"Cooning"

I'll quote, then comment on some tweets by Anthony Bradley and his entourage:

Anthony Bradley Retweeted mezmcconnell

Here’s the problem(and this will be hard): from a black church perspective, evangelicals have never had the gospel. Ever. Read the book “Doctrine and Race.” Here then is the actual Q: When will evangelicals embrace the gospel for the first time ever? #BlackChurchAnthony Bradley added,

mezmcconnell

@mez1972

When you’re in power you have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo.  

Anthony Bradley Retweeted Dr. Eric Mason

@pastoremase

Replying to @drantbradley

It made sense from the beginning! My issue is now with blind evangelical blacks who cow tow at the altar of white evangelicalism trying to make us who are done seem a-theological or near apostate!Our bro Lecrae is a major public figure but many unknowns have been there for a min!

Anthony Bradley Retweeted Dr. Eric Mason

I think it’s fair to say that we (black folks) are all tired. Lecrae’s distancing makes more sense everyday..... #TiredAnthony 

@pastoremase

If you are critiquing woke ideology but you aren’t serving the black & African diaspora needs based on Titus 3:14, I can’t hear you! If you critique this from a white space I can’t hear you at all! More to come on this! #wokechurch

Anthony Bradley Retweeted Danté Stewart (Stew)

This is why I’m telling more brothers to stay in the black church. Yeah, go to RTS, etc. & then go back home. The evangelical church space has proven (repeatedly) that it’s not worth it. Expecting change is a fools errand.

@stewartdantec

Replying to @drantbradley

It’s bad out here. The worse part is that this is not fringe thinking; this is pervasive thinking. The amount of widespread ignorance + active animosity/justification is unbelievable. It’s extremely tiring and frustrating and hurts Christ’s church and our witness in the world.

Anthony Bradley Retweeted Wayne Larson

Everyone in the PCA should feel this way. Drop “evangelicalism” altogether. We have a confession and we’re a connectional church. And people don’t think “Presbyterians” are simple-minded so we don’t need an “e” to define us. #DropTheEAnthony Bradley added,

Anthony Bradley Retweeted Danté Stewart (Stew)

Book title: “Once We Speak Up: Why Lecrae, Jemar Tisby, & Others Distanced Themselves From White Evangelicalism” #NotWorthIt #BurntOut #TiredAnthony Bradley added,

Anthony Bradley

The same monistic impulse that believe desegregation would end racism in America is the same impulse that believes “multi-ethnic churches” are the solution to evangelicalism’s race problem, making them both idols (Allport warned us). 

Anthony Bradley Retweeted

Lecrae

Replying to @drantbradley

I’ve stopped talking and spent my energy working outside of the “evangelical papacy” that never cared for us collectively from the start. It takes a hard shake for some magic negros or “darlings” to see they are being tokenized.

Anthony Bradley Retweeted

Lecrae

Replying to @arielbovat @drantbradley

Evangelical for many of us = white.

So we aren’t embracing the title “black evangelicals”. We are simply Christians. The idea is that Evangelicalism has been and continues to be shaped without concern for people of color.

Anthony Bradley Retweeted Dr. Eric Mason

@pastoremase

Believers aren’t truly awakened if we are held hostage by evangelicals captivity to western culture. Being woke is rooted for me in Eph 5:14 & understanding the history of Christianity in North Africa. If you critique Woke ideology w/o engaging black dignity you are cooning.

i) This doesn't bother me personally because I don't take people who talk like this seriously. 

ii) What, if anything, are they trying to accomplish? This isn't going to change the views of the white evangelicals they demonize. There's no effort at rational persuasion. They don't give white evangelicals a reason to see things their way. There's no intellectual engagement. It's pure antipathy and seething resentment. 

Now maybe they feel that further debate is futile because they've tried that and white evangelicals won't listen. Maybe they define not listening in the sense that many white evangelicals don't buy into the Black Lives Matters narrative. Or they don't think there's anything to debate because that implies a two-sided exchange of views between equal conversation-partners, and they don't think white evangelicals have anything to contribute to the dialogue. 

iii) The purpose of slash-n-burn rhetoric is not to reach out, not to expand your base, but to differentiate yourself from the enemy. Consolidate your base. Announce your presence, thereby summoning other like-minded men and women to join the club. The result, though, is that Bradley and his ilk self-marginalize. 

iv) I'm intrigued and bemused by their mania with white evangelicals. Why are some blacks obsessed with whiteness when I don't share their obsession with my own whiteness? Why is whiteness more important to some blacks than it is to a white guy like me? Indeed, that's an understatement. Ironically, there are black Americans as fixated with white identity as neo-Nazis, neo-Confederates, and Klansmen.

v) They have this bizarre notion that white Christians like me have a duty to be extremely self-conscious about my race. They think I have an obligation to constantly remind myself that I'm white, as if that should be my central frame of reference. It's comical that they take whiteness far more seriously than white guys like I do. 

vi) Is there such a thing as the black church? In fact, it would be prejudicial for me to stereotype black Americans or black Christians by assuming that there's a monolithic black viewpoint. 

vii) I don't regard any one ethnic group as the standard of comparison for the church. Why should the experience of "the black church" be the benchmark? Why does that outrank the experience of, say, Korean-American Christians or Singaporean Christians or the underground church in mainland China or Latin American evangelicals, or Christians in Uganda? 

To the extent that there's a black experience, we should listen to that story and incorporate what's good into the evangelical church. But that holds true for other racial and ethnic groups. 

Likewise, there's a generational experience. Growing up at a particular time. There's a social class experience. Take a coal miner from West Virginia. There's a regional experience. Rural or small-town America compared to the big city. Then there's the global church.

All these stories enrich the church. But the only story that's normative for everyone is the Biblical story. 

viii) Their reminds me of the NAACA, which was useful when it was founded, but has long since outlived its purpose. Yet instead of disbanding, it casts about from some excuse to still be around. Something new to complain about.

ix) An unintended consequence of racial and religious discrimination is that it unifies the group that's the object of discrimination. In a sense, it produces the very group it oppresses. It generates a sense of group identity. 

And the ironic consequence of abolishing racial and religious discrimination is to trigger an identity crisis, because the group no longer has that artificial, externally imposed common ground to rally around. They can no longer define themselves by discrimination, because official discrimination is gone. And removing that extrinisic unifying force exposes the lack of organic affinity. 

Members of the formally oppressed group begin to drift apart because the only thing they shared in common was oppression. They had no other bond. 

Bradley and his ilk are like aging hippies who wax nostalgic for the Sixties. They go in search of a new cause to keep the flame alive. These are First World problems. Compare it to the persecution which Christians in India and Muslims countries suffer. That's real oppression! 

x) Imagine if I were to relocate to Singapore, Hong Kong, or Nigeria, then complain about the dominance of Chinese or black Africans? Historically, Caucasians have been the majority race in many parts of the Northern Hemisphere. As a result, Protestant Christianity in the Anglosphere is predominantly caucasian. That's a side-effect of racial demographics.

If you happen to be white, you ought to be Christian. You ought to be a Bible-believing Protestant. You ought form Christian institutions that propagate the faith once delivered. 

Due to immigration, other ethnic groups are moving into these preexisting institutions, although they have their own parallel institutions. Eventually, they may displace caucasians as the dominant group. There's a natural transition, due to shifting demographics. So long as we share the same Savior, the same Spirit, that's a wonderful fluid dynamic.