The Gospel According to the Blues
SERIES: Dance to the Music
Luke 19:39-40 NLT
39 But some of the Pharisees among the crowd said, “Teacher, rebuke your followers for saying things like that!”
40 He replied, “If they kept quiet, the stones along the road would burst into cheers!”
Psalm 39:1-3 NLT
1 I said to myself, “I will watch what I do and not sin in what I say. I will hold my tongue when the ungodly are around me.”
2 But as I stood there in silence— not even speaking of good things— the turmoil within me grew worse.
3 The more I thought about it, the hotter I got, igniting a fire of words…
The three historical distinctives of the black church are:
1. Black CULTURE
2. Black CONTROL
3. Black CONCERNS
The priority of the black social gospel according to William J. Simmons:
• God
• Race
• Denomination
The personal gospel is the application of the teachings of Jesus to PERSONAL sins.
The social gospel is the application of the teachings of Jesus to SOCIAL sins.
Any religion that proposes to be concerned with the souls of the men and yet not concerned with the economic and social. Conditions that strangle them and the social condition that cripples them is the kind Marxist describe as, “an opiate of the people”.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Saintly folk will act like SINNERS when they for days have had no DINNER.
Walter Rauchenbush
Factors gave birth to the blues in America:
1. The BETRAYAL of the African American community in 1877
2. The ABANDONMENT of the black churches historical mission.
I. The RADICAL black church
II. The DE-RADICALIZED black church
• OTHER WORLDLINESS
• INSTITUTIONAL MAINTENANCE
• DENOMINATIONAL AND CHURCH RIVALRIES
• UNHEALTHY EMOTIONALISM
• BLACK PREACHER PAY-OFF/COMPROMISE
III. The DE-CHRISTINIZATION of radicalism
Black inferiority
Lynching
Underprivileged
EMOTIONAL LETDOWN
Survival
IV. The RE-RADICALIZATION of the black church
2 Corinthians 4:8-9 NLT
8 We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair.
9 We are hunted down, but never abandoned by God. We get knocked down, but we are not destroyed.
