06/22/2026
“Be concerned about fixing the road,” Rev. Dr. Howard-John Wesley challenges McCall luncheon attendees
June 18, 2026
By Aaron Weaver
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — “There’s a lot that claims the name Jesus Christ, but the closer you get to it does not live like, look like or love like our Lord and Savior,” Rev. Dr. Howard-John Wesley told Cooperative Baptists Thursday at the Dr. Emmanuel McCall Racial Justice Trailblazer Luncheon during the 2026 CBF General Assembly.
CBF’s Dr. Emmanuel McCall Racial Justice and Leadership Initiative, led by Rev. Kasey Jones, CBF coordinator for Outreach and Growth, seeks to create avenues for God’s imperfect church to move toward meaningful unity between racially diverse communities.
Wesley is senior pastor of historic Alfred Street Baptist Church in Alexandria, Va., where he serves as the eighth pastor in the congregation’s more than 200-year history. A nationally recognized voice for justice and a native of Chicago, Wesley graduated from Duke University, Boston University School of Theology as a Martin Luther King Jr. Scholar and earned a Doctor of Ministry in preaching from Northern Baptist Theological Seminary.
Wesley opened with the story of an airport greeter who failed to recognize him because he was dressed in sweats, a hoodie, hat and sunglasses. The encounter, he said, offered “a real diagnosis of contemporary Christianity.”
“One of the very first signs of a rotten religion is that it quotes a whole lot of Scripture, but very little of it is in red,” Wesley said. “It knows law, but it can’t quote grace. It’s heavy in Moses and in Paul, but it is light in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.”
“It is heavy in Scripture that’s light on Jesus,” he continued.
Preaching from the parable of the Good Samaritan, Wesley focused on the lawyer who asked Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life. The question itself revealed a misunderstanding, Wesley said.
“You don’t do to inherit,” he said. “To inherit, someone’s got to die for you and leave you something that you could not earn, but you only got because they died.”
A works-based understanding of salvation becomes dangerous when people believe they can distribute or withhold God’s grace, Wesley said.
“I came all the way to Jacksonville, Florida, to remind you: you can’t control grace,” he said.
The lawyer knew the command to love God and neighbor but followed it by asking, “Who is my neighbor?”
“His question is not to find out who he has to love,” Wesley said. “His question is, who does he have permission to hate? Who do I have permission to exclude? Who does the Bible give me the right to not put in the same circle with me?”
“If I can control who my neighbor is, I can control who’s in my neighborhood,” he said. “Who gets the same rights I do? Whose children have access to the same privileges I have access to? Who’s really American? Who really has the right to vote?”
Wesley warned against using Scripture to reinforce prejudice rather than invite repentance.
“There’s something wrong when your religion, your walk with God, your use of Scripture only confirms your convictions but never convicts you of your own sin,” he said.
At the end of Jesus’ parable, the lawyer answered that “the one who had mercy” had acted as a neighbor, but he could not bring himself to say “the Samaritan,” Wesley noted.
“He is so locked up in his historical hatred for a group of people that he cannot even acknowledge the Samaritan by name,” Wesley said.
“Can I show you someone who is meant to break every stereotype, every ideology, every characteristi
c, every statistic?” he asked. “Can I bring someone into your world that challenges how you see a group of people? Can I show you a single mother on welfare who is not lazy? Can I show you a same-gender couple that loves the Lord and is trying to raise their children to do the same? Can I show you a woman called and anointed to preach and pastor the body of Christ and change your opinion?”
Wesley then drew attention to the one person in the parable whose ethnicity Jesus never identifies: the wounded man beside the road.
“Because it don’t matter. It does not matter,” he said. “All that you should be concerned about is that he has been beaten and left on the side of the road. It ought not matter what his color is. It ought not matter what her sexual orientation is. It ought not matter what their gender is. It ought not matter what their economic background is.”
He closed by shifting attention from the wounded man to the conditions that made his suffering possible.
“The problem was not the brother. The problem was the road,” Wesley said. “And that’s what rotten religion does. It always blames the victim, but never wants to acknowledge the system in place.”
“I want you to know everyone born in poverty is not stupid. Everyone on public assistance is not lazy. Every brother in jail is not criminally minded, but we are walking on a crooked road and it’s time for the body of Christ to be concerned about fixing the road.”
Learn more about the Dr. Emmanuel McCall Racial Justice and Leadership Initiative and how you can make an impact through the Emmanuel McCall Racial Equity Fund here.
The 2026 CBF General Assembly continues through Friday, June 19. Watch livestreams of plenary and worship sessions, along with ongoing news coverage at www.cbf.net/general-assembly-26
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Led by the love of Christ, the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship invites churches and individuals to partner in transforming God’s world, working together as a global community to spread good news, justice and hope through impactful ministries, missions and resources.
At the 2026 General Assembly we celebrate the boldness of the first Christ-followers, the bravery of calling and the hope that is found in being equipped with boldness in the Holy Spirit. Let our time together shake up this place, fill us with the Holy Spirit and allow us to live out our calling to....
