Nevertheless, other evangelical leaders have taken a different tack this February when it comes to commemorating Black History Month.
Tony Evans, Senior Pastor of Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship in Dallas and President of The Urban Alternative, emphasized in a recent article for Relevant Magazine that Black History Month is an opportunity to build unity between Black and White followers of Jesus.
“God does His best work in the midst of unity,” Evans wrote. “When the Church functions as one, we boldly brag on God to a world in desperate need of experiencing Him.”
“The reason we haven’t solved the racial divide in America after hundreds of years is because people apart from God are trying to invent unity, while people who belong to God are not living out the unity we already possess,” Evans went on to write. “The result of both of these situations has been, and will continue to be, disastrous for our nation. Let alone disastrous for the witness of Christ to our nation.”
Evans argued that understanding Black history in America is essential to unifying the entire body of believers around the shared goals of justice and diversity.
“Without an authentic self-awareness, African-Americans often struggle as we seek to play on the same team toward the same goal in the body of Christ,” Evans said. “But my white brothers and sisters also need to be aware of who we are, and who God has created and positioned us to be at this critical time in our world.”
In an opinion for The New York Times, New Testament scholar and author Esau McCaulley argued that while Black History Month has often been framed as a celebration of Black exemplars who were the first to achieve a particular feat previously reserved only for White people, it may be more helpful to use Black History Month as a corrective for the very way we have understood our nation’s narrative.
“Americans have not been taught enough about anti-Black racism in our past and present. This, to my mind, is beyond dispute. We are poorer as a nation for these omissions,” McCaulley wrote. “African American history forces us to view the Black experience of injustice not as the interruption of or caveat to an otherwise grand narrative, but as a compelling story in its own right.”
McCaulley went on to argue that while America has often failed to live up to its ideals, the solution isn’t to ignore that fact. Instead, Americans can point with hope to the progress that has been made without minimizing the pain and hardship that has been required to make it.
“Black history offers America a chance to see itself both as what we have failed to become and as we wish ourselves to be. It is not to inspire hate for one race or to foment division,” McCaulley wrote. “America seeing itself clearly is the first step toward owning and then learning from its mistakes.”
