Don’t look now but I agree with the cultural critics that there is a pervasive skepticism in modernity. Like Doubting Thomas of the 1st century many refuse to believe anything unless they see it. Others see it and say I can’t believe my own eyes. One  assessment of our times suggest we live in a time of radical doubt in need of radical faith. Any exploration and explication of religious faith affirms that our Black religious faith is radical. 

 

“The Black radical tradition is a rich and vibrant tapestry woven by the blood, sweat, and tears of so many Black people. The term was first introduced to us by Cedric Robinson; archivists, historians, and ordinary people have since sought to uncover who its protagonists actually were. Beyond highlighting the stories of individual Black radicals—such as a non-gender conforming women from Angola standing up to the Portuguese inquisition or a Black a communist woman playwright standing up to the FBI—this intellectual tradition seeks not to atomize these individuals as lone heroes defending themselves from an amorphous and transhistorical force, such as anti-Blackness or racism. It seeks instead to situate these individuals within a tradition which first determined them as being “Black,” a word that ultimately was a pejorative, but which became a clarion call for liberation—as was the case when Haiti declared in its constitution that even the white Poles who fought for the island’s freedom could be considered as Black.”[1]

 

“Fideism, or basing one’s religious belief on faith, is popular especially amongst modern Protestant Christians. For the fideist, religious belief-systems are not subject to rational evaluation, and faith as the act of belief forms the essence of truth and the ultimate criterion for embracing a religion. Critics of fideism say that epistemologically, a hierarchy of methods can be used to derive the truth, and each method gives us varying confidence levels. These methods include mathematics and logic, science, personal experience, history, expert testimony, inference and Faith. Among these, the critic says, pure faith in something is the least successful in getting at the truth. Radical fideists like Kierkegaard do not cite logical reasons for defending their belief that God exists. Personal reasons are instead offered for their decision to believe.”[2]

 

Taken together, Black radical faith is dualistic faith that is centered in the existential, incorporates and saturates the socio-spiritual blood, sweat and tears of Black people worldwide in the struggle for Black emancipation, equity and empowerment in the face of racist systems that seek to oppress people of Nubian descent. Black radical faith resists European imperialism through attempts at African colonialism at home and is demonstrated by African migrants attempting to cross the Mediterranean into Europe on a raft at the risk of dying in deep waters and much more.   

 

In addition, Black radical faith is faith that takes flight to the God who created us, embraces us, emancipated us, empowers us and ultimately invites us to the eschatological banquet table to make heaven our home. So, Black radical faith believes in God, trust God and steps out on God’s word. And when one reads the Bible one encounters many instances of radical individualistic and corporate faith. That’s what this pericope in the Book of Hebrews is all about. It’s about radical religious faith that presents itself on the stage of human history as a practitioner of faith and prepares itself for life beyond history to it’s hope of a heavenly home.   

 

The authorship of the Book of Hebrews is enveloped in anonymity. For over 1000 years the Book of Hebrews was considered a Pauline authorship. However closer scrutiny following the Reformation no longer considers it a Pauline epistle. The chief reason for this is the fact that it does not follow the Apostle Paul’’s style of introducing himself as the composer of this correspondence. There is speculation that the Book of Hebrews it was written by one of Paul’s colleagues in ministry, either Barnabas or Apollos.

 

“The earliest suggestion of authorship is found in Tertullian's De Pudicitia, 20 (c. 200), in which he quotes from "an epistle to the Hebrews under the name of Barnabas." From the letter itself it is clear that the writer must have had authority in the apostolic church and was an intellectual Hebrew Christian well versed in the OT. Barnabas meets these requirements. He was a Jew of the priestly tribe of Levi (Ac 4:36) who became a close friend of Paul after the latter's conversion. Under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, the church at Antioch commissioned Barnabas and Paul for the work of evangelism and sent them off on the first missionary journey (Ac 13:1-4). ”[3] 

 

Others such as Martin Luther of the Protestant Reformation and many others consider the Book of Hebrews to have been written by the 1st century, oratorically gifted black Jewish Christian preacher named Apollos from Alexandra in Africa. Apollos was a black man of African descent and the marvelous ministry companion of the Apostle Paul that the Corinthian church raved about, the Apostle Paul and St. Luke (Acts 18;24) vociferously talked about. We know the work of Apollos because Paul lifted his ministerial cache to the church at Corinth in 1st Corinthians 3:3-6. In this word Paul lift up Apollos because the Black preacher named Apollos possessed followers as well as possessed spiritual and homiletical cache and was with Paul based on (1Co 1:12; 3:4-6,22).

 

There were skisms in the early around Apollos and the Apostle Paul. Addressing this skism or division in the early church at Corinth Paul said “For ye are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men? For while one saith, I am of Paul; and another, I am of Apollos; are ye not carnal? Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers by whom ye believed, even as the Lord gave to every man? I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase.” So, clearly this word in the Book of Hebrews could be written by the Black preacher named Apollos. Don’t sleep on Apollos because Apollos has his own amen corner in antiquity as well as today because Martin Luther of the Protestant Reformation and many today say this correspondence was written from the pen of the Black preacher named Apollos who had clerical celebrity among the people. 

 

Scholars suggest the dating of this word was prior to the destruction of the temple in 70 AD because the composer of this Christian correspondence refers to it and the sacrificial system involved in it in contemporary converse. Who are the recipients of this Hebrew word? This is a word emphatically addressed to professing Jewish Christians familiar with the Jewish Temple, and Jewish sacrifice to encourage their faith to keep the faith in Jesus Christ and never turn back to Judaism (Hebrews 10:32-38, Galatians 2:14). The thematic thrust of this word is the supremacy and sufficiency of Christ Jesus to be the Supreme prophet over all Old Testament prophets and as the superior and sufficient Savior over the Old Testament Jewish Sacrificial System. The contents of this correspondence Is a word is by way of a letter to the Hebrews on the issue of radically keeping the Christian faith.

 

The universal truth of God’s existence and divine self-revelation is by faith. The Apostle Paul shared with the Corinthian congregation in II Corinthians 5:7 For we walk by faith and  not by sight. It is because notwithstanding the holy scriptures of Hinduism, Yazdanism, Zoroasterianism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, the Holy Land and its holy sites, our  traditional faith practices, no one has ever seen God face to face.

 

Atheists would say like the fool the reason no one has seen God is there is no God. Although the disciples walked and talked with and followed Jesus, they never saw God. They saw the  Son of God. Although the Apostles celebrated the resurrected Christ on Resurrection Sunday, no one ever saw God face to face. No Apostle, no Bishop, no Patristic Father of the church from Africa during the first 500 years of the church, no pastor, no pope, no priest, no prophet, no Imam, no man, woman, teen or child has ever seen God. Yet across the world, world religions teach and preach about a God who has made himself known to us through religious scriptures, personal and corporate religious experience.  How do they do it? They do it based on a radical faith in the  unseen other, the image of the invisible God.  

 

Whether in a synagogue, temple, church or Kingdom Hall or otherwise, despite our visual world where seeing is believing, from week to week religious leaders stands before their throng preaching and teaching a radical faith as they share their faith traditions with their waiting congregations. It is a word from a seen spiritual speaker from a God no one has ever seen. That’s asking humanity to embrace a radical faith. 

 

So, faith based on any religious tradition is a radical faith related to the one we call God. The Christian faith by its very nature is radical faith. It is radical because it calls us to embrace belief beyond that which defies belief. It is radical faith because it summons us to be convinced of that which seems on the surface an insanity because it is supernaturally strange stuff.

 

It’s a radical faith because it’s a faith that expects us to believe in a God who anthropomorphically walks with us and talks with us, a God we’ve never seen yet who hears us when we pray and not only hears us but answers our prayers. It’s radical faith because its extreme faith. Its out of the ordinary. It’s radical faith because it encourages us to perform the extraordinary.

 

God told Noah its going to rain 40 days and 40 nights. There is going to be a divine deluge. And I want you Noah to build an ark to the glory of God by faith. As a result of his radical faith Noah built an ark on dry land. 

 

That’s the stuff of the Judeo-Christian religion. It is the stuff of a radical religious faith that calls us to embrace the untenable and to believe the unbelievable. Moses was a man of radical faith who stretched out his rod on the sea believing God is a God with  power over  nature as a God who could congeal the waters and allow his people to cross over a wet sea on dry land. 

 

Abraham was a man of radical faith because he left Ur of the Chaldeans in search of a city without a GPS and because of his faith God made he and his wife Sarah the father and motherly many nations. Ezekiel was a man of radical faith. He prophesied to dry bones in a valley believing God possessed power over death. Ezekiel was a man of radical faith because he believed God could give connectivity to dry and separated bones to broken and dead bodies. Queen Esther was a woman of radical faith because she was willing to risk her life for the social justice and salvation of her people. Rahab the harlot was a woman of radical faith because she was willing to trust God to become allied with spies to save her entire house.  

​

The three Hebrew boys were men who possessed radical faith believing God would serve a as their EMS in a raging inferno. Today, we live in a land like Noah, Moses and Ezekiel and the three Hebrew Boys where the condition of the culture wreaks to high heaven, where communities remain captive, where dry bones lay lifeless in the valley and where many Black men and women face a raging inferno of injustice. 

​

What is the church’s response to such corrosive cultural conditions? Is it to develop spiritual laryngitis and not speak to such conditions? Is it to be faithless, surrender the fight and cowardly take flight? I am convinced the charge to the church for such a time as this is to preach prophetically to global injustice  put on the whole armor of God and with a radical faith fight the good fight of faith believing God will intervene and cause crooked places to be made straight and lions to lay down with lambs. 

​

​So, we have not come thus far by way of a Multiverse big bang theory, or Darwinism’s theory the evolution of the species. As people of faith, we’ve come thus far by faith. It was not just faith but a radical faith in a God who could sustain us through slavery and make a way for black bodies out of no way to turn our midnights into day. 

​

In the words of the late Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in his Mountaintop Speech “We’ve got some difficult days ahead.” But if we hold on to our legacy of radical Christian faith, with God on our side, we shall overcome our existential adversities. 

​

In this word the Hebrew writer informs us about faith. They declare to a new people of faith being persecuted for their faith and considering forsaking their new faith that you need to know the  definition of faith. 

​

In this 11th chapter that lifts the heroes of the faith they declare in Hebrews 11:1 according to the KJV, Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. The Amplified Bible declares Now faith is the assurance (the confirmation, [a]the title deed) of the things [we] hope for, being the proof of things [we] do not see and the conviction of their reality [faith perceiving as real fact what is not revealed to the senses]. Based on the New Life Version Now faith is being sure we will get what we hope for. It is being sure of what we cannot see.

​

​

When we contemplate the concept of radical Christian faith there are three things we need to know about this faith. We need to know initially that faith its not optional but a required course for the Christian religious experience. Too often in university settings we take electives, optional courses rather than that which is required. Its because such courses do not require cerebral challenge and  they provide easy As on college transcripts. Yet, the Hebrew writer informs us that the challenge of faith is required because without faith it is impossible to please God. If we want to please him who created us and who sustains us, we need to arm ourselves with faith because its required for religious people in the world determined to please God. 

​

Not only is faith required. The Hebrew writer informs us that God rewards our radical religious faith. Look at verse 6. The Hebrew writer says "But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that he is and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him." 

​

We need to know faith is not only required. But if we walk by faith and not by sight God will reward our faith. That’s what Hebrews 11 is really all about. Its about the reward of radical faith. The Hebrew writers says by faith Abel. Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Jacob, Sarah, Joseph, Moses, Rahab, Gideon, Deborah, Barak, Samson, and David, were rewarded for their radical faith. 

​

The Hebrew writer declares: “They conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised; who shut the mouths of lions, quenched the fury of the flames, and escaped the edge of the sword; whose weakness was turned to strength; and who became powerful in battle and routed foreign armies. Women received back their dead, raised to life again. There were others who were tortured, refusing to be released so that they might gain an even better resurrection. Some faced jeers and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were put to death by stoning;[e] they were sawed in two; they were killed by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated— the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, living in caves and in holes in the ground.” 

 

Yet in the final analysis, God rewarded their faith. I’m glad to report when you walk by faith and not by sight. God will reward your faith. I’ve been walking by faith a long time and God has richly rewarded my faith. I tried God and he rewarded my faith. I stepped out on his word and he rewarded my faith. He opened doors for me. He fought battles for me. He kept me from falling when I stepped out on faith. The good news from this Hebrew writer is if we hold on to God in Christ Jesus and not turn back, God will reward our faith! 

 

Sola scriptura informs us that the Bible is the infallible word of God alone. Sola gratia informs us we are saved by grace of God alone. And sola fide declares we are justified by faith alone. We need to recapture and reemphasize our radical faith. It’’s because we are not saved by our works. We work because we are saved. But we are justified by faith and are saved by grace through faith. That’s why Paul said in Galatians 1:9, “As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned!” That’s why as a man of faith, I preach a radical faith despite the facts, a faith that old Black saints believed, that the Ethiopian eunuch took back to Africa to Candace the Queen, faith that kept us in Africa through 21st century America, faith about the God of history, hope and humanity who intervened in human affairs to invert the human order to make crooked places straight, to cut in pieces the gates of brass, and cuts asunder the bars of iron. 

​

The Black slave possessed a radical faith in a God who historically proved he was able to deliver. Through black people’s blood, sweat and tears, they set off plantations in the north, south, east and the west and fled to freedom barefoot. They ran through deep woods, and muddy water, harsh winters of inclement elements, sweltering summers characterized by parched throats and hunger under humid conditions. They faced rivers and ran through rain storms. They struggled through the snow in rags for warmth to liberate themselves from slave masters to freedom. It was because up above their heads they heard music in the air and believed in their black souls down by the river side that there was a God somewhere who said to pharaoh Let my people go. came cared that they got to freedom. 

​

So, up from slavery, American slaves, black people, possessed a radical faith that caused them to flee their captivity by faith. They risked their lives to run over hot rocks, through ticks, the sticks, snakes, and streams to extricate themselves from their misery. They possessed a biblical hermeneutics of a God on the side of the oppressed, a God who comes to loose captive conditions and part seas to let them cross over on dry land. They believed the Holy Bible about a God that shows up as water in dry places who provides an oasis in a desert, a God who shakes down manna from on high. Radical faith is the legacy of Black America. It is because it is the type of faith that was passed down from generation to generation by Africans shipped to America like human cargo on slave ships to be sold at auction by those who claimed to love our Jesus. Yet we made it through dark trials with a handed down radical Christian faith. 

​

We need to know radical faith in God is not only required. Racial faith is rewarded! Even so, notice finally in verse 39, the Hebrew writer declares despite their reward, none of the Hebrews received what had been promised. Why not? Here’s the shout in this sermon. The Holy Bible says God had something better. I know many of us think it can get no better than this existential arrangement, this life on the topside of terra firma. But God through the Hebrew writer says I’ve got something better for those who walk by faith and not by sight. That might not shout oligarchs, and the uber rich who celebrate capitalism, rugged individualism, their compounds filled with materialism, and their jet set lives of hedonism? But that word that God has something better ought to shout the poor, left out and locked out.  To those who’ve historically faced generational racism, sexism, ageism, heterosexism, antisemitism, islamophobia, Christofascism, protectionism, majority culture nationalism, or anything else, the good news is God has something better. That means in spite of anything you’ve experienced, the best is yet to come. 

​

What are you talking about preacher? I’m talking about the fact that because we’ve confessed Christ, accepted Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, and saved by grace through faith, brought with a price and washed in the blood of the Lamb of God, God has something spiritually better for us. God’s got a reception planned for our redemption in the rapture. In the existential, the here and now, our faith is rewarded with redemption. So, we don’t have to wait on the Greek eskhatos, from which we derive the word eschatology or the study of last things. In terms of our Christian theology, we don’t have to wait on last things such as a battle of Armageddon, the great tribulation, a millennial reign of God in Jesus Christ out of the book of Revelation, the Second Coming, the rapture of the church, the last judgement, or the new heaven and the new earth in the after while and bye and bye. Despite your eschatological views, you don’t have to wait on the final consummation involving death, judgement, heaven and hell. In terms of Christian theology, your eschatology is now. So, shout now over the fact that due to your redemption, God has a reception with your name on it in the rapture. That’s better than anything we’ve ever experienced in this life! 

​

A story is told of a man who was taking flight from his fears. Rather than put up a fight, he decided to take flight. As he ran, he ran off a cliff. As fate would have it there was a tender branch protruding out of the top of the cliff which he gabbed hold of to break his fall 30 feet below. As he hung suspended between earth and heaven he looked to the bottom of the cliff and saw certain death. He looked to the top and saw nothing and the the gravitational pull of his body was causing him to lose his grip on the tender branch. Out of desperation to save his life he looked to the top of the cliff and asked fearfully, is anybody up there? To his amazement a voice immediately came back and said yes. Let go and  let God save you. To which he responded is anyone else up there? 

​

The message here is many of our lives are up in the air facing catastrophic conditions between life and death. Many like  these Hebrews in our text don’t know whether to turn back or march forward due to a radical  doubt about where they go from here. As sons and daughters of God, just like these Hebrews, we’re persistently persecuted for our faith and we aren’t sure its worth it all.  We’re radically holding on to doubt about God because aren’t sure whether he’s going to bless us or burn us. But God is saying let go and trust God with a radical faith. Yet, many would risk death than trust God with a radical faith. I know it calls for a radical faith. But if we’re ever going to make it out of the miasma of this life’s postmodern milieu and see God’s face we need a radical faith in God to let go and let God guide us. For those of us seeking something better, in I Corinthians 15:51-58 the Apostle Paul says I’ve got it for you.

​

51 Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,

52 In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.

53 For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.

54 So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.

55 O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?

56 The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law.

57 But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

58 Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.

​

Despite the darkness of COVID-19, institutional injustices, black generational poverty and prejudice, the 10-1 white-black wealth gap in America, a people more driven by economics than social ethics, the environment over individuals, animals over others, profits over people, money over morality, changing voter rules rather than abiding by the rules, truth on trial, eroding civil rights, an attack on voting rights, attacking women’s rights rather than standing in solidarity with women’s right to choose, we trust God based on a radical faith.

Despite a society more driven by law enforcement than by community empowerment, more enamored by guns than by God, if we keep the faith, the radical faith of our forebears, we as a people have been promised possibly by Barnabas or the Black preacher named Apollos in this text that we’ll be in line for something better than this bitter veil of tears. We shall get something better, a promised land flowing with milk and honey in the hereafter. So hold and don’t let go. Hold on to your faith. Keep the faith. Walk by a radical faith and not by sight. If you cling to the faith factor, God will see you through. He will fight your battles and give you victory in your victimization. He’ll give you peace for your pain. 

​

Christ taught his disciples to wrap their mind around a radial faith that could speak and move mountains (Mark 11:22-24), to ask anything according to God’s will and that God will hear and answer prayer (I John5:14-15) and know emphatically that without faith it was impossible to please God (Hebrews 11:6).  So, hold on to your faith, the substance of things hoped for, the stuff you’re convinced of. So live out your radical faith. Speak your radical faith. Walk by radical faith. Hold on to your radical faith to be certain of the things you cannot see in Jesus Christ because we as a people haven’t arrived at this juncture on our journey by accident. We’ve come thus far by faith, a radical faith in the God who loves us, leads us and who never left us!

​

The ancients believed in a radical faith, a faith beyond the ordinary that believed the universe was conceived by a divine imagination and was created by the handiwork of God. Our forebears radical faith believed what can be seen was made by a God who cannot be seen. Our forebears believed by faith that God in Christ touched down on terra firma, and died for us. Our forebears believed God in Christ Jesus got up on the third day and went back to glory where he sat down at the right hand of God the Father to make intercession for us. So, hold on to your radical faith because it’s required. By faith you were redeemed. And the good news is by faith, you have a reward of something better than ever, in the rapture upon the return of Christ Jesus our Lord! We’ve come thus far by faith leaning and depending on the Lord God almighty, God in Christ who by faith, a radical faith woke us up this morning, and who based on our radical faith will take us home where we shall receive something eternally better!

​

​

[1] Mohammed Elnaiem. Cedric Robinson and the Black Radical Tradition. (November 11, 2021). https://daily.jstor.org/cedric-robinson-the-black-radical-tradition/

[2] Gn, Peter, Hoong Siong (2008) Is Kierkegaard's radical faith a defensible justification for religious belief? Masters by Research thesis, Murdoch University. https://researchrepository.murdoch.edu.au/id/eprint/729/

[3] Bible Study Tools. Book of Hebrews. From Zondervan. NIV Study Bible, Introductions to the Books of the Bible, Hebrews. (2002). https://www.biblestudytools.com/hebrews/

 

 

​