Coard: Three historical truths that pastors should learn about Watch Night

Carte-de-visite of enslaved Blacks awaiting the Emancipation Proclamation. —Heard & Moseley, Library of Congress, Washington, DC. by Michael Coard I mean no disrespect. But many Black pastors don’t hold a Doctor of Theology (Th.D.) degree, Doctor of Divinity (D.D.) degree, Doctor of Ministry (D.Min.) degree, Master of Theology (M.Th.) degree, Master of Divinity (M.Div.) degree, Bachelor of Theology (B.Th.) degree, Bachelor of Divinity (B.D.) degree, Bachelor of Religious Education (B.R.E.) degree, or Bachelor of Arts in Theology (B.A.) degree from any accredited institution. Neither have most of them done any substantive academic research in religious studies. Simply stated, they’re not well read at all. Instead, they uncritically rely on the Bible’s King James Version, which was published in England in 1611 and was plagiarized not only from parts of “The 42 Laws of Ma’at,” which were written in Egypt (actually called Kemet) 4,536 years earlier in 2925 B.C. but also was plagiarized from “The Book of the Dead (actually called “The Book of the Coming Forth by Day”), which was written 3,161 years earlier in 1550 B.C. in Egypt as well. Accordingly, they and most of their congregations have never understood the Bible, its sources, or its traditions. In fact,...