Darrell Bock So just to say it this way…the social context of being a church that's built around being a minority both culturally, ethnically, et cetera creates a space where people can function in the context of their own culture in a comfortable way and in a way that is affirming – mutually affirming – both in terms of their Christian walk and those features of life that are particular to living in a minority context. Not that those don't appear in Scripture, but just a social, cultural emphasis on that would be very unique for us. And the other thing would be our emphasis on justice and hope. But we participate together because we recognize culturally we have so much in agreement. And everyone there wouldn’t wear the label Evangelical. Eric Redmond Some of the functions that are different more broadly is that there is a closer identification with ethnicity in our Gospel construct meaning this – I was just looking at a flyer recently and how African-Americans of many different denominational stripes were in a conference together. What would you say – I mean, obviously to a broad audience – what would you say are kind of the distinctive's of the way in which the black church functions perhaps in contrast to the way, say, many Evangelical churches might function? And then obviously the similarities. So that's a good starting point for thinking about the experience of the black church and how it kind of functions in America. Let him handle it." And that's what happened. Just tell him your call to preach." To which I replied, "I'm not called to preach." "Just tell him you're called to preach.
When I went to explain to my pastor that I wanted to spend my life in ministry, vocational ministry service, my assistant pastor and then youth pastor both stopped me and said, "Pastor is not going to understand that language. It has to do with the African-American church tradition. Darrell Bock And so, you got – what – exhorted in? Would that be the way to say it or…? Eric Redmond It might be. And others recognized that I had a call to preach. In fact, I went to school for engineering before Bible College. And when I was in Bible College, I didn't plan to go into preaching.
You know, in asking that I think about my beginnings with preaching. So with that, I'll ask my traditional first question which is, how did a nice guy like you get into a gig like this? Eric Redmond Well it's so good to be on the program and just have this conversation with you. And we're going to be talking about that some as well as just the black church in America in general. Eric not only teaches Bible at Moody, but he is working his way towards the release of a book that he's edited called, "Say It," celebrating expository preaching in the African-American tradition.
And I'm really pleased that Eric has found to do this. So this is kind of our first attempt at that. We've talked on numerous occasions about doing some stuff together. And as you can see, we are connected by Skype with Eric Redmond who is Associate Professor of Bible at Moody in downtown Chicago. I'm Darrell Bock, executive director for cultural engagement at Dallas Theological Seminary as well as Senior Research Professor of New Testament Studies here at Dallas.
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