"The Round Table," by Rashaan Armand and Tyran T. Laws

The Round Table
Rashaan Armand & Tyran T. Laws
Xulan Press, 2016

This book was deeply disturbing to me, but probably not for the reasons the authors intended.

Aarmand and Laws write to challenge the Black Evangelical church in America to develop a robust theological response to various competing religious perspectives currently on the rise among African American millennials. Using a clever literary device, they present their subject in a series of interlocking narratives, each a vignette built around a single character, all of whom share a common background as disaffected members of the fictional Bright Hope Baptist Church and its pastor, the elderly Reverend Jenkins. The authors use this framework to present the theologies of Baha'ism, Truth and Practical Knowledge (a major group of the Hebrew Israelite movement), EMOJA, a Kemetic, or "Egyptian" faith, atheism, Eastern mysticism, and paganism. Armand and Laws site their own research to argue that  "the most vociferous and active members" of such groups "are African Americans, who show an insurmountable level of indifference towards Christianity and black religious experience." Each chapter begins with a narrative to which the writers then respond in an analytical segment.

I say the authors intended the book to disturb. Their immediate goal, I believe, is to disturb African American pastors and congregations by bringing to their attention not only these various challenges to Christian faith, but also the deep changes Black churches will need to make to counter them. Aarmand and Laws believe that a well-educated clergy must offer deep theological instruction to the laity to prepare them to meet and overcome the attacks these various movements level at the faith of black church members. "The church," they write, "needs to respond by doing its homework and giving better - more informed and more thoughtful answers, right from God's Word."

Aarmand and Laws are well qualified for this task. Rashaan Armand holds a Doctorate of Ministry from Trinity International University and Laws a Master of Arts in Religion from Wheaton College. They buttress their arguments with copious footnotes which point the reader to additional sources.
But the book did not disturb me as an African-American pastor or church member, because I am neither. It disturbed me as a white pastor and seminary professor because, perhaps inadvertently, it challenged me to confront the systemic racism in my own Christian contexts which now contribute to the attrition of young blacks from their faith and their churches. Most of the movements the book treats arise from African American frustrations with what continues to be the dominant and pervasive white privilege in our society. The various fictitious spokespersons in the book find purchase in the minds and hearts of their converts by pointing out the absence of a true depiction of the contributions of and injustices against blacks in our common American expression of Christianity. It strikes me, for instance, that certain groups can call Christianity a "white man's religion," not because it is or ever has been, but because we ourselves fail to acknowledge, let alone emphasize, our roots in a culture of color.

One character, "Abiyda," the former Deacon Smalls, cites dubious biblical evidence to prove that Jesus, Job, and the female lead in the Song of Solomon were all black. Probably they were not and certainly the verses this character cites, taken in context, do not indicate that. However, these three, along with virtually all the other actors on the pages of Scripture, looked a lot more like my Black brothers than they do like me. This is what Dr. Stephen B. Reed of Truett Seminary labels, "displacement." Pictures, sermons, and other depictions of biblical characters tend to assume a white background for our Middle Eastern faith, displacing people of color from their own story in their own book. In a similar way, we too seldom call attention to the fact that such early church greats as Augustine, St. Antony, and Athanasius were African. Of course, when we fight for history textbooks in our public schools which downplay or deny slavery and fail to include African American contributions to our nation's greatness, we simply extend the same kind of thinking.

Now here's my point, and my problem: Most White evangelical churches in America are no longer, at least no longer officially, segregated. My sense of the matter is that the members of most Anglo congregations truly mean it when they say that people of color are welcome to attend, join, and serve in their churches. However, what we mean - without meaning to - is that people of color are welcome to be white Christians right along with us! And reaching African Americans will me more painful than simply changing up our musical selections, worship style, or approach to preaching. It will mean that we take pains to see, and then to show, the presence of people of color in the narrative of salvation. Until, like Gentile Christians in the first century, we can come to see ourselves, not blacks, as the wild vines grafted onto a vine to which we are not native, we will give aid and comfort to these attacks on the Christian faith of young African Americans. We sin against our black brothers and sisters, not by attacking or excluding them, but by creating a fertile ground for theological weeds that grow particularly well in African American soil! In fact, "reaching African Americans" might mean that we do a lot of difficult work in order to contribute to the faith of people who will not join our congregations, but who will be more likely to remain in their own.

As a seminary professor, I need to make an additional point: Prior to reading "The Round Table," I was unaware of any of these movements. In teaching my students to counter cultish theologies, I would never have included these. This means that my African American students (and our seminary is blessed with many), while they would benefit from learning about the kinds of heresies that afflict the Anglo church, would remain unprepared to deal pastorally with the specific needs of their own ministry settings. This would happen, not because I think ill of the Black church, but because I do not think of it at all!

The Round Table does contain some regrettable stylistic flaws. The authors leave the story unfinished and promise subsequent books in the series; one hopes they will be able to correct these matters as their writing continues. The narrative sections reveal that the writers are theologians, not novelists, yet the characters, dialogue, and story lines ring true and are intriguing. I found myself wanting to talk to the fictional people in the book. By the end, which leaves the plot unresolved, I felt like a man binge-watching a television series on Netflix and suddenly discovering that future seasons have not yet been made available.

I highly recommend this book to all pastors and the professors and administrators of Christian colleges and seminaries. Aarmand and Laws have offered us the gift of genuine engagement with our end of the racial divide in American Christianity, if only we dare to receive it.