Urban Apologetics

Speaker 1:

Welcome to The Table Podcast, where we discuss issues of God and culture brought to you by Dallas Theological Seminary.

Dr. Mikel Del Rosario:

Welcome to the table where we discuss issues of God and culture. I'm Mikel Del Rosario. I'm the cultural and engagement manager here at the Hendrick Center at Dallas Theological Seminary. And our topic on the table podcast today is urban apologetics and have a special guest with me today via zoom. He is Chris Brooks. Chris is the senior pastor of Woodside Bible Church in Metro Detroit. And he's also got a show on Moody Radio called Equipped, and he's also a fellow graduate of the MA in Apologetics Program at Biola University, my Alma mater. Welcome to the show, Chris.

Chris Brooks:

Mikel, it's always great to be with you. I love The Table and looking forward to our conversation.

Dr. Mikel Del Rosario:

Yeah. We had you on the show about six years ago now talking about urban ministry in general with Darrell Bock. And we want to... actually first I'll say for those who are watching and listening, if you want to check out that video or that audio interview with Chris that's episode 202, so you can check that out on your podcast app. But today we want to talk about urban apologetics and focusing on your work in urban apologetics, specifically, a book that you wrote called Urban Apologetics.

Chris Brooks:

Yeah.

Dr. Mikel Del Rosario:

So, the subtitle is Why the Gospel is Good News for the City, and there's a couple of things that I think we need to just clarify right off the bat for our listeners and our viewers. And first is, could you please define for us what urban apologetics is?

Chris Brooks:

Yeah. Obviously it's a combination of two words. So I'll start with urban. There's a number of ways that people use the word urban, some refer to urban as specifically the inner city communities of our nation. Others refer to it as broadly, the metropolitan areas of our nation. I would say, wherever you find two things, density and diversity, would be an urban center. And these are important because there are places where culture is made. There are also places where you find various worldviews that are often clashing in intention with one another and that [inaudible 00:02:19] for the second word, and that is apologetics.

Chris Brooks:

I refer to apologetics as giving answers to the questions that the culture is asking about the gospel. So men and women, as they navigate through our world are asking some pretty significant questions and when we give answers to those significant questions from the gospel, I believe we're doing apologetics. Even if we don't know we are, we're giving a defense. The word apology, as you know, comes from a New Testament, meaning to give a defense. And so as Christians, whenever we are explaining why the gospel should be believed in contradistinction to a different worldview, we're doing apologetics. So evangelism is commending the faith to someone, apologetics is defending the faith from critics of the gospel.

Dr. Mikel Del Rosario:

Now there's another combination of words to ask you to define because in your book you make reference to the urban Christian. Now you already defined urban, put those two together. And who specifically are you writing to when you talk about the urban Christian?

Chris Brooks:

In many ways it's a similar audience as the Apostle Paul. Our Bible is bookmark by cities from beginning to end, from Eden in the beginning to the New Jerusalem at the end. It should not go unnoticed that our New Testament is marked by cities as well from Rome to Corinth, [inaudible 00:03:53] to Galicia. All of these were metropolitan areas. These were cities of influence and regional impact. So, when I refer to urban Christians, I'm referring to those who live in these cities and communities that are influencing regions around them. Cities like Dallas, that you're at, Detroit, where I'm at. Atlanta, Los Angeles, New York, these places where there is density and diversity of worldview. Christians who are trying to navigate that landscape while remaining faithful to the scriptures. It's not easy, but it's possible.

Dr. Mikel Del Rosario:

Now I want to ask you how you've seen this play out in ministry, because in your book, you start out identifying what I think is a good observation that most apologists aren't trained for urban ministry specifically, and most urban Christians, aren't trained in apologetics. So, how do you see that playing out? What is the need for us to help people be better equipped in that regard?

Chris Brooks:

Yeah, it's an interesting phenomenon. But during the seventies, which you found is a lot of churches jettisoning the city in particular, the major urban areas of our country, to the suburbs. Suburban life offered what appeared to be affluent and affinity groups, and it was a church growth strategy to launch churches in places where there was homogenous groups that came together around shared ideas and values and it worked. It grew a number of megachurches. As a matter of fact, it gave birth in the eighties to the megachurch movement.

Chris Brooks:

And so consequently, most apologetics, theological work, ministry work was aimed at answering the questions that those who live in the suburbs of these major metropolitan areas had about the gospel. While, many within the major urban areas of our country, grew more and more secular in their ideology, in their world views about significant areas of our lives from our identity to social issues. And we're seeing it now, we're seeing a massive secularization in our urban centers while the gospel continues to spread out more and more to suburban areas. And so, when I wrote the book, I really wanted to say that we need apologists who have boots on the ground in our urban centers and who are hearing those questions so they can answer those questions rightly.

Dr. Mikel Del Rosario:

So, paint us a picture of the kinds of people we might meet, if we begin to engage in an urban context. It's not just... as you said, there's a lot of diversity, so it's not just one kind of person.

Chris Brooks:

Yeah.

Dr. Mikel Del Rosario:

Paint us a picture of the kinds of people we might meet.

Chris Brooks:

Yeah. Well, you're typically talking... our urban centers are younger. So, you typically are talking about a younger millennial type who probably has a young family. They have a lot of questions that are forming around what to believe. They have authority that is grounded and rooted within themselves. So ultimate authority on the major questions of life, is really based more off of how you feel than some objective truth outside of yourself. These are people who are synchronistic, meaning there's no problem with grabbing bits and pieces of various worldviews and trying to mold them together into some unique individualistic spirituality, as opposed to accepting one worldview stem to stern. These are people obviously who are very career driven and again, coming from diverse places of the world and enjoying not only ethnic diversity, but enjoying diversity of thought as well.

Dr. Mikel Del Rosario:

Now for a lot of apologists who went through a variety of programs that we have like the apologetics program up by Biola, that you and I both did. Our MA program here in Apologetics at Dallas Seminary. There's a certain group of person that has an affinity for what I want to call the traditional kinds of apologetics. The classical apologetics model. They really are wondering is Christianity rational? Is the universe something that's always existed? And things like that, but as we move into the urban context, we find people have a little bit different concerns that are not so immediate in terms of the rationality of Christianity. Talk to us a little bit about that and how that affects the way we need to approach people in urban settings.

Chris Brooks:

Yeah. I think that some of it is a matter, Mikel, of priority. Difference of priority. Maybe not necessarily difference of category, but difference of priority. I would say right at the top, when you step into most urban centers is a question of identity. Who has the right to define who I am? Where do I find authority for that? Secondly, is the question of truth. Obviously, plurality ends leading us to a place of certainly feeling like we can't discriminate against various worldviews. And so, that's a big question. Is there any one truth or is all truth basically equal?

Chris Brooks:

But I think in addition to that in particular, when you start talking about ethnic minority groups is two questions. One, is a question of where does my cultural identity fit into my religious beliefs? So, what many would call social identity theory is a really big issue that we as Christians need to better understand. Certainly, Paul did. And then, and finally, I would say pain suffering and evil. Dealing with the problem with pain suffering and evil... I'm African American, and this has been a hallmark of gospel music. Spiritualists that date back to the days of slavery, is how do we process the suffering that we're seeing in this world in light of the gospel? And we have to be able to give answers to that.

Dr. Mikel Del Rosario:

Yeah. Think about the old slave songs and gospel music.

Chris Brooks:

Yes.

Dr. Mikel Del Rosario:

Bleeding into the blues and rock and roll and jazz. You really see that, you hear that coming out.

Chris Brooks:

Yeah.

Dr. Mikel Del Rosario:

In popular music, sometimes we call that cries from the public square. If we keep our ear to the ground, what are we hearing? The cries that people have. You mentioned-

Chris Brooks:

I would also say Mikel, if I could mention one more thing. I think post George Floyd in particular, there's a deep suspicion for evangelicalism and a questioning of whether or not that term is a religious category or more of a partisan or political category. It's become very much a hot button and controversial terminology to use. And so, I think that's another really critical question that we have to be able to address.

Dr. Mikel Del Rosario:

Yeah, and when people hear preaching, are they hearing it through that lens? Are they bringing some of that political lens to what they're hearing? Now, you mentioned that we need to have preacher poets. Talk to us about that as a way of engagement in the city.

Chris Brooks:

Yeah. I think the city is a place of arts. If you remember the Apostle Paul, when he is going through Athens, he talks about their poets. And I think in many ways, our urban areas are places where art is created and formed. Your urban centers are not just consumers of culture, they're creators of cultural artifacts as well. And so, if we're going to speak to the heart of young adults, if we're going to speak to the heart of diverse communities, we have to be able to do it with not only great content, but we have to be able to do it in the language of the heart. I think poetry, being able to say things in memorable ways that answer the questions in the head and the longing of the heart is absolutely critical. If it doesn't satisfy the soul, it probably won't be believed in the head.

Dr. Mikel Del Rosario:

Yeah. That's so critical to connect both the head and the heart together. As most people are not first, wondering about the reasonableness of Christianity nowadays, before they are wondering about the relevance of Christianity.

Chris Brooks:

Yeah. I was talking to a friend of mine who comes from a different ethnic group, but lives in this urban center that I'm in. And he was just sharing that the culture that he comes from, if a person is not speaking with passion and poetry, they're not even listened to. They're not given an audience. And so knowing as Paul did again, Acts 17 in Athens, knowing the poetry of the community that you're in, is absolutely critical. But relevance should not come before rightness. We want to be right and then relevant. Meaning that we want to make sure that we're biblical before we're contextual.

Dr. Mikel Del Rosario:

Talk about some of these issues and areas where people need to see the relevance of the gospel what's prime in their minds in terms of these areas?

Chris Brooks:

Yeah, I think that we're as Christians trained to make sure we're given the right answers. This is why you and I were drawn to apologetics. We want to make sure that we're answering questions rightly, but equally as important is answering the right questions. That means that we need to listen to what questions people are asking of the gospel. We talked about some of the categories just a moment ago, but it's so important that our hearts are attuned to the issues that they are concerned because if we're answering questions that they're not concerned about, then we'll miss the moment. So for example, Mormonism has not been huge in the city that I ministry in Detroit. It's not that it's absent, it just has not been a huge presence.

Chris Brooks:

So, if I built my apologetics primarily in answering the questions of Mormonism, for example, I may do a great job at addressing the major issues there of giving a clear and reasonable gospel response. But if that's not the core issue that folks are dealing with... if I'm not, for example, in my community, dealing with the nation of Islam, if I'm not dealing with Black Hebrew Israelites, if I'm not dealing with the Five Percenter's, if I'm not addressing those urban alternative religious movements, then I'm missing an entire community. And so, I think it's important for us to know what are the alternative religious options available in that community and what are relevant questions that they're asking that maybe other communities aren't.

Dr. Mikel Del Rosario:

Yeah, I liked how you mentioned all those different, new religious movements that we see sprouting up and really gaining ground among certain demographics. For those who are listening and watching, I did a show recently with Vocab Malone on engaging with the Black Hebrew Israelites. So, I'd encourage you that out in our archive. It's not a world religion or a new religious movement rather, that many people outside the African American community have heard about. I know I certainly didn't hear about it until I started talking to my black friends who could hardly get their haircut without someone trying to recruit them into this movement.

Chris Brooks:

Absolutely.

Dr. Mikel Del Rosario:

So-

Chris Brooks:

And the methodology of most of what I would call black thought religion that tries to recenter African Americans in particular, Africans more broadly, in the centerpiece of the narrative of the world. The methodology of engagement typically is to set up camp outside of churches and to use that gathering on Sunday morning as an opportunity to try to use a bully pulpit, to attract people who may be disenchanted or hurt or wounded by the church, to their worldview. Or maybe at a place where they're not getting their questions answered, that's always been a methodology dating back to the forties and fifties and sixties. You can date it back to a number of thought leaders during that time. We have to be prepared for that.

Dr. Mikel Del Rosario:

Well, let's talk about the Jesus model that you may mention in your book. We'll talk about that model and then a few strategies on how to actually engage, but talk about the Jesus model for a bit.

Chris Brooks:

Yeah. So I think that Jesus did a great job of answering questions that people had. As he modeled ministry for us, he answered questions and he was able to answer questions with questions that helped to pull out of the person, not just what they were asking, but why they were asking the question that they were asking. In other words, Jesus took both the questions and the questioner very seriously. And we need to do that as well. Again, my concern, I am very much pro-theological training. I'm very much pro-apologetic training, but I do believe that one of the risks that we have is to have prepackaged answers to questions that sometimes don't take into consideration the uniqueness of the individual, that's asking those questions or the unique reasons why someone may be asking a question.

Chris Brooks:

So for example, if you and I are in a conversation with someone and they ask, "Is someone's sexuality right or wrong?" We may be tempted to immediately give a prepackaged answer. Well, let's consider some of the reasons why someone may be asking that question. Maybe it's a parent who has a child, who's just opened up to them. "Mom, dad, I think I might be gay." How we answer that question may be different than if somebody themselves are struggling with questions about their own sexual identity. And that may be all together different than the way we answer somebody who is an activist for the LGBTQ community. So, knowing the motivation behind the question and the questioner themselves, is absolutely essential. Jesus modeled this and I think we need to as well.

Dr. Mikel Del Rosario:

Yeah. I love that. We see that Jesus spoke truth, but he also loved people well-

Chris Brooks:

Yes.

Dr. Mikel Del Rosario:

And part of that was showing his heart of compassion for them. And so I like to say-

Chris Brooks:

You think of John 1:17, the law came through Moses, but grace and truth come through Jesus Christ. And so when we think about this grace and truth, we don't have to feel the pressure of seeing these virtues as mutually exclusive. We don't have to have such an extreme vision of grace that it is truthless grace. Nor do we have to have such an extreme vision of truth, that it is graceless truth. We need to the ability again, to think critically, to live compassionately and to speak the truth in love.

Dr. Mikel Del Rosario:

Yes. Yeah. I like to say apologetics is engaging with courage and compassion.

Chris Brooks:

Yes.

Dr. Mikel Del Rosario:

And that's the kind of apologetics that Jesus modeled and he called us to, not the kind that turns people off to the gospel, because of a method that doesn't reflect the heart of Christ.

Chris Brooks:

Yeah.

Dr. Mikel Del Rosario:

So, let's talk about some different strategies now for employing, now that we're going to engage with the heart of an ambassador engaged like Jesus did, using the Jesus model. You mentioned three strategies in your book and they all begin with the letter B and let's start with the first one, which is the Boulevard Strategy. Talk to us about that.

Chris Brooks:

Yeah. I kind of get this from Spurgeon. Spurgeon said that we, as Christians need to find any topic and make a bee-line to the gospel or to the cross. So often, when we are sharing Christ with people, it may start off with talking about something other than the gospel specifically, but those who are wise will take whatever the starting point of a conversation is, about parenting or marriage and relationships, or the economy, and figure a way to use that as an opportunity to share how your faith in Christ has influenced your view on that perspective. In other words, the Boulevards to gospel center conversation, may be grounded in contemporary issues or topics, but we have to use those issues and topics as pathways to the cross.

Dr. Mikel Del Rosario:

Yeah, we want to see people go from the word to life. Sometimes, we have to help them see that they can go from life to the word.

Chris Brooks:

Yeah, absolutely. I think about one of the great conversations in our nation right now is about war and how should Christians feel about war. And everybody has an opinion about war and whether or not we should engage or not. I think Christians should use this as an opportunity to share how the gospel influences their vision in this area, or the economy. Who's not talking about gas prices and the price of milk and bread and inflation and all of these things. We need to use these as opportunities to show how the gospel speaks to issues that are current, relevant, and contemporary in our world.

Dr. Mikel Del Rosario:

Yeah. I love how Darryl Bach calls that being a switch hitter. That we can go from the word to somebody's actual circumstances, but then also go from their circumstances back to the word. That's the Boulevard Strategy. Tell us about the next one, which is called the Belief Strategy.

Chris Brooks:

Yeah, I think that so often we assume that just because someone shares a label, that means we know what they believe. If I were to tell you that I was a Christian, what does that really tell you about me? Maybe, it tells you that I believe that Christ is Lord of all, but it may not tell you as much about me as you think. It's important for you to understand, what does that mean to you Chris? How do you define Christian? One of my favorite books is the Kingdom of the Cult, first edition. Kingdom of the Cults, rather first edition... fourth edition.

Chris Brooks:

And in chapter two of that, it's called Scaling the Language Barrier, and it's there where the warning is given that, so often we could use the same terminology with totally different meanings. I'll never forget an evangelistic conversation I had, Mikel, with someone from the Church of Scientology and we both use the term God. Both use the term gospel. Both use the term heaven and salvation, but had radically different meanings to each of those words. So by belief, what I simply mean is that we need to ask people beyond labels and titles, what their actual beliefs are. About how a person is saved, about the origin of the world, about the current condition of men, about pain, suffering and evil. How do we know truth? We need to ask them those questions so that we can know what they actually believe.

Dr. Mikel Del Rosario:

Yeah. That goes back to what we were saying earlier about listening and the importance of not answering a question that someone's not asking, but listening to see what is their actual question? Why do they ask a question like that? What's behind it? So, that we treat the person as a person. It's a way to love them. It's a way [crosstalk 00:25:07].

Chris Brooks:

Absolutely, but again, it's also an acknowledgement of the fact that we live in a world in which authority increasingly so, in a secular society, is grounded in the individual. So in a world like that, in which people very rarely accept any worldview from naturalism to theism, to polytheism stem to stern, but typically are synchronistic, where they're pulling together bits and pieces from various worldviews. It becomes absolutely essential in a hyper individualistic culture to ask good questions so that we can know what this person actually believes.

Dr. Mikel Del Rosario:

Right. Instead of approaching the person as a Buddhist or as a Muslim, be like, "Oh yeah, I read a little pamphlet on Buddhism and what that was about." There's so many definitions of what it means to be a Buddhist, depending on who you talk to, are they Vietnamese refugee or they Chinese? Are they from... there are a variety of different-

Chris Brooks:

Yes.

Dr. Mikel Del Rosario:

Ways to practice Buddhism, so that's the belief strategy. And the final B that you talked about is the word barriers, the Barriers Strategy. Tell us about that.

Chris Brooks:

Yeah. So with that, maybe you know someone's belief. Maybe you've been talking about the economy and war and social issues for a long time, and you're saying, "Man, it just does not seem like they're even interested in having a conversation about Jesus." More often than not, it's because there's a barrier there. I start with the assumption that most people have been exposed to the gospel in the West. It doesn't mean that they have a thorough understanding of it, but it means that predominantly in most of our urban centers, there has been some expression of Christianity.

Chris Brooks:

Churches, Bibles, most of the West is not unreached if you will, or a frontier people group. And so what that means is that quite often people have come to a conscious decision of why they're not following Christ. So, what I will often ask is what has kept you from believing in Jesus or what turns you off about Christianity? People are willing to be honest about it, more and more. People are willing to share why they're not a Christian or why they've rejected the gospel. And once you know the reasons why, you can address those specific issues, as opposed to making assumptions of why, and maybe wasting a ton of time, that could have been better used addressing their real hard concerns.

Dr. Mikel Del Rosario:

So, those three strategies are really good to keep in mind. One, we approach with the Jesus model. And then we employ these strategies to make sure we're listening to the heart of the person. We're connecting the gospel to things they're already going through. And then we're asking them... what a great question to ask someone, "What turns you off to Christianity?" I bet that would surprise someone to have somebody ask that question and be willing to listen and not just interrupt them and try to try to correct them or tell them why, what they're saying isn't right. We need to just turn that truth meter down and save it for a little bit.

Chris Brooks:

Yes.

Dr. Mikel Del Rosario:

And the brand new apologist often, will just want to jump to, "Now, I have to defend the entire contents of the whole Christian worldview because someone just expressed a different view than mine." So, we need to just save that and employ these strategies, so we can be more effective ambassadors for Jesus. Let's touch on a few of these issues that you've talked about in the book, specifically. There's a variety of chapters that talk about some of these issues that you've mentioned. And the first one, you already had something to say about areas of authority and morality and ethics. How should we approach the area of ethics in urban settings?

Chris Brooks:

Yeah. I think that we need to know that the foundation of every question that we're asked, just about every question is who has the right to define right and wrong. So often, questions come up that are framed in moral terms. That was wrong, the legislation they just passed. That was right or good in the response that was just given. Our question needs to be, "Who has the right to define that? How do we know what is right and what is wrong?" I think so often men and women use those terms, think in those categories, without recognizing that we can't even get to a place of morality, unless we first pause a moral law, that there is a such thing as a moral law, which leads to a bigger question.

Chris Brooks:

If there is a moral law, then there must be a moral law giver, who is that moral law giver? And so often, again, going back to the question I used earlier, if someone says to me or asked the question, "Is homosexuality right or wrong?" I'll ask them the question, "Is anything right or wrong? How do we determine right from wrong?" And it seems to me, Mikel, that there's two prevailing options. That either right and wrong is determined on the individual level, that you and I get a chance to personally define right and wrong. And the problem with that option is that your definition of right and wrong may be in conflict with mine and that produces utter chaos.

Chris Brooks:

It cannot produce an ordered society if right and wrong is defined seven billion different ways. So the second option, is that there is a moral authority that is greater than us, that has given us an objective morality that we need to adhere to. A moral authority that arbitrates between you and I, that is not just individualistic, but there's something intrinsic about right and wrong. So, we know that to hurt an innocent person, that to take what does not belong to you, that to be abusive to a person, discriminatory to a person in a mean spirited way, all of these things we know in our hearts are wrong. And that's because there is objective morality apart from our opinion.

Dr. Mikel Del Rosario:

Yeah. You know, one thing, a lot of people who hear voices... that Christians who hear voices, they perceive to be anti-Christian will automatically push back on them without hearing what is the heart behind that-

Chris Brooks:

Yeah.

Dr. Mikel Del Rosario:

Outcry, and sometimes at the heart of that outcry is actually a great truth about what's wrong with the world. That there is injustice, that there is something wrong with our world and what a great place to start, because we can find that common ground and agree that the world isn't the way things should be and-

Chris Brooks:

Yeah, I think it's important for us to remember, and it's been famously said by several philosophers of the past, that before we can deconstruct a particular worldview, we must first find out what makes it attractive to the adherence of that worldview. What makes this attractive? What makes this line of thinking appealing? And like you said, sometimes underneath it all, there may be some virtue that is redeemable that has somehow been perverted in our thinking. And what we need to do is not at all disassociate from the virtue that is redeemable, but to help men and women to think rightly about the application of that.

Dr. Mikel Del Rosario:

Let's move on to the next issue I want to ask you to comment on. You say in your book, "Abortion is a distinctly urban issue. Minority women and children have been the most harmed." How do you begin to engage in this area?

Chris Brooks:

Yeah, I think understanding history is really important when it comes to any apologetics. Knowing church history, knowing the history of the particular people group that you're talking to. That's absolutely critical. I would argue Mikel, I don't know how you feel about this, but probably top three things that has helped me as an apologist, is knowing the biblical languages and the accompanied biblical worldview. Secondly, is knowing how to think rightly having a philosophical framework that helps me to think. And then thirdly, knowing history well. And so when you know the history of abortion, you know that Margaret Sanger, who is the founder of Planned Parenthood, and one of the really, founders of the abortion movement specifically wanted to rid the world of the poor, those that she felt were a drain on society, and racial minorities.

Chris Brooks:

She didn't hide that fact. And if we want to fast forward in a contemporary way, 75% of abortion clinics are in communities of color. And so, that's why I argue that this is a distinctly minority issue that we need to make sure we address. I would add though, it's also a distinctly Christian issue. About 60% of the women who have abortions in our country, profess to be a Christian. Now that's broadly either Protestant or Catholic, professed to be a Christian. We, more than any other religious group, including atheists are more prone to abortion. We need to ask ourselves why that is. But we also need to ask ourselves, how do we respond to a movement that has openly targeted minority communities?

Dr. Mikel Del Rosario:

A third area to ask you about, as we walk into these urban settings is the issue of broken families.

Chris Brooks:

Yeah.

Dr. Mikel Del Rosario:

How does an urbanologist speak into that space?

Chris Brooks:

Yeah. I think that every urban community that I know, particularly, those that are experiencing multi-generational economic challenges, are looking for stability. How do we close the wealth gap? How do we produce community flourishing? I think the answer from a biblical and sociological perspective, has always come back to the family unit. It is healthy families that build healthy communities. As a matter of fact, you can't even build a strong church on the back of weak families. And so this becomes a huge apologetic issue because in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

Chris Brooks:

Then he populated it with male and female and then he said that it was not good for the man to be alone. And he created the institution... excuse me, of marriage. And he tells them to be fruitful and multiply. And it's from that covenant of marriage, that children add to that fruitfulness and produce ordered society. The family unit also, is the key to limited government. In many urban areas, government has an outsized role in those communities. And government will never be able to be kept in check, wherever there are weak families because strong families are the counterbalance to large governmental agency.

Dr. Mikel Del Rosario:

Well, there's so many places we could go here and in fact, when you do enter into an urban setting to do ministry, there are many places that you go and that you have to go. But let me ask you this, you specifically mentioned African American engagement, and you say in your book, "Many African Americans reject Christianity on the basis of its ethos, not its doctrine." Unpack that for us and how can that inside help us approach African Americans in the urban setting?

Chris Brooks:

Yeah. I think that most of us reject any place that we feel unwelcome in, and for many African Americans, Evangelicalism in particular has felt very unwelcoming. It is felt as if it's a predominantly white space in which we are visitors in, but not necessarily brothers and sisters at the table jointly with. And so if music is shaped by one dominant group, if the issues that are being addressed are assumed by one dominant group, if methodology of ministry is determined by one dominant group, then it is often to the alienation of other groups. And so, many minorities have rejected Christianity, not because of a deep theological dive, but because they just have not felt at home or welcomed in churches.

Chris Brooks:

But again, this goes back, Mikel, to this homogenous unit principle and back to the church growth movement because in the church growth movement, it was all about affinity groups. Getting groups of people together that had same interests, same backgrounds. They shopped at the same place, liked the same music, enjoyed the same food, and that would grow a church. So, in that type of philosophy, diversity is an enemy. Diversity of thought, diversity of background. And so often, we, instead of like the early Christians going into the Gentile people groups of the world and building ethnically diverse churches, what we have done is built churches that are reflective of one culture and much to the alienation of others.

Dr. Mikel Del Rosario:

Well, our time is rapidly going away from us. There's one more question I want to ask you and this was a major frustration of mine when I was a brand new apologist and I was trained on how to respond and give answers to challenges that people had. And then I began to encounter people who really didn't have any arguments or objections to Christianity that were there to refute. They just didn't like Christianity. They weren't really even sure why, but it wasn't for them. How would you advise someone to engage in that situation?

Chris Brooks:

Yeah, I think that we have to build relational bridges. There's nothing like breaking bread at the table. I think we need to take meals far more seriously than what we do. I would encourage people to pick up Tim Chester's book called A Meal With Jesus. How sitting down over food is about more than just food. I think we need to have Meals on a Mission, where we are building relationships with people so that we can understand what the offense is and why the objection. But then I think we also have to understand in particular, in the urban communities, that there's been a lot of propaganda, a lot of false history there.

Chris Brooks:

For example, among African Americans, there's a broad assumption that Christianity was a part of slavery. That we became Christians as a part of our indoctrination process, as a part of enslavement. When the truth of the matter is more and more historic research is confirming the fact that Christianity predates slavery. That well before the trans-Atlantic slave trade, Christians in West Africa and Ethiopia and East Africa were present in impacting the gospel. For example, Martin Luther, as he thought about how do we live out biblical Christianity consulted with a friend who was an Ethiopian deacon. He went and visited him twice. Michael, the deacon. They exchanged letters.

Chris Brooks:

And much of the Protestant reformation thought what we would call the solas, came out of Christian, African thinking. And so, I think that what we have to be able to do is address false understandings of the history of the Christian faith that may drive people away. I think ultimately we need to do our best to be a personal witness, so that even if someone has questions about the ethos of Christianity, they can look at you and me and say, "But you are different, as a representative of Christ."

Dr. Mikel Del Rosario:

I love that. Thanks so much for sharing that, Chris. This is a chance for you to throw out your socials and how can people get in contact with you?

Chris Brooks:

Yeah. Well, folks can find me on Twitter, Pastor Chris there. You can always check us out at my church's website, woodsidebible.org, or Monday through Friday, equippedradio.org. I have the daily talk show there, where we're [inaudible 00:42:57] Christians to more effectively live, share and defend their faith.

Dr. Mikel Del Rosario:

Awesome. If you'd like to continue the conversation with Chris, go ahead and hit him up on his socials or his website. If you want to continue the conversation with me, you can add me at Twitter at Apologetics Guy. I'm also Apologetics Guy on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube. Chris, thank you so much. It was such a pleasure to have you on the show here today.

Chris Brooks:

Always a joy.

Dr. Mikel Del Rosario:

Well thank you and we thank you too, for tuning in and watching or listening to The Table Podcast today. We hope that you will join us on the table next time. I'm Dr. Mikel Del Rosario, and we hope we'll see you again next time on the table, where we discuss issues of God and culture.

Speaker 1:

Thanks for listening to The Table Podcast, Dallas Theological Seminary, teach truth, love well.