While it sounds like everyone was having a truly wonderful, Spirit-filled time at SBC, I had the joy of gathering with the saints of New Life Fellowship Church for their annual Bible conference. It's some of the sweetest fellowship on earth, as the word is opened and voices lifted in praise to God.
This year, it was a joy to see the Lord continuing to answer prayers for fruitful expansion of the kingdom and biblical theology among predominantly African-American churches. One of the clearest ways that was on display was in the publication of a couple books I pray will be influential among African Americans.
The first was edited by Anthony Carter, lead pastor of East Point Church in the Atlanta, Georgia area. Entitled Glory Road: The Journey of Ten African Americans into Reformed Theology, the book is a collection of ten personal testimonies from African-American pastors recalling both their conversion to Christ and their embrace of the doctrines of grace. I think this book has more potential for spreading and encouraging biblical truth to a predominantly African-American audience than any one I can think of. The testimonies are rich, the experiences wonderfully diverse, and the glory of God shining from each story. The testimonies introduce the doctrines of grace in as warm, friendly, and inviting a manner as possible. It's theologically clear and driven without being dense and alien.
You read this book and you feel like you get to know these men and their God. You also grasp something of their love for the church, their hope for her future, and love for the gospel.
Truth in advertising: It was a pleasure to be one of the contributors to the volume.
Here are some other plugs:
“This book is a wonderful encouragement to those who love the doctrines of grace. The ten men described are African Americans—but quite frankly, what their ethnicity is does not matter nearly as much as their common delight in Christ and his gospel. Their stories are sufficiently diverse that they cannot be reduced to a simplistic mold; they have enough similarity that together they bring us back to God’s sovereign goodness in the cross of his Son. Read this book and rejoice.”
D. A. Carson, Research Professor of New Testament, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School
“Here we have readable, compelling personal histories that, at the same time, teach us more about God, Christ, and the Bible and give accounts of these men coming to Christ. I love reading people’s testimonies of conversion! What more do we want in a book? To be encouraged, instructed, and edified, read these stories.”
Mark Dever, Senior Pastor, Capitol Hill Baptist Church, Washington, DC
“A reading of Glory Road is a journey of sober rejoicing. The joy is in the taste of future glory where men and women from every tribe and language and people and nation will together worship the Lamb. We rejoice in the first fruits of that glory evident in the testimonies of these gifted African-Americans now in Reformed churches. We also weep that their testimonies are so few due to these churches’ long blindness to gospel priorities despite their historic commitment to doctrinal orthodoxy. May Glory Road lead to a new dawn, greeted with tears but leading to songs of joy before the day is done.”
Bryan Chapell, President, Covenant Theological Seminary
“I’m very grateful for Anthony Carter’s passion for writing. I bought a case of his first book—On Being Black and Reformed, to distribute at conferences and events. My plan is to do the same thing with Glory Road, an amazing collection of testimonies. The consistent message from all the contributors is the paucity of Reformed teaching in the black community. I share with Carl Ellis the vision of seeing an indigenous Reformed movement in the African-American community. Books like Glory Road will help to facilitate this movement.”
Wy Plummer, African American Ministries Coordinator, Mission to North America, Presbyterian Church in America
“History is good for us all, but when you see it occurring right before your eyes, well that’s just about as good as it gets. To the chorus of ‘Dead White Men,’ we now add these voices of Living Color. Together we’ll all be singing praises to our sovereign God and all-sufficient Savior.”
Stephen J. Nichols, Research Professor of Christianity and Culture, Lancaster Bible College
“As a first-generation preacher of Reformed Theology in Antigua and Barbuda and the eastern Caribbean, I am confident and encouraged that these personal testimonies from our African-American brothers will work for a wider propagation of the message of the supremacy of God in all things throughout the global African Diaspora. The common themes of being disillusioned with the religious status quo, struggling with the inadequacy of man-centered views that were strongly defended for years, facing the loneliness and ostracism of taking a stand on an island of truth in a sea of pluralism, and the surprising discovery that the Lord had all along ‘reserved . . . seven thousand men, who have not bowed the knee to the image of Baal,’ are all compelling and refreshing in the narrative of each experience.”
Hensworth W. C. Jonas, Executive Director, East Caribbean Baptist Mission, St. John’s, Antigua & Barbuda
