Political Movements, Social Change, and the Preacher | Ed Copeland (Preaching and the Pastor Theologian Episode 7)

In this episode, Joel Lawrence and Matt Kim talk with pastor, lawyer, and theologian K. Edward Copeland about how the gospel shapes the church’s engagement with today’s social and political tensions. Ed shares his unique journey—from overcoming a childhood speech impediment to decades of ministry and justice work—and offers a compelling vision of the gospel as God’s reconciling work for people, systems, and the whole cosmos. Drawing on the African American preaching tradition and the posture of exile, he explains how preaching can form Christians who discern cultural idols, process societal events theologically, and live faithfully amid fractured times. The result is a conversation full of wisdom, hope, and clarity for pastors and congregations navigating the complexities of modern life.

Living Church - Awe and Presence

Transcript

Ed Copeland: 0:01

One of the things he's been teaching me is to strive for simplicity and clarity, to reject the impulse to preach a craze. When I'm looking at grace, I'm talking about this. One bit of somebody else. One bit when somebody sees it like a second. Oh, you need to forget about it. To feed the people. I see every study.

Joel Lawrence: 0:27

Well, hi everyone, and welcome back to the Preaching and the Pastor Theologian podcast series. I'm Joel Lawrence. I'm here with my co-host for this series, Matt Kim. Matt, good to see you again. Hi, Joel. So on today's episode, we're speaking with uh Dr. K. Edward Copeland, also known as Ed, who serves as a senior pastor of New Zion Baptist Church in Rockford, Illinois. We'll hear a little bit about his pretty unique educational journey, but he holds degrees from University of Illinois, University of California, Berkeley, Golden Gate Theological Seminary, and Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. We've been connected to Ed at the CPT over the last couple of years. And actually, as we'll you'll hear in the conversation toward the end, he's speaking at our conference in October, uh, Good Shepherd's Pastoral Identity in the Future of the Church. So just a little plug here to go to cptconference.com. After you hear Ed, you're going to want to come to the conference and get more of this. So would encourage folks to sign up and come to that. But we wanted to bring uh Ed on to talk about political and social movements and the preacher, and he is so well positioned for this conversation. He has degrees in both law and theology, has been a pastor uh in his church for almost a quarter of a century, now been a leader in the church as a preacher, as well as kind of a guide to the church's engagement with the broader social issues of our time. And um as we're exploring theological framework for preaching in this podcast series, uh, I think on this question of how the church engages with social issues, I think one of the real challenges and the way that we're um maybe not particularly well aligned across the church is we don't have a great theological framework for doing this. And I think Ed brings such wisdom to this. So, Matt, as we head into the conversation with Ed, what what is the theological approach you bring to thinking about preaching and social engagement? And how did you do that as a pastor? How do you do that now as a as a trainer of preachers?

Matt Kim: 2:58

Yeah, I mean, there's just so much that I think Ed was teaching me, and I was as I was reflecting back on uh my own journey. I I feel like every every teaching moment, every sermon was just another way for me to bridge that gap between just head knowledge and heart knowledge. Uh it seemed like um so many people knew the right Bible answers, but they didn't actually live it out. And so for me, it was always a process of thinking through how do I get my people excited about living for Jesus, not just knowing the the cognitive things about Jesus and what he taught. And I think Kenneth's conversation will really help us to see that all of life is interconnected, it's interwoven. And and he does he did a beautiful job of helping us see that. So I'm really excited for this conversation.

Joel Lawrence: 3:47

Yeah, I I agree. I think the the big gospel that he has in mind, that he has in his heart, and that he is really seeking to train his church and and the church in. I just think it provides some really helpful categories that that are missing in this conversation right now about church and social justice and what we mean by social and what we mean by justice and all of those things where we're we're uh pretty misaligned in a lot of different ways. I think he brings a great perspective. So uh excited to have folks hear the conversation, which we will turn to right now. Ed, it's great to have you on the podcast. Thank you so much for joining us for this conversation. I'm glad to be here. So uh we have uh you on today to talk about political and social movements and the preacher. Before we dive into that theme, uh I'd like to invite you to just give an introduction of yourself to the hearers of the podcast. Tell us a bit about your faith journey, uh, your educational journey, pastoral experience, what you're doing today.

Ed Copeland: 4:58

Okay. Well, again, my name is Kenneth Edward Copeland. I go by Ed because there's another Kenneth Copeland that I choose not to necessarily be identified with.

Joel Lawrence: 5:09

Did you I'm I'm I am just curious because I've wondered this before, actually, about you. Did were you Kenneth for a long time, and then when he came along, you became Ed? Or how did that work?

Ed Copeland: 5:17

No, no, or was he already around? He, of course, he's much older than I am, but I've always gone by Edward. But when people ask for my government name, I I generally say K. Edward Copeland. Right, right, right. And just the emphasis, I I put more emphasis on the Edward than the Tenet.

Joel Lawrence: 5:36

Fair enough. Fair enough.

Ed Copeland: 5:37

That makes sense. I love the name Kenneth. It's just one of those things. Anyway, yeah, yeah. I'm a preacher's kid. My father pastored uh in Kankiki, Illinois for about 38 years. Grew up in a Christian family. I prayed to receive Christ when I was eight years old under my father's ministry. However, it was not until I was about 14 years old that I really got a grasp of the concept of assurance of salvation and eternal security, and really uh got a better understanding of what salvation is actually all about. Strangely enough, it happened right here in the city where I now live. At the time we didn't live in this city, but in this city of Rockford, wow, is where I actually literally about two miles from where I'm sitting right here, right now. Wow. It's literally where I my eyes were open. Wow. And not just mine, but the friends that I had. There was about uh uh four of us in a class uh that was taking place as part of the state uh Baptist Congress. We went back to our community. God really started a revival there, uh that basically revolutionized the church where I was a part of. We were really uh fired up about evangelism and discipleship. About 20 about 26 preachers came out of that group, and there's about 14 of us yet today. As a matter of fact, uh before the podcast came on, I was looking at the prayer chat uh this morning. There's about 14 of us that are still almost almost 50 years later, uh praying with each other on a regular basis from all over the country.

Speaker 6: 7:30

Amazing.

Ed Copeland: 7:31

Wow. I came out of that type of uh system as Ways to Church when I went to college, uh got connected with the Navigators were and was discipled uh by them and then uh graduated from college, University of Illinois, went off to law school at UC Berkeley, and was under a great pastor out in Oakland, California, who emphasized evangelism and discipleship. And I um after serving there for a while, came back and served with my father for about eight years and ultimately wound up here in Rockford, Illinois, where I've been pastoring for the last this year will be 24 years. I'm the third full-time pastor in a hundred years. I'm trying to make uh 25. That's the goal, huh? If I make 25, then I don't have to get the money back. If I don't make 25, I gotta give everything everything back. So I'm I'm yet trying to hold on. So I'm uh full-time pastoring right now. I'm not uh I'm not participating in the legal profession. I'm retired. However, I am uh on the board of an organization called Administer Justice, where we set up gospel justice centers all across the country. So we have a legal clinic here doing work in the mental health sphere. I'm on the mental health board here in our community, and we're we have a really big emphasis on mental health uh here at the church and uh working hard to uh help the school district. My wife is a school administrator, my daughter is a teacher, my son is a teacher, um, and I work with organizations just to try to help uh children in the public school system. So that in a nutshell is kind of what I'm doing and where I've been.

Matt Kim: 9:23

Thank you for sharing your journey, Ed. That's uh an amazing uh journey you've been on. Uh, you have uh very rare combination of being in ministry but also being trained as a lawyer and a theologian. Uh, can you tell us a little bit about how your education has shaped uh your vision for doing social justice and working in the area of politics and even mental health that you just shared? You know, you have so many different uh interests. How does how did that come about?

Ed Copeland: 12:25

By God's grace, so uh one one thing I did not uh mention, and I think it's important to mention here as relates to uh my vision for ministry and how God has sort of shaped that. When I was uh a child, they didn't diagnose it as such. I don't know if they would have a basically I had a speech impediment, and my teachers really couldn't understand me that well. I can remember very distinctly in like third or fourth grade, knowing the answers to questions and raising my hand and then trying to say it to the teacher, and the teacher couldn't understand what I was saying. We were living at that time in Elwood, Kansas, a very small community, basically border of Kansas and Missouri. And I can remember one of my friends, his name was Craig Burns, because we were friends and he had grew growing up with me. He knew what I was saying, and he basically would interpret it to the teacher. What he's saying is this or that or blah, blah, blah. And I can remember that feeling of not being heard, and I could remember the appreciation I had for somebody who would speak up on my behalf. So that little nugget helped to formulate some things in me as it relates to speaking up for people who couldn't speak for themselves. And this whole idea of becoming an attorney and how even now it has sort of shaped my uh uh identity and vision for ministry, particularly nowadays in the mental health uh sphere. So uh the accommodation of my education, uh the the sort of mix of my uh educational journey, uh my undergraduate degree is in English and rhetoric, of course, my law degree, I got my MDM, I got my doctorate of ministry from the Trinity, all of that has been in the service of uh two or three things. One, my bent toward speaking up for those who cannot speak for themselves, and making sure that those who cannot advocate for themselves have an advocate. But at the same time, that whole evangelism discipleship bent from you know uh the the church I came out of, the navigators I participated with in college, and then the church that I was in when I was going through law school, all of that have helped me to see a couple of things. Number one, that things are actually worse than people understand in our criminal justice system and that there is a whole uh collective of people who are not experiencing life like the majority of us are. Um and that they, whether Republican, Democrat, liberal, conservative, none of that matters, they need Jesus just like everybody else does. And I cannot assume that just because they have a position, that they have the wisdom to navigate that position. So all of that has sort of uh framed my not just identity, but how how I approach ministry, particularly in the community where I am.

Joel Lawrence: 16:30

Well, Ed how you think about bringing all those things together, that both the speaking up for those who can't speak for themselves, as well as the discipleship of those who are in power, that feels like a a big gospel that's at work in your mind and in your heart. So I would like to ask you, if you could, for us, what is your definition of the gospel? How does it how does it shape the way that you preach the gospel as well as your understanding of the relationship and intersection between social movements and and the gospel story?

Ed Copeland: 17:08

Well, we can talk about this all day, so I'm gonna try to. Let's go for it. Let's go for it. So the gospel is a good news that God is reconciling all things back to himself. That what has been broken by sin, God in the person and work of Jesus Christ, through his his at the center, obviously his death, burial, and resurrection, but even his incarnation as well as his current reign, the the full breadth of who Jesus is and what he's done in order for God to fix what has been broken by sin and reconcile not just people back to himself, but put the whole cosmos back in the order is sort of my framework or my concept of the gospel. And the way that that plays out for me in this fractured world is the fact that all things are broken, that not just people are broken, but systems are broken. And that God is concerned about all of that. So one way that I think about it a lot is that sin has caused separation between us and God, obviously. But it's caused separation between us and one another.

Speaker 6: 18:24

Yeah.

Ed Copeland: 18:24

But there is broken something inside of us as it relates to our identity. And that speaks to the whole mental, emotional, social, uh, uh, the mental, emotional, mental sort of capacity that we have as humans. And then obviously, sin has impacted the cosmos. So through Christ, not only are we reconciled back to God, but now we can be reconciled one to another. Uh Paul's sort of argument there in uh 2 Corinthians chapter 5. Any man being Christ is a brand new creature, old things have passed away, all things have become new. And we beg you to be reconciled to God, but then there's a component there in terms of being reconciled one to another because we're reconciled to God. And then this whole component uh within the gospel that reframes, that renews our mind, that transforms how we perceive our identity in relationship to God and in relationship to one another. And one day, of course, Romans chapter 8, oh, we're the whole cosmos is groaning, waiting for the revelation of you know, the sons and daughters of God. So, all of that, you say, okay, well, what does that have to do with politics and all that kind of stuff and social movements and this, that, and other, that is not just my personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. Yeah, of course, that is true. But I live in society, and society has structures, and God is concerned about the structures that either promote or hinder human flourishing. And so we have to be concerned about those structures, but from a particular angle, and I know we'll get into this a little bit later. We're we're coming at it from the angle that, number one, we're ambassadors, that our ultimate allegiance is to the kingdom.

unknown: 20:15

Yeah.

Ed Copeland: 20:16

And as kingdom citizens, we cannot afford to be so identified with any particular uh movement, party, or expression that we are not clearly seen as ultimately representing Christ. And at the uh same time, we're exiles, and there's a certain way that exiles ought to live. And you know, the prophets help us with those types of things that you know it's not assimilation, it's not isolation, but it's some kind of infiltration to be salt and light in dark and unsavory places.

Matt Kim: 20:52

Yeah, that's very helpful. Um the next question, I mean, you can probably take this in any direction you want. Uh what would you say are one or two of the most pressing social movements in your perspective in our world today, our culture today? And what has the church not addressed or not addressed well or effectively, in your opinion?

Ed Copeland: 21:13

And this is another one we can spend two hours on this, and I'm I'm trying my best. You know, it's it's really dangerous to uh try to interview a black Baptist pastor who's an attorney, because the idea is you only have so much time, and both of those strains don't work well with time strain.

Joel Lawrence: 21:32

Yeah, yeah, we we understand what we're doing too, yeah. We understand.

Ed Copeland: 21:37

But in order to try to buck tradition and expectations, I would try to be succinct. So uh to answer your question, I've I've tried to think about this in terms of the social movements, and when I think about when I think about a few different things that are that I think the church has not addressed well, let me say, let me say them and then let me point out what the common denominator is in my thinking. So when we think about the whole Christian nationalistic sort of impulse, and when we think about the component within some of that that's adjacent to it, and sometimes might overlap some of that, when we think about the whole white supremacy piece that has come to the fore uh in the past, uh has resurged, I'll say, the last few years. But at the same time, when we think about another thing, the whole gender conflict. What's up under all of that is this issue of identity. How people are choosing to put one or another aspect of what they perceive to be the most important part of their identity forward. And so with the LGBTQ plus uh sort of movement, the idea that how I choose to identify is really the most important part of my identity, or what I feel, the response I have to people of my same sex or other sex, that's the most important part of my identity. Or when we think about this whole resurgence and the whole pushback, for example, about history in certain uh strains of our society, really, all of that's about identity. And you you hear it uh among certain politicians when certain laws or policies are trying to be passed that, okay, well, we we don't want anything that will make people feel a certain way about feel a certain way about what? About their identity. Right. So if if I'm hearing something that makes me feel bad about being how God created me as a person, then I'm gonna reject that because this part of me, how I look, is the most important part of my identity.

Speaker 6: 24:05

Yeah.

Ed Copeland: 24:06

When we think about even Christian nationalism and some of the strains within, I mean, that's a big thing. That's a big, I mean, you can't, it's not like a monolithic sort of thing. There's a whole lot to that, but up under it is okay, in one sense, and they'll even say this, well, who is an American? What is the actual national identity? Because you can go to certain countries and say, well, that person belongs to that country because they look like that. But what does an American look like? If you have something in your mind, then what you're really saying is our identity can be subsumed into a certain type of phenotype. But up under all of that, uh all of these three things that don't seem to be really connected, actually, but what's up under it is what are you what what is your true identity? What is the most important part of you?

Speaker 5: 25:00

Yeah, yeah.

Ed Copeland: 25:01

And if the most important part of you is uh how you interact or how you deal sexually, well then you got this movement. Yeah. The most important part of you is how you view American history and how you feel about this or that of it, then you you got you're part of this movement. If you and so I think the church really needs to uh has not done as good of a job as it could have done in forming some theologies that help us keep our keep ourselves centered in our identity in Christ. So, for example, with the LGBTQ piece, and not just that, but just sex in general, we don't have a really good theology of the body.

Speaker 5: 25:43

Yeah.

Ed Copeland: 25:44

Yeah. You know, and uh God's view of our body. And so even dysmorphia and ways people are dealing with all different types of things that feed into confusion about sexuality, yeah, is because we have not clearly articulated a theology of the body. When we talk about uh the whole uh impulse, uh the white supremacist sort of movement, and some of the things surrounding that, we haven't really done a good job, in my opinion, of about thinking about the theology of ethnicity. Now, race is a construct, but the Bible does talk about ethnos. And last time I checked, when it's all said and done, every tribe, every nation, every tongue, every people.

Joel Lawrence: 26:33

Every, every, right?

Ed Copeland: 26:35

Yeah. So what what does that mean for us as it relates to how we interact uh as collectives?

Speaker 6: 26:44

Yeah.

Ed Copeland: 26:44

And more importantly, even I would suggest a theology of history. How do we deal with history and all those types of things? So I I think uh that's that's a sloppy answer to the question, but when we talk about the social movements and political movements, I think up under a lot of that is this concept of identity, and then how that connects, and this is this might be a personal bias, but I don't think it is. How it how all of that connects to the concept of justice. Because everybody in all of those movements, what are they saying? Well, we're being mistreated, right? We need justice. Okay, well, what does that look like? And what does the Bible say about that? And what does that actually mean?

Joel Lawrence: 27:36

I I certainly wouldn't have used the word sloppy for that answer. I I was thinking more really insightful. And and because I I think what you're getting at here is, and I think this is so right, these movements that seem like they're so far apart on a political spectrum actually are rooted in some very common things that have infected the church and gone different directions with it, but there's a commonality of what's going on there that I think people on both sides would be quite surprised to find that that maybe they're they're not so far apart at the root of what's going on there, right? The way that this is playing out. Yeah. So so that I think that's a great transition out of thinking about preaching and the role of preaching in this. Um, and I got I got two questions for you. One is a kind of a more general question. Like, how do you think about preaching in terms of identity formation? This work that you've been talking about, like what is the role of preaching and forming identity? And then the second is what particularly you mentioned you're you, you know, from we're we're we're cramping your style because you're a black African uh African American pastor. We're trying to get you in a 40-minute time frame here or so. That um, but in terms of your formation in that tradition, what is it that the African American preaching tradition brings to the church, the theology of it, that we in who are myself and the majority white evangelical church, maybe we haven't understood or need to understand about that tradition.

Ed Copeland: 29:16

Yeah. Go back to the first one, which is about preaching to help form identity, if I understood the uh question correctly. And that's a man, that's a great question. So there's a few different uh in my mind, there's a few different things that preaching ought to do that directly impact this part of our conversation. One of them is we have to be the preacher, the pastor theologian has to be a master missiologist in the sense that we have to recognize what are the idols in my city, the the idols in my arena that are forming or helping to form the identity of the people that I'm preaching to. Because I'm not preaching, I'm not preaching just in the thin air. I'm not just preaching just abstractly, I'm preaching to people. And whereas there might be certain movements and certain idols that are really prevalent, like in society in general, but I have to be uh primarily concerned about the idols that are forming the identity of the people who I pastor and who I preach to on a regular basis.

Speaker 6: 30:41

Yeah.

Ed Copeland: 30:42

Let me pause, let me put a pin right there and point out something. So, for example, when I graduated from Trent, I think I graduated, had graduated at that point, I can't remember. But anyway, uh somewhere my uh theological education, I can't remember if I was working on my MDF or I was working on getting ready to work on my doctorate, uh, this movie, uh, what is the movie? Tom Hanks, uh, it was a book and then it became a movie about um the it was something about the scroll. Um I can't even remember the name of the movie now, but it was a very popular book that was turned into a movie. Tom Hanks starred in it, and it it it cast dispersion. It it basically was trying to make the argument that Jesus and Mary Magdalene had some type of Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Joel Lawrence: 31:33

The uh uh the Dan Brown book. What is it? It's it's out, it's it's not in my head right now. But yeah.

Ed Copeland: 31:38

You know what I'm talking about.

Joel Lawrence: 31:39

So the Da Vinci Code. The Da Vinci Code.

Ed Copeland: 31:41

Thank you. Yes, we got there. We got there. The Da Vinci Code came out, and that was a big thing. And so various uh uh the evangelical sort of press sort of you know put together books and how are we gonna counteract this and counteract that? And man, I downloaded everything and bought all the packets and so on and so forth. Uh I got to deal with the Da Vinci Code because this is a cultural thing. And I had was getting ready to prepare my little sermons, and then Holy Spirit struck me. He said, Well, you better check. So I polled my congregation, I said, How many of you have heard of the Da Vinci Code? Nobody had heard of it. Well, was it a major thing in like society in general? I guess so. Was it a major thing in my collective, in my in my atmosphere? Hadn't heard of it. Wasn't thinking about going to no movie. When I told him what I was about, oh, we ain't going to that. I'm like, okay. So I said all of that to say that the pastor theologian in this area of uh recognizing that preaching is a tool the Holy Spirit uses to form the identity of the Christian, must, if we back up for a minute, uh I need to say that we have to be mystiologists. We have to not assume that we understand the people and the context that we're in, but always studying, always checking to see what are the idols in this community that are forming people's identity. And then I have to preach to that. When Paul went to uh uh Mars Hill, he had a certain approach. When he went to, you know, Ephesus, he had a different approach because they had different things going on. So preaching, so having said that, then the idea is uh within the menu, within the uh the diet of the within the regular diet of the community that I pastor or that I'm preaching to, if I've identified and I'm continually working to identify the idols, and I have to make sure that within my preaching that the applications of the gospel are clearly worked out in ways that I'm training people how to theologically reflect for themselves. What I mean by that is good preaching, I think, helps people to see how you got where you are going so that when they're outside of your presence and they're reading the Bible for themselves, they're reflecting theologically in healthy ways so that they're participating in their own deliverance from idols, in their own identity formation, because of healthy, sound teaching, but healthy, sound strategies. Yes. As it relates to how we're approaching text.

Joel Lawrence: 34:50

So the i i in your preaching, you're not you you're you're demonstrating those strategies, so you're building a pattern of thinking and and in in the congregation so they can start to identify the idols themselves. That's exactly right. That's yeah.

Ed Copeland: 35:05

So there's a different that that's that's not everybody's that's not everybody's strategy for preaching. We're trying to hit home runs. We we want our we want this with the go viral. We want this when we do part of the book, as opposed to doing the the the normal, simple, follow me as I follow Christ in the context of the sermon. That you might be so you do you simple things like within the sermon, why is this in the Bible? What difference does this make? How does this apply to the gospel? How does the gospel work out? How does this principle work out from a gospel perspective? Um, or you might be asking, well, how does this apply to me on my job in my family? It's simple little things like that where you're helping them to recognize it's not enough just to get the context and the concept, but how do I process this? And in what ways uh have idols been revealed to me within this context of this particular sermon.

Matt Kim: 36:15

Yeah, that's that's really helpful. As you were sharing those things, uh it was bringing back the book to me, uh Esau Macaulay's book, What Reading While Black. Yeah. Uh, and just being able to speak into your own community. Um, and as as we go on to this next question, what I want to have have you consider for us and help us with is what has the African American preaching experience taught you how to about how to preach effectively on social issues, as it seems to be that uh African-American preachers are leading voices uh in speaking up on behalf of those who have no voice and et cetera, as you were mentioning earlier. So teach us or help us to understand what is it about the African-American preaching uh style or or context that is very effective at doing this?

Ed Copeland: 37:03

So we're preaching from the posture of exiles. Yeah. Because we we've always been exiles in a country that we help build. Yeah. So it's that posture that recognizing, okay, I cannot depend on the government. I I cannot depend on my resources because I don't have access to all the resources I need. So I have to depend on God. So first of all, it's a posture that it's a recognition that uh very often, and I can't remember what happened. Very often we're regarded as refugees in our own country, this theological concept of exiles. But then more importantly, I think it's the it's the prophetic impulse to address what is before us from God's perspective. So we think about you know the Jeremiah's the the Amos's uh, you know, within the the Bible, and how whatever was happening in society, they had a word from the Lord on that issue, but it was also tied to hope. So uh that's another impulse, but I I think that one of the great distinctive so let me let me peg that for just a second, because I can remember and I've been part of um I was I was there, you know, when the gospel coalition uh started. Um I've been with uh you know the grand pubas of certain networks and collectives and all that kind of stuff across evangelicalism and this, that, and the other. And I can remember back in when the gospel coalition started, I can remember I didn't know Tim Keller from anybody, God uh bless his memory. And we were in a meeting, and the impulse, the statement was being made because at that time uh uh uh Barack Obama was running for president. And the statement was being made that, you know, we just need to preach the gospel, we don't need to get into politics and so on and so forth. And Tim Keller asked me, he said, Well, Ed, he said, I could be wrong, but it seems like uh African-American pastors hadn't had any choice. You've had to just deal with it. So he opened the door and let me say what needed to be said. I always appreciated him uh for that. But it's that impulse that we don't have any choice. It's not that we uh want to uh talk about police brutality, but if you have a kid that uh a kid that prays to receive Christ, and then before he can get baptized, he gets brutalized by police. Well, what am I supposed to do about that? I have to help people. This is gets this gets back to the first point I was trying to make. I have to help people process that theologically. And the the black church has done that well, in my opinion, uh down through the years, uh, the black church writ large, is helping people to process trauma theologically so that revenge does not become the impulse but prayer and activism and forgiveness. Remember when the kid came and shot up all the people that were in the prayer meeting, you know, um the black church night, killed nine people, whatever. What happened after that? What was the impulse? What was the sponsor of the church? Forgiveness. Why? Because as part of our sort of tradition, we're gonna take whatever is happening and not keep it theoretically. We're gonna say, okay, what does God have to say about this?

Speaker 6: 40:46

Yeah.

Ed Copeland: 40:46

Let's think through it, let's process this piece, and then let's not just make it theoretical. Okay, what are we gonna do about it? Well, the civil rights movement is the prime example of that type of thing. One other thing I would say is uh distinctive with the uh African American church historically, uh, writ large, that I think everybody could do well to sort of um try to take some lessons from or try to try to at least model, is there's the African-American religious tradition, Christian tradition, from its beginning had a sort of unique way of putting the whole Bible together. We call it biblical theology now, but there was a way, so we would sing songs like Oh Mary, don't you weep. Oh Mary, don't you weep. Okay. But then in that song it says, Pharaoh's army got drowned in the Red Sea. Wait a minute. I thought you were talking to Mary. But somehow or another, we're able to pull, okay, we're talking to Mary, telling her, Don't you weep. And we use as an example, Pharaoh's army got drowned in the Red Sea. Oh Mary, don't you weep. It's a way that, okay, there's big themes within the Bible as relates to justice that are not disconnected, and we find ways to keep not only the whole Bible together, but keep our existential reality and our eschatological hope connected.

Speaker 6: 42:22

Yeah.

Ed Copeland: 42:22

So it's two different things. We're linearly, we're keeping uh when we think about, I'm trying to think of some of the other spirituals that really just, you know, did my God deliver Daniel? My God delivered, and why not every man? Okay, if he did it for Daniel, he can do it for you. There's ways that the spirituals and the songs we sing keep us connected to that whole biblical narrative that we're part of. Yeah. Pharaoh, Daniel, Mary, oh, and we're part of it too. But then in another dimension, that what is happening to me existentially, I can process it because I have eschatological hope. And so all of those things sort of fit together within the African American preaching tradition.

Joel Lawrence: 43:13

I think the theme of exiles is so important here, right? An exile is not one who doesn't have a homeland, it's one who's not living right in their homeland. That eschatology, um, that that I do think part of the part of the challenge for the majority white evangelical church is we've been resisting being exiles. Yeah. Um and I think part of what the Spirit of God is doing right now is is challenging us to embrace exile as an identity, which means we have to release certain things of the land that we're living in because we have a clearer sense of what our eschatological home is, and that that's forming us more than the place that we're living. And it seems to me that's one of the challenges my tradition is really grappling with right now, is we're wanting to hold on to the the home the the the land that's not our homeland. That's it. Um we need to release that to be formed by our homeland.

Ed Copeland: 44:21

That's exact that's exactly it. That's exact that's well said. That's exactly I think the issue. And it shows up when see when you're an exile it it you learn not to depend on institutions more than you depend on God. Yeah, yeah. Because what you said, this is not my home. Yeah, and uh there's no need of me acting like it. And so therefore, when things happen, I don't claim every inconvenience as a persecution. I recognize that okay, I can't depend on that. I have to depend on God. And when you don't have financial resources, yeah, then okay, we have to pray about this, we have to trust God about this and so on and so forth, as opposed to, you know, in certain traditions, man, you you really don't have to pray about it because you got a budget for it.

Joel Lawrence: 45:19

We're living through uh uh interesting times uh these days, turbulent times. As you've been preaching over the last few years, how much time do you spend addressing like particular social things that are going on from the pulpit or particular political events that are going on from the pulpit? How do you bring the times into your preaching? What does that look like for you?

Ed Copeland: 45:51

So uh I'm in a sort of um evolution as it speaks to as it relates to that. In general, I preach through books of the Bible at a time, but like right now, I'm literally in a series entitled Stuff We Don't Talk About at Church. And I gave the church the opportunity, had about 25 different topics from like mental health to domestic violence to pornography to whatever, and let them list in priority what was primarily on their mind. So two things. When I've been preaching here recently, and when I say recently, I'll say in the last five to ten years with all the various types of things that have happened from uh uh Mike Brown and stuff down in Ferguson to George Floyd to the LGBTQ sort of surgeons and um uh same-sex marriage to political turmoil. In general, what I have done is preached whatever the text or whatever the sort of uh books that we're going through uh as I would normally do, but would make application uh to a specific sort of situation. So, like for example, I think when Trayvon Martin was killed, I think we were in the book of Ephesians, and somehow another I didn't take a break from the text, I was able to point out from the text, okay, now here are the implications for that in terms of how we should think about this situation. So in general, that's what I've been doing is trying to make sure that as I'm preaching the gospel from whatever the text is, I point out, okay, now here's the practical applications of the gospel for this movement.

unknown: 47:41

Yeah.

Ed Copeland: 47:41

However, right now, as we speak today, I'm in a season where, let's see, I just preached a sermon on domestic violence. Uh a sermon after that was on like Shady Preachers. Um I had Dr. Jeremy Meeks come in and do a whole piece on sexuality. And the point and the reason I did that is there was I felt at the beginning of the year as I was praying about it, there's so many things going on right now. I need to be sure I'm helping people on the theological reflection piece. How do I think through an issue theologically, and how do I bring the gospel to bear on whatever this situation is? So uh I I've started laying out frameworks, theological frameworks for people that, okay, whatever this controversial subject is, what was God's original purpose, plan, and design for whatever this thing is? How has that been marked? What does the God how does the gospel bring that back to what God originally designed? How then should we? It's that type of thing that I think at least my congregation is finding good benefit out of, and how I've decided to approach, because there's so much. If I addressed every uh pressing topic that came up, whatever came, I'd be crazy, I'd be bipolar by now. Because every day, literally something. There's something. Yeah. And so I've chosen, okay, now let's let's back up and let's just talk about. So, for example, domestic uh violence. Okay, uh, how do we think through that? Well, well, every human has intrinsic value because they're made in the image of God. Okay, let's walk through that. And then come up through this whole piece in Matthew, where it talks about you've heard it say about them of old, you should not commit murder, but I see unto you, whoever's angry, and then talk about the anatomy of that, and then help them see, okay, now here's how you think through this so that you are not a victim, you're not a perpetrator, and you're not an enabler of this situation, and then here's how we ought to live.

Matt Kim: 49:49

Well, this has been uh such an enriching, encouraging conversation, Ed. Thank you so much. Uh, as we uh come to a close here, tell us about what God's teaching you these days, whether it's uh as a pastor, preacher, discipler, are there any things that God's teaching you about uh shepherding people or uh living in these uh difficult days?

Ed Copeland: 50:11

He is. And and I'm I'm grateful for that question because it made me think a little more concretely about exactly what he's teaching me, because I pray every Sunday, Lord, help me make progress in my preaching, help me serve your people well. I'm I love the people that I pastored. I don't I don't mean that in a generic sense, I mean like literally uh I love these people and these people love me, and I want to do my best to uh present them complete in Christ. One of the things he's been teaching me is to be more uh simple and to to strive for simplicity and clarity, to reject the impulse to preach a great sermon. When I when I mean by great sermon, I'm talking about one that's gonna go viral. One that somebody else, one that when somebody sees it online, that they're gonna say, Oh, you need to no, forget all of that. I'm trying to feed the people who I see every Sunday well. And he's teaching me in order to do that, I need to sort of continue to audit the models that I've seen, continue to audit my intentions and my impulses, and to try to be as simple and clear and clean with the gospel as possible, so that ultimately the people who sit under my preaching over time are becoming more gospel-fluent. They're able to process things for themselves because I've modeled for them. So he's he's he's teaching me to be more brutal with my editing. You know, is this clear and to preach to the uh in the African American tradition, we talk about putting the cookies on the lower shelf, preaching to the lowest denominator, not trying to impress anybody. Not trying to not trying to impress anybody, but to impress them with the gospel in such a way that when they come away, they're not only fed, but then they know how to go home and feed themselves. So he's teaching me uh that as it relates to discipleship. Um I'm recognizing that previously I spent too much time with people who were hurting but not hungry. The Bible talks about what Paul tells Timothy the things you've heard me, you know, say among faith pass it on to faithful witnesses, to people who pass it on to others. I'm misquoting it, but you understand 2 Timothy 2.2. The idea I'm learning now, and I should have learned it, I should have been more attentive to the fact that everybody who is trying to claim my attention is not really hungry. And I need to be wise and strategic into whom I'm investing in so that I can make sure that they're investing in others and it keeps on going. So he's teaching me to be more strategic with my time. More cognizant of my intentions, impulses, more brutal with my editing, and more intentional and strategic with my time.

Joel Lawrence: 53:43

Well, Ed, thanks so much again for joining us. It's been just a delight, a pleasure to have this conversation with you. And we pray God's blessing on you, your congregation, your ministry, and uh, we're so grateful for you. And I should mention here, you we're excited. You're gonna be speaking at the CPT conference this fall. Right. So we are really excited to have you. Um we're gonna be talking about Good Shepherds, pastoral identity, and the future of the church. So I think some of the themes we've been talking about today, we we'll dig into that a little bit more together in October. Looking out, I'm excited about that. You know what?

Ed Copeland: 54:20

I'm almost forgotten about it until somebody says, Yeah, I saw you on the fire. I said, wait a minute. I said, We got you before you even knew it, I think. We locked you in. I'm gonna be there in October. I'm looking forward to it. And thank you for it. Thank you for this time. It went by too quick. Each one of those questions I could have talked an hour about, but thank you so much for that.

Joel Lawrence: 54:38

We'll have you back. We'll have you back for sure. Yeah, absolutely. All right, God bless. Take care. Matt, we keep saying at the end of all these conversations, that was a great conversation. That was a rich conversation, and and we mean it. Uh, we we are just having some wonderful conversations, and that was a great conversation. So, um, what jumped out at you as we were having the the that chat with Ed?

Matt Kim: 55:04

Well, there's um a real depth to to Ed that uh in many ways um in in African-American preaching contexts, uh one of the fathers of preaching uh has been uh mentioning how uh Gardner Taylor Gardner C. Taylor has been talking about how preaching it needs to be a crossover exercise and being able to navigate just different areas of life and and connect the dots. And so for me, Ed really modeled that for us. He helped us to see that uh from his own unique African-American American experience, he's able to navigate all these different territories and and problems and uh connect it back to the gospel. And so that was what struck me as just his fluidity. He he mentioned gospel fluidity or fluency. Uh that permeated uh the the entire conversation for me. So I was really grateful for all that I learned. I just sat here as a learner the the whole time.

Joel Lawrence: 56:04

Yeah, I I I think the kind of the the bit on exiles uh and and talking about how in the African-American preaching tradition, they know that they're exiles. And just that exchange around depending on your relationship to your understanding of your identity of exile drives so much. And I think the the preaching of the African American community, sometimes, like you know, in a in a majority preacher, a white evangelical like me, can look at it and be enamored by the style and be enamored by the oratory. And and I've been to African American preaching conferences and just kind of think I just need to quit preaching because I mean I see this. But but what's actually what we talked about there was there's a theology that's underneath of that that's driving it. And it's a I think gives an insight into the gospel that that is really challenging for me and really challenging for for many in the white evangelical tradition that we would do very well to hear and learn and be engaged in in these conversations at a deeper level, as I think the spirit is calling us to be renewed. So I just so much appreciated his heart, his mind, his passion, and um grateful for him. Grateful for him. Well, all right. So uh we'll we'll be back here with our next episode. Uh, Matt, look forward to the next conversation. I'm sure we'll come away from that one going, wow, what a great conversation that was.

Matt Kim: 57:42

I believe that's gonna be true.

Joel Lawrence: 57:44

All right, we'll see you soon.

Zach Wagner: 57:46

Thanks for listening to today's episode of the CPT Podcast, a theology podcast for the church. If you enjoyed this episode, would you consider subscribing if you haven't already? You can also help us out by leaving a rating and especially a review on After Podcast or wherever you're listening. We love hearing from listeners in this way, and it helps others find out about the show. Pastor Theologians Podcast is a production of the Center for Peter Theologians. You can learn more about this CPT at our website, Pastertheologians.com. You can also find us on Facebook, YouTube, and follow us on the next one. This show is produced by Seth Corch and Sophia Lukin. The show is recorded and edited in partnership with Glowfire Creative, and editing is done by Seth Freak. Hosting duties are shared by Joel Lawrence, Ray Holland, and me, Zach Wagner. Thanks for listening.