Moral Issues And The Black Church: An Interview With Bishop Harry Jackson
Harry R. Jackson, Jr. is senior pastor of Hope Christian Church in Bowie, Maryland. This growing church of over 2000 attendees represents over 22 nationalities and/or cultural groups from throughout the Washington, DC, metropolitan area. A Harvard MBA with a background in sales and marketing management, he recently founded the High Impact Leadership Coalition, an organization with a goal of educating and empowering Christian, community and government leaders regarding biblical, moral value issues in America. Bishop is co-author with George Barna of a recent book called High Impact African American Churches, and his most recent book is called The Black Contract with America on Moral Values. Preaching Editor Michael Duduit recently visited with him about preaching on moral issues.
Preaching: You have written and spoken extensively about moral issues, especially in the African-American church. Why is that a particular concern for the church today?
Jackson: I believe that it has to do with the application of faith. One of the real problems I find we have in 21st century Christianity is that the younger generations aren’t taking us very seriously because they think we are all word with no works. That’s really the cutting edge of having our faith in action; I think that is why I’m concerned about it.
My oldest daughter worked with Habitat for Humanity quite a bit on the weekends when she was in college and helped to build houses for the poor and this kind of thing. I see that in that age group there’s this social involvement aspect that they are very, very keen on. If we are going to reach subsequent, successive generations, we are going to need to be more involved in what I’m going to call real life and real world. So we need to come from the Word to the world, from words to work.
I was just having a discussion with someone, and they were talking about the immorality that has slipped into some of the churches. And I think that also is an issue: we have all these lofty things we preach, but the bottom line is many people have problems interpreting or translating those words into action. Specifically, let me talk about the breakdown of the black family. You’ve got nearly 50% of the African American adults are church goers and -- by George Barna’s definition are born again -- and then somehow we’ve got this amazing family decline among people who say that they are born again. The problem is there is a disconnect between the words and a clear cut plan of action.
So on the individual level that’s a real problem, on the church level it’s a problem, and corporately I believe our affecting the culture is a problem of our being unable to apply the Word.