writing the journey
I’ve come to know many Haitians who are delightfully unique in their outlook on life as they are in their accents and vocabulary, which gives me no end of headaches as I try to figure out yet another idiom or unique word play I need to understand so that I can grasp their meaning.
Why does the world exist the way it does that a people confined to a third of an island in the Caribbean are seen as less-thans? How do they grapple with the faith that comes from white people to their land, given to them to give them hope, and yet used as a tool by those same white people to call them despicable names and degrade them?
I wanted to reflect upon what I learned this year, and also think of how my knowledge will affect my choices and behaviors in the new year…
in those decades of following Jesus, I’ve listened to uncountable sermons and Bible studies, often led by people with great earnestness, who have said “oh, if you only knew the Greek/Hebrew/Aramaic you’d see stuff in the scriptures that are hidden to you because you only know English.”
How do I make my faith work anymore (and maybe it never did) when such a very Christian nation seems incapable of seeing the violence we are initiating, celebrating, and dismissing, often while claiming the name of Jesus?
You want to terrify politicians? Take away their signs of power which are “respect” and obedience and decorum and complacency. Trip them up, make a point to oppose them at every turn, continuously point out their failures, and continuously refuse to accord them the power to silence you.
Rather than seek to deny the humanity of gay people and trans people, what about using your religion to help you decide to know more about them so that you can love them better?
This kreyòl version is blunt: “Lè Josèf leve nan dòmi an, li fè sa anj Senyè a te di l la. Li marye ak Mari. Malgre sa, li te tann jouktan pitit la fèt anvan l te antre nan zafè sèks ak mari. Li rele pitit ki te fèt la Jezi.”—“When Joseph woke up from his sleep, he did what the angel of the Lord told him. He got married to Mary. Despite this, he waited until the child was born before entering into sex with Mary. He called the child that was born Jesus.”
There were some who could eat right at the altar of sacrifice and restoration with hearts so hard that they would deny food to their own brothers and sisters in community because “well, if they wanted to eat, they should have brought their own.”
If you want to build your faith up so that you honor Jesus and you draw people to Jesus in your lives, might I suggest you do it the way that Jesus did?
Perhaps white people’s thoughts and prayers and good intentions aren’t enough when their Black friends are asking for love and dignity.
As America evolved as an independent nation freeing itself from certain connections with Britain such as political and economic control, so did the church, centering itself in the power and people of America who ran the nation, and inescapably represented their cultural values through religious language and theology.
“Making good trouble” means stirring things up so that we do not become complacent about our situation and resigned to injustice
The vision of Jesus for empire Christianity in our Sunday Schools and sermons and theologies is really an irrelevant Jesus who does not match the Jesus of the texts.
For the vast, vast majority of people, “deconstruction” is a good thing. Deconstruction can result in something far different and, in my opinion, far better than, white Evangelical Christianity.
You will not find this to be the “answer book.” It’s not designed for that. This is a book that invites us to join in the community, in the discussion, in the journey.
We have to face the fact that Christians often pick up odious behavior traits and exhibit them while singing songs of love and praise to Jesus of Nazareth.
A lot of what passes for discipleship and church membership in America is lacking in this demand to lay down our lives before Jesus and to cast aside the devil and all his works.
I had to read this slowly, thoughtfully, with many pauses and breaks. There have been books I’ve read through in … More
Whatever your beliefs are about redemption and salvation and even universalism—Jesus was always with those who are most despised and feared by Evangelicals. They’re the people he had meals with. Their homes were his resting place. They were whom he wept for.
Your faith is about your personal relationship with your values, and it should not matter in the slightest whether anyone knows why you behave as you do when you behave better because of your faith.
The Jesus of the texts doesn’t encourage harm for others—and the opponents of health protocols aren’t demonstrating the person of the texts.
Jesus gets to the heart of the matter, which is simply you can’t follow Jesus if you have more important things than Jesus.
Much ink will be spilled in the next few months or even years about the topic of Critical Race Theory (CRT), both by those who think they support it and those who think they oppose it
The myth of white success also develops the myth of white innocence. All the successes were due to white efforts that others seemed unable to copy; all the events of terror and destruction were minimalized and forgotten. And white innocence was preserved & confirmed for a people who could gladly declare their devotion to America as the land of “liberty and justice for all.”
As your friend, I need to tell you
something about myself that I also see in you, and it’s something that’s
bringing harm to people.
There is no divine right for Christians to control the government. There is no place in the Constitution for Christians to be given charge of the government to rule as “Christians.”
