Where are the minority evangelical theologians?

Anthony Bradley, a Covenant Seminary grad working on his Ph.D. at Westminster, has written a really incisive post calling for a new generation of black theologians to defend the orthodox faith against the heretical aberrations that have emerged in purportedly evangelical minority congregations. On a recent radio broadcast, Bradley found himself defending Nicene orthodoxy to a tendentiously modalist interviewer. Bradley argues that modalism is one of the chief problems, alongside of the prosperity gospel, that is facing the black church at this moment:

"Who is teaching this heresy that God is three modes and not three persons in the Black community today? Well, their first names tend to start with the word “Bishop” and they tend to wear really nicer suits than the rest of us. This profound theological error has grown with reckless abandon in many apostolic, Pentecostal, and charismatic Black churches which seems to be an ever dominant form of conservative Christianity in Black America today."

Where are the evangelical minority theologians, Bradley asks? I would like to know as well. Bradley makes the point that he can count on one hand the number of minority theologians in evangelical seminaries that (1) do not teach practical theology and (2)teach at the main campus, not a satellite. This is a serious problem, and it signals a massive dearth of competent leadership in minority communities at this present moment. At GCTS, where I am about to finish my degree, there are a couple of Asian professors teaching at the main S. Hamilton campus, but no regular Black or Hispanic professors. Several minority professors, including two of my favorites, Eldin Villafane and Al Padilla, teach at the urban campus in Roxbury, but of course a long shadow is cast over the urban campus by the flagship campus on the hill. The sheer prominence of the S. Hamilton campus suggests to me that competent, prolific Black and Latino evangelical scholarship ought to be coming from that location, not just from the urban campus. Same with the other evangelical seminaries--Westminster, Trinity, DTS, RTS, etc.

As an English-dominant half Puerto-Rican Reformed evangelical, I often feel like I have little ground to speak on these types of issues. I have pale skin and I have not struggled for validity and recognition in the same way as most minorities have. But here is a place where I feel I have competence to speak. Minority churches need the pure gospel, and they need strong intellectual representatives in evangelical seminaries to both voice the concerns of the minority church to a predominantly white theological establishment and to provide the deep theological reflection that minority churches so desperately need.