Podcast Episode 13 – The Sabbath’s Call to the Coming Kingdom

An Answer to a Question – Problems with Black SDA Preaching

I know that some folks don’t read the comments section of the blog. So I decided to post this in the main section of the Blog. Harold Smith brought a couple of questions to me regarding the Black Adventist Preaching Tradition that I think are very important and thus wish to bring it to the attention of the full audience of this Blog.

Harold Smith’s Question

He writes:

Jun 25, 2007 | Posted in Issues | Read More »

The Black Adventist Mandate – Unifying Culture and Adventism

After Rock speaks about Black preaching holding on to a prophetic vision on the scriptures, he notes that Adventist preaching is one of reform. He sees it as important for Adventist preaching to hold on to certain unique traits to be worthy of the name Adventist preaching.

Now Rock goes to his fundamental assertion that there are

Community, Justice, and the Sabbath

Pastor Ryan Bell makes the following interesting observation:

I am also concerned that the meaning of Sabbath will be limited to merely an internal, personal, and private experience of God’s “Shalom” and will fail to translate that into public and outward expressions of God’s reign of Peace.

Total Synthesis of Our Culture and Adventist Perspectives

The final model is to synthesize the two perspectives. This is what Benjamin Reaves called, “Finding the liberation components of our message.” Here the preacher has in mind concrete human experience and attempts to note how Adventism addresses that. Does the Sabbath have anything to say to the woman who is barely keeping her head above water while being discriminated against at her job?

Slight Integration of Our Culture and Adventism

The next model is what I have called a simplistic integration of the cultural perspective and our Adventism. Here the preacher might preach an authentic Black sermon, and just tack on a phrase or so from Adventism. Adventism is not in the fabric of the sermon, but it is a tack on. One might make reference to the Sabbath when the Sabbath had nothing to do with the sermon. One might talk about “the dead being dead” or the like.

Separating Our Culture from Adventism Preaching Model

The first model of relating Adventism to the Black experience is to not relate them. This approach would take one of two forms. The preacher would either preach Adventism or preach on issues related to Black experience. In other words the preacher might preach on the relation of the the Sabbath to the Gospel or preach on how the Gospel affects the educational plight of black people.

Is Black Adventist Preaching Needed?

Should one even attempt to integrate a black cultural perspective (or any cultural perspective) with Adventism. One might argue that such an integration is not needed. On this very blog one commenter stated that we should just “Preach the Word.”