Dr. Carl F. Ellis, Jr.
The co-founders of RAAN, Phillip and Jemar, had the privilege of sitting down for a conversation with Dr. Carl Ellis on his recent visit to RTS Jackson.
Dr. Ellis is an ordained elder in the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) and has been a professor at Westminster Theological Seminary and Redeemer Seminary. He is a pioneer thinker in the area of urban ministry and the development of African American men. Dr. Ellis has taught extensively on the need for the church to engage Islam. He holds a B.A. from Hampton University, a M.A. from Westminster, and a D.Phil from Oxford Graduate School. He is married to Karen Ellis, and they have a blog called “Prophets of Culture”.
In the first of this four-part series Dr. Ellis discusses:
1. Who is Carl Ellis, Jr.?
“Malcolm X set me up to hear the Gospel. He said that we were black and we were beautiful and we were noble. I found myself wanting to be that but I kept falling short of it until I had some [Christian] friends come along and tell me why I kept falling short.”
“My passion is to bring biblical truth to bear on our cultural concerns, our personal concerns, and our social concerns and in that way to disciple people towards the kingdom of God.”
2. A New Model for the Black Church
“When I think about a new model for the African American church it’s got to be one that addresses our concerns. The concerns of the African American experience are legitimate and many of these concerns were not addressed by the Reformers–Calvin and the rest–because their historical and cultural situations did not give rise to those concerns.”
“Another recent model of the African American church has emerged which is more cognitive and that’s the prosperity church. A lot of people having cognitive needs go to the prosperity church because they hear [point] A, B, C, D [in preaching] but it’s still off. People are looking for something that’s really orthodox.”
3. Why the New Model for the Black Church Must Necessarily Be Multi-Ethnic
“I’m discovering that these [legitimate concerns of African Americans] are universal concerns. They concern Latinos, they concern whites, they concern international people from all over the place. So it begins to explain why people all over the world are curious about the African American experience…So [the new Black church model] would automatically become multi-ethnic.”
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