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In this unique book, Pastor Eric Redmond confronts the important question of "Where are the black men in the African-American church?" with a candid approach that combines wisdom with a conversational tone. Instead of side-stepping issues, Redmond converses with readers about some of their reasons for not going to church-the church seems geared toward women, the preacher is just an ordinary man, Islam appears to offer more for the black man, organized religion is not necessary, churches are just after your money-and approaches their skepticism with respect but also with corrective truth. On these and other topics, Where Are All the Brothers? speaks about the things that men think about in private or discuss at the barbershop when it comes to church and religion, challenging them to reexamine their long-held assumptions. Redmond, who has used this material in a variety of settings with great success, also gives eight things to look for when considering a good church so that readers can find a healthy, biblical church home. And it's all in this unintimidating book that can easily be read in ten minutes a day.
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“With a trained head and a tender heart the author enters the private domain of the reader just as a physician enters the examining room of the patient. He responds to the disturbing questions by giving biblical and practical prescriptions for holistic help and healing. Women also would be better equipped in understanding and encouraging the men in their lives. Make an appointment! Follow the instructions! Expect to live a vibrant life in Christ!”
— Sheila M. Bailey, international Bible teacher; conference speaker
“Pastor and denominational leader Eric Redmond has tackled well a very tough subject in the African-American community and black church. When some congregations are approaching 80 percent female active involvement, many are saying that black men have already left the church. The question that remains for many is, how can they brought back? How can the church change without watering down the gospel to be relevant in the twenty-first century?”
— T. Vaughn Walker, Senior Pastor, First Gethsemane Baptist Church, Louisville
“Here is straight talk, plain talk, direct talk, great talk for men who want to please God with their lives.”
— James W. Sire, author, The Universe Next Door and Praying the Prayers of Jesus
“Strongly apologetic, candidly polemic, and soundly catechetical, pastor and resident-theologian Eric Redmond listens to the questions put to the black church by skeptical black men. He offers a brief diagnosis of the black church’s illness, provides a prognosis of its treatment, and presents a picture of the type of church worthy of black men’s return—the transformed or changed church of the unchanged Christ. This work is a biblical bridge for a conversation that must be continued.”
— Robert Smith Jr., Charles T. Carter Baptist Chair of Divinity, Beeson Divinity School, Samford University
“The Bible commands that we believers are to be ready to give an answer or defense of our faith with gentleness and respect to every man who inquires about our faith (1 Peter 3:15). Pastor Eric Redmond has provided a much needed tool to equip African-American Christian men to be able to provide biblical and rational answers to commonly asked questions that many of us have to address often who regularly engage in evangelism and apologetics specifically targeting the African-American male. I highly recommend this resource and pray that God would use it mightily to inspire the ‘Ethiopians to stretch out their hands to God’ (Psalm 68:31).”
— William Dwight Mckissic Sr., Senior Pastor, Cornerstone Baptist Church, Arlington, Texas
“Redmond gingerly affirms the black man while taking biblical truths to dispel myths surrounding the church. Men, keep this evangelistic tool in your pocket!”
— Monique Robinson, Pastor of Women’s Discipleship, Faithful Central Bible Church, Inglewood, California; author, Longing for Daddy
WHERE ARE ALL THE BROTHERS?
Where Are All the Brothers?
Copyright © 2008 by Eric C. Redmond
Published by Crossway Booksa publishing ministry of Good News Publishers1300 Crescent StreetWheaton, Illinois 60187
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, except as provided for by USA copyright law.
Cover design: The Design Works Group
Cover : iStock
First printing, 2008
Printed in the United States of America
Scripture quotations are taken from The Holy Bible: English Standard Version®. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Mobipocket ISBN: 978-1-4335-0459-4
PDF ISBN: 978-1-4335-0458-7
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Redmond, Eric C.
Where are all the brothers? / straight answers to men’s questions about the church / Eric C. Redmond
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
1. African American men—Religious life. 2. African Americans—Religion. I. Title.
BR563.N4R43 2008
277.3'083081—dc22 2007044602
To Pamela,my Autumn
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
INTRODUCTION
What You Will Gain If You Give Me Ten Minutes of Your Life for Each of the Next Nine Days
DAY 1:
Isn’t the Church Full of Hypocrites?
DAY 2:
Wasn’t the Bible Written by Men?
DAY 3:
Isn’t the Church Geared Toward Women?
DAY 4:
Isn’t the Preacher Just a Man?
DAY 5:
Doesn’t Islam Offer More for Black Men?
DAY 6:
Aren’t Some Churches Just After Your Money?
DAY 7:
Is Organized Religion Necessary?
DAY 8:
Jesus Never Claimed to Be God, Did He?
DAY 9:
What to Look for to Find a Good Church
APPENDIX A:
The Fulfillment of Old Testament Prophecies about Christ in the New Testament
APPENDIX B:
The Church Does Not Welcome Homosexuals
About the Author
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The Lord has been most gracious and kind to me through his Son, Jesus Christ, my Savior. I stand in awe and humility before him daily as I think of his goodness toward me through many people who have helped bring this project to fruition.
Special thanks to Laureece Hymes, Ted Griffin, and Mark Scott, who aided me with some very fine editing. Thank you to Castello Bentley, Sam Hodges, Quincy Jones, Muriel MatthisLyles, Alfreda McAdams, Shirley Russell, and Rev. Greg Sims, who all read the earliest draft of the manuscript.
Thabiti Anyabwile, Anthony Carter, Ronald Crawford, Cameron Shoulders, Stacy Scott, James Wilson, and Curtis Woods each read a later edition of the work. Their red ink and pencil marks helped make this work much better than the original.
I am grateful for the members of Hillcrest Baptist Church who give me grace as their shepherd. Also, I am a debtor to a host of people at First Baptist Church of Highland Park who reared me in the ministry as schoolmasters, giving me a foundation for all of my service and loving me through the years I was cutting my teeth at their expense.
To my small group, my prayer group, and many others who prayed: I could not have done this without you holding me up before the Lord. I hope you will enjoy the fruit of grace upon your prayers.
My graduate and undergraduate Black Church Ministry professors Eddie B. Lane and Bernard Fuller added fodder to a burning passion for revitalization in the African-American church. Special thanks goes to Professor Lane who said, “The poorest of people need the best of theologians.” I must also give thanks to the Lord for the roles of Mark Dever and Larry Mercer in this work. Al Fisher and Jill Carter, too, have been kind friends to me since the idea for this project first arrived at Crossway.
I have the greatest parents in the world, Walter and Linda Redmond. This small space is not enough to thank them for the ways in which they continue to pour their love into my life. It has been my hope to be able to put my thanks to you in print for the entire world to see. You, the real “Dr. Redmond” and the lady who pretended to lance my foot in order to help me memorize U.S. state capitals in the second grade, are my heroes. I love you both.
I also have the greatest set of children in the world. The Five C’s bring me great joy daily. Thank you for praying for Daddy’s book project and rejoicing with him at its completion. It is definitely time to make a week’s worth of runs to the ice cream shop.
Finally, this project would not have been possible at all without the wife of every man’s dreams sharing the hope and supporting the work from conception to completion. Pam, you have made this journey so much fun for me, as you have done for everything in my life for the last nineteen years. I wish every married couple could share the love, joy, and belonging to one another that we share. I dedicate this book to you, my Autumn, with whom I am several steps beyond friendship.
INTRODUCTION
What You Will Gain If You Give MeTen Minutes of Your Life for Eachof the Next Nine Days
Giving me ten minutes of your life for each of the next nine days could change your whole life. It could make life better than it ever has been. It could also make an eternal difference.
“Yeah, yeah, brother . . . I’ve heard it all before,” you protest. But if I may say so, the words above are not empty promises but words of hope, for your sake. For if you have this booklet in your hands, it means that someone is concerned for your well-being. That someone intends for you to see life from another perspective. Someone is concerned for your heart, mind, and soul.
Either you do not go to church, or you attend infrequently, or you go to a church that the person who gave you this booklet perhaps judges to be harmful rather than beneficial to you. You have your reasons for your type of church attendance—all reasons that are legitimate to you. These might include your experiences with church as a child or an adult, your study of religion, your contact with so-called “Christians” who consistently attend church but whose lives do not seem to match their declarations of faith. Or maybe you have had contact with people of other faiths whose lives appear to conform better to their confessions. Based on these experiences, you dismiss church as a sham or settle for giving up two hours on Sunday so your children will have some religion and your wife will leave you alone!
If you have been thinking any of these thoughts, you are not alone. I would like to talk with you about your reasons for not giving church (or a different church) another chance. I believe that you are right in your observations. But I request ten minutes so that we may follow the path of your conclusions to stops further down the road.
If you will accept the challenge to read this book with me, what you will find is truth that can lead you to have success and satisfaction in your own life:
• You say church is for women and not for men. I will show you why church is for men just like you.
• You are turned off by the preacher who fattens his purse through the giving of others. But I will show you how to find a real church with a preacher whose life matches up to the biblical standard for a man of God.
• You think the church is weak compared to followers of Islam. I will show you how your view of Islam should make you take another hard look at the potential might of the church—a potential that you hold in your hands.
• You have found organized religion a hindrance to your faith in any God. I will explain to you how organized religion has benefits that you have overlooked that could radically improve your life.
• You say that you do not know about the Jesus people preach. I will talk to you about who and what Jesus himself claimed to be and do.
My hope in offering you this book is that a transformation will take place in your life. My hope and prayer for all who read this book is a reformation—that an army of African-American men will make their way back into the church, back into the leadership of the church, back into leading a change in the church to be and do what it is called to be and do, so that we may have power to do good for our people, and people all over the world, in a way that no government or service organization has been or will be able to do, and that no one will be able to take away.
I think you will enjoy the trip through these pages. To make the readings most enjoyable, may I suggest a manner for gaining the most from this book:
1. Set aside a ten-minute time period to read each day and for reflecting on the reading.
2. Beginning with the first day’s reading, read one chapter a day for nine days in a row, starting today. If you put the book down for a period of time and do not get to it daily, that’s okay. Simply pick up where you left off when you begin reading again.
3. Think about your answers to the “Things to Consider” questions immediately after reading the chapter.
4. Over the course of the nine days, you may wish to consider a church to visit, keeping in mind what you have read and pondered.
5. When you have finished the book, give a second look at the chapters you deem of greatest importance, then pick two or three issues about which to think further. I have provided a “For Further Study” section at the end of each reading in order to point you to resources to help you in your search for the truth.