As the Rev. Dr. Brad R. Braxton stood in K.R. Williams Auditorium in front of a crowd of about 300 students, alumni and visitors, there was one thing on his mind.
“I want to celebrate the marvelous legacy of the black church,” he said. “The media coverage has created a considerable degree of misunderstanding.”
Rev. Braxton was referring to the 2008 presidential nomination campaign and the media targeting of black churches due to comments made by Senator Barack Obama’s former pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago.
An associate professor of Homiletics and New Testament at Vanderbilt University Divinity School in Nashville, Braxton taught at Wake Forest University Divinity School in Winston-Salem. He holds a bachelor’s degree in religious studies from the University of Virginia, a master of philosophy degree in New Testament Studies from the University of Oxford where he was a Rhodes Scholar, and a Ph.D. in New Testament studies from Emory University.
After a short prayer, Braxton enumerated the contributions the black church has made in the United States, including the practices of social protest and preaching, as well as the musical gifts of spirituals and gospel music. It was in the black church, he said, that worship became a true example of exultation and ecstasy.
“The black church has always been a fervent source of hope,” Braxton said.
“Education is central to the black church,” he said.
As a community, the church must be inclusive to those who are different, and not exclusive, he said.
“We must break down the walls of separation in churches,” Braxton said. “We must break down the walls of separation between people of different racial identities, different sexual identities, red and blue states and between the “do-bop” and “hip-hop” generations.”
Later on, he discussed the viewpoint held by many skeptics that the black church, for being so “Heavenly-minded,” does no good in life. Braxton then defended his own position using the scientific theory of quantum energy.
“For every dimension of evil, there is a greater dimension of divine wisdom. The church’s task is to mediate that wisdom on higher levels,” he said.
Above everything else, Braxton called upon the church to do more, by operating on a higher level of existence.
“Church is about more than the sweetest hoop, the largest budget or the biggest building,” he extolled. “Church is about more than passing the plate, Saturday specials and Sunday socials. Church is about more than dripping water on a baby’s forehead and submerging people in water for baptism. Church is about more than wafers and wine on Communion and satisfying the deacons. Church is about more than holding hands of the dying and feeding the hungry.”
“When we do church right,” Braxton said, “it is an example of God on a higher level.”