Читать книгу Preaching Black Lives (Matter) - Gayle Fisher-Stewart - Страница 7
ОглавлениеWe’re still segregated in so many ways. . . . Every Sunday, I look out and, with one or two exceptions, I see all white faces. I bet most of the people in my church don’t have any black friends. They know people who are of color, but because they don’t associate with them, stereotypes and tensions can flourish.
—The Rev. Ray Howell 1
What is it to be Black and Christian; to be Black and Episcopalian; to be Black and a member of a White denomination? To be unapologetically Black and unashamedly Christian; those words greet you on the website of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, Illinois. Trinity is a Black church in a White denomination. It is a church that is proud of its roots in the Black religious experience. It is a church that claims its African heritage. It is a church that has clung to the values of the original Black churches in this country: a proud people, steeped in their belief in a Jesus who looks like them and knows their suffering; congregations involved in educating and uplifting their people.2
To be unapologetically Black and unashamedly Christian, that is also the journey on which we join the Rev. Dr. James Cone as he leads us through the twists and turns as he discovers himself, discovers the self that is the Black theologian. In Said I Wasn’t Gonna Tell Nobody, his memoir finished shortly before his death in April 2018, Cone challenges us, his Black people, to stop hating who we are. It is time to love the reflection of God we see in the mirror. It is time to stop chasing after Whiteness. I write, as Cone commands, for my people, those who are part of a church—the Episcopal Church—whose roots are in the birthing of slavery. For my people who are witnessing their churches, begun because of the racism in the Episcopal Church, wither away because of gentrification and benign neglect by the Episcopal Church. Cone offers, “When you write, you need to know who you are writing for and what message you want to deliver to them and why you feel the need to say what you’ve got to say.”3 And so, I write for my people, my Black siblings who still strive for Whiteness; who shun Black worship, Black religious music; who shun themselves. And I write for my non-Black siblings who see Blackness as less than, something to be feared, something to be avoided at all costs; who believe that to be Episcopalian, we must be like them; like a mold that is all things Anglican; who believe that White theology is the only theology. I also write for my Black siblings who find themselves in other White denominations.
Since the sixteenth century, Christian theology has been implicated in the denial of Black humanity in this country and that denial continues today. Christian theology has defined who was human by exclusion; taking upon itself the power to define who was heathen, who was uncivilized, who was unworthy of God’s grace, by using the measuring rod of Whiteness comingled with theology.4 Anti-Black racism is alive and well in the Church, including the Episcopal Church. Regardless of the Church’s claims, our society has never been modeled after the way of Jesus Christ. Rather, as Drew G. I. Hart writes, the White, wealthy, Western male has been the image promoted and adopted. From Constantine, to Thomas Jefferson, to Donald Trump, the White male has been lifted up as the standard against which all people are measured and Jesus has been fashioned into a White man. Hart writes, “With a pseudo-white male Jesus let loose in the church, the boundaries of acceptable theological reflection have neatly aligned with powerful, elite American (white) male interests.”5 Just as to be American is to be White, theology is White and all who are not White must find themselves in “Black theology,” “Womanist theology,” “Latin American theology,” “Queer theology,” and others, to be whole, to be who God created us to be, while Whites just have to be White.
It is time to throw off a colonized mind as it relates to being American and Christian, Christian and Episcopalian. Franz Fanon is correct in his assessment that a colonized people participate in their own oppression by emulating and internalizing the culture and ideas of the oppressor.6 In Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Paulo Freire agrees with Fanon in that he offers that those who are oppressed have been conditioned to fashion themselves after the oppressor, the colonizer.7 This is not to say that those who trace their lineage to various tribes and countries in Africa cannot be Christian and Episcopalian (or members of other White denominations); rather, it means we must, as Freire offers, constantly assess the teachings of the church and decide which are favorable to us. We must make being Christian and Episcopalian (or any other White denomination) our own. Why? Because colonization has contributed to racial self-hatred. The colonizing efforts of the Europeans led to the suppression of indigenous religion, customs, and traditions of those who survived the Middle Passage and their heirs. The veneration of ancestors, “holy dancing and shouting, deity possessions, and drumming”8 were considered by European colonizers as pagan and savage and were destroyed through torture and other punishments to complete the control over their human chattel. A desire to recover those traditions and customs beaten and bred out of God’s people of ebony grace led Teresa P. Mateus to create the Mystic Soul Project, an organization that creates “space for activism, mysticism, and healing by and for people of color.”9 Mateus felt a need to create these spaces for people of color because she didn’t see herself reflected in spiritual practices centered in Whiteness. In these spaces—conferences, retreats—people of color gather and have the freedom where they are able to shake off the shackles of suppression and oppression and celebrate all of themselves.
For the Church to reflect Jesus, there must be a White metanoia—a White repentance—because the shame of slavery is not ours; it is the sole property of White people. Colonization has taught us to bear the shame of something that was done to us as opposed to putting it squarely in the laps of those who denied us humanity, in and out of the Church. To be Black is not to be deficient, or defective; we are just different. Say it loud, I’m Black and I’m proud and I want to be me, to see me in whatever Church I may be a member. On occasion, the Episcopal Church will trot out Blackness, usually during Black History Month or other special, read ethnic, occasions.
On the other hand, it seems we have a church that is more interested in maintaining the institution than it is in taking a chance, risking it all, as Jesus did, and changing this world into what God created it to be. Jesus, God incarnate, came to earth to show how the world could be if God’s people would just get with the program and follow him into the margins where those who have been excluded by a world that commodifies humanness will be found. The presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, Michael Curry, has stated that we should be challenged to change the world from the nightmare human beings have made it into the dream God wants it to be. That is a rough, a tough pronouncement, certainly not something you want on signboard, that the world, in its current state, is a nightmare. Or perhaps the nightmare should be the truth we proclaim and claim. Perhaps if the truth of what the world has become was on the lips of all who call themselves Christians, the Church could be a place where we come to gird up our loins to get into the battle against the forces that long for a White America and Church.
Since 2017 the Rev. Yolanda Norton10 has been the inspiration behind the Beyoncé Mass, first held at Christ Episcopal Cathedral in San Francisco. In the promo for the mass, the Rev. Jude Harmon says:
I think a lot of the people who show up tonight are people of color, LGBT people, people onto whom other people’s narratives have been projected and just to be honest, the church hasn’t been the best at lifting up those voices. [The service] really began with us saying, how can we actually be the people of God we hope to be in the world. . . . Honestly, I think Beyoncé is a better theologian than many of the pastors and priests in our church today. That is not an exaggeration.11
As the Rev. Yolanda Norton offers, using the music of Beyoncé enabled her to have conversations about Black women, their worship, and their spirituality.12 All too often, particularly in mainstream, dominant culture denominations, the worship culture is White and overseen by men. Those who enter are expected to leave their religious culture(s) at the door and assimilate to the proper way of worship. And while Black women (and men) serve in all capacities in the Episcopal Church, that does not mean that the stained glass ceiling has been forever cracked or dismantled in other denominations. It does not mean that our Black churches, historically and otherwise, and Black denominations, created and maintained by racism, are thriving. Nor does it mean that non-Whites and our LGBTQIA+ siblings have found recognition and freedom of worship at all levels of the Church at large.
This book announces from the very top of the mountain that Black people (and others) are created by and in the image of a loving God and the contributors are willing to speak their truth to change the world and the Church. The contributors have the ability to see the great multitude pictured in Revelation 7:9:
After this I looked, and there a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. . . .
Life has gotten better for African Americans since the 1950s when our schools were legally segregated, when I watched my cousin’s father who looked White go into a country store to purchase ice for our outing after my father had been denied because of his skin color. Things have changed, even from the 1970s, as I patrolled the streets of Washington, DC, as a police officer. In some sections of the city, I would be met with “Can they send a White officer?” or “Would you go to the back door?” Yes, things have changed; however, as more things change, the more things remain the same or get worse.
In Breathe: A Letter to My Sons, Imani Perry writes of the fear she has for her two Black sons in a society that denies their humanity.13 Kelly Brown Douglas writes:
Every time he [her son] leaves the house I pray, “God please be my eyes, and be my hands, watch over my son and bring him safely home.” I am sure that I am not the only black mother who prays such a prayer when her black child, especially a black male child, leaves home. . . . So I tremble at the thought that the world is not safe for our sons because if God cannot protect them who can?14
How many Black mothers and fathers sit in our pews wondering if God cares enough to protect our children from White racism? Is there a word from the Church?
On the other side of the coin, as we look at the church, the Diocese of Vermont elected and consecrated its first African American female diocesan bishop, Shannon McVean-Brown, in 2019. Vermont is 95 percent white. In 2016, the Diocese of Indianapolis elected and consecrated the first female African American diocesan bishop in the history of the Episcopal Church, Jennifer Baskerville Burrows. The first African American male elected diocesan bishop was John Burgess in 1970. In 2015, Michael Curry was consecrated as the first African American presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church. Yes, there have been moments to make your heart flutter and say, perhaps, just perhaps, things have changed, but then there is the soul crushing, but.
In November 2019, at the Indianapolis diocesan convention, one of the contributors, the Very Rev. Kelly Brown Douglas, dean of the Episcopal Divinity School, delivered the keynote address in which she stated, “It is only in speaking the truth about the White supremacist legacy that is ours that we will be truly able to repent of it and turn around and do something different. . . . [We need to be honest about] who we are, who we have been, and who we want to be as the Church. The Church cannot be White and Church; a decision has to be made.” 15
Yes, we have made great strides in this country in race relations; however, eleven o’clock on Sunday is still the most segregated hour in this country. If the Church cannot lead the way to the beloved community, who can? Who will? To what degree does the Church care? Is it willing to risk it all to make the face and mission of Jesus real in the world? Brené Brown has offered that to continue to ask those who are traumatized by bigotry and hatred to build the table and ask others to join is wrong. It is those who continue to benefit from racism who must do the hard work.16 The Church, particularly the Episcopal Church as the Church of England, birthed racism in this country; therefore, the Episcopal Church must take the lead in its eradication. It began racism on these shores through the adoption of slavery; therefore, it must hold itself responsible for doing whatever is necessary to make God’s kingdom real on earth because for all too many who deal with racism every day, heaven can wait.
I want to thank the writers who contributed to this work because dealing with race is difficult. Writing and discussing race makes one vulnerable to attack from those who believe this country and the Church are theirs. Writing and discussing race is soul- and gut-wrenching work; however, it is holy work. Dealing with race also requires that we admit our own complicity in upholding a system that is contrary to the life and mission of Jesus; that at times, we have permitted our religiosity to become the opiate that dulls our senses to the reality that all too many of God’s sun-kissed children experience every day of their lives. While the majority of the writers are Episcopalian, other voices have contributed their take on race and the Church. Jesus transgressed boundaries and borders and in the eradication of race, the Church, the body of Christ, must get beyond its own borders and lines of demarcation to be what the Church is called to be. I also want to thank Church Publishing and Milton Brasher-Cunningham, the editor of this book; they took a chance on a very wild journey.
We begin this journey with sermons that challenge us to think about race: sermons that require a risk to be preached from the pulpit. Preaching is holy work; however, it is also fraught with danger. There are many in our pews who view preaching about race as being too political and will challenge the pastor, leave the church, or withdraw their funding. But preach we must. Then we move on to reflections and essays on advocating for Black lives in the Church and society. These essays stretch us to see Church in ways that are truly inclusive, that encourage us to ensure that our churches are sanctuaries for all God’s people. Finally, we hear the call to rethink or expand Christian formation, from our seminaries to our sanctuaries. As we take this journey, there are reflections from pilgrims who traveled the Civil Rights Trail in Alabama with me in May 2019. Fifty-two people of faith—mostly Episcopalian, but also Baptist, Mennonite—and atheist, Black and White, young and not-so-young, gay and straight, clergy and lay, traveled together for five days, to learn from those involved in the struggle for Black civil and human rights. We learned from being in the company of each other and we learned from each other.
I hope these offerings begin or continue the conversations that must occur to create opportunities for people to gather and be “proximate” in the words of Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) founder Bryan Stevenson,17 to be open to hearing voices that challenge, voices that cry out for God’s justice in this time and in this place. Perhaps, just perhaps, if these conversations occur, the Church can truly be the body of Christ in a world that desperately needs God’s justice today.
1. The Rev. Ray Howell, pastor, First Baptist Church, Lexington, NC, “Racial Slur Reveal’s a County’s Deep Rift,” Washington Post, October 22, 2019, A-1, 6.
2. Trinity United Church of Christ, accessed July 2, 2019, https://www.trinitychicago.org/the-history-of-trinity/.
3. James H. Cone, Said I Wasn’t Gonna Tell Nobody (New York: Orbis Books, 2018), 22.
4. Santiago Slabodsky, “It’s the Theology, Stupid! Coloniality, Anti-Blackness, and the Bounds of ‘Humanity,’ ” in Anti-Blackness and Christian Ethics, ed. Vincent W. Lloyd and Andrew Prevot (New York: Orbis Books, 2017), 32–35.
5. Drew G. I. Hart, Trouble I’ve Seen: Changing the Way the Church Views Racism (Harrisonburg, VA: Herald Press, 2016), 160–61.
6. Peter d-Errico, “What Is a Colonized Mind?” Indian Country Today, December 12, 2011, https://newsmaven.io/indiancountrytoday/archive/what-is-a-colonized-mind-yMyi0CHjMEO_HV3uM7caRQ.
7. Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 20th anniv. ed. (New York: Continuum, 1997), 27.
8. L. H. Whelchel Jr., The History and Heritage of African-American Churches: A Way Out of No Way (St. Paul, MN: Paragon House, 2011), 82.
9. Da’Shawn Mosley, “Recentering Spirituality: Creating Space for Activism, Mysticism, and Healing by and for People of Color,” Sojourners 47, no. 11 (December 2018): 16–18.
10. The Rev. Dr. Yolanda Norton is assistant professor of New Testament at San Francisco Theological Seminary.
11. “The Church Service That Worships Beyonce,” YouTube, May 17, 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXci-sRayAQ&t=202s.
12. “The Church Service That Worships Beyonce,” YouTube.
13. Imani Perry, Breathe: A Letter to My Sons (Boston: Beacon Press, 2019).
14. Kelly Brown Douglas, Stand Your Ground: Black Bodies and the Justice of God (New York: Orbis Books, 2015), 130.
15. The Very Rev. Kelly Brown Douglas, “The Work Our Soul Must Do,” keynote address, November 15, 2019, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLTDDFSxMVA&t=2058s.
16. Brené Brown, “The Quest for True Belonging and Courage to Stand Alone,” interview on The IA, September 12, 2017, https://the1a.org/shows/2017-09-12/brene-brown-the-quest-for-true-belonging-and-thecourage-to-stand-alone.
17. Bryan Stevenson, “Get Proximate to People Who are Suffering” (commencement address given at Bates College, May 27, 2018), https://www.bates.edu/news/2018/05/27/get-proximate-to-people-who-are-suffering-bryan-stevenson-tells-bates-college-commencement-audience/.
