Illinois State University’s African American Studies will present the panel “The Black Church and Progressive Politics: Past and Present Ecclesiastical Views on Race, Inequality, and Agape” at 1 p.m. Friday, April 14, 2023, via Zoom.
The panel will include two speakers, Professor of Political Science Nikol G. Alexander-Floyd from Rutgers University-New Brunswick and Dean of Chapel for Stillman College the Rev. Joseph Scrivner, Ph.D.
Register for the talk here.
Dr. Alexander-Floyd will present “The Ghost of Moynihan: Culture, Class, and Ideology in the Black Church,” exploring whether the Black church has chosen membership over mission. Alexander-Floyd will examine the contemporary Black church’s political and spiritual shift from liberation to self-help, the gospel of prosperity, and to full-on corporatization. Alexander-Floyd is a lawyer, political scientist, and an ordained Christian minister, currently serving as an assistant minister at Grace Community Church of Trenton, New Jersey.
The Rev. Scrivner will present “What’s Our Story? Race and Class in the Black Church.” He will speak about the common narrative that blames the vulnerable for their situation, and argue that the Black Church must set the record straight, in accordance with Scripture, and the good of society. Scrivner serves in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, as a pastor for Brown Memorial Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). He earned a doctorate in biblical studies from Princeton Theological Seminary, and was inducted into the Morehouse College Board of Preachers.
