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Scott Rae: Welcome to the podcast Think Biblically: Conversations on Faith and Culture. I'm your host Scott Rae, professor of Christian ethics at Talbot School of Theology at Biola University.

Sean McDowell: I'm your cohost Sean McDowell; author, speaker and apologetics professor also here at Biola University, and uniquely for this interview, phoning in from my car because I'm headed to my son’s football game.

Scott Rae: Sean and I are here today with Pastor Chris Brooks, who is a pastor, radio host, seminary dean, community developer. Chris, I think the primary hat he wears is as senior pastor of Evangel Ministries, which is about a 1,600-member church in the heart of the city of Detroit. Chris also serves as dean at Moody Theological Seminary outside Detroit, and is host of the very popular national radio show entitled Equipped with Chris Brooks, which is heard on over 200 stations throughout the U.S. and Canada. Chris is also a very good friend of Biola, graduate of our program in Christian apologetics. He’s the author of a couple books that Sean and I both recommend strongly to you, Kingdom Dreaming and Urban Apologetics. Chris, delighted to have you with us. Thanks so much for joining us for this discussion of race in the church.

Chris Brooks: It's great to be with you guys, a very important conversation, as you know, that’s being played out in front of our eyes each and every day. I'm glad that the church does not shy away from the conversation.

Scott Rae: Chris, you pastor just on the outskirts of downtown Detroit. I take it largely multiethnic, maybe predominantly African-American church. How have you dealt with racial issues in your community, particularly in the last year or so?

Chris Brooks: Well, our church is in the heart of the city of Detroit, and we have a really interesting history. Real quick, Scott, we were started by a Caucasian pastor in 1967. Those who are familiar with 1967 know that it was a time of national unrest. A lot of unrest boiled over into conflicts between communities and police. Imagine a Caucasian pastor coming to the heart of the city of Detroit — a chocolate city, as we like to call it — into the city of Detroit and offering nothing but the gospel and love. But that’s what happened. He couldn’t find a building to open the church in, so the only building that he could afford to buy was a former Black Panthers headquarters. That’s the origins of Evangel Ministries.

From there God has always had in our DNA this passion for race reconciliation. He had as part of his mission, George Bogle, who is our founding pastor, this desire to just hug as many black men as he could, and show them the love of Jesus Christ. We’ve been committed to multiculturalism, multiethnicity from the very beginning. Obviously as the city’s demographics have changed, so has our church’s. We are predominantly African-American, but what we've tried to do it to make sure people understand that the goal in the kingdom of the new community that Christ formed, which is the church, is to be a multiethnic, multiracial, multilinguistic family that is united in him. We really do believe that a united church is a wonderful witness to a divided world. As they see our unity, and they experience the weariness and brokenness in the world, they’ll be attracted to Christ.

Scott Rae: Chris, I didn’t realize that about how the church was founded. What an incredible step of faith for one person to make back during a really challenging time. In your view, how has the conversation on race changed in the years since you have pastored, outside Detroit?

Chris Brooks: You know, I think it could be said that the number one defining characteristic in our current season of humanity is technology, how technology has just revolutionized everything. Nothing has been untouched, including the race issue. You know, what has happened more than any other phenomenon is the fact that we can’t hide from these incidents that provoke and evoke emotion. They are brought to our doorstep through the internet, through social media. You remember, it wasn’t just a few months ago, last year, that Philando Castile was shot by a police officer.

Scott Rae: Yes.

Chris Brooks: It played out on Facebook live. So we’re more aware of the fallenness of the world, and we’re more aware of the fallenness and the way that that manifests itself across the board, but including in the area of race. We’re more aware of injustices from business leaders, to education, you name it, even church leaders, religious leaders are not unscathed by that. I include in that that we are more acutely aware of racial injustice than what we’ve ever been before, and our congregations are demanding that we not be silent about it, that we speak up about it. I think the way the conversation has changed is that there’s more demand to address what people are more aware of than ever before.

Scott Rae: Chris, why do you think the church has been so silent on issues of race in the past? At least branches of the church have been silent about race.

Chris Brooks: I’m glad you clarified that, because obviously coming from a predominantly African-American church tradition, we’re not silent on it, never have had that luxury. I will say, for white evangelicals — and as you guys both know, I spent a lot of time with my white brothers and sisters; I’m an evangelical and I wear that label proudly with understanding — but I will say, it’s just a very uncomfortable situation to talk about, and nobody wants to do that. The desire is to really say, “Can we just move beyond this?” I liken it, and this may be a hard analogy, but I liken it to the counseling that I do as a pastor with couples where maybe the husband has been abusive, has a history of violence in his background, and he’s wanting to say to his wife, “Hey, I’m sorry, I want to move forward.” He doesn’t want to go back and deal with all the messiness, but wives need to do that. Wives need to be able to get healing, and to discuss it, and to go back in order to move forward.

I think that that is the biggest challenge between the way that minorities, in particular African-Americans, see this topic, and the way that whites see this topic. I think my white brothers and sisters have a deep desire to say, “Can’t we just move forward, and just focus in on how we can build bonds of unity now?” My African-American brothers and sisters are saying, “But, wait a minute, there’s some wounds that were never properly dealt with. We’ve got to go back, so we can move forward.” Somehow we’ve got to be able to reconcile that.

Scott Rae: I think that’s a really helpful analogy, Chris, because my experience in predominantly white churches has been, that’s just something we don’t want to visit. It’s painful, it’s difficult, it’s challenging to think about, and it’s just a lot easier to pretend like we can be in denial about that.

Sean McDowell: Yeah, Chris, you graciously had me on your show Equipped a little while ago to talk about my book, Ethix — which I appreciate you having me on. In that book, my goal was to help students think through some of the most difficult ethical issues of our day. Chris, it dawned on me not too long ago that in that book, I talk about pornography, I talk about war, I talk about marriage. I don’t even talk about race. It hit me that it’s such a blind spot for me personally, given my background and my experience, that if any African-American or minority wrote that book, that would have been the first chapter.

Chris Brooks: Sure.

Sean McDowell: I’m wondering if you could weigh in and talk about what you see just blind spots that people have, whether it’s whites, whether it’s blacks, or just human beings approaching this issue, that just prevents us to really have that compassion and understand where our brothers and sisters of a different race are coming from?

Chris Brooks: Yeah, I love that you said that, and I really appreciate, Sean, you just being transparent and honest. That’s what I love about you guys. One of the things that I will say is this, is that we all write or speak, minister from a cultural context. You just referenced the fact that your cultural context was such that that wouldn’t have been the first chapter you wrote. It didn’t really just pop into your mind to write it. No intentionali