When I first entered the 9Marks orbit, gospel-preserving polity felt like a brand-new discovery. Over time, I learned that what 9Marks has really done is repackage old ideas and deliver them to new generations.
For example, many of the nine marks are extrapolations of the Reformation’s two marks of a church: the right preaching of the gospel and the right practice of the sacraments. When I realized the antiquity of these ideas, I wondered where they showed up in the black churches of my youth, where I attended with my parents and where I heard the gospel and was saved. Here’s what I learned: the elements of healthy ecclesiology were present to varying degrees, but the forms often looked different.
My recognition of healthy ecclesiology in historically black churches is relevant to the issue of catholicity for a few reasons.
First, it’s easy to miss shared elements when the forms are different. Second, missing shared elements can then lead us to eschew catholicity because we think there’s no common bond in the gospel.
The goal of this article is to train the eye of Christians outside the Black church to identify
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