And God said everything that he made was good (Genesis 1:31).
This Scripture affirms God’s providence as is clearly identified in His statement. While we may sometimes forget this foundational truth, it is foundational to our identity from the very beginning. As Black History Month begins on February 1st, we reaffirm that there is value in celebrating all of the Lord’s wonderful works! "God does not show favoritism" (Acts 10:34) is a powerful reminder of His character and mission. Therefore, respect for all is His order of the day.
We are happy to acknowledge the accomplishments and achievements of a portion of the entire expansive family of God during this special period. As time marches on, may this become such an interweaved part of our normal history and teaching that it seamlessly becomes historically recognized as a part of our complete history.
Book Recommendations
Stony the Road We Trod, Cain Hope Felder
https://www.amazon.com/Stony-Road-We-Trod-Interpretation/dp/0800625013
A hallmark of American black religion is its distinctive use of the Bible in creating community, resisting oppression, and formatting social change.
What can critical biblical studies learn from the African American experience with the Bible and vice versa?
This signaler volume marks the emergence of a critical mass of black biblical scholars. Combining sophisticated exegesis with social sensitivity to issues of race, class, and gender, the authors of this scholarly collection examine the nettling questions of biblical authority, blacks and Africa in biblical narratives, and liberating aspects of Scripture. Together they are reshaping and redefining the questions, concerns, and scholarship that determine how the Bible is appropriated by church, academy, and the larger society today.
Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates
https://www.amazon.com/Between-World-Me-Ta-Nehisi-Coates/dp/0451482212
In a profound work that pivots from the biggest questions about American history and ideals to the most intimate concerns of a father for his son, Ta-Nehisi Coates offers a powerful new framework for understanding our nation’s history and current crisis. Americans have built an empire on the idea of “race,” a falsehood that damages us all but falls most heavily on the bodies of black women and men—bodies exploited through slavery and segregation, and, today, threatened, locked up, and murdered out of all proportion. What is it like to inhabit a black body and find a way to live within it? And how can we all honestly reckon with this fraught history and free ourselves from its burden?
Between the World and Me is Ta-Nehisi Coates’s attempt to answer these questions in a letter to his adolescent son. Coates shares with his son—and readers—the story of his awakening to the truth about his place in the world through a series of revelatory experiences, from Howard University to Civil War battlefields, from the South Side of Chicago to Paris, from his childhood home to the living rooms of mothers whose children’s lives were taken as American plunder. Beautifully woven from personal narrative, reimagined history, and fresh, emotionally charged reportage, Between the World and Me clearly illuminates the past, bracingly confronts our present, and offers a transcendent vision for a way forward.