Category Archives: Straight Talk

The African Connection to Christianity – Part 1

Saint Mark

Why are so many young and, middle-aged people leaving the church?  I can’t speak for all of them, but I can speak to the ones I have personally talked to over the last 30 years in the African American community.  Many African Americans feel disillusioned from misinformation, disinformation, and the commercialization of the Christian faith by some.  Thus, leaving many shipwrecked in their faith.

The African Connection to Christianity series is meant to answer many of those questions I’ve been getting over the years.  This is not to lift one race or ethnic group over another, but to include ALL races and groups as it was always intended.  We will see that throughout this series.  But, like all things, there has to be a beginning.

The Christian faith began its trek around the world from the African continent.  Not only that, but those who carried the gospel were African people.  This is something that a large part of the world either neglected to mention or, intentionally deleted from history.

Dr. Thomas C. Oden wrote in his book: HOW AFRICA SHAPED THE CHRISTIAN MIND

“The global Christian mind has been formed out of a specific history, not out of bare-bones theoretical ideas.  Much of that history occurred in Africa.  Cut Africa out of the Bible and Christian memory, and you have misplaced many pivotal scenes of salvation history.  It is the story of the children of Abraham in Africa; Joseph in Africa; Moses in Africa; Mary, Joseph and Jesus in Africa; and shortly thereafter Mark and Perpetua and Athanasius and Augustine in Africa”.

Judaism and Christianity have their roots in the story of a people formed in the space between Africa and Asia.  The people from these two groups, Jews and Christians traveled from Egypt to Jerusalem to Samaria to Antioch, and from there to the rest of the world.

The early Christian footprint was formed on three continents – Asia, Africa, and Europe.  On each of these three lands were three great cities in the maps of late antiquity: Alexandria, Antioch, and Rome.

At the height of its prominence, the Afro-Hellenic city of Alexandria was the larger of the three cities.  Its importance far exceeded that of Antioch and Rome in the world of ideas, literature, and learning.

It’s important to note that the Christian leader of Alexandria came to symbolize and represent all Christians on the continent concerning the ecclesiastical organization.

Other than Alexandria, there was only one other city in the ancient world internationally recognized on the African continent as representative of a large part of Africa, Carthage.

The stand-out difference between Alexandria and Carthage was that Carthage had no known first-generation apostle comparable to St. Mark.  We will get more into the important part St. Mark played in the second part of this series.

Alexandria representing Africa was comparable to Antioch representing Asia and, Rome representing Europe.

In the first half of the first millennium, the African intellect blossomed so much that it was emulated and widely sought out by Christians of the northern and eastern Mediterranean shores.  Origen, an African, was sought out by the teachers of Caesarea Palestina.  Lactantius was invited by Emperor Diocletian (245-313) to be a teacher of literature in his Asian palace in Bythinia.  Augustine was invited to teach in Milan.  There are many other intellectual movement cases from Africa to Europe – Plotinus, Valentinus, Tertullian, Marius Victorinus, and Pachomius are just a few.

As we deep dive into the historical annals of Christianity, we need to understand how the first Christians understood and transmitted the gospel.  It is my opinion that leaving this crucial part of our Christian heritage out of our collective, and personal, conversations could leave us wanting.

For the first five hundred years of Christian history, Africa played an undeniable and pivotal role in shaping the global Christian mind.  If we are going to tell the Christian story we need to tell it all.

I hope you will find it important enough to search and find out for yourself that the Christian faith is for us all, from all of us.

This is the first of a three-part series concerning Christianity’s African connection.

THE AMERICAN EXPERIMENT

The watchman

The president of the United States of America is our watchman.  We expect him/her to be the first to sound the national alarm when there is danger.

“Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel; therefore hear a word from My mouth, and give them warning from Me:” Ezek. 3:17 


As we approach the fourth quarter of the year 2020 the moral of the country has fallen to a level not seen for over two generations.  In the first three months of the year we witnessed, what came to be known as, covid-19 or, coronavirus.  A deadly virus that would eventually get the attention of the whole world.

By mid-January word of this virus had already breached the White House.  The President received word of this deadly intruder in his daily briefing.  Unfortunately, this was an election year, and to this President, all things were political.

Danger! Should have rang out across the country like the sound of a five-alarm fire.  But instead we were comfortable in our homes recuperating from long Christmas family get togethers and, the New Year’s parties, oblivious to the danger lurking in our country.

The President and his men were huddled in the west wing coming up with a strategy to keep everything on the down low.  After all, he couldn’t have anything in the media that could hurt his re-election chances.

In the Bible, God commissioned Ezekiel to be a watchman for the nation of Israel.  He was appointed to guard the nation, keep watch over them and, to alert them of any danger that threatened so that they could take action to save their lives.

Covid-19 has completely ravaged our nation.  We are like a rudderless ship in a storm.  Scientists and experts project that by the end of the year we will have lost an estimated quarter of a million lives to this virus.  What was once unthinkable is upon us.

If there was any nation on earth that should have been prepared and able to meet and deal with this pandemic the United States of America should have been the one.  We are the richest, have the best medical universities the world over and, we have the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention).  We set the global standard that every other country looks to for guidance and support.

Is it fair to say our leaders have failed us?  Well, recent reports have been revealed that our president openly admitted playing the dangers of the virus down.  He knew as early as March that it affected children just as badly as adults.  Despite there being no national plan, he encouraged large and small businesses, as well as churches to reopen.  He discouraged the use of masks and belittled anyone who did wear them.  He even threatened to withhold federal funds from states that refused to go along with him.  He held in-door rallies where people didn’t wear masks or social distanced.  In the wake of reckless governance tens of thousands of innocent people lost their lives.

Our president, commander in chief, leader of the free world was supposed to be helping us.  But instead he was helping the virus.

 

Nathaniel Stalling Jr.

 

PROVIDENCE

Christian, Straight Talk, ,

PROVIDENCE

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We live in a world governed by a system of laws, natural or spiritual. But in the back of all law, natural or spiritual, there is One who upholds and controls them all, and uses them for His glory:
“…who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power,” … Hebrews 1:3 NKJV
With so much going on around the world, especially in the United States of America, it is no wonder anxiety is high. Many people are forced to stay home from work because safe distancing has become the new order of the day. Then there are others who must work to keep the rest of us safe. The first responders, emergency medical technicians, police officers, doctors, nurses; they all stand on the front line to thwart the invisible dangers head on. They too, are beginning to fall victim to this ravaging virus that have broken out among us.
I would like to offer another perspective on what appear to be a hopeless situation. I would like to steer your attention to a book that I hold above every other book on the planet. The Bible. In this book there’s a story titled after a woman named Esther. If you ever want to see and understand the Providence of God, how He work behind the scenes and, bring everything to a good and perfect end, this is the book for you. The intelligence and wisdom of Providence is revealed in this book.
A man once said, “Fate is blind. Providence has eyes. Fatalism says, whatever is, must be. Providence says, whatever God ordains must be.”
What’s really peculiar about this book is that the name of God is not found in it. Yet, His fingerprints are everywhere. From the time Esther’s’ name was placed in contention to replace Queen Vashti in the Persian empire God stood at a distance, not showing Himself openly.
This is the distinctive feature of Providence in a broad sense. Providence is secret, mysterious, and even unintelligible until its ends are revealed.
We can be sure that God is working for our good, even if we can’t see it, or understand it we can rest with confidence that:
“And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose”. Romans 8:28 NKJV

Nathaniel Stalling Jr
Elder

When God Speaks In Turbulent Times

Straight Talk,

WHEN GOD SPEAKS IN TURBULENT TIMES
COVID-19
A GLOBAL PANDEMIC
What does God say about times like this?
Solomon, Israel’s wisest king, wrote this in the book of Ecclesiastes:
“In the day of prosperity be happy, but in the day of adversity consider- God has made the one as well as the other So that man will not discover anything that will be after him”. Eccles. 7:14 NASB

Just a few weeks before Easter Sunday the governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, is giving his daily briefing on the novel coronavirus sweeping through the United States and particularly, through his State or New York.
New York, as governor Cuomo puts it, is the proverbial canary in a coal mine. He lays out the staggering number of cases and deaths that seem to double daily. He seems to make it plain that this isn’t some foreign far away problem. He implies that what you see happening in New York is coming to your neighborhood, soon.
Washington State, New Jersey, Illinois, Florida and, Louisiana are beginning to show signs of internal stress on their hospitals/medical systems. All fifty states are under some form of government shelter-in-place order. For the first time in modern history all of the major institutions of worship closed. The Vatican cancels public participation at pope’s Easter events due to Covid-19. These are unprecedented measures in modern times.
There are some that refuse to adhere to such restrictive measures that our scientists, medical professionals and, ministers of faith are suggesting. Instead, some are going about saying that God does not want us to live in fear. I beg to differ. You had better fear. Anything less would leave you and your loved ones vulnerable to a needless death.

Paul, writing to the Christians at Corinth, said:
“I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling…” I Cor. 2:3 NASB
The light and shade in man’s life are equally under God’s ordering and permission.
Fear is not something that we can altogether do away with. It has a place and, a part to play in our lives. It keeps a proper restraint on our, sometimes, abuse of freedoms:
“And have mercy on some, who are doubting; save others, snatching them out of the fire; and on some have mercy but with fear, loathing even the clothing spotted and polluted by their shameless immoral freedom”. Jude 22, 23 AMP
My hope and prayer is that you stay safe and not abuse your freedom.

Nathaniel Stalling Jr
Elder

The Worlds’ Only Superpower

Christian, Straight Talk
        

THE SOLE SUPERPOWER ON EARTH

August 1, 2019

Only a few nations have risen to superpower status over the centuries, but without exception, they have all fallen victim, primarily, to the same enemy. I will talk more about that shortly.

As an American I can tell you with reasonable confidence that a majority of Americans take great pride in being the ‘Sole Superpower’ on the planet. I can only imagine how the people of a previous ‘Superpower’ felt when it was said of them in the 19th century, “The empire on which the sun never sets”. This of course was the British Empire, of which its territory spanned the globe. There was nowhere on the planet where the sun didn’t always shine on ‘some part’ of British ruled territory.

The decline of the British Empire was on public display in 1997 when Prince Charles wrote in his, then private journal, while flying back from attending the handover of the colony of Hong Kong to China, “Such is the end of Empire, I sighed to myself,”

While researching another ‘Superpower’ that enjoyed this status some 2,500 years ago I came upon something exceptionally astonishing and unique to great empires. I happened upon J.R Fears and something he wrote entitled, “REFLECTIONS ON THE RISE AND FALL OF EMPIRES”.

After clicking on the above link and reading the article by J.R Fears I’m sure you came away with the same thing I did. We are living in a perilous time for our country. Everyone of us should be concerned. We are witnessing for the first time in American history ALL the signs that toppled every empire from Darius, the King of the Persians, to the present time.

“The greatest mistake made by those in power, like Darius, was the sin of hybris.  That Greek word means “outrageous arrogance.”  Hybris (and that is the way it should be transliterated) is the outrageous arrogance that marks the abuse of power.  Only those invested with enormous power can commit the sin of hybris.  Hybris is the imposition of your will, at all costs.  The Greeks believed that hybris was preceded by ate or moral blindness that makes you believe that you can do anything you want to and there will be no consequences from either Gods or men.  It was this hybris that led Darius to undertake a preemptive war against Athens.  It was his moral blindness that believed he would never know defeat.  He ignored all the warnings that the Gods sent him because he felt so secure in his power”.


By: J.R Fears

Does this look and sound like America today? If we fail to learn the lessons of the past, we are doomed to repeat the same mistakes.

Nathaniel Stalling Jr.

nstalling@gmail.com