Pastor Rob Recommends ... (January 6, 2022)

 Pastor Rob recommends …

  

One: Unity in a Divided World (2017)

 

Deidra Riggs sets the tone for relationships across racial and political lines from a Christian perspective.  That last part, "a Christian perspective," is the key for appreciating Riggs's work.  The market is being flooded with excellent literature on race relations.  Riggs' book is extremely important because she writes first and foremost as a follower of Christ.  That above everything else defines her and sets the tone for her work.  This is as it should be for a disciple of Jesus interested in racial justice work and reconciliation.  Jesus defines how we understand justice.  Too many Christian writers insist that our sense of justice defines our view of Christianity.  It's supposed to be the other way around and Deidra Riggs demonstrates this beautifully.

Your Faith is too Small

            I attended the New Baptist Covenant, gathering of Baptists black and white.  We assembled in Atlanta, Georgia in 2018, the heart of the President Trump era in a racially divided America. NBC, began as a vision of Former President Jimmy Carter in 2008.  He was unhappy with divides – the many divides among Baptists in America, and the racial divide that has tortured our country for centuries.  He dreamed of remedying both by bringing together Baptists of all races around topics of justice, unity, and love.

            I first attended the NBC summit in Atlanta in 2016 and was back this time around with a lot of guilt in my heart.  Every time I hear a speaker say something to the effect that our world is run by “white men,” and that is not a good thing, I hear myself being counted among the worst of racists.  I possess every advantage: healthy?  Check.  White?  Check.  Male?  Check.  Educated?  I have a bachelors, masters, and doctorate degrees.  Economically, I qualify as middle to upper middle class.  I am heterosexual and married.  I lived with every conceivable privilege.  In the past 5 years, the scales have fallen from my eyes as I have learned of my own privilege as well as the institutional prejudice that once rendered even benefits like the GI bill inaccessible to African Americans. 

            I carry guilt.  When I attend events like the Racial Equity Institute’s phase 1 anti-racism training or I read books like Austin Channing Brown’s I’m Still Here, I expect to be hit by a tidal wave of blame for problems.  Injustice in America is mostly, if not entirely, the result of the racism of white men.  I expect to be hit with this and I expect to take it because there is much truth in it. 

            That guilt rode me heavy in Atlanta.  Additionally, I contemplated the rhetoric of the most ardent supporters of President Trump, whites who rally to preserve Confederate monuments and deny the inherent racism of the Confederacy.  “It’s not about slavery or racism,” they say, “It’s about heritage and culture.”  “OK,” I respond, but what is the content or substance of the culture you want to preserve?  It’s white supremacy.”  Defenders of southern culture, whatever that phrase means, know that what they’re standing for is unabashedly white hegemony, yet they don’t explicitly acknowledge it.  Or worse, they do.  An alarmingly high number of white Americans are happy to call all brown skinned people potential terrorists, and to look on all black people with disdain.  The division seems utterly unbridgeable. 

            I sat in the reflection group wearing my cloak of guilt and my coat of hopelessness.  And that’s when the group leader hit me with something I wasn’t expecting; grace and invitation.  Rev. Kasay Jones, formerly a pastor in Washington DC and now on staff with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship Global welcomed me as a brother in Christ.  She is an African American woman, and she did not see me, a white man, as a bearer of guilt.  She saw me as a fellow Christ follower, a part of her family. Thank you God!  She offered what I needed, but dare not ask for.  I was grateful. 

            Dr. Patricia Murphy of the American Baptist Home Mission Society, an African American woman, could see I was struggling with the topics being discussed as I listened in the breakout session she led.  She looked right at me and said, “You’re safe here.”  I have tried so hard to convey that very message to people who come to our church.  I didn’t realize how much I needed to hear someone say those words to me.  She gave me space to work out how I understand my participation in unity and racial justice from my perspective as a white man.  Thank you God!  She, like Rev. Jones, let me know I am not the enemy.  I am with her in Christ.  And that’s where I want to be.

            Those invitations meant the world to me, but I still felt overwhelmed as I envisioned trying to be a peacemaker with whites who are perfectly happy to live in their privilege while pretending they aren’t tremendously privileged or insisting privilege doesn’t exist.  I felt like, we were a few hundred people in Atlanta talking about this, and the millions in that one city, let alone all of America, did not know or care that we were there.  Sure, I had my own epiphany, but how could such a small group make any difference.

            My Bible reading for the final morning of the event was Matthew 17.  I didn’t seek that passage out.  It was just the next reading up in the journal I’m keeping, Matthew 17:14-23.  In this passage, the disciples are perplexed that they cannot drive out a demon.  Jesus drives it out.  Why couldn’t they, they wonder.  His answer to them is His answer when I bemoan that we black and white Baptists are not enough to make any kind of waves in the cause of the Kingdom of God and racial unity and racial justice.  Jesus said (to me), “Your faith is too small.  What I’m about to tell you is true.  If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, it is enough.  You can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move.  Nothing will be impossible for you” (17:20-21).

            As a pastor, you’d think I know that.  But let me let you in on something.  Pastors aren’t any holier than you are.  Pastors do not have a “hotline to heaven.”  Pastors get discouraged.  In many ways, this year after my Sabbatical of 2017 has been the hardest, most discouraging years of my career.  Some of it has been professional.  Some personal.  Much of it has been around the issue of race in America and the tendency of white America to deny realities and work to maintain status quo.  Some days, it feels like the discouragements pile up. 

            And then I went to Atlanta.  And two sisters in Christ, well credentialed ministry professionals opened their hearts to me and invited me in and told me it was safe and I wasn’t the enemy. 

            And Jesus said to me, “I conquered death.  I can face racism.”  And Jesus said to me, “Rob, you are going to face racism and evil because my Holy Spirit is in you.”

            Now I am back from Atlanta, back into the normal rhythms of life.  There are good days and bright spots as well as disappointments and times of ennui.  That’s true in just about any season of life.  But now, I cannot wilt and hide in my white guilt or my white fragility.  I have been invited by Christ and His church to be a bearer of good news and a worker for justice and love and peace.  I cannot say the problem is too big or too hard.  I have been given mountain-moving faith.  It’s time to live it. 

Book Review: The Hate You Give

            I’ve just read the book that all white people living in America in the year 2018 must read.  Must.

            The book is The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas. 

            She tells a story of a young, unarmed black man shot and killed by a police officer in the inner city.  This is a story of a quest for justice when the unthinkable happens.  But it is much more than that. 

            This is the story of Michael Brown and Freddie Gray and Philando Castille and so many other unarmed black man killed by the law enforcement.  As the book shows (not tells), not all police officers are racist.  Not all police officers killed unarmed black youth.  Many, maybe most, want to ‘protect and serve.’  But black people in the city have way too many bad encounters with the police.  This book shows how one such bad encounter looks from the perspective of communities are majority black. 

            This story gives the white reader a glimpse into a world he/she cannot understand.  I have not lived in the inner city.  I have not lived in communities like the one Thomas has created.  If white readers would just take the time to read the story, enter this world, fall in love with the protagonist Starr, the witness to the shooting, and see the humanity of the community we brazenly dismiss as the ‘hood,’ our perspective would quickly change and our attitude along with it. 

            Thomas educated the white reader (the white person willing to be taught) by showing, not telling, what the inner city, mostly black world is like.  I am grateful to her for doing that.  I am also grateful to my friend Deidre Riggs who insisted I read this book.  Now, I pass that insistence on to you.  Read it!  Then, join in the struggle for equity and justice.  

Book Review - Up Against the Wall

I’ve just finished reading Curtis J. Austin’s Up Against the Wall: Violence in the Making and Unmaking of the Black Panther Party (2006).  Austin’s research into this storyline of the struggle for equality for black people in America is in depth.  He spoke at length with original sources, people who were in the Black Panther Party (BPP) and survived.  His description of his encounters with Elaine Brown are especially poignant.

This review is really my reaction.  I inhabit the group that for centuries subjugated people of color (POC) – white, middle class, educated males.  The animosity felt toward whites by the founders of the BPP is understandable, if white people accept our role in institutional prejudice, or at least accept that we have benefited from privilege that we have not earned.  It makes sense that there were black people who did not buy into the Martin Luther King Jr.’s nonviolent resistance.  Lynchings, abuse by the authorities, and lack of opportunities afforded to whites from the 1960’s up through to today are born of violence, perpetuated by those in power (whites), and victimize POC’s. 

My own feelings from reading the book are sorrow and regret.  I am sorry my ancestors maintained a system that kept an entire group of people as an underclass.  I hate it. 

However, I also know that many whites today are ignorant of the injustices of Jim Crow and don’t want to be educated.  Many whites today want equality, they say, but they don’t want to give anything up for it.  They don’t want to hear why black people are so angry; angry enough to espouse the violence that was policy for the BPP.  I have had maddening conversations with educated white people who simply will not acknowledge the existence of white privilege or that they have benefited from it. 

A mantra I hear from black friends in the struggle for equality (or equity) is “If you see something, say something.”  In other words, if you, a white person, see another white say or do something racially insensitive, confront that person.  However, when I’ve done that it leads to the other white person acting defensively and never gaining any insight into his or her own privilege.  Whatever sense of entitlement he or she felt that enabled him to say or do the racially insensitive thing is only magnified when I confront him.  Maybe I am just not good at the conversation.  But I also think a lot of white people aren’t interested in the conversation. 

This lack of drive for equity and a racially equal society, this callous indifference from whites, is the fuel to the fire that burned in Huey Newton and Elderidge Cleaver and the others who led the BPP from a place of anger.  I hope society is in a better place or at least moving toward a better place.  The events in Charlottesville, VA (summer 2017) are either a sign that we are as racially divided as ever, or the last gasps of a dying racism.  I hope it is the latter, but I fear it is the former.  If I that is so, then Antifa is a modern day incarnation of reactionaries driven by the same rage that drove the BPP.

Something Worse than Protests Gone Bad - Review of "The New Jim Crow"

            Decrying the horrors of white nationalism is low hanging fruit.  Conservatives and liberals alike agree that white supremacy, KKK, neo-Nazis, and racist fascists are all evil.  The accepted verbiage in American culture in 2017 is that racism is an inherently bad thing.

            I intentionally excluded President Donald Trump from the above generalizations (conservatives and liberals) because as he showed on Monday, August 15, 2017, in his third set of statements responding to white nationalist protest from Charlottesville, VA, he actually doesn’t blanket condemnation on white hate groups.  He blames victims, that is, oppressed minorities, when confrontations turn violent.

            Here I address everyone else, which is most of America.  President Trump’s election has emboldened the brazenly racist.  But most people are not brazenly racist.  Their racism is hidden behind a veil of ‘colorblindness.’  Their racism is concealed, even from themselves much of the time, behind the misguided belief that the end of the Civil Rights era of the 1960’s was the end of systematic racism in America.  Their racism is buried deep because they know racism is evil, so they don’t want to face it in themselves.

            Two acts in the last few days will do nothing to combat this abiding racism that continues to render African Americans and Latinos in our country as second class citizens.  Michelle Alexander calls black and brown skinned persons the lowest caste and she believes America has an intricate, nearly intractable caste system (The New Jim Crowe, 2010).  First, there was the rally-gone-wrong in Charlottesville.  White supremacists protested the removal of a statue of Confederate general Robert E. Lee.  Anti-racists counter protesters confronted the protesters.  Some of the confrontations became quite violent.  One white nationalist, James Alex Fields of Ohio, ran a car at high-speed into a crowd and killed Heather Heyer of Virginia.  Heather was trying to stand up to the bullying evil of white supremacy. 

            The entire event and especially James Fields’ murderous act is easy to condemn in the harshest of terms.  That condemnation, spoken in the language and town of damning, fiery rhetoric, will do nothing to deal with the system that keeps black and brown people in an under caste, denied of rights, and unable to thrive in American life.

            Second, on Monday, August 15, in Durham, NC, a group of protestors, angry at white nationalists and at the president for failing to condemn them, forcibly toppled a Confederate statue and then gleefully taunted the fallen monument.  The rage felt by the crowd that performed this act – rage at racism and rage at the continued debasement brought on by an unfair social and legal system – is justified.  Toppling that statue and all confederate statutes, especially in such a mocking way, won’t change the conditions that have produced this unfair social and legal system. 

      Michelle Alexander shows why.  The so-called war on drugs targets minority communities and doles out impossibly harsh penalties for minor drug offenses.  First comes the felony conviction, which the prosecutor bullies the usually impoverished black suspect into accepting.  Then the sentence.  The convict loses years of his life in prison, comes out, and is unable to find a job, public housing, or get food stamps.  This is because employers can discriminate in hiring based on a felony conviction.  A felony conviction also makes one ineligible for federal housing and food assistance. 

            There are as many drug users among Asians as among whites as among Hispanics as among blacks.  But all the felony convictions seem to fall on the blacks and Hispanics.[i]  The most dangerous drug is alcohol.  Drunk-driving accidents and alcohol related deaths greatly out-number deaths related to other drug usage.  Alcohol is far more dangerous to everyone than crystal meth or crack cocaine.  So why do we fear the meth and the cocaine?  Why are the harshest punishments assigned to the drugs mostly used by African Americans?  Why are African Americans more likely to be arrested and convicted than whites committing the exact same crimes at the same rates?  Blacks don’t commit more crime, they just get punished more often and more harshly. 

Shouting about how awful racism is, and waving an angry middle finger at a white nationalist or toppled confederate statue won’t change this.  The people who enforce the system that has wrecked so many black lives claim to be colorblind.  Many who enforce mass incarceration are the same people who shout about the evils of racism.  Alexander illustrates thoroughly in The New Jim Crow that two of our supposedly most black-friendly presidents, Bill Clinton and Barak Obama, did much in their respective tenures to increase the weight of mass incarceration born by black people who are openly targeted in the “war on drugs.”

Alexander offers only the beginning of what might be ways out of this systemic oppression of black communities.  To go into detail would entail another book (which I hope she writes).  Organizations like the New Baptist Covenant (http://newbaptistcovenant.org/) are taking steps to combat racism in meaningful ways.  But while Alexander does not outline ideas for how to end mass incarceration, she does give the kernel of the idea that’s needed.  She writes, “To deny the individual agency of those caught up in the system [of mass incarceration] – their capacity to overcome seemingly impossible odds – would be to deny an essential element of their humanity.   We (human beings) have a higher self, a capacity for transcendence” (p.176).  Then, she goes on to say, “Rather than shaming and condemning an already deeply stigmatized group (poor black convicted felons), we, collectively, can embrace them – no necessarily their behavior, but them – their humanness.  ‘Hate the crime, but love the criminal’” (p.176-177).

Until we (“we” = all Americans of every color and social class) see poor black people as people and the erasure of poor black people from mainstream society through mass incarceration as itself a crime, the problems of systemic racism will plague our society.  Toppling and taunting statues and yelling at supremacists won’t change a thing. 

The Bible has a framework for what Michelle Alexander is saying.  Human beings are made in the image of God.  This was emphasized in Genesis right before Adam and Eve were the first to flagrantly disobey God and then their son Cain committed the first murder, killing their other son, his brother Abel.  This idea of ‘image of God’ is central to the Biblical view of creation.  We don’t know the skin tone of the first humans, and the Bible does not specify.  The central theme is God is creator and humans – all humans – are special in God’s creation, the highpoint of God’s creation (Genesis 1:27-28, 31).  So, the poor, undereducated black 15-year-old who is targeted by cops and then busted for ‘possession’ the first time someone, maybe his mentor, slips him a small sealed bag of white powder and is then convicted and trapped in the system of mass incarceration – that kid is an “image bearer.” 

What does God look like?  Look at that kid.  When you do, see the image God.  Don’t see a “thug.”  Don’t see fear (yours or his).  Don’t see just one more felon to lock away.  See him.  See him.  See a child of God, made in the image of God.  If we see young black males this way, the way God sees them, we as a society won’t tolerate their disappearance in the racially weighted “war on drugs.”  We’ll pool our imaginations and come up with ways to end this system of oppression just slavery and Jim Crow ended.  But this time, if our solutions are based in love, mass incarceration won’t be replaced by the next iteration of systemic racism.

In the Genesis idea cited above, the Bible offers a creation framework to Alexander’s conclusion.  In the Gospels, the Bible also offers a redemption framework.  Jesus came to free that imprisoned black kid.  He said, “The spirit of the Lord is upon me.  He has anointed me … to free those who are oppressed” (Luke 4:18).  In ways impossible for a comfortable white suburbanite to understand, that 15-year-old imprisoned poor black kid is oppressed.  And just because we whites are comfortable and just because we don’t understand and just because we are extremely comfortable in our not understanding is no excuse to turn a blind eye.  Because we follow Jesus, we have to be for that kid.  Jesus teaches what love looks like in the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37) and then demonstrates his love by dying for our sins.

We whites won’t be subject to mass incarceration.  We are no better than the inner city black person arrested for felony-possession.  No better.  But our mistakes will bring minimal suffering or none at all.  Yet, our mistakes cut us off from God.  Gossip.  Alcoholism.  Sloth.  Omission (failing to help those who God commands us to help or failing to share money and talents God has blessed us with).  Harsh, hateful rhetoric.  Society does not call these things ‘crimes.’  But, the Bible calls these things ‘sins.’  Sins cut us off from God.  Jesus died a shameful criminal’s death to make it possible for us to be cleansed of our sins.  Jesus stood in the shoes of the convicted felon and he did so that we might have abundant life (John 10:10).

As disciples, followers of Jesus, we are to be as he was and is.  We are to love as he loves.  He loves the millions of black and Hispanic Americans whose lives have been wrecked by mass incarceration.  If we – Christians who comprise his church in America – follow our master’s example and truly see and truly love our black and brown brothers and sisters, we will find a way to help them out of the system of oppression.  The church is the body of Christ.  He has come to free the captives.

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[i] I realize that when I say “all,” that is hyperbole.  This is a short blog.  In her book Alexander details how the convictions of a few whites in the war on drugs help to perpetuate the entire system (see p.204-205).

After Charlottesville: Monday Work

My brother is a pastor of a church in Charlottesville.  My best friend from seminary is a pastor of another church in Charlottesville, VA.  I texted them both this morning to make sure they’re OK after the white supremacy fiasco in their town yesterday.  I didn’t want to call because it was Sunday morning and they are pastors getting ready to lead the church in worship.  So I texted. Both texted to assure me they are fine.

I am a pastor too, but on Sabbatical.  In fact this morning, our family did not even attend church, but instead spent time at Smith Mountain Lake with my aunt and uncle.  However, sabbatical or not, I feel the need to share some of my thoughts in the aftermath of the nefarious, evil “Unite-the-Right” rally in Charlottesville. 

I approach this as a pastor, but more importantly as a follower of Jesus, a 1^st century Palestinian Jew, and the incarnation of the Second Person of the Trinity.  I follow and worship Jesus, the Savior of the world and Lord of all.  I pray that my comments are inspired by Him.

Two quotes come to mind.  The first is from a fiery African American female preacher, Traci Blackmon.  I heard her last year in Atlanta, GA, and she blew my socks off.  Her sermon at the convening of the New Baptist Covenant last September helped me understand the importance of #blacklivesmatter.  Her sermon woke me up and fired me up to work for a better America, one in which all people are given equal rights and equal opportunities. 

Rev. Blackmon was in Charlottesville yesterday, up close to the tear gas, violence, and chaos.  A frequent Facebook commenter, she wrote, “I SURE DO PRAY THAT THE SERMON YOU WROTE EARLIER THIS WEEK IS NOT THE SERMON YOU ARE PREACHING TOMORROW” (https://www.facebook.com/traci.blackmon).

Her words are characteristic of her confrontational approach.  And, she wrote this fresh off her own up close and personal harrowing experience in Charlottesville.  Her words make sense to me.  As it is, I wasn’t preaching today.  But if I was, I hope I would not, in a gut reaction, scrap the sermon I had written earlier and start over.  I’ve done that very thing before.  I have scrapped sermons om Saturday nights, and started over.  I have scrapped sermons with just an hour to go before the start of worship.  But it is not always the right move. 

Contrasted with Rev. Blackmon are the words of African American author Deidra Riggs.  She writes,

Hey, white evangelical friends. Don't go to church today to hold your preacher's feet to the fire. Either they'll say it or they won't. Go to church to be lit on fire by the Holy Spirit. Don't lose your focus. There is work to do on Monday.

Besides, even if they say it, it won't be the way you want them to say it. This is not about them. It's about you. What are YOU going to say? What are YOU going to do? This is an all hands on deck moment and there are TONS of resources for you (https://www.facebook.com/deidra.riggs.3?hc_ref=ARSVkD-HQYK7zDF1g096ffTNB4cHpHu7G3Vf59BCtHY4HTmA2jk_uVqrtMBTnoyqaEg&fref=nf).

My favorite line from Mrs. Riggs’ quote is one that drives me now. “There’s work to do on Monday.”  That Monday Work is the work of combatting racism under the direction of the Holy Spirit.  Whether the pastor deals directly with what happened in Charlottesville or sticks with the sermon he or she originally planned is not the bigger point.  The bigger point is all churches, all followers of Jesus, are called to live out the values of the Kingdom of God and the greatest value is love. 

One of the cornerstones of my Sabbatical is the quest to discover how church – the local church – can embody the heavenly vision cast in Revelation 7:9-10.

⁹ After this I saw a vast crowd, too great to count, from every nation and tribe and people and language, standing in front of the throne and before the Lamb. They were clothed in white robes and held palm branches in their hands. ¹⁰ And they were shouting with a great roar,

“Salvation comes from our God who sits on the throne
            and from the Lamb!”

I believe the church is called to be a living witness to this Heavenly vision. The church in America is to testify to our country, divided as it is, that God’s vision and God’s future is a picture of people, resplendent in their cultural uniqueness joined together with other people, also with their uniqueness on display.  Note, when John looked into Heaven in Revelation 7, he could clearly see people from all cultures and all tribes all across the world.  Their distinctiveness stood out as much as their unity did.  And their unity was in Christ.

Where is that seen today?  I pray that Heavenly vision can be seen in the church.  Forming our churches as families and as communities is our work.  Our families and communities have to be so graciously welcoming and hospitable that all people – black, Asian, white, Hispanic, Arab, and Native American – can feel at home in the church. 

In other words, our Monday work is to tell a different story, the anti-story of Charlottesville and of hate groups like American Nazis and the KKK.  That story generates a lot of noise.  Our story, the story of people loving God and loving each other in Jesus’ name is a much better story.  CNN & Fox News are not going to tell our story.  We shouldn’t expect them to.  God has called the church to go into all the world and make disciples of Jesus.

Part of the work of doing this is to name evil – in this case the extreme evil of racism, the demonic force known as white supremacy.  Part of the work of giving witness to the Kingdom of God is renouncing evil and standing with those who have been victims.  It’s easy to look at the hooded, goose-stepping fools and say they’re evil.  It is much harder to name, define, and combat structural evils like the so-called “war on drugs,” the resulting mass-incarceration of brown and black peoples, and institutional racism that plagues our justice system.  Those evils are more far-reaching than the show that went on in UVA’s town yesterday.  We who follow Jesus have to name the deeper evils and stand up to them.

But even that is only part of the greater work, which is telling the story of Jesus and inviting the world around us to enter that story.  Evangelical pastors have no excuse for ignoring the evils of racism in our country.  We have to decry this evil.  Neither can we allow ourselves to get sucked in to causes to the point that those causes become our central, defining call.  Fighting white supremacy is a part of denouncing evil and denouncing evil is a part of our Monday Work – the work of telling the Good News of Jesus Christ. 

Our best strategy is to offer the world a competing narrative.  In our story, the oldest, truest story, the only forever story, God is love, loves all people, and all who come to him through Jesus are saved.  Blacks and whites can stand together as saved persons, brothers and sisters in the name of Christ. 

I know this isn’t much of a social commentary on the horrors of white nationalism, the impotence of the President’s statements, or the next steps to be taken by equality-minded groups like #blacklivesmatter.  I’m not social commentator.  I am a disciple of Jesus.  The best thing I can share is that Jesus’ heart is with those who have suffered from the evils of racism and Jesus is the savior for the poor and disadvantaged.  I hope my life and my church lives out that truth and draws people to Christ.  I hope this is my story the rest of my life.

Is Multicultural Worship Necessary?

“It is no longer a question of whether we like or want diversity.  The church is diverse.   And congregational worship should reflect the diversity of God’s people, even if a local congregation itself is not diverse.”[i]

            I don’t know quite what to do with this statement from author/pastor/worship leader Sandra Maria Van Opstal.  I agree completely that “congregational worship should reflect the diversity of God’s people.”  I am praying, thinking about, hoping for, and working toward greater diversity in the congregation where I am the lead pastor.  I am visiting with pastors who serve in multiethnic contexts.  I am listening to non-white people in ministry to hear their perspectives. I have heard perspectives of whites all my life and I am one.  I am trying to see through the eyes of others.

            So, I agree with Van Opstal, don’t I?

            I think I do.  I then think about the little church my family visited in Penhook, VA a few years ago.  When we walked into this rural congregation in a quaint, inviting country sanctuary with our adopted black children, the church was instantly integrated.  Prior to that it was a group of white people worshiping God together.  It is highly unlikely that non-white people are there very often; maybe only when we show up.  They were extremely hospitable to us. 

How would that church’s worship reflect the diversity of God’s people? 

            Maybe, as a part of their communal prayer life, they could focus on the worship of Christians in other parts of the world, say Namibia, or Bolivia, or Vietnam.  Believers in those places look very different than those in Penhook.  Those country folk in Virginia could expand their sense of God’s people by praying for believers.  Maybe there are other ways they could reflect that diversity.

            However, there is a particular cultural timbre in southern Virginia.  Should that be compromised in worship so that the church goers have a greater sense of God in the world? Maybe the answer is yes.  But one culture is not superior to another.  God can be glorified in the warp and woof of life on the farms that make up Penhook.  The people who live there will most likely hear God when God speaks in ways they can understand.  That speaking by God begins in worship that is done in familiar cultural expression.

            This is challenging for me because one of the foundations of my own faith is the willingness to plunge into the unfamiliar and the uncomfortable.  I don’t believe a person can grow in Christ until he or she willingly gives up his/her tastes and preferences and fully (even if temporarily) enters another’s cultural world.  I think those white, rural worshipers should do partnership ministry which would involve trips to Ethiopia or Bolivia, or at least to the sections of Roanoke, VA dominated by African Americans.  Just as I recognize their need for worship in familiar language, I also see their need for new experiences.  In the new experiences, we grow into a bigger sense of just how big God is.

            It is both.  We need times when church feels like church (in our own understanding of church).  And we need to see church happen in ways we never could have imagined and in people who are new (and maybe strange) to us.  I’ve only just begun my engagement with Van Opstal’s ideas, but I have to say, I am very excited to read her book as a part of my Sabbatical journey and as a part of my exploration of the possibilities of developing our congregation as a multi-ethnic church.

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[i] Van Opstal, Sandra Maria (2016), IVP Books (Downer’s Grove, IL), p.14.

Building a Multiethnic Congregation, Parts 2-4

Building a Multiethnic Congregation

CBFNC Annual Gathering – First Baptist Church, Hickory, NC

March 31, 2017 

Part 2 – My own Story

A.    Race Autobiography

I grew up in white suburbia, first a small town outside of Detroit, MI and then in Roanoke, VA.  I met very few non-white people, and I fell for all the stereotypes white people perpetuate. 

My lack of time with people different than me meant that I had a woefully limited worldview, and my ignorance often almost got me trouble.  Here’s an example. 

I was in army basic training. One day, I was kind of dogging it, going very slowly.  If I wasted too much time, it would bring discipline on my squad(extra push-ups). My squad leader (an African American and another trainee) was frustrated with my snail’s pace, and he hollered at me "Come on, Boy!" In my frustration, I yelled, "I'm coming, boy!" I did not know that you're not supposed to call adult African Americans males "boy." I have not done it since. With the hot tempers that foment in infantry basic where 19-year-old men chant mantras like "Kill! Kill! Kill! with the Cold Blue steel", it is a miracle a fight did not break out. 

I did not know that "boy" had been a term used by white men to strip black men of their dignity and to withhold the respect they are due.

I have had many lessons in experiences like that, situations where I blunder but then receive grace from a person of color and, humbled, learn in the process. 

I never in my life used the N-word or any other epithet (besides "boy"). I never thought of myself as an overt racist. But I am a product of white American suburban culture, a world in which whites have advantages they are unaware of and blacks, especially young black men, are accosted in middle class neighborhoods by the police. It has taken me years of experience, conversations, and study to become aware of systemic racism. I still have much to learn.

I started being intentional about learning my final year of seminary.  I was waiting for class to start and I opened my Bible and the passage we read a moment ago Revelation 7:9-10.  In that moment, I realized, nearly all my friends were from just one tribe, language, and nation.  I didn’t know people from other tribes, languages, and nations.  I’d be spending eternity with them!  But I didn’t know them – my brothers and sisters in Christ. 

So, when it was time to circulate my resume and hope some church would call me as a pastor, I searched for a church that would be in a place where I would develop friendships with people from backgrounds different than my own.  I found it in that small church outside of DC.  I have said some critical things about that church, but that comes from a place of deep, deep love.  Over 9 years there, I made life-long friendships with people whose background are similar to mine, and with other people who are very different from me. 

The church did not change while I were, but now it has.  I pleased to share that God has moved in that congregation.  They now have a wonderful pastor, a woman from Jamaica.  And their associate pastor in the English congregation is a Hispanic woman.  The pastoral leadership now resembles the surrounding neighborhood. 

B.    Adoptions

The next step in the transformation of my own understanding of race and ethnicity in America and in the church came when I became a parent.  I was married in 2003.  My wife is white.  In 2005, we adopted a child from Russia.  Our oldest son is also white.

Then in 2006 we moved to North Carolina and I began as a pastor in Chapel Hill.  We adopted a son from Ethiopia in 2009 and a daughter from Ethiopia in 2011.  Boom!   We were a multiracial family. 

With that reality, one of the more dramatic moments of my learning in terms of race came when Travon Martin was killed.  I suddenly realized something I had always known but never admitted.  White America is scared to death of strong black men, like the one my son will be in a few years.  Trayvon Martin died because he was a young black man in a hoody.  And someone got scared.  George Zimmerman got scared because so many of us are afraid of young black men.

Case in point: in my neighborhood in Chapel Hill, a supposedly enlightened town, someone emailed the neighborhood list serve and said, “I saw two black guys going door-to-door.  Should I call the police?”  Who were these invaders imposing themselves on our white suburban serenity?  They were members of a high school football team in town.  Their coach had sent them out to sell calendars to raise money for the team.  A week earlier, two other boys (white boys) from a rival high school were in our neighborhood doing the exact same thing – selling calendars to raise money for football equipment.  When white boys walk through the neighborhood going door-to-door, no one wonders if they should call the police.

To my wife’s everlasting credit, she confronted the woman who sent the email and requested she not call the police if she sees our son out playing.  To the woman’s credit, she was horrified at her own racism.  She did not recognize her own racial bias until an adoption mom confronted her.  She apologized, and I hope her embarrassment has been a teacher for her.  I hope she doesn’t still see black and assume the worst.

My journey has gone from awareness to serious, immediate concern.  My experiences with my kids has prompted more frank conversations with some of my good Asian and Hispanic friends.  I hope I can be the dad my son needs me to be.    I thank God for my black friends who have patiently listened to my questions and fears.

But, I am not just a dad and a friend and a Christian with his own personal worries.  I am also a pastor of a church and the church has a responsibility; a calling.  Millions of people in our country have some of the same fears that I harbor. 

·         If I am a racial minority, is America a safe place for me? 

·         If I am white, now that I am awakened to my own prejudice and latent racism, what do I do? 

·         In the current climate of racial tension, the church of Jesus Christ is called to be a witness. 

o   How do we do that? 

o   What is our testimony and how do we share it so it will be heard?

Part 3 – What do we do?

I think it begins with a true sense of God’s call.  Who is God calling the church to be?  By this I mean the church universal – Christians everywhere around the world.  I think the answer is quite clear.  We read this earlier.  It is Jesus’ commission to the first disciples.  It passed from them to the early church, to the succeeding generations of churches, down through the ages to us.  Acts 1:8, Jesus says to us, “When the Holy Spirit has come upon you, you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth.”  As witnesses, our testimony is that in Jesus the Kingdom of God has come.  All people can be freed of sin and have life in Jesus’ name.  He died on the cross for all, rose from the grave, and is the Savior of the world.  That is the testimony of every Christ follower everywhere.  We are witnesses called to testify.

            Once we accept that and commit ourselves to answering Jesus’ call, then what is the specific calling on any given local church?  What’s your context?  We’ve talked about racial tension in America today.  That’s one factor everyone has to face.  Within that and within the overall cultural climate of the United States, in your town, in your church, what are some context particularities that contribute to your church answering God’s call?

            I am in Chapel Hill.  We have the University of North Carolina there and the UNC hospital.  People from all over the state, all over the country, and all over the world make their way to Chapel Hill either to attend UNC, work at UNC, work at the hospital, or come as patients at the hospital.  Also, Duke Medical center and Duke University are 9 miles away.  Additionally, Research Triangle Park is not that far from us.  Student, doctors, and researchers come.

            Also in Chapel Hill, we have a large refugee population.  The Karen people, refugees from Burma, number in the 1000’s just in Chapel Hill.  The Karen Baptist Church that rents space in our building on Sunday afternoons has as many in worship as our church does on Sunday mornings.

            Furthermore, there is the historic African-American neighborhood called Northside in Chapel Hill.  That community is full of stories and a cultural heritage that is threatened to be lost to gentrification.

            Our specific context is teeming with human diversity.  Your town is probably very different.  However, there’s nowhere in North Carolina in the year 2017 that is culturally homogenous.  It might be worth taking a second look around your own community.  Make note of people you meet around town who are different than the ones you see in church on Sunday morning.  Ask the question I asked at my son’s choir concert.  Would these folks, people different than me, be welcomed in my church?  Would my church be willing to make changes to help these folks feel welcomed?  Would they find a home in my church?

            The reason I think this is so important particularly for America, particularly right now, is the mandate Jesus gives us to be witnesses.  Revelation 7 says there will be every tribe and nation gathered together to worship the Lord.  Does the world look at our churches and see living witnesses to this promise from scripture? With the way we do church, the way we gather as a church family, do we communicate to the world around us a vision of the Kingdom of God?  Can they look at us and see it.

            Answer the call to be witnesses.

            Know your context. 

            The third important point in what we do is stretch beyond your comfort level.  In 2016, our church decided that we would, in 2017, go through at church renewal.  One of the things we decided we would do is examine whether or not God was calling us to be a multiethnic congregation.  We’ll spend the remainder of this year examining this.  Currently we are multiethnic, kind of.  We have about 140 involved in ministry at some level.  About 12-17% of that group are people of color – African Americans, Burmese-Karen, Mexican, Chinese-American, Koreans.  Our leadership is dominated by Caucasians and by our traditions which are Eurocentric.  My dream is that we would become so welcoming to people of different backgrounds that in 2 years you come on a Sunday morning and clearly see that no group is a majority and that the worship is intentional about welcoming and appealing to all.

            To this point all we’ve really done is declare our intention to prayerfully explore the possibility of becoming truly multiethnic.  We said, “God, we think we’re going to try this, or at least talk about trying it.”  Since then, spring of 2016, 4 African Americans have joined the church as members, including one on the pastoral staff.  None came knowing what we were seeking.  They just came looking for church and stayed.  Additionally, opportunities for partnership have dropped into our lap: one is a fledgling Hispanic church plant; another is a potential Chinese-American church plant. 

            It’s like we told God, “This is what we want to do,” and God said, “OK,” amd and new people started coming.  For us, the answer to “what do we do” has been to explore a new call from God.

Part 4 – How do we do it?

The “how” is seen in our attitude.  It first has to be relational.  Do we have the capacity and the desire to be close and intimate in friendship and brotherhood with Christians whose cultural experience is different than our own?  The answer to that has to be “yes.”  Relationship comes before program because no program will satisfy everyone.  I get complaints in one ear that we do too many hymns and additional complaints that we don’t enough hymns in the other.  Some people clamor for communion to be served every week.  Others say, “Pastor, we’re doing communion too often. What are we, Episcopalian?”  The program, whether it is worship, church organization, or something else, will never satisfy everyone.  But if the programmatic challenges are worked within the boundaries of loving relationships, people will stay and stay invested even if the program is not completely to their liking.

The second word is humble.  We go into this humbly, always willing to learn.  This is especially true for white people because Eurocentric culture has dominated the United States since our nation’s inception.  A generic American is pictured as a white person.  Any other history demands a modifier: Asian American, Hispanic, African American.  The norm to which everyone has to adapt is the white cultural norm.  It cannot be like this in the multiethnic church.  The multiethnic church is part of God’s new creation.  We are curious about one another and eager to share God’s love with each other.  It imperative that those of us from what has been the dominant culture – Eurocentric culture – take the lead in humble learning.  We express curiosity about other cultures and we enthusiastically celebrate the unique characteristics of other cultures.

The third word is sensitive.  In the multiethnic church, we are sensitive about not insulting others.  This is straight out of Romans 14:21, “It is not good to eat meat or drink wine or do anything that makes your brother or sister stumble.”  If an African American or Hispanic is insulted by something a white person says or does, that white person must repent and be willing to learn why this was an offense.  Similarly the person of color should show loving sensitivity.  But it is especially important that the person of privilege not say, “O I didn’t mean it that way.  Don’t overreact.”  The person of privilege must say, “I’m really sorry.  I didn’t know that was offensive.   I won’t say that again.  Please help me understand a better way for us to be friends.”

The fourth and final key word is persistence.  Our secretary at our church is one my confidants.  I share just about everything with her because she’s got a brilliant perspective.  She has a master of divinity degree from Golden Gate seminary, she is a competent musician, she leads Bible studies, and she has a great feel for the pulse of our church.  She is a Chinese American.  She’s not from China any more than I am from London.  She’s from San Francisco.  She and I were talking about multiethnic congregations and all that is involved when different people groups come together.  Based on her experience, she looked me and offered a warning.  She said, “You better be careful.  It gets messy.” 

She’s right.  Based on my experience in Arlington, I know exactly how right she is.  Someone will say something offensive and refuse to apologize.  We have to stick with it because building the multiethnic church is a call from God.  Someone will misunderstand something and there will be great confusion.  We have to stick with it because building the multiethnic church will say to the surrounding community, “this is what the Kingdom of God looks like.”  Through the misunderstandings, the unintended hurt feelings, the lamp that gets broken during VBS by a child from a refugee family, the frustrated old deacon who feels like I’m losing my church – through all the pain and mess, we stick to it.  We work without ceasing trudging through the mess because it is worth.  Building the Peaceable Kingdom is worth it. 

What we do is step beyond our comfort zone to answer God’s call.

How we do it is relationally, humbly, sensitively, and persistently.

We know our only success will come as God blesses our efforts and transforms our hearts.  God can be counted on.  God will work in us and speak through us.  That’s why for me, and I am praying for my church, building the multiethnic church is a call that must be answered. 

            I’ll take any questions, and then I’ll go over resources to finish up.

Resources

A.    Relationships – these are acquired throughout the process

B.    Experiences – these are acquired throughout the process

C.    Media

1.    Books

2.    Internet research

3.    Popular Christian Magazines

4.    TV & Movies