Episode 61: Vince Bacote on Evangelicalism, Race, the End Times and Over-Thinking Our Faith

Dr. Vince Bacote discusses his new documentary, Black + Evangelical.

Special Event in DC on October 3

If you are in the DC area, be sure to save the date for a special documentary screening and Q&A. See our Upcoming Events page for more details!

Shownotes

You can learn more about Dr. Bacote’s work, including finding a full list of his books and articles, at https://www.vincentbacote.com/

Rate, Review and Subscribe

Subscribe to The Christian Civics Podcast on your favorite podcasting app (and leave a great review while you're there)!

Introduction

In a few weeks, on October 3, we’re going to host a special screening of the documentary Black + Evangelical.

The documentary covers the history of black contributions to America’s evangelical movement, including the stories, testimonies and struggles of black evangelical leaders over the course of the last seventy years. Along with a screening of the film, we’ll also be conducting a discussion and Q&A with the host and co-creator, Dr. Vince Bacote. 

Doctor Bacote is a Professor of Theology at Wheaton College, the Director of Wheaton’s Center for Applied Christian Ethics, and a member of the Christian Civics Advisory Council.

In this episode of the podcast, he talks about some of the challenges and questions that the documentary brings up for people, how our beliefs about the end times shape our ethics today, and how to stop over-thinking our faith.

Prayer

God of all the Earth, our whole story started with you, and it’s bringing us back to you. This is true for people of every tribe, for people who speak every tongue.

By calling us into your church, you have called us into a broader communion and fellowship than we know how to enjoy. You tell us to bear with one another, to bear one another’s burdends, and you said that the world will know that we follow you by the way we love one another.

Thank you for every opportunity you give us to love people in the church who are very different from us. Whose history, whose stories, whose language, whose culture, whose burdens, whose needs seem to be absolutely nothing like ours. We apologize for the times when we assume that following YOU means looking, or acting, or thinking, or speaking like US. Help us to see the times we show favoritism and don’t even realize it—and help us to do the hard work repentance, of reconciliation, of restoration. 

Lord, in your kingdom, there is no favoritism. Let your will be done on earth as it is in heaven, starting in our lives. Teach us to live now, in our homes, in our churches, in our jobs, in our civic lives, in ways that give people foretastes of the beauty that you’ve promised is on its way.

We pray these things in the name of Jesus, who sits at the head of a table we get to share, even with people we don’t understand.

In his name, for your glory, we pray.

Amen.