DuBois wrote in The Souls of Black Folk, “Between me and the other world there is ever an unasked question: unasked by some through feelings of delicacy; by others through the difficulty of rightly framing it. All, nevertheless, flutter round it. They approach me in a half-hesitant sort of way, eye me curiously or compassionately, and then, instead of saying directly, How does it feel to be a problem? they say, I know an excellent colored man in my town; or, I fought at Mechanicsville; or, Do not these Southern outrages make your blood boil? At these I smile, or am interested, or reduce the boiling to a simmer, as the occasion may require. To the real question, How does it feel to be a problem? I answer seldom a word.”

The assault by some in evangelical circles to destroy the importance and influence of experience and emotional sense could have destroyed DuBois’ work in the eyes of many. He describes not a situation or circumstance only but conveys an insight and awareness of his very existence and presence. He is not caught up in a spiritual premonition or incumbered by black clouds of sorrow, but he is involved in something that is of his everyday experience. But what did it mean? What, if anything, did it point to? Is DuBois expressing some sort of dissatisfaction in human experience? Perhaps a continuing hunger or emptiness of existence explains his attitude. Or, maybe he is pronouncing a sort of human confession intended as a conscious reasoning about one’s existence.

His desire is not to achieve absolute certainty, but to know more clearly about his reality and all those important things in his life for which he must gain understanding. His verbal expression and openness are a measure of his thinking and makeup but in what way is his statement a communication of his theology? It is certain that in some way, DuBois’ words convey a spiritual striving. Thinking on DuBois’ language has caused me to place renewed perspective upon theology as an active and involved endeavor as well as generated greater attention on the gap between reformed theology and the Black Community.

How is reformed theology supposed to influence the minds and lives of Black folks unless its religious construction gives attention to and addresses the situations of African-Americans? How are Black folks supposed to provide renewed influence to reformed theology unless we are willing and able to give renewed focus to its schema and structure? The meaning or sense of DuBois’ spiritual striving is a representation of the attitude and response of many Blacks who find themselves in the arena of reformed theology. Simply put, reformed theology leaves many questions unaddressed. However, if it is dealt with carefully, rigorously and biblically in conjunction with our dynamic world, it can address the unanswered questions while also reconstructing and redeveloping one’s entire persona and worldview. This is the spiritual striving. This is Semper Reformanda.

The Reformed Black is faced with communicating a theology that does not readily lend or commit itself to addressing some of the complex problems of the Black Community. The Reformed Black often goes into conversations with other Blacks with one strike against him because he is not aware of the problems of the Black Community or undervalues the problems of this community particularly in light of his theology. Or the Reformed Black may assume that because reformed theology apprehends the concept and meaning of Christ, necessarily he, through the communication of such a theology, will bring his receiver to apprehend Christ also. Or, the Reformed Black is not sensing or asking the questions of God and theology that his fellow Black brother is asking and therefore the conversation remains grounded. Therefore, the conversation is meet with little understanding.

There is no sense of commonality between the Reformed Black man and the Non-Reformed Black man. To a certain extent I understand that this separation is present because of differing religious beliefs. However, a line from the movie Capote may provide insight. Philip Seymour Hoffman (Capote) describes to a friend his growing relationship between him (Capote) as an author and interviewer and his unfamiliar interviewee who is the subject of his next book. He states, “It is as if we grew up in the same house; but one morning we woke up and he walked out the back door and I walked out the front.”

But I digress. It is as if the two are literally in separate wrestling rings; perhaps the Devil of the Reformed man is not the Devil swinging against the other Christian brother. Reformed theology has defined and critiqued the one or universal problem of our existence but reformed theology has yet to address or explain the particularities evidenced in the counterattack against the Black community. The Reformed Black man who knows oodles about the universal problem of sin fails to address the particularities of sin illustrated daily in his life and the life of his fellow Christian conversant.

His rebuttal is to establish the existence of his own Reformed Devil (lack of a quasi-regulatory principle in worship, legalism, academic liberalism, etc.) and convince the Black man to replace his Devil (Low Expectations, Fatherlessness, "Ghetto Nihilism" [as defined by Carl Ellis], Victimization, Teen Pregnancy, Violence, lack of community leadership, etc.) with the Reformed One. Reformed theology has provided great aid in understanding the universal opposition of Satan and sin but when was the last time the Devil wore the same outfit twice?

If we don’t undress the Black community’s Devil, if we don’t address the problems of the Black Community through a renewed focus on reformed theology, then we as Black Reformed men have not succeeded and reformed theology will be none better for it. Reformed theology must expose the hidden demons, problems, pathologies and the fixations; it must call them out and do battle with them. Then and only then will Black folks in mass begin to consider reformed theology as a good and appropriate human extension of understanding the Bible. If reformed theology is to convey the immanence of Christ, it must be present to do battle against the Black community’s Devil.

Reformed theology when understood and dispensed does not naturally draw us into the world of the other brother; this construct does not inherently and naturally cause us to understand the complex spiritual makeup and strivings of another. And we dare not ask the brother to explain himself because too often our explanations show how little we are in tune to their makeup. We believe that teaching and conversation that is at its root reformed is at its root understandable and easily accepted. But our experiences brought from a Providential God should show us the fallacy of such a conclusion and ask us to question not only the resistance in the receiver but the underdevelopment of our own constructs.

Islam and quasi-Christian constructs such as the health-and-wealth gospel have lapped us in the race to influence the Black community with a theology of which so few of us know or understand. Now that we Black Reformed brothers, still at the starting line, have now come afresh to know, grow, enjoy and love the Sovereign Lord, may we now then run the race set before us and show and prove an all-knowing, loving and sufficient Savior to a community longing for a sufficient Christ by addressing the needs of that community. The Community is waiting and I dare say Christ stands in anticipation as well, with blessings too numerous to name.

Co-Founder Michael Mewborn