The Black Church Saved my Faith
How Black Christians and liberation theology showed me a better way.
Public Theology is based on the work of Zach W. Lambert, Pastor of Restore Austin, an inclusive church in Austin, Texas. Zach’s first book, Better Ways to Read the Bible, will release on August 12, 2025. All of the content available at Public Theology is for those who identify as Christian, as well as those who might be interested in learning about a more inclusive, kind, thoughtful Christianity. We’re glad you’re here.
We officially launched our church plant, Restore Austin, on February 21, 2016. In addition to the imposter syndrome I felt almost constantly, I was also dealing with the pressure of trying to make sure our fledgling congregation didn’t go the way of most new church plants and close within our first few years.
You may remember that something else was happening in early 2016—the Republican Presidential Primary was really heating up, with seventeen major candidates competing for the GOP nomination. Back in the summer of 2015, Donald Trump descended a golden escalator and announced his presidential candidacy by claiming Mexico was sending criminals, drug dealers, and rapists into the United States.
On February first of that year, Ted Cruz narrowly won the Iowa caucuses, but Donald Trump cruised to double-digit victories in New Hampshire (February 9th) and South Carolina (February 20th). The day after Trump’s decisive victory in South Carolina, we launched our church.
2016 was a brutal year in so many ways. Even though Restore was (slowly) growing, we had a long way to go before we became self-sufficient, and Donald Trump’s election that November was painful for so many of our church members who belonged to historically marginalized communities. Exhausted from church planting, disheartened by the direction of our country, and plagued with doubts about how my faith was supposed to make a difference through it all, I reached out dear friend who was planting a predominantly Black church around the same time.
“How are you getting through all of this, bro?” I asked.
He replied, “It’s been brutal. I’ve just been reading all the liberation theology I can get my hands on. Have you read it?”
I’d learned a little bit about liberation theology during my Masters program, although it was consistently decried at my White1 Evangelical seminary, but I hadn’t spent much time reading it.
I texted back, “No, but I trust you. Where should I start?”
My friend replied, “Have you read The Cross and The Lynching Tree?”
I ordered James Cone’s classic and I devoured it. The whole thing blew me away, but I’ll never forget reading these words from the conclusion:
The Christian gospel is God’s message of liberation in an unredeemed and tortured world. As such, it is a transcendent reality that lifts our spirits to a world far removed from the suffering of this one. And yet the Christian gospel is more than a transcendent reality, more than ‘going to heaven when I die, to shout salvation as I fly.’ It is also an immanent reality—a powerful liberating presence among the poor right now in their midst, ‘building them up where they are torn down and propping them up on every leaning side.’ The gospel is found wherever poor people struggle for justice, fighting for their right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
James Cone
I knew that this was the Gospel message I needed to be preaching, the Christianity in which our church needed to be rooted. After James Cone, I dove into books by Howard Thurman, Judy Fentress-Williams, Martin Luther King Jr., bell hooks, Gustavo Gutiérrez, Wil Gafney, the Boff brothers, Love Sechrest, James Baldwin, Angela Parker, and many more liberation and womanist theologians. Reading these writers was like finding a stream of running water after wandering in a spiritual desert.
A couple of years later, I found myself in a Leadership Cohort led by Lisa Sharon Harper and Dr. Liz Rios. Although the majority of my high school was Latino/a and the majority of my college football team was Black, this cohort was the first time I’d ever been a racial minority in a Christian space. Every church I’d been a part of, every conference I’d been to, and every seminary class I’d attended contained an overwhelmingly White male majority. Being mentored by Lisa and Liz, and learning from other leaders in the cohort like Jemar Tisby and Chante Griffin, transformed how I understood Christian leadership.
The Black Church, Black Christian leaders, and liberation theology helped rescue my faith and radically changed the way I pastor and preach. When I get texts now like the one I sent my friend in 2016, I respond just like he did:
“Have you read The Cross and The Lynching Tree?”
I know the world is heavy right now and I know it can be hard to hold onto faith at times like these, but the Black Church remains a light in the darkness, just as it has for the last 250 years.
To that end, we will be highlighting Black writers we've been learning from throughout Black History Month.
Let’s start with
’s article about the Black Church, linked below. I have learned so much from him; I hope you will, too.We Have a "Confessing Church" in the U.S. It's Called the Black Church.
No offense to Bonhoeffer or his compatriots, but don't overlook the Black Christian witness.
November 1, 2024
From Footnotes by Jemar Tisby
Amid the avalanche of commentary about the 2024 presidential election and the prospect of fascist leaders taking over the White House, it is natural for Christians to look for examples of resistance.
What have people of faith in similar situations in other times and places done to resist authoritarianism and offer a powerful witness to love of neighbor and the pursuit of the common good?
The "Confessing Church”—which resisted the toxic mixture of Christianity and nationalism in 1930s Germany—is a powerful and relevant model to inform our own political theology in the United States today.
Foremost among the confessing Christians in Germany stands Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He helped lead the Confessing Church, and wrote boldly against fascism and eloquently about grace. The Nazis ultimately killed him for opposing Hitler and his regime.
Do NOT read that trash Eric Metaxas book about Bonhoeffer. Read this one by Charles Marsh instead.
We have much to learn from Bonhoeffer and the Confessing Church of Germany, but the United States has its own confessing church—it’s called the Black church.
The Black Christian tradition has stood against authoritarian and white supremacist movements in the United States just as the Confessing Church stood against fascism and genocide in Germany.
Like the Confessing Church, the Black Church is a minority among the majority of white Christians who chose compromise and complicity with white Christian nationalist, anti-democratic forces.
But you don’t have to cross an ocean, a continent, and cultures to learn about Christian resistance. The Black church is a witness is right here in the United States…
Continue reading here.
Jemar’s work has been formative in my understanding the American church’s complicity in racism and how to fight against it. He’s also a really great guy.
Please support his work by subscribing to his substack, Footnotes, supporting his work at The Witness Foundation, or buying one of his excellent books (linked below).
How to Fight Racism: Courageous Christianity and the Journey Toward Racial Justice
The Color of Compromise: The Truth about the American Church's Complicity in Racism
Stories of the Spirit of Justice
I Am the Spirit of Justice (for kids)
I am taking a cue from Dr. Love L. Sechrest, New Testament scholar Dean at Columbia Theological Seminary, who recommends capitalizing all racial and ethnic categories:
“I capitalize words that refer to subpopulations by race or ethnicity. This practice is ubiquitous in our society when referring to Asian-, Latinx-, Irish-, and Native-Americans, etc. Though contested, we can see it with increasing frequency when using the term ‘Black’ to refer to African Americans. Less common, however, is my practice of capitalizing ‘White’ when referring to that group of Americans: To not name ‘White’ as a race is, in fact, an anti-Black act which frames Whiteness as both neutral and the standard.” - Love Lazarus Sechrest, Race and Rhyme: Rereading the New Testament (p. 77)
I loved this, Zach. The Nu Nation Project helped me survive a lot. I will never forget learning about God from Black South African woman working on her graduate level educational Leadership degree at the college I attended. Its hard to justify rejecting faith when being reminded of a faith and a hope that is not a white washed sepulche, but rich with beauty and power, that comes from overcoming through suffering.
I am listening to Dr Andre Lewis New Faith church in Houston. I was raised Mennonite, and I stand in the gap for homeless, immigrants and LGBTQ with you.