AME Clergy Recoup $60 Million of Mishandled Retirement Funds

Adelle M. Banks - Religion News Service

After the denomination’s embezzlement scandal, a partial settlement returns some lost funds to thousands of ministers and staff.

The closing worship service of the African Methodist Episcopal Church quadrennial General Conference in Columbus, Ohio, in 2024.

Video screen grab / RNS

A district court judge granted final approval last week to a partial settlement for clergy and staffers of the African Methodist Episcopal Church after a substantial percentage of funds from their retirement plan were discovered to be missing.

The historically Black denomination has been accused of mishandling the retirement funds, leaving many plan participants with about 30 percent of what they had hoped to use for retirement. The denomination accused its former retirement department head of embezzlement after discovering in 2021 that he provided “deceptive, false and grossly inflated financial statements” about the retirement plan.

On August 19, Judge S. Thomas Anderson of the US District Court for the Western District of Tennessee approved the partial settlements for the plaintiffs—totaling some 4,500 people whose single case was previously consolidated from six—with the denomination and Newport Group Inc., a third-party administrator involved with the church’s retirement services. He said if the case was not settled, the plan participants could “face the risk of rulings adverse to their cause.”

Under the approved settlement, the AME Church has put $20 million into a settlement fund and Newport provided $40 million, totaling $60 million plus any interest.

Lawyers for plan participants and the church confirmed Tuesday that, not including interest, legal fees currently total $20 million plus $1.3 million reimbursement for out-of-pocket expenses—more than a third of the settlement.

Both lawyers for the church and for the case’s plaintiffs said they were pleased with the development but acknowledged there is more work ahead of a trial set for 2026. The trial would involve defendants who continue with the litigation and are not part of the settlements.

“It’s been a long and difficult battle, and we’re not done, but this settlement is a major milestone in our efforts to collect every penny that these pastors lost,” Matt Lee, co-lead counsel for the plaintiffs, told Religion News Service via email. “It’s hard to overstate what the restoration of these funds will mean for thousands of retired AME Church ministers. While we’re proud of the work our team has done so far, we will not relent until every stone is turned and every responsible party is held accountable.”

Douglass Selby, general counsel for the AME Church, said the denomination was “thrilled” by the legal juncture.

“It marks an important point to the litigation,” he told Religion News Service in an interview. “Obviously, we still have a ways to go to get our plan participants who suffered this wrong fully restored to their financial position, but this is an important series of first steps.”

Selby added that the church continues to seek “full recovery” from “the other parties that were participants in this scheme to defraud the church.”

Early in the litigation, the plaintiffs said some $88.4 million was lost from the retirement funds. The AME Church said the situation was the result of embezzlement by the Rev. Jerome V. Harris, who retired in 2021 after 21 years as head of the denomination’s Department of Retirement Services. He died in May 2024, of a heart attack.

Symetra Life Insurance Co. and his estate are among additional defendants in the case.

On Tuesday, Selby said, “We are going after the estate of Dr. Harris with full force, and our expectation is that if there are any funds there that we would secure them.” Retirement plan participants could then recoup more of the lost funds if the court decides in their favor.

The judge, who has presided over the case for three years, wrote a 30-page order about its complexity. He said it has produced more than 1.5 million documents and numerous claims, counterclaims, cross-claims and third-party claims.

“Perhaps, most important, the money obtained from the settlements will allow the plan participants to begin receiving increased retirement benefits sooner rather than later,” he said.

Anderson noted that the court received just two objections and no opt-out requests to the settlement. He acknowledged the concerns of two Florida ministers, including the Charles Larkin Scott Sr. of Royal Palm Beach, who objected to the amount in legal fees for attorneys, but determined they lacked merit.

“The Plan participants relied on the promise of full pension benefits when they retired as outlined in The Book of Discipline and have been confronted with a broken promise just when they most need those benefits,” Anderson wrote, referring to the rule book of the AME Church. “The Court agrees with Reverend Scott’s statement that the Plan participants have done nothing wrong and has made its decision based on considerations of how best to help those who have been injured.”

Lawyers for the church and the plan participants said if those two ministers do not appeal within 30 days of Anderson’s order, a settlement administrator will transfer funds to a trust from which eligible plan members or their beneficiaries can receive financial distributions.

In a Wednesday statement, Bishop Silvester S. Beaman, president of the AME Church’s Council of Bishops, said the church “crossed a major threshold in the settlement with the Newport Group” and that he was confident the funds would be available for plan participants by mid-September.

“This is a positive step forward in our quest to restore the funds that were lost,” Beaman said.

AARP Foundation, which has been part of the team of attorneys working on the litigation, also welcomed the judge’s approval.

“This settlement is a hard-won victory and will bring much-needed financial relief to thousands who dedicated their lives to serving their communities,” said William Alvarado Rivera, senior vice president of litigation at AARP Foundation. “This agreement helps restore critical retirement funds, without further delay and expense.”

Retired ministers described having to return to work or depending on their children for financial security, which was not how they envisioned spending retirement, as a result of the lost funds. Beneficiaries of ministers who died are also awaiting payment.

The Rev. J. Edgar Boyd, a leader of the AMEs for Justice and Accountability group, said he has heard from retired clergy whose economic situations have been “imperiled tremendously” in the wake of the retirement fund losses.

In an interview Tuesday, he said the funds available through the settlement amount to about $39 million, not including interest. That’s because the $60 million total is reduced by the attorneys’ fees and an additional $200,000, as each of the 10 named plaintiffs will receive $20,000 as a service award.

The parties involved in the settlement, which include AME Church defendants such as its Council of Bishops, Department of Retirement Services and General Board, as well as Newport, have not admitted liability. However, the AME Church has long declared it desired to make “participants whole.”

Anderson said that day is still in the future.

“However, to be clear, the present settlements will not make the retirees whole,” he wrote after stating in his order that the settlement calls for retirees to “recover proportionally what he or she invested.”

“The litigation continues with that goal in mind and with the assurance of Plaintiffs’ counsel that claims against all other defendants in this matter are being actively pursued,” he wrote.

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Ideas

Christian Education Can Survive ChatGPT

Griffin Gooch

As an early-career educator, I was growing discouraged in the classroom. Then a small Christian college showed me a new way to teach.

Illustration by Mallory Rentsch Tlapek / Source Images: Getty

If you’d asked me a year ago why so many American college students are struggling, I’d have told you a familiar story: Rising tuition rates fund bloated administrations and build bougier freshman dorms. Broken teaching styles don’t give students the knowledge or skills they need. And then there are the students themselves, widely reputed to be lazy, “functionally illiterate,” ChatGPT-addicted phone zombies.

There is truth to these charges, and growing up in Kalamazoo, Michigan, primed me to believe the accusations against students in particular. When Brookings Institution scholar Richard Reeves wanted to show just how much the modern male is struggling, he used my hometown as a case study. “Thanks to an anonymous benefactor, students educated in the city’s K–12 school system get all their tuition paid at almost any college in the state,” he wrote. But though the “program put rocket boosters on female college completion rates,” the “men’s rates didn’t budge.” Literally no change.

After a few years of teaching in Kalamazoo high school and college settings, I wasn’t surprised by those findings. It’s not uncommon for new educators to be crestfallen when their expectations meet the reality of classrooms in an age of smartphones and artificial intelligence. But as a Christian educator who connects education to knowing and imitating Christ, I was slowly growing a unique sense of discouragement. Many students are more interested in doing as little work as possible to get as high a grade as possible than in anything to do with Jesus.

But then I showed up to teach at Northpoint College, a Christian school nearby. I expected more of the same: doomscrolling during lectures and using chatbots with excessive force. Instead, by a few weeks in, I was texting every professor I know to enthuse that I’d never seen a group of students so devoted to education.

AI-use detection was zero on all assignments. The average paper looked better than my own submissions to academic journals. By the end of the semester, the biggest complaint I got in course evaluations was that I wasn’t challenging the students enough.

All my students were impressive, but having read Reeves’s work, I was especially struck by the men. Of the ten guys in my class, six were planning to get PhDs, and the rest had lined up impressive careers or made concrete plans to work at local churches after graduation. In between classes, I started interrogating other professors to see if their experiences lined up with mine. They did, unanimously.

I had to understand what was going on, so I reached out to Trent Roberts, Northpoint’s president. His account of his school’s success was in many ways what you’d expect from the leader of an Assemblies of God-affiliated college. The Holy Spirit figured prominently. But Roberts also highlighted Northpoint’s unusual pairing of very high expectations with abundant validation and resources for students.

Northpoint offers bachelor’s degrees but mostly uses master’s-level textbooks, and anything below a C is a failing grade. But the college introduces these expectations by explaining to students that high standards match high hopes.

In practice, this is a system built around relationships. When the academic dean reviewed my syllabus, his most notable change was adding my personal phone number and email. And where in previous roles I could count on one hand the number of times students reached out for help, at Northpoint my inbox is avalanched by student emails every week. That’s the kind of culture the school has cultivated, asking a lot from students but never leaving them to flounder.

Roberts’s account of the college’s approach reminded me of the work of psychologist David Yeager, who’s known for his research on motivating young people. In one of his studies, scholars had a teacher correct one group of students’ essays while leaving no additional comments. For another group, the teacher corrected just as rigorously but also left a “wise feedback” comment that said, “I’m giving you these comments because I have very high expectations and I know that you can reach them.” The wise-feedback group made twice as many revisions to their essays as the group with no encouragement.

Yeager argues that young people want and need this kind of affirmation. That’s not because they’re vain, selfish, or obsessed with status, he says, but because recognition and respect are to young people what food and sleep are to infants: “core needs that, when satisfied, can unlock better motivation and behavior.” As Roberts and I talked, his philosophy of education at Northpoint struck me as a Spirit-driven version of this idea. “Our job is to make students feel capable,” he told me, “and to provide them whatever they need to reach our standards.”

In an increasingly postliterate age, faculty may be tempted to lower their standards, boosting students’ immediate performance but undermining long-term growth. But Northpoint is flourishing by raising expectations, asking students to grapple with “desirable difficulties” that build character alongside knowledge—while providing students with the relational and academic support to grapple well.

And generally, young people take that opportunity when offered. “It drives me nuts when older generations complain about Gen Z like they’re incompetent,” Roberts said. “It makes the next generation more likely to live out those critiques like a self-fulfilling prophecy.” Stories of generational decline don’t have to come true.

Nor does the golden age of the university have to be in the past, and Christian colleges like Northpoint are perfectly positioned to train the next generation well. As Oklahoma Baptist University professor Alan Noble has noted, many problems present in secular universities aren’t occurring in Christian higher education to the same degree. With Noble, I’d argue this is because Christian institutions are grounded in a moral and theological understanding of education that their counterparts lack.

Christian schools should consciously train students to see the prestige, wealth, or opportunities their educations provide as secondary goals. “The end then of learning,” as John Milton put it in Of Education, “is to repair the ruins of our first parents by regaining to know God aright, and out of that knowledge to love Him, to imitate Him, to be like Him.”

Our calling as Christian educators is not only to share knowledge but also to challenge our students to live into their status as “heirs with Christ” (Rom. 8:12–17)—the utmost honor imaginable. It’s easy to blame the downfall of higher ed on 18-year-olds, but if we want students who don’t cheat with ChatGPT, then we need to teach students that getting a good grade is less important than imitating Christ.

Griffin Gooch is a writer, speaker, and professor currently working on his doctorate at University of Aberdeen. He writes most frequently on Substack.

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Theology

What Christians Should Know About Shinto

Interview by Kazusa Okaya

Evangelical scholar Yoichi Yamaguchi on the indigenous religion’s key teachings, its historical development, and ways to evangelize effectively in Japan.

People holding lanterns at an Obon festival.

Illustration by Elizabeth Kaye / Source Images: Getty, WikiMedia Commons

Every August, Japan celebrates Obon, one of the country’s biggest Shinto-Buddhist festivals. Vibrant dances set to the beat of taiko drums take place in temples or parks as a form of welcoming the spirits. Families visit their ancestors’ graves to pay their respects and light paper lanterns to guide the spirits back to the afterlife when the festival ends.

The Shinto belief that pervades this festival is the notion that the spirits of dead ancestors have become deities who watch over their living relatives. During Obon, it is customary to welcome these ancestral spirits into peoples’ homes.

Shinto, or Shintoism as it is known in the West, has profoundly shaped the history, culture, and worldview of the Japanese people. Yet literature in the English-speaking world—particularly addressing the relationship between Shinto and Christianity—remains limited.

To explore the nature of Shinto, its development in the country, its interactions with Christianity, and its implications for evangelism in Japan, Christianity Today interviewed Yoichi Yamaguchi, director of the International Mission Center at Tokyo Christian University.

“At Shinto’s foundation lies a mythological worldview: that Japan was established by the sun god Amaterasu, a chief deity,” Yamaguchi said. “The emperor is regarded as Amaterasu’s descendant.”

Between 2022 and 2025, Yamaguchi published a series of articles introducing key texts associated with Japanese Christianity (nihon-teki-kirisuto-kyo), a movement popular before and during World War II that attempted to wed Shinto and nationalism with Christian faith.

After the war ended, Japanese churches recognized the militant nationalism they had held on to and moved toward adopting a critical stance against syncretistic Christianity. They repented of practices like emperor worship, vowing to serve only God as their master.

More recently, however, Yamaguchi has sensed a growing openness among Japanese evangelicals to positively reengage Shinto because of the rise of contextual missiology and the diminishing of negative sentiments toward syncretistic Christianity 80 years after the war. Some Japanese Christians are also working to counter unfavorable portrayals of Shinto because they think it hinders evangelism, Yamaguchi added.

While Yamaguchi is encouraged by this openness to engage with Shinto and Japanese culture, he believes Christians should also be aware of “the ways in which the Japanese church has historically been compromised by them.”

“Respect and critique must walk together,” he said. “Only then can real understanding begin.”

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. Read each section below:

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Theology

Shinto’s Key Teachings

Interview by Kazusa Okaya

Evangelical scholar Yoichi Yamaguchi explains why Japan’s indigenous religion lacks a transcendent notion of God.

Illustration by Elizabeth Kaye / Source Images: Unsplash, WikiMedia Commons

Christianity Today speaks with Yoichi Yamaguchi, director of the International Mission Center at Tokyo Christian University, on what Shinto beliefs look like and how the indigenous religion flourished in Japan.

What is Shinto?

As the earliest religion in Japan, Shinto could have been practiced as far back as the Jomon period (10,500 to 300 BC). It developed over time by absorbing influences from other traditions and religions, such as Buddhism and Confucianism.

Shinto is the indigenous religion of Japan, which emphasizes the nature and worship of various deities (kami). The deities reside in various natural phenomena and objects, and Japanese people believe that all things possess a divine spirit.

Shinto emphasizes ancestral veneration and ritual purity, but there are no unified doctrines or rituals. Hence, Shinto is a very ambiguous phenomenon, and Japanese scholars of religion continue to debate whether it should be classified as a religion.

This flexibility is one of the most important characteristics of Shinto. “First, Shinto arose in tandem with Japanese ethnic culture and has never once been practiced outside of Japanese society,” Shinto scholar Minoru Sonoda writes in Encyclopedia of Japanese Religions. “Second, by modern standards, it is too vague to be classified as a religion, and most Japanese people who have encountered Shinto in some forms do not consciously recognize it as religious.”

What are Shinto’s key teachings?

Strictly speaking, Shinto does not possess formal doctrines. If anything, it is founded upon an intuitive reverence for the Japanese land, deities, and ancestors.

One defining characteristic of Shinto is its emphasis on ritual purity and harmony with nature. But this notion of purification differs considerably from the Christian concept of holiness before God.

Rather than seeking holiness in relation to a transcendent being, Shinto emphasizes subjective inner purity. For instance, walking quietly on gravel paths in a serene shrine forest is itself an act of spiritual cultivation in Shinto. Such practices foster emotional tranquility, but they do not arise from doctrinal imperatives.

Shinto’s focus is not on divine-human communion but on an individual’s harmonious integration with nature. This marks a fundamental contrast with Christian spirituality.

From a Western perspective, this is similar to the postmodern trend of religionless spirituality. But Japan has never fully undergone the modernization that preceded the postmodern turn in Europe. Japan has long inhabited a framework in which the transcendence is not external (extra nos) but internal (intra nos). Shinto lacks a transcendent notion of God, which is characteristic of Christianity.

How did Shinto grow and flourish in Japan?

Although Shinto was central to Japanese identity, Confucian and Buddhist values also coexisted with it. Historically, many Japanese people held the popular view, known as honji-suijaku, that Shinto deities were manifestations of various Buddhas. This perspective was influential in the development of Buddhist-Shinto syncretism in the country.

In the latter Edo period (1603–1868), the nativist (Kokugaku) movement emerged to clarify and purify Japan’s native traditions. Kokugaku scholars such as Motoori Norinaga and Hirata Atsutane sought to strip away “impure” elements, such as Buddhism and Confucianism, and rediscover “authentic” Japanese values like Shinto.

This intellectual movement provided the philosophical impetus for the Meiji Restoration, a political revolution in 1868 that led to the Meiji government’s institutionalization of an emperor-centered worldview, a concept we call kokutai.

Learn more about what Shinto’s historical and contemporary influences are in Japan, how Christianity and Shinto interacted in the country, and what evangelism looks like in a Shinto-influenced culture.

Correction: An earlier version of the story misstated what the honji-suijaku view entailed.

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Theology

Shinto’s Historical and Contemporary Influences on Japanese Society

Interview by Kazusa Okaya

Evangelical scholar Yoichi Yamaguchi shares how Shinto influenced the development of emperor worship and the ways Christians responded.

A portrait of Emperor Meiji.

Illustration by Elizabeth Kaye / Source Images: WikiMedia Commons

Christianity Today interviews Yoichi Yamaguchi, director of the International Mission Center at Tokyo Christian University, about Shinto’s long-lasting significance in Japan and how early believers responded to the imposition of emperor worship.

Can Shinto be considered Japan’s national religion?

While the Japanese imperial household conducts official Shinto rituals using the state budget today, Shinto was never officially declared the national religion in the country.

During the Meiji era (1868–1912), Japanese officials wrestled with whether Shinto could be declared a religion. Progressive bureaucrats who sought globalization firmly opposed using the term state religion, unlike conservative court officials seeking to preserve Japanese traditions.

During the drafting of Article 28—the clause on religious freedom—in the Meiji Constitution established in 1889, Japanese conservatives proposed to qualify religious liberty with the condition that it would not contravene the national religion. Their proposals were ultimately rejected, and the final constitution did not contain the term national religion at all.

Nevertheless, Shinto operated as a de facto national religion to strengthen national unity.

What about State Shinto? How and why was that established in Japan? How did Christians at the time respond to it?

While the Meiji government upheld a façade of religious neutrality, it established a system in which State Shinto, where people revered the emperor as a supreme being in Japan, occupied a central role in civic life.

The emperor was perceived as a semidivine figure who was a descendant of the sun god Amaterasu, and people believed he could be a mediator between deities (kami) and humans.

The Imperial Rescript on Education, a key ideological document of the Meiji state published in 1890, reflected how influential and pervasive Shinto was in society. Written by government officials and issued by the emperor, the rescript embodied the values of an emperor-centered state cult as a guiding principle for all spheres of education. Japanese people at the time treated the rescript as a sacred text because they thought the emperor, as a supreme being, had absolute authority.

In 1891, one notable conflict between Christianity and state ideology emerged in what is known as the “disrespect incident.” Kanzo Uchimura, a prominent Christian leader and public school teacher, was censured for refusing to bow to the document containing the rescript.

Over time, however, both state and church leaders came to insist that Christianity and State Shinto were not in conflict and could coexist. From 1930, the Japanese government began asserting that Shinto and imperial worship were only expressions of Japanese culture and identity rather than religious acts that conflicted with Christian beliefs.

This view slowly gained traction among the majority of Christian leaders, who thought it would make evangelism easier.

What elements of Shinto exist in contemporary Japan?

Until recently, Japan’s national broadcasting station, NHK, aired a Saturday-morning radio program called Good Luck Shrine Walks (Ayakari Jinja Sanpo), which featured shrines that are reputed to bestow good fortune.

In many Japanese companies, employees are often expected to visit a shrine together on New Year’s Day to pray for the organization’s prosperity. Companies also often maintain a household shrine (kamidana) in their offices for good luck. These practices are considered not religious but merely cultural by most Japanese.

Traditional Japanese festivals such as children’s fairs (omatsuri) are also held in shrines, although these practices have been decreasing in recent years.

Learn more about Shinto’s key teachings, the ways Christianity and Shinto interacted in Japan, and missions and evangelism in a Shinto-influenced culture.

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Theology

Christianity and Shinto

Interview by Kazusa Okaya

Japanese believers must be wary of falling into syncretism again, evangelical scholar Yoichi Yamaguchi warns.

Shinto Shimenawa prayer ties.

Illustration by Elizabeth Kaye / Source Images: WikiMedia Commons

Christianity Today interviews Yoichi Yamaguchi, director of the International Mission Center at Tokyo Christian University, on the beginnings of a Christian movement that sought to meld the faith with Shinto and Japanese nationalism and the struggles present-day Japanese evangelicals face when it comes to Shinto practices.

How did Japanese Christians and churches historically engage with Shinto?

When the first Protestant missionaries came to Japan in the mid-19th century, they taught that Shinto shrines are idolatrous. Early Japanese Christians accepted this posture, and they refused to participate in Shinto practices like worshiping at a local shrine.

But through these repeated conflicts with Shinto beliefs, Japanese Christians began to rethink whether traditional Shinto values, such as ancestral worship and emperor veneration, were truly incompatible with the Christian faith.

The Japanese Christianity (nihon-teki-kirisuto-kyo) movement, which started in the early Meiji period and lasted until the end of World War II, sought to meld Shinto and nationalism with Christian faith. Proponents of this movement believed that God had chosen Japan as the protector of Asia against Western invasion, and some even went so far as to say that Shinto values could be fully realized through Christianity or that the Japanese god Amaterasu was Jesus and therefore the emperor was a descendant of Christ.

The earliest Protestant communities in Japan, such as the Yokohama Band (the word band describes a small group of Christians) and its Yokohama church, comprised individuals who were deeply informed by nativist (Kokugaku) scholarship. Their embrace of Christianity was not a conversion out of a heritage that cherished the Japanese ethos, including Shinto, but rather a reinterpretation of it.

Can you share examples of some Japanese Christians’ reinterpretations of Shinto beliefs?

Japanese Christian leaders from the late 19th century, like Uemura Masahisa and Kanzo Uchimura, proposed viewing Christianity as a faith that was grafted onto “the way of the samurai” (Bushido). They argued that key Bushido virtues, such as honor and loyalty, paved the way for Christianity in the country.

Other Christian leaders, like Ebina Danjo and Watase Tsuneyoshi, were more explicit in attempting to wed Shinto with Christianity. Ebina supported modern values like gender equality but also held a deep conviction of Japanese superiority because of the Shinto belief that Japan was a divinely appointed country.

I once considered Christian thinkers like Ebina and Watase as extremists, but after reading the literature of the Japanese Christianity movement in their time period, I came to realize that their views were not outliers at the time. These attitudes were shaped in an environment where East Asia, including Japan, faced the threat of Western colonization.

This conviction that Japan must not fall victim to imperial powers helped to produce a generation of Christians who fused their faith with Shinto beliefs and nationalist ideals.

What kinds of tensions or conflicts do Japanese evangelicals face regarding Shinto today?

Our historical memory of State Shinto—and how it suffocated religious freedom during World War II—has fostered a sense of caution and discomfort among Japanese Christians when it comes to emperor veneration, shrine visits, and participation in neighborhood associations that engage in Shinto customs.

However, this reluctance toward engaging with Shinto has dulled in recent years, particularly among younger generations of evangelicals. There is an intensified conformity and tendency to go along with prevailing norms. Even as shrine institutions weaken, the ethos of mutual nondisruption—“Let’s live freely, help each other, and not cause trouble”—continues to exert a strong influence in Japanese society.

Today, institutionalized Shinto is declining. Yet Japanese people still highly prize Shinto ideals such as mutual respect, harmony, and restraint. This worldview encourages cultural homogeneity, making it difficult for people to ascribe to Christianity’s exclusive claims. In this sense, the ethos of Shinto may persist in a noninstitutionalized way.

The emperor, too, has undergone a symbolic refresh. He is now widely perceived as Japan’s moral exemplar instead of a divine being. Hence there is a growing sense of appreciation toward the emperor among younger evangelicals. Many feel less animosity toward the emperor and the role he plays in state-led Shinto rituals.

With this increasingly positive appreciation of the emperor and a Shinto worldview, perhaps Japanese Christians need to be alert and not fall into the slippery slope of syncretism again.

Learn more about Shinto’s key teachings, its historical and contemporary influences on Japanese society, and conversations about Christ in a Shinto-influenced culture.

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Theology

Missions and Evangelism in a Shinto-influenced Culture

Interview by Kazusa Okaya

“We must avoid both excessive fear and uncritical sentimentalism of Shinto,” evangelical scholar Yoichi Yamaguchi argues.

The interior of a Christian church in Japan.

Illustration by Elizabeth Kaye / Source Images: Ben Weller, WikiMedia Commons

Christianity Today speaks with Yoichi Yamaguchi, director of the International Mission Center at Tokyo Christian University, on how Shinto poses a barrier to the Christian faith and what believers can do to evangelize more effectively in Japan.

Christians make up less than 1 percent of the Japanese population despite missions to the country since 1549. Do you think the presence of Shinto is one reason Christianity has struggled to spread in Japan?

Yes, Shinto contributes significantly to that difficulty. Shinto lacks dogma or a prescriptive moral code. If something feels right to a person’s heart, it is accepted as good.

This intuitive approach to religion permeates Japanese cultural consciousness. Japanese people are not naturally inclined to think about religion in doctrinal terms. The idea of consciously worshiping God, hearing God’s Word, and entering into a covenantal relationship with God is foreign to many.

There are also emotional and communal attachments that people may find hard to eradicate. In Japan, family members are expected to participate in Shinto rituals like funeral rites, visits to shrines, and care for their ancestors’ graves in Shinto graveyards. If people are asked to convert to Christianity, they might say, “I can’t cut off my connection to my ancestors” or “I can’t leave my family grave unattended.”

Ultimately, the largest obstacle to evangelism in Japan may be a deeply internalized identity of “Japaneseness,” which is inevitably entangled with a Shinto worldview. To become Christian would be to step outside of that cultural and familial framework. Becoming a Christian in Japan involves a level of personal commitment. It means going against familial and local expectations, as well as tradition. It is never a casual decision.

How should evangelicals approach people with a Shinto worldview when doing missions or evangelism in Japan?

Missionaries have tried to implement models of Christian discipleship from places like South Korea, but they often fail to gain traction in Japan. That’s not to say such models are wrong, but Japan is a culture where religion functions primarily as a matter of conscience. Nothing takes root unless it resonates deeply with an individual’s inner “heart.”

Of course, conscience can become distorted and is not sufficient on its own. But without it, I believe one cannot encounter God, pray, worship, or form a true relationship with the divine. Authentic conscience is not autonomy—it is conscience under God’s grace.

Because Japanese people consider religion in terms of the heart and not in terms of doctrine, a theological reflection on conscience may provide a bridge between the heart and the mind. This would be helpful for evangelism and discipleship.

What assumptions or misunderstandings about Shinto should evangelicals in Japan and abroad be more aware of?

Some devout evangelicals in Japan fear that simply passing through a torii gate, situated at the entrance to a shrine, is spiritually defiling. At the other extreme are those who become emotionally drawn to Shinto aesthetics.

In my Reading Japanese Christianity article series, I observed that a believer’s shift toward Shinto syncretism often begins with affective experiences. For instance, a person may look up at the morning sun and be moved to tears, and from that moment on, that person may turn toward a Shinto worldview, which equates nature with the gods, rather than seeing nature as God’s creation.

The traditional Japanese emotion aroused in such an encounter is called mono no aware, a bittersweet awareness of the impermanence of life—and not a reverence for the creator God.

The key is balance. We must avoid both excessive fear and uncritical sentimentalism of Shinto. It’s vital to understand what historical functions Shinto shrines have served in Japan.

Personally, I enjoy visiting shrines. I ask, “What are the people who come here seeking?” When I see someone praying earnestly at a shrine, I wonder, “What prevents them from coming to church and praying there?” This kind of inquiry is important. Christians should regard Shinto with respect and caution.

Read about how Christianity and Shinto interacted in Japan, what historical and contemporary influences Shinto had on Japanese society, and what Shinto’s key teachings are.

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Pastors

Three Surprising Advantages Small Churches Have with Gen Z

Kara Powell

New research shows that when it comes to reaching young people, size isn’t a limitation—it’s an asset.

mixetto / Getty

When it comes to church, today’s young people aren’t looking for a show—they’re looking for a home. For Gen Z, cold and institutional is out; real and relational is in.

That’s good news for smaller churches. Since 2000, national median worship attendance has dropped from 137 people to 65 by 2023, and 70 percent of churches now report fewer than 100 regular members. The trend is undeniable—but so is the opportunity. Smaller churches are often better at feeling like family. And that sense of family comes with crucial benefits when it comes to attracting and keeping teenagers and twentysomethings.

Thanks to the Fuller Youth Institute’s research with ethnically and ecumenically diverse congregations, we’ve seen these advantages show up most clearly in some smaller churches—particular those my colleagues and I describe “Future-Focused Churches.”

We define a Future-Focused Church as a “group of people that seek God’s direction together—especially in relationally discipling young people, modeling kingdom diversity, and tangibly loving our neighbors.”

After all, a church—of any size—isn’t a building. It’s a body of people. And those bodies are at their absolute best when they are wholeheartedly following God’s lead.

The definition names three priorities we’ve consistently seen in healthy, growing congregations. Grounded in what we see in Scripture, shaped by current cultural dynamics, and confirmed by ongoing research with over 1,000 churches intentionally connecting with young people, these three “checkpoints” consistently show up in congregations that are bearing fruit, especially with Gen Z: relational youth formation, kingdom diversity, and tangible love of neighbors.

Churches that share these priorities don’t just grow younger—they grow healthier. And while a church of any size can become future-focused, our research reveals that smaller congregations have three surprising advantages when it comes to reaching and discipling Gen Z.

People support what they create

When Dustin interviewed to pastor Port Orchard Seventh-day Adventist Church in Washington, one of the elders voiced a sobering concern: “If we don’t get more young people, the church is going to die.”

So Dustin got to work. Leading a church of 90 people, he made it his mission to personally connect with every young adult who visited. Soon, he and his wife launched a young adult Bible study that regularly discussed this key question: What would we like to see God do through us?

Together, the young adult group felt called to offer practical health services to their neighborhood. Their vision mobilized the rest of the congregation to host a free one-day medical clinic. It made a meaningful impact.

Later, when Dustin and some of those same young adults felt called to plant a new church 30 minutes away in Tacoma, they brought that same desire to serve the practical health needs of their city. Over the last four years, LifeBridge Church—their church plant of 50–80 members—has rallied to host 12 free health clinics, mobilize 1,000 volunteers, serve 2,000 patients, and provide over $1 million in dental, vision, and medical care.

Through both churches, Dustin saw the same truth confirmed: all generations—but especially young people—aren’t so eager to get on board with a pastor’s pre-written program. They want to help write it. They want to play a part in developing something meaningful together.

Put simply, people support what they help create. In many cases, the smaller the church, the easier it is to be part of that creation process.

Wise pastors in smaller churches recognize they have a unique part to play in mobilizing the community through preaching, mentoring, and leading. But all that work functions less like a central pipeline and more like tributary streams feeding into a larger river—one that sees the gifts of the entire community mobilized. As Dustin learned, that river grows stronger when young adults are asked to imagine how God might want to work through them—and are then coached in how to make that dream a reality.

Leadership begins with listening

On the first day of many of his leadership classes, my friend and Fuller Seminary colleague, Scott Cormode, highlights a simple phrase to his students: “Leadership begins with listening.”

When leaders take that seriously, remarkable shifts can follow.

At one Southern California church of 200 members, leaders recognized they needed to better listen to their young people. So a pastor and board member started asking teenagers direct questions:

When do you feel like you really belong in our church?

How can we see and support you better?

Their responses included a common theme: “Show up for our events outside of church.”

So they did. The church created a tradition of announcing student events every week during the worship service. Whether it’s one person or a dozen, someone now shows up to a game or concert in support of the younger congregants. By listening well, this church has become a place where young people feel seen, celebrated, and supported every week.

To practice that type of listening across generations, we recommend a listening strategy called Appreciative Inquiry. As the name suggests, it focuses on strengths—and not deficits—through questions like:

What do you love most about this church? If there’s a particular story or example that comes to mind, please share it.
Tell us about a moment when you really experienced God or felt God’s presence. What was that like, and why was it meaningful?
What is it like to be a teenager today? What do you really enjoy about this stage of life, and what is important for others in our church to know about your perspective?
What do you hope or dream for the future of our church?

When pastors in smaller churches ask these sorts of questions, they better appreciate, and can respond to, this anxious and creative generation’s pain and potential.

Experiment from the edges

Experiment. It’s a beautiful word. (Admittedly, as a researcher, I am positively biased toward the term.)

Part of its appeal lies in its implication that as we try something new, we will evaluate our progress along the way. What we’re doing is not set in stone.

Every Future-Focused Church we studied had to experiment—often wisely labeling it as such—during the pandemic. In many cases, those short-term shifts became a new part of the long-term normal.

For instance, one 75-person congregation in Scotland sought to add greater relational connection to their online worship services during the pandemic. So they opened their Zoom gatherings twenty minutes early for discussion and casual worship singing. The congregation, starved for community, embraced it immediately. When they could resume meeting in-person again, they translated that tradition to their worship services. Now, twenty minutes prior to the 10:30 a.m. service, the worship team leads “casual worship” for anyone who wants to come early.

Reflecting on this shift, one elder told us, “Before COVID, if I had suggested that we would start the services with a few casual worship songs, the shutters would have gone up. But experiments…allowed us to get around what had previously seemed as insurmountable obstacles.”

This is a powerful feature of smaller churches. When leaders make a practice of listening to congregants and involving others in change, their nimble size makes it easier to tweak current gatherings or offer something altogether new. And as leaders learn from and leverage these small wins, they can become bigger wins that change church culture and increase church impact.

Of course, God can work—and has worked—through churches of every size. But for a generation starving for authenticity and empathy, smaller churches often offer what Gen Z is looking for: belonging, purpose, and a sense of family.

Kara Powell, PhD, is chief of leadership formation at Fuller Seminary, executive director of the Fuller Youth Institute, and a co-author of Future-Focused Church.

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Ideas

Black History at the Smithsonian Can’t Be Told with Half-Truths

Haleluya Hadero

Staff Editor

No institution is above scrutiny, but the Trump administration’s planned overhaul could obscure the work of God in American history.

The Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, DC.

J. David Ake / Contributor / Getty

When the National Museum of African American History & Culture opened in Washington, DC, in 2016, a friend and I received coveted tickets to be among the first visitors. The collection is large, and the tour was emotionally grueling, much of it concerning the horrors of the transatlantic slave trade, chattel slavery, and the Civil War fought to rid the country of that peculiar institution.

The first Smithsonian museum dedicated to Black history, it does not shy away from depicting America’s racial past, from its earliest years through the aftermath of the Civil War—including Jim Crow, race massacres, and public lynchings—through the heroism of the Civil Rights Movement, in which brave men and women were beaten, tear-gassed, and even killed as they advocated for Black Americans. The museum also highlighted positive achievements: As a country, we have made significant progress on race. Still, it’s evident in the headlines and an endless array of stats that we carry the legacy of the past with us into the present.

How Americans communicate Black history to ourselves, our children, and the world is now under intense scrutiny in Washington, where the Trump administration has announced plans to root out what it’s called a “divisive, race-centered ideology” within the Smithsonian Institution. White House aides have been tasked with a “comprehensive internal review” of several museums, including the one dedicated to Black history, with an aim of realignment with President Donald Trump’s “directive to celebrate American exceptionalism.”

What that means in practice is yet to be seen. But Trump has already said he wants Smithsonian exhibits to be less “woke,” which in his mind translates to discussions, in part, about “how bad Slavery was.” “We have the ‘HOTTEST’ Country in the World, and we want people to talk about it, including in our Museums,” he posted this week on Truth Social.

It’s not wrong to want to honor the good. But Trump’s sentiment misses the point. Whether told in a book or a museum exhibit, truthful history cannot merely valorize goodness. It must tell the whole truth, preserving a clear and honest account of past events that can be passed down through the generations. If the Smithsonian museums are to be truthful, they will not deemphasize or obscure the hypocrisy exhibited by our founders and governing documents, nor the evil perpetrated against slaves, countless of whom prayed and petitioned God for deliverance. To celebrate the exceptionalism of the American Civil Rights Movement, a predominantly Christian and clergy-led project, requires telling the full story of the oppressive system these activists fought.

Sanitizing these displays will do more than distort the truth about America. It will also diminish the work of God in our history and discount the resilience of the people who put their hope in him. Theirs are examples we need in the work of justice still left for us to do.

The necessity of remembering history is clear throughout Scripture. After God delivers the Israelites from bondage in Egypt, he commands them to remember it weekly when they observe the Sabbath (Deut. 5:15). God does the same after the people cross the Jordan River, this time instructing Joshua to set up a memorial with stones that can serve as a reminder for future generations (Josh. 4). And in the New Testament, Paul tells Christians to remember the death of Christ until he comes (1 Cor. 11:23–26).

And it’s not only the good and encouraging history we’re to keep in mind. The Bible consistently records the sins of Israel and the early church, giving us an honest—and therefore often unflattering—record of human failures. Joshua recounts the sin of Peor while directing the Israelites to faithfulness (Josh. 22:17–18). Scripture tells us that Abaraham deceived (Gen. 20:2), Jacob and Esau had a bitter rivalry (27:41), the nation of Israel fell into idolatry (Isa. 2:8), and David committed murder (2 Sam. 11). Examples continue to stack up in the New Testament, which records the disciples deserting Jesus at his moment of need (Mark 14:50), Ananias and Sapphira lying to the Holy Spirit (Acts 5:3), and both Paul and Jesus rebuking a fractious church (1 Cor. 3; Rev. 2–3).

Given the facts of our country’s history, it’s impossible to have a truthful African American museum that tells a purely positive story. Any effort to remake the Smithsonian in that direction would reveal a level of pride and nationalistic idolatry that’s resistant to the truth, Justin Giboney, the president of the Christian civic organization the And Campaign, told me in an interview.

This kind of falsehood will have real consequences: To refuse to look “at the flaws of our history separates us from one another,” said theologian Darrell Bock. “It prolongs our conflict” and “says you and your story do not matter to me simply because it comes from a different place than my story and challenges me to see the world differently. This erasure is not only of an account of history but of a people. It makes our neighbor invisible.”

But while Christians should be wary of efforts to diminish or sanitize history, that does not mean blind loyalty to the Smithsonian (or any other imperfect human institution). As remarkable as the African American history museum is, it has not been above reproach.

In an online portal intended to serve as an educational guide for conversations about race, the museum in 2020 posted a chart explaining what it called the different “aspects & assumptions of whiteness & white culture in the United States.” Bizarrely, the chart cited “polite” communication, “hard work” and “objective, rational linear thinking” as aspects of white culture. It alienated Black Americans from biblical principles and the Christian tradition—wrongly saying, for example, that the nuclear family and Christianity (which arrived in Africa long before European colonists did) were merely aspects of the dominant US culture that ethnic minorities had “internalized.” After backlash, the museum apologized.

Situations like that “show how the left kind of launders its agenda into what is considered ‘Black history’ and what are ‘Black issues,’” Giboney told me. “So I think there’s something there” to be critiqued, he added, “but not in any way that justifies what Trump seems to be trying to do.”

Daniel K. Williams, a Christian historian who teaches at Ashland University, said the move to inspect the Smithsonian—which comes in the aftermath of national debates about racial justice and things like critical race theory—is the first time a president has been directly involved in the communication of American history. However, there are some similarities between this moment and debates in the 1990s over national education standards. At the time, Williams said, many conservatives were unhappy that a number of universities dropped courses on Western civilization and replaced them with ones on world civilization. There was also some pushback when history courses gave more attention to marginalized groups, including African Americans.

“What conservatives said at the time was that they wanted to preserve a place for celebrating the achievements they thought had made America unique,” Williams told me. “The question was ‘Is there something exceptional about America? If so, what is it? And how do we teach it?’”

Three decades later, these debates have returned, this time pushed by a ham-fisted administration fixated on what it calls “Americanism.” And so far, the results have been disturbing. Two weeks before Trump complained about the Smithsonian’s focus on slavery, his administration said it would restore two statues commemorating Confederate figures. Earlier this summer, Trump said he wants Army bases to bring back Confederate names ditched in recent years. On Juneteenth, which marks the end of slavery in the US, his only comment about the holiday came in a Truth Social post, where he complained that there were too many “non-working holidays” in America. Taken together, these comments suggest an understanding of race in America as one-sided and ill-informed.

Passing on stories about our country’s sins and failures doesn’t mean we treat America as an eternally unsalvageable mess. Truthful accounts of the past not only demonstrate the resilience of African Americans but also speak to the strength of the American people and what the country can be.

“We want America to be great,” said Quonekuia Day, a professor of Old Testament at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. “But we want it to be great for all people.”

Haleluya Hadero is the Black church editor at Christianity Today.

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Ideas

A Path To a Healthy Black Evangelicalism

Bryan Loritts

Being a minority in white institutions can feel frustrating. But it’s possible to navigate it without assimilation or bitterness.

Illustration by Christianity Today / Source Images: Unsplash

A few years ago, our son Jaden called my wife and me and said he wanted to be a pastor. When we got off the phone, I was excited and fearful. It warmed my heart to hear that my 20-year-old Black son could be a third-generation preacher in our family. But I also knew the road ahead would be tough—especially if it included stops in the land of white evangelicalism.

When my wife asked what we should do, I told her it was important to me that he spend his early years of ministry in Black institutions. The Black church had buttressed my own father and me when we felt lonely and frustrated in our ministry to white evangelicals. And if Jaden were to spend formative years among other Black believers, I knew it would provide the type of affirmation and foundation needed to withstand some expected turbulence.

As a pastor and the son of a prominent Black evangelical, I have spent decades immersed in predominantly white churches and organizations. My father, Crawford Loritts Jr., was heavily influenced by the evangelist Tom Skinner, cofounded a church with Tony Evans, and was mentored by the famed evangelical civil rights hero John Perkins. But even with these connections, I am hesitant with the phrase Black evangelical.

I’ve been thinking more about this lately after watching Black + Evangelical, a new documentary by Christianity Today and Wheaton College that highlights the history and challenges faced by African Americans who identify with the label. Recently, a longtime friend also asked me if I was comfortable with the phrase. He knew about my experiences and that I held to the core tenets of evangelicalism laid out by British scholar David Bebbington. But even though I check off each box, the last one—reform-minded activism—often gives me pause.

The dividing line between white and Black evangelicals in America, after all, is their activism—or lack thereof—on racial justice issues. Historically, white British evangelicals led by William Wilberforce took down slavery in the 19th century. In the early 20th century, it was also British evangelicals who worked to transform the prison system and push for legislation for just child-labor laws and relief to the poor. But across the pond in America, the fundamentalist-modernist controversy caused white Christians to split into two camps, resulting in a self-sorting of impulses. The modernists (the predecessors of white mainline Protestants) cared about their neighbors. But because they did not hold to biblical truths, they fell into heresy. Meanwhile, the fundamentalists (the predecessors of white evangelicals) held fast to the authority of the Bible but did not advocate for the racially oppressed.

This type of split never occurred in the Black church, which held on to the basic tenets of the faith without rejecting social action. Over time, some Black believers began worshiping in predominantly white or multicultural churches, creating a new category of Black evangelicals, many of whom have consistently spoken out about racial issues.

But what makes many Black evangelicals different is not just their activism; it’s also their distance from historically Black institutions. In the documentary, for example, almost everyone profiled or interviewed—from Carl Ellis to Tom Skinner and Jemar Tisby—spent significant time serving in spaces dominated by white evangelicals. Like many in the Black church, they spoken out against racial injustice. However, they had a remarkably different experience from others in American history who protested the white power structure and then went home to minister and serve in Black congregations.

I have often seen that when a Black person leaves a traditional Black church and is dropped into a sea of white evangelicals, the person becomes lonely and frustrated. It’s something I’ve experienced in my own life. I grew up in the Black church and then attended a predominantly white evangelical Bible college, where for the first time in my life I felt disregarded and on edge. In 1992, I remember attending chapel right after a California state court acquitted four white officers involved in the police beating of Rodney King, sparking riots across the city of Los Angeles. Not a single thing was said, nor a prayer offered for King, his family, or the city at large. I was irate and called my father to tell him, only to discover the same thing had happened at a similar type of Bible college he attended in the weeks following Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination.

I’d like to say things have gotten much better in the 30 years since I’ve graduated from college, but they have not. In fact, there’s a strong case that things have gotten worse. When my father retired from his church 4 years ago, he told me he had never seen our nation so badly divided. It pierced my heart to hear that from a Black man who spent his early years navigating Jim Crow. It seemed as if my hero, who had spent his life immersed in white evangelical institutions, was saying, “I wonder if I’ve wasted my time serving in these spaces.” Now, if you ask him whether he felt that way, he will emphatically say no. But it’s hard not to think it was a waste when the evangelical world has taken serious steps back in the fight for ethnic unity.

Being a minority Christian immersed in a majority-white culture is akin to being an “estranged pioneer,” Christian sociologists Korie Edwards and Rebecca Kim say in their book by the same name. But while the two may have coined the phrase, the concept is as old as the story of Jonah. God invites Jonah, a Jew, to engage in the missionary task of preaching the message of repentance and God’s forgiveness to the very ones who were abusing his people. One commentator I read says Jonah walking into the city of Nineveh and calling people to repent is the equivalent of a Jewish rabbi standing on a street corner in 1941 Berlin and begging Nazi Germany to turn to God. Nobody is clamoring for that job.

But the beauty of Jonah shows God using a member of a minority group as his vessel to bring the majority culture to himself. When Jonah finally walks into Nineveh and preaches a message of God’s mercy, the people repent. Instead of rejoicing, Jonah expresses his frustration to the Lord and sets out to leave the city (Jonah 4:5). In many ways, the story is a cautionary message to Black evangelicals that it’s possible to minister to people you don’t like. Like me, minorities who minister cross-culturally in traditionally evangelical environments often set themselves up for lives marked by loneliness and frustration. And if we don’t deal with those emotions appropriately, they will manifest in unhealthy ways, like bitterness, hatred, and sometimes even abandoning the faith altogether.

So what are Black evangelicals to do?

First, I advise them to seek out institutions that welcome their full selves. I remember a time in my ministry when some of our white evangelical siblings courageously expressed biblical issues of diversity and ethnic unity. But they soon encountered pushback from some who accused them of becoming too “woke” or embracing “critical race theory.” As a result, Black evangelicals who worked with them also became victims of the fallout.

Anyone can stand on a stage and proclaim a vision, but if the culture of the place cannot house the vision, catastrophe will come. You cannot put new wine in old wineskins (Luke 5:37–39). Any Black evangelical who chooses to push for racial justice in an environment where so many are against it needs to be secure in Christ. Like Olaudah Equiano, a Black evangelical who advocated for the dismantling of slavery in England, we can’t be intimidated or fearful. A great crowd—including some of the men I’ve mentioned earlier—has taught us how to work with our white spiritual siblings without leaving our Blackness at the door. They have spoken prophetically against racism and injustice, showing they love white evangelicals enough to speak truth to them. If we are too enamored with white evangelicals, we will hesitate to do this. But if we’re bitter or harbor unforgiveness, we will wield the truth like a knife to kill instead of a scalpel to heal. And at this point, the last thing we need is Jonahs who end up burned-out and bitter.

Second, Black evangelicals must unashamedly embrace the ministries to which God has called them. To be a Black evangelical means you not only live under the white evangelical gaze but also have your Blackness questioned by other African Americans who do not share the same ministry calling. As church leaders, we tend to moralize what we do. And when there are racial implications attached, I often see the temptation to judge the authenticity of one’s ethnicity based on how and where they serve—a sad truth as old as the Book of Acts. When God called Peter, a Jew, to take the gospel to the Gentiles, his fellow Jews immediately condemned him (Acts 11). Instead of rejoicing in the work of the Spirit to bring about conversions among the Gentiles, the Jews criticized Peter (vv. 1–2). And truthfully, not much has changed.

Recent calls from fellow Black Christians to leave evangelicalism “loud” reveals this same spirit. There should be a cease-fire among Black believers. Those of us called to labor in white evangelical environments must not grant anyone the power to pressure us out of what God has told us to do. I don’t allow anyone the right to question my Blackness or ministry, and neither should you. Not every Black Christian in ministry is called to minister to white evangelicals. But in this season of my life, I know God has called me to do that. And that knowledge has kept me sane over the years.

Third, we need to include people who look like us in the discipleship process. Too often, we think about discipleship only in terms of what’s being transferred spiritually. But it’s impossible to be molded without carrying some cultural fingerprints of the one who is forming you.

I’ve seen the tragedy of what sometimes happens when Black people come to faith in a white environment and are subsequently discipled there. They become captivated by white evangelicals and begin to critique—and even look down on—the Black church. I’ve heard complaints that Black preachers are not “gospel centered” or expository. Sometimes, they’re even ridiculed as entertainers because they “whoop.” But when these same critics eventually encounter an inevitable racial slight or incident in the evangelical world, disappointment and disillusionment seep in, giving way for the Enemy to plant seeds of doubt about the faith. One way to avoid this is by having Black Christians mentor, coach, and disciple us—not exclusively but as part of our overall process. Personally, I’ve been sustained in ministry because of my father, my Black godfather and pastor Bishop Kenneth Ulmer, and many others to whom I often turn for counsel.

Fourth, Black evangelicals need regular furloughs. Like missionaries whom God sends overseas to engage other cultures, we need to “come home” periodically to recharge in our own culture and community. Many of us know it can be exhausting to be the only Black person—or one of few—in a room. It’s tiring when people constantly examine your social media posts about race or can relate only with the version of you that operates in white spaces. Some of the loneliest days of my life were when I led a predominantly white church plant in Memphis for 12 years. My all-Black golf group, which met once a week for four hours, sustained me. With them, I didn’t have to filter my words or code-switch. And the time we spent together allowed me to recharge and engage my white kingdom siblings from a full and healthy heart.

Finally, Black evangelicals need a specific kind of economic empowerment. After the police killing of George Floyd, a lot of Christian colleges and universities took giant leaps forward in race relations. But since then, some institutions have backtracked. The Trump administration has made clear that it is opposed to diversity initiatives. And because predominantly white Christian organizations tend to have politically conservative donors who side with the current administration, these entities typically follow the money.

The older I get, the more I’m convinced we need to cast a vision for minorities to give generously to Christian organizations so we can be truly free in our activism. But what’s true for us as a group should also be true for the individual. If you are a Black evangelical working these institutions for the check and not the calling, I believe compromise will surely follow.

If you ask me how I think about my place in evangelicalism today, I will tell you I’m comfortable seeing myself as a missionary to white evangelicals who need the whole gospel. And maybe that’s what we need. We probably won’t make many converts, and I’m okay with that. God has called us to faithfulness more than fruitfulness.

Bryan Loritts is the Teaching Pastor at The Summit Church. He is an award-winning author of ten books, including Grace to Overcome: 31 Devotions on God’s Work Through Black History.

- More from Bryan Loritts

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People support what they create

Leadership begins with listening

Experiment from the edges

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