Moral Issues And The Black Church: An Interview With Bishop Harry Jackson
Preaching: As you talk with other pastors and in your own ministry, how do you deal with these issues?
Jackson: I think there has to be a standard of preaching truth from the pulpit based on the Bible, and then you can call people to accountability around truth that’s been preached and accepted. Let me deal with the issue of marriage, for example. Sunday I preached a message that is third in the series called “Family Matters.” Then the title of this message was “Healing the Father Wound.” In that message I sought to do three things: One, to define the role of a father, not just as a husband but as a father in a family; what should the father do? Two, expose areas in which the culture has blinded us to the biblical role of father. And three, highlight to individuals how to begin a plan of renewing their minds so they can be the fathers God has ordained them to be.
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I did that around the story of Jacob and Esau and how that laid hands on his son and blessed his son even though the son had lied to get in the position of Jacob. We talked about the need for us to reconnect with our fathers so that we’ll receive a father’s blessing. We tied that in with the New Testament scripture Ephesians 6:3-4, which talks about, “Fathers do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.” In an African-American community we deal a lot with concerns of young males, especially anger. We talked about the fact that fatherlessness, being an absentee father, or inappropriately harsh fathering techniques will create an atmosphere where anger is part of the byproduct. That anger is played out in our communities in violence, in promiscuity, in crime. But it’s a family problem that we haven’t addressed as a family problem. We’re trying to address it socially only, when it’s a family problem.
So I try to offer that kind of preaching, where you give a visual aid through a story and you give a clear New Testament foundation: here’s what you should do. And then we define those words – like the word nurture and the word admonition, what they mean and what do they look like in the 21st century?
Preaching: Are there some moral issues within the African-American church that are particularly important to deal with?
Jackson: I’m on a hobby horse, so forgive me, but I think the marriage issue is really critical. The polls say that we as African-Americans are more conservative than any other sub-segment of American society. But wait a minute, we’ve got more out of wedlock births, we’ve got all these divorces, all these permanently single people. I believe the vision for marriage and the fact that God’s grace stands behind the family has got to be preached and preached and preached. It’s not the only thing, but you’ve got to start with a vision. I think that is a major moral issue that we can’t get rid of.