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Free to Be Bound: Church Beyond the Color Line

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I thoroughly enjoyed this book! In fact, I read it in one sitting. Wilson-Hartgrove's message resonates with me powerfully. I must admit that midway through I became a little worried that he was preparing to say the Church's new identity in Messiah is "black", but he more than adequately addresses this idea as the story progresses. Which is another thing I like about the book. It addresses significant theological issues as part of a narrative - the narrative of our story as recorded in Scripture and of his particular life. I was cheering over statements like, "forsaking one's people to become part of God's people is an experience so radical that it tests the limits of human language."

I took the primary message of the book to be that in Messiah, we are to be a new people, a people with an identity beyond that of race or culture. To go a step further than Wilson-Hartgrove does (at least in this book) we are to have a new culture - that of the people of God.

I pastor a mixed congregation so I've seen firsthand that the "Black church" has also suffered from the ways in which it has failed to take on the character and culture of God's people.

A good follow-on to this book would be an extended reflection on the Torah as God's cultural guide-book for His people? I'm convinced that if we would simply implement the instruction given there that many of the societal ills we battle would be addressed. It's a society of sowers rather than laborers, yet provision is made for those who are unable to be competent managers of their inheritance, etc. Our congregation is struggling to figure out how to implement the instruction of Torah as our model for the culture that God's new people are to take on. We often run into theological conflict from those who want to challenge whether or not they are obligated to forsake pork, or observe the Sabbath, etc. Personally, I think anyone determined to defend their right to live as their neighbor is still asking the wrong questions. I'm happy to discuss the opportunity of living out God's culture-guide, but have essentially no interest in debating whether it's an obligation or not.

The model of the Exodus is clear: God called His people out and fashioned them into a new society, one that challenged by its very existence the cultural norms of surrounding nations. Unfortunately, Israel was less than successful in implementing God's culture, but I believe we have a new opportunity since Pentecost to do this more successfully, now that the Spirit Himself is writing God's laws on our hearts. I suspect it is in this way that we will make Israel after the flesh jealous.

My black friends often talk to me about how the consumption of pork is physically killing the black people. Imagine if they embraced as part of their new identity in Messiah the necessity of abandoning pork. Imagine if whites embraced as part of their new identity the necessity of abandoning the "American dream", and the practice of relieving debt every 7 years. Indeed, if we became convicted of the need to stop charging interest to our brothers in the first place, as the Israelites were forbidden from doing. Imagine if black men became convinced of the need to bless their wives and children- to be a patriarch to their family (without the misogynistic baggage that has been unjustly added to this term).

One of the other evils we have inherited as the American church is a theological reading of the NT that is based on racial prejudice against the Jewish people. I've benefited greatly from the writings of post-Shoah theologians like Clark M. Williamson and pioneers like Walter Kaiser, Jr. But reading the NT again through the eyes of the Jewish Jesus won't be of any value if we aren't willing to then implement a new society in the midst of a culture that calls itself Christian but is indistinguishable from the economic practices, the music, the food, etc. of the world.

I highly recommend this book both as an interesting read and as an excellent contribution to a continuing conversation about the Gospel as a way of life rather than a set of beliefs.

"We are one body in Christ." We talk about it all the time, but it doesn't change the fact that Sunday morning may very well be the most segregated hour of the week in the US. What does race reconciliation look like in the church? Sadly, many times churches may share one worship service together a year, possibly followed by a meal, and this is lifted up as reconciliation.

Jonathan has walked a different road. This book is not a "how to" for churches seeking to make race reconciliation a priority. It is not biblical exposition as much as it is memoir. It is the story of a young man who grew up in an all white church in rural NC and the journey that took him to establish a hospitality house in the heart of one of the poorest neighborhoods in Druham, NC. It is the story of how this young man learned to stand in solidarity with the African-American community and became the associate pastor of a historically African-American church. In the end, it is the story of how Jonathan, in his words, "became black" so that he could begin to truly hear the message of Jesus Christ.

Having grown up in a family of musicians, Jonathan is right at home organizing his book around the spirituals that have fed the theology of the African-American church. It is wonderfully written and difficult to put down. This is first-rate narrative theology as we begin to hear the voice of God in the story of Jonathan's life and will challenge all of us to let go of the categories that we so often use to divide and begin adopting the unifying language of "slaves to Christ". As a personal friend of Jonathan, I can say that he doesn't just write about this topic, he truly lives it day in and day out. Truly, he is a voice of hope that the Church ignores at its own peril.

Need to whisper to ourselves this system

stinks and public life was not meant to be

this way. . . . If we continue saying it, the

ideas behind the words will come alive and

grow wings. -- Father Joe's daily journal.

Wilson-Hartgrove's narrative is another important voice in the wakeup calls that are going out to the world, and esp. organized religion, as people begin to open their eyes to the reality around us. Part of the revolution of change it's required reading for the new curriculum of social justice.

The Gospel of Father Joe: Revolutions and Revelations in the Slums of Bangkok

Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove's book significantly shaped how I think about approaching the Church's need for reconciliation. He writes about evangelicalism's desire for multiculturalism, but the void that is perpetuated by seeking this end. It's an excellent and quick read (the best kind of book!).

Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove

Free To Be Bound: Church Beyond the Color Line

(Colorado Springs: NavPress, 2008)

Reviewed by Darren Cronshaw

41 years ago Martin Luther King Jnr was assassinated. Not quite one year ago President Obama became the first African-American President. Two amazing events.

Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, a white boy, also wanted to be President. Instead of a political career, he has joined the new monastic movement, settled in an abandoned African-American suburb and is seeking to make a difference at a neighbourhood level.

As a community minister of an historically black church, he has shared in worship and preaching, fostered community action against violence, organised camps for troubled teenagers and mobilised the church to help illegal migrants from Mexico. But the main adventure of Free To Be Bound has been learning what it is to be black, and to start to move beyond being white or black through the power of the gospel.

Jonathan tells of hearing the gospel afresh through the passion of black preachers, the enthusiasm of their worship and the lyrics of gospel singing. He listened to the pain of black American history and its consequences; "Nobody knows the troubles I've seen, nobody knows but Jesus". It is estimated ten million Africans were enslaved over four centuries; shipped in abysmal conditions and forced to work on land stolen from Native Americans. The whole system was protected by white supremacy ideology which has marred the soul of black and white America. Thankfully slavery has been abolished, the Civil Rights movement won desegregation, and affirmative action and multicultural education is seeking to overcome racism. But America still has a long way to go. King's legacy and Obama's promises are still to be fulfilled.

America is a world away from Australia and we have not had the same scale of slavery and segregation issues. Yet it is not hard to reflect on the relevance of what Jonathan has been learning for us Aussies. Reconciliation with indigenous Australians and treatment of asylum seekers are two of the biggest dilemmas facing Australia. Relationships with our first peoples and our most recent arrivals calls for a similar journey of learning, hospitality, advocacy and grappling with the implications of the gospel for freedom.

To be free to be bound together beyond ethnic lines is part of the good news of the gospel in Australia as in America.

Darren Cronshaw trains leaders and missionaries with the Baptist Union of Victoria and Forge Mission Training Network. Originally reviewd in Witness: The Voice of Victorian Baptists, Vol.90, No.1 (February 2010), p.20.