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"So much of what we are doing and saying is answering questions nobody is any longer asking." (Continued from Page 21) opposed to "modern." When we modernize we adjust and accommodate our understanding of ultimate reality and beliefs to the new circumstances. We become contemporary by creative and courageous interpretation and application of ultimate reality and faith to the current conditions. This gift to be contemporary was a genius of the mothers and fathers of the black church. With talent far beyond their training and exposure they interpreted and applied the faith they co-opted from their oppressor to the human condition of their brothers and sisters. A classic illustration of this genius was the early role of the black church in the education of black slaves — former slaves and ex-slaves. In the A.M.E. Church, for example, the churches were schoolrooms. The founding fathers and mothers discerned that education, learning, skill, and knowledge were the passports for black Americans into authentic citizenship. Between 1856 and 1880, this one black church founded and operated over 32 schools and training institutions. The remarkable capacity to identify, define, and develop an appropriate and effective response to the needs, pains and possibilities of black people is precisely what I mean by saying the black church must become contemporary. Today, most of the organizational arrangement and their reason to be; the strategies and why they were devised; the programs and their design are a century old, and "time and change have made these ancient goods uncouth." The role of the black church in securing the future begins with a massive effort to become contemporary and relevant in view of the monumental changes in the world, the society, the church, and in black folks during recent years. So much of what we are doing and saying is answering questions nobody is any longer asking. The mandate to the black church is not to live in the past, nor seek to live in the future, but to serve sacrificially the present age. This means we must reassess our present agenda as a black 22
church, and begin with a zero-based mission agenda. The new insights, discoveries, inventions and understanding about the global nature of our predicaments and the world's problems, the urban impact on black people, color, racism, male sexism, economic elitism, cultural imperialism, and the diversity and pluralism in present day society must be taken into account as we redo our agenda. In becoming contemporary, the black church will have to embrace a functional ecumenism if it cannot become theologically and ecclesiastically ecumenical. The task of "securing the future" is so large, complex, difficult and systemic; while the resources, and competencies of individual black churches are so limited we must come together locally, regionally, and nationally to do together what we cannot do separately. I believe this functional, pragmatic and programmatic ecumenism is not only necessary, but quite possible. The labels we wear, whether doctrinal or denominational, were not born out of our own experience but are the inherited sectarianism of our oppressor whose faith we sought to rescue. The determinative fact of life for blacks is being black. In those churches which are not black, the brothers and sisters have had to create a black caucus or grouping by whatever name it goes. The common ground on which all black church persons stand has higher priority in faith and history than our various brands, labels and classifications. We have: One One One One One One One
common creator — God common root — Africa common race — Black common experience — Oppression common commitment — Christ common pain — Suffering common hope — Liberation and Justice.
IV Drawing wisdom and strength from its central and constructive role in the black community from the beginning of the American adventure, the black church must become contemporary and ecumenical to adequately fulfill its role in securing the future. Relevance and unity will make it possible for the black church to undertake the tasks to which the will of God, the teaching of Scripture, the needs of its people, and the demands of history are calling it.
A. The black church has an enormous educational role to play to secure the future of black people. It is very frightening that we are increasingly leaving the education of our children completely in the hands of our oppressor. Any culture or group which does not accept responsibility for the training of its young and the preparation of its leadership is diluted and soon destroyed. This educational role of the black church suggests at least six components: 1. The black church with its considerable intellectual, financial, publication and production resources must enable the preparation and distribution of oral and written literature which tells our story and teaches the values and goals which our experiences have discovered and evolved. 2. The black church must open its many facilities to the community especially to the young and provide them with tutorial and after-school supplementary education dealing mainly with the issues of functional literacy and community morality. (Continued
on Page 23)
"The common ground on which all Black church persons stand has higher priority than our various brands, labels and classifications." The Sphinx/Winter 1981