For a week I’ve been processing the prophetic vision God gave Bob Ekblad. He writes about it here, “Exposing and Repenting of Racial Injustice.”
Then Timothy Dalrymple from Christianity Today writes a painful call for churches to face the painful realities of slavery and their complicity in theft. He writes,
“Two original sins have plagued this nation from its inception: the destruction of its native inhabitants and the institution of slavery. Both sprang from a failure to see an equal in the racial other. As Bishop Claude Alexander has said, racism was in the amniotic fluid out of which our nation was born. There was a virus present in the very environment that nurtured the development of our country, our culture, and our people. The virus of racism infected our church, our Constitution and laws, our attitudes and ideologies. We have never fully defeated it.”
How could anyone read that and not want to be repentant?
What is the Holy Spirit saying to the churches?
So after watching the Giglio, Cathey, Lacrea video, The Beloved Community, I’m asking myself, “Why is the church so weak?” Lord have mercy we are ASTHENEIA! How can we land in the language of “blessing” for slavery? ever. It’s awful!
Then I’m finding a whole segment of white Christians who still want to argue about personal responsibility as if America is a great moral vivarium and experiment in the exercise of individual rights. These days we’ve been invited to a funeral and all they can talk about is who’s fault is it and all they can say is stuff that basically equates to “Well everybody dies.”
And then I stumbled on the posting of a friend that was normalizing the language of extermination. Vile and wicked so it was. I walked around for an hour deeply grieved. How could this be in a brother’s heart? What cesspool did he dive in to find this stuff?
I think slow reflection is needed.
So if any video or summary of history has moved you a bit, even if it is by Phil Visher from Veggie Tales, please read a book. If you aren’t ready to read a book, at least read some testimonies of what it’s like to Breathe While Black. I’ve been moved by these.
I know you were hoping you could just go ask a co-worker. Don’t do it. Don’t ask them to be your counsellor for change. You are exhausting them.
Slow reflection is needed so read a book.
Some changes are coming quickly for some policy, but in the time that it takes you to read a book, some change could happen in you. Language expresses the heart. And we need some changes at the heart. Reading is marination of the soul.
There’s a lot of gospel work to be done.
From my own reading list:
Stamped from the Beginning. Ibram X. Kendi
How to be an AntiRacist. Ibram X. Kendi
The Christian Imagination: Theology and the Origins of Race. Willie Jennings.
White Fragility. Robin DiAngelo
Between The World and Me. Ta-Nehisi Coates
Through the years I’ve read the works of Toni Morrison and Maya Angelou
Slow reflection is needed. Read a book. You will find The Christian Imagination to be especially taxing. Reading slowly and seeking comprehension is good.
I’m forming an opinion that part of the reason we (the white-ish churches of North America) are so weak is that we have narrow emotional veins and our vision of Christian maturity is utterly malformed. Maybe a slow work through The Emotionally Healthy Church could be helpful for learning how to grieve. The lack of empathy still confounds me. But where empathy is lacking perhaps there has been unmetabolized griefs.
At the end of the day without slow reflection there is no love and no repentance.
There’s a lot of gospel work to be done. Read the Bible and read a book.
(I know, there’s a lot of podcasts to listen to as well. That’s not my realm. I’ve got one chorus in this post: Read a book.)
Update, 16 Jun3 2020. Louie Giglio has posted an apology for his “blessing” statement.