{"id":1261,"date":"2011-06-06T14:11:50","date_gmt":"2011-06-06T18:11:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jazztheologian\/?p=1261"},"modified":"2011-06-06T14:11:50","modified_gmt":"2011-06-06T18:11:50","slug":"the-sankofa-institute-online-the-gospel-in-our-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2011\/06\/the-sankofa-institute-online-the-gospel-in-our-history.html","title":{"rendered":"The Sankofa Institute Online: The Gospel in our History"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Carl Ellis in his book, Free At Last? The Gospel in the African-American Experience<\/a><\/em>, makes this profound statement:<\/p>\n

It is a disgrace that we have not learned to preache ‘the full counsel of God’ through our history, the way Stephen and later Paul were able to preach through Jewish history (Acts 7.2-53; 13.16-41).”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

When we read our Bibles through classical lenses we ask the question, “What is the author saying?” \u00a0But when we compose a jazz-shaped faith we realize there is another important question: \u00a0“What is the author doing?” (for a complete discussion on this see chapter six of my book, Finding the Groove: \u00a0Composing a Jazz-Shaped Faith<\/a><\/em>)<\/p>\n

Carl Ellis is reading the scriptures with jazz eyes. \u00a0His argument is intricate but worth slowing down to understand. For example, if we read the books of I & II Kings with jazz lenses we don’t just want to know what we can learn from the lives of David, Solomon, Elisha & Elijah, but we push further and ask “what is the author doing?” \u00a0Ellis writes points out that the people of God were in Babylon and “they were confused, to say the least. \u00a0They had in their possession the Scriptures stating God’s promise that the land of Canaan would be theres forever. \u00a0Yet here they were…captive minorities in the land of a foreign superpower.” \u00a0 Therefore,<\/p>\n

“Someone was inspired by God to deal with these questions. \u00a0He plunged into this awesome task by getting hold of three books: \u00a0The Annals of solomon, The Annals of the Kings of Israel and The Annals of the Kings of Judah<\/em>. \u00a0He proceeded to select material out of these scrolls, analyze it and arrange it into a theological framework”<\/p>\n

(You may want to check out these verses for reference I Kings 11.41, 15.7 & 23)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This process allowed the author of I & II Kings to answer for his people the fundamental question: \u00a0Why are we here? \u00a0The point is this. \u00a0We can look at our history as African-Americans (or whatever people group you are a part) and seek to arrange it from a theological perspective and discover the gospel in the history of your people.<\/p>\n

This is exactly what we see Stephen and Paul did. \u00a0In the book of Acts we see them sharing the good news (gospel) by telling the history of their people. \u00a0It is one thing to know our history and it’s quite another to know from God’s perspective. \u00a0This is the task of a jazz theologian.<\/p>\n

(Ellis quotes can be found on pp37-38 of Free at Last?)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Carl Ellis in his book, Free At Last? The Gospel in the African-American Experience, makes this profound statement: It is a disgrace that we have not learned to preache ‘the full counsel of God’ through our history, the way Stephen and later Paul were able to preach through Jewish history (Acts 7.2-53; 13.16-41).” When we…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":79,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1261","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-misc","category-sankofa-leadership-institute"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Sankofa Institute Online: The Gospel in our History - The Jazz Theologian<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2011\/06\/the-sankofa-institute-online-the-gospel-in-our-history.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Sankofa Institute Online: The Gospel in our History - The Jazz Theologian\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Carl Ellis in his book, Free At Last? The Gospel in the African-American Experience, makes this profound statement: It is a disgrace that we have not learned to preache ‘the full counsel of God’ through our history, the way Stephen and later Paul were able to preach through Jewish history (Acts 7.2-53; 13.16-41).” When we…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2011\/06\/the-sankofa-institute-online-the-gospel-in-our-history.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Jazz Theologian\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-06-06T18:11:50+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jazztheologian\/files\/2011\/04\/Freeatlast.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Robert Gelinas\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Sankofa Institute Online: The Gospel in our History - The Jazz Theologian","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2011\/06\/the-sankofa-institute-online-the-gospel-in-our-history.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Sankofa Institute Online: The Gospel in our History - The Jazz Theologian","og_description":"Carl Ellis in his book, Free At Last? 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Author of Finding the Groove: Composing a Jazz-Shaped Faith (Zondervan) and the upcoming, Strange Fruit: The Cross as a Way of Life (2011). Founder of Project 127, a ministry dedicated to seeing the day when there are no children waiting for homes in Colorado's foster care system. Robert deeply desires to see the body of Christ mobilized to serve the least of these. The poor, the down and out, the disenfranchised and disabled, those deemed unimportant and the unborn. He believes that God loves all people yet he has a special heart for the poor and the poor in spirit, the miserable and the marginalized. A Contributing Editor for Leadership Journal and Urbanfaith.com. He acquired a B.A. in Bibilcal Studies from Colorado Christian University and a Master of Arts in World Christianity (Missiology) from Denver Seminary. Robert is married to the love of his life, Barbara, and they have six energetic children (3 boys & 3 girls--one bio, five adopted--two from Ethiopia). Friend of God...Passionate about the Body of Christ...Lover of this thing called jazz! Please visit Jazztheologian.com for contact info., speaking schedule, videos, Facebook and Twitter.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/author\/rgelinas"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1261","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/79"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1261"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1261\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1262,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1261\/revisions\/1262"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}