorably upon the Black Panthers before his turn to conservatism. For the most part, I really enjoyed his show in the 90s. But as a Christian now, I can't endorse some of the antics that he was known for.

I haven't heard him preach, but Mark Robinson has been strong against SJWism on Facebook. He seems to be an "old school" PCA minister.

In the SBC, Craig Mitchell was formerly at SWBTS and Criswell College. He signed the Statement on Social Justice. He is now the President of the Ethics and Political Economy Center. (Other than those facts, I'm really not that familiar with him.)

Others include Samuel Sey, who has written a good deal over the past few years.

Kofi Adu-Boahen has posted here in the past and is solid. He grew up in London but is in the USA now. But he and Sey are of Ghanaian heritage and aren't the descendants of slaves, so according to Anthony Bradley, they don't count as "regular blacks." But where does that leave Ekemini Uwan? An uber "Woke" ally but still not a "regular black?"

On the political side, some of you may remember the old "Black Avenger," Ken Hamblin, who was a very popular conservative radio talk show host in the 1990s. (He described himself as a lapsed Catholic and as far as I know that's still the case.) His show really took off after he was featured on C-SPAN for a few days or weeks, if not longer. Eventually, he followed Rush Limbaugh in many markets. He left the air abruptly about 15 years ago in a contract dispute and basically dropped out of sight. (I don't know whether or not the fact that he was being supplanted by Hannity in many markets had anything to do with it.) He's been on Twitter for a good while but for some reason despite his former popularity, he does not have many followers. I wondered if it was really him, but he's posted some YouTube videos that reveal that it's really him. His heritage is at least partly from Barbados, so maybe he flunks the "regular black" test too even though he used to look favorably upon the Black Panthers before his turn to conservatism. For the most part, I really enjoyed his show in the 90s. But as a Christian now, I can't endorse some of the antics that he was known for.

 

[Pilgrim]

I don’t know much about Bradley’s past but does he claim to be a Reformed Christian?

Does Bradley know who Karl Barth is? Does he know who James Cone is? What is his opinion of these men? Is his politics his religion? Where does his politics end and his faith begin? Does he have any credibility as a reformed theologian?

See this is the thing, you can write off Edwards or Whitfield or Machen, but you can’t kill systematic theology, this transcends race. This Anthony needs saving as much as that Anthony.

Is this a trump thing? Cause I’m not sure how he is a racist? Is this a republican thing? Well what are us white men and women to do when the Democratic Party has become so antiGod in their platform. We can still attempt to hold republicans to a moral standard, not true with the other party. I supported Rand Paul and Ted Cruz. Are they racist? Who determines who is a racist? Was Trump a racist before he ran for president or only when it became politically expedient to deem him one? I did not want to vote for trump. But there are legitimate links that tie the Clintons to a whole lot of evils.

What does Bradley have to say about Owens or Carson? They don’t count?

What did Obama even do for the black community?
http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/castellitto/190609

Dr. Bradley had a degree from WTS and used to head up the Francis Schaeffer Institute at Covenant Seminary. So he does have a background in Reformed theology, even if it is not of the strict confessional variety. (Francis Schaeffer certainly wasn't a strict confessionalist himself. According to some, he was not even a 5 point Calvinist.) He says that Bavinck is a big influence these days. I don't know whether or not he is still in the PCA. He's not some SJW all down the line, although Statement on Social Justice fans don't like much of what he says about race. (But Statement on Social Justice fans would disagree with what even Sproul wrote on involvement in society.) But he infuriates people on the left too, depending on what the subject is. If you follow his Twitter feed, you may find that you think that some of the content is helpful and that some of it is not helpful at all. At least that's my take on it.

in my opinion, he does have something of a point about "regular blacks" if I may opine on the subject, although one shouldn't just discount an opinion based solely on the origin of the person giving it. An immigrant from Africa wasn't the descendant of slaves and didn't have to deal with Jim Crow, and at least until recently is going to tend to be highly educated, so that may impact the way they view things. While an immigrant from the Caribbean is generally the descendant of slaves, someone from Haiti, Jamaica or Trinidad is probably more likely to view the USA as the land of opportunity compared to where they came from, even if they think there is continuing discrimination, etc. So that's not quite the same as someone from Alabama who grew up under Jim Crow or who has parents who did. White people from different geographical areas are going to tend to see some things differently as well.

Years ago, Bradley was subjected to sustained racist attacks by a neo-Confederate website ("Little Geneva") that was at that time anonymous. He has said that PCA leaders didn't do enough to publicly denounce it, etc. Obviously I'm not privy to all that went on. But you don't have to agree with apologizing for the sins of your Great-great-great grandfather to recognize that there are PCA, SBC and other churches that committed offenses against blacks in recent years that do need to be repented of. I'm referring to things like barring blacks from attending church, much less joining. The most recent cases of that in most churches may have been in the 60s or 70s, but in some cases the offenses have continued up to almost the present day if its not still going on somewhere.

As for Carson, the only people who benefited from his Presidential campaign were fundraising grifters who made big $$ from his campaign. (And I guess him, if you don't think he would have been appointed to the Cabinet otherwise.) I don't think one can argue that he definitely cost Cruz the nomination, but without Carson in the race, things might have been much closer. (I'm assuming that a Carson voter would be more prone to vote for Trump than Cruz. Those who really liked Trump tended to simply vote Trump from the start.) For example, I concluded at the time that Cruz would have won Louisiana without Carson in the race, and that may have been the case in other states as well.

As others have noted, you need to decide if you're really interested in theology, politics, or both. You asked for pastors and theologians, but many of the names you listed are non-evangelical and some are not even Christian by profession. And it wouldn't have taken much research to find that out about most of them. I'm not saying this is the case for you, but don't give the likes of Carson a pass if you wouldn't do that with a white conservative who is SDA. The same goes for the Catholics, agnostics, etc. In other words, don't put black Conservatives who aren't Christian in a list of solid "Pastors and Theologians" if you wouldn't do that with white conservatives who aren't orthodox Christians.

 

[A.Joseph]

Dr. Bradley had a degree from WTS and used to head up the Francis Schaeffer Institute at Covenant Seminary. So he does have a background in Reformed theology, even if it is not of the strict confessional variety. (Francis Schaeffer certainly wasn't a strict confessionalist himself. According to some, he was not even a 5 point Calvinist.) He says that Bavinck is a big influence these days. I don't know whether or not he is still in the PCA. He's not some SJW all down the line, although Statement on Social Justice fans don't like much of what he says about race. (But Statement on Social Justice fans would disagree with what even Sproul wrote on involvement in society.) But he infuriates people on the left too, depending on what the subject is. If you follow his Twitter feed, you may find that you think that some of the content is helpful and that some of it is not helpful at all. At least that's my take on it.

in my opinion, he does have something of a point about "regular blacks" if I may opine on the subject, although one shouldn't just discount an opinion based solely on the origin of the person giving it. An immigrant from Africa wasn't the descendant of slaves and didn't have to deal with Jim Crow, and at least until recently is going to tend to be highly educated, so that may impact the way they view things. While an immigrant from the Caribbean is generally the descendant of slaves, someone from Haiti, Jamaica or Trinidad is probably more likely to view the USA as the land of opportunity compared to where they came from, even if they think there is continuing discrimination, etc. So that's not quite the same as someone from Alabama who grew up under Jim Crow or who has parents who did. White people from different geographical areas are going to tend to see some things differently as well.

Years ago, Bradley was subjected to sustained racist attacks by a neo-Confederate website ("Little Geneva") that was at that time anonymous. He has said that PCA leaders didn't do enough to publicly denounce it, etc. Obviously I'm not privy to all that went on. But you don't have to agree with apologizing for the sins of your Great-great-great grandfather to recognize that there are PCA, SBC and other churches that committed offenses against blacks in recent years that do need to be repented of. I'm referring to things like barring blacks from attending church, much less joining. The most recent cases of that in most churches may have been in the 60s or 70s, but in some cases the offenses have continued up to almost the present day if its not still going on somewhere.

As for Carson, the only people who benefited from his Presidential campaign were fundraising grifters who made big $$ from his campaign. (And I guess him, if you don't think he would have been appointed to the Cabinet otherwise.) I don't think one can argue that he definitely cost Cruz the nomination, but without Carson in the race, things might have been much closer. (I'm assuming that a Carson voter would be more prone to vote for Trump than Cruz. Those who really liked Trump tended to simply vote Trump from the start.) For example, I concluded at the time that Cruz would have won Louisiana without Carson in the race, and that may have been the case in other states as well.

As others have noted, you need to decide if you're really interested in theology, politics, or both. You asked for pastors and theologians, but many of the names you listed are non-evangelical and some are not even Christian by profession. And it wouldn't have taken much research to find that out about most of them. I'm not saying this is the case for you, but don't give the likes of Carson a pass if you wouldn't do that with a white conservative who is SDA. The same goes for the Catholics, agnostics, etc. In other words, don't put black Conservatives who aren't Christian in a list of solid "Pastors and Theologians" if you wouldn't do that with white conservatives who aren't orthodox Christians.

Good stuff, thanks for the info. I blog for a political site so I was mixing it up and like to plant seeds of Reformed theology to the conservative masses, so that was my agenda all along... I think I understand intellectually the black experience, ones who were persecuted are not going to want much to do with white people and that is unfortunate reality. I don’t have a problem if some black reformed churches feel they need to maintain some type of separation, but would still be supported by the larger denomination. And we should protect them as needed. I just don’t want them to go woke as I don’t like to see Reformed white guys go social justice, or toxic masculinity like a Mark Driscoll(or whatever his deal was) or white nationalism which I sometimes think the P&P guys are headed etc, etc.... some of it is worse than others so I’m not making a false equivalency. At the end of the day, I’m nobody’s judge. I’ve been blessed beyond what I deserve and I still stumble daily.

Thanks for the response and the clarity brother, and the patience. I appreciate it!

 

[Pilgrim]

Good stuff, thanks for the info. I blog for a political site so I was mixing it up and like to plant seeds of Reformed theology to the conservative masses, so that was my agenda all along... I think I understand intellectually the black experience, ones who were persecuted are not going to want much to do with white people and that is unfortunate reality. I don’t have a problem if some black reformed churches feel they need to maintain some type of separation, but would still be supported by the larger denomination. And we should protect them as needed. I just don’t want them to go woke as I don’t like to see Reformed white guys go social justice, or toxic masculinity like a Mark Driscoll(or whatever his deal was) or white nationalism which I sometimes think the P&P guys are headed etc, etc.... some of it is worse than others so I’m not making a false equivalency. At the end of the day, I’m nobody’s judge. I’ve been blessed beyond what I deserve and I still stumble daily.

Thanks for the response and the clarity brother, and the patience. I appreciate it!

No problem. I could respond more to this, but I'll have to leave it be for now.

But, one more to add to your list on the secular side: Another notable black conservative is economics professor Dr. Walter E Williams, (wiki) although he's really more of a classical liberal or libertarian. Like Thomas Sowell, he has had a long running syndicated column, although perhaps somewhat less widely distributed. He was the regular guest host in the early days of the Rush Limbaugh show. On that show and elsewhere, he has offered a "Certificate of Amnesty and Pardon" to whites so that they are not "obliged to act like damn fools in their relationships with Americans of African ancestry."