Additional Rec. - Jan. 2, 2020

Additional Rec. - "How White People Ruined Church for Me" by Andre Henry

“What I found threw me into a religious crisis, the likes of which I’ve yet to fully recover from. I found that many white evangelicals describe a god that doesn’t care about the social misery of black people, a god that doesn’t hold white people accountable for their complicity in racist systems, and a god that doesn’t demand people take responsibility for the antiblack violence that pervades their societies and remedy it. With the above considered, it’s no wonder that white evangelical churches have generated no meaningful response to the racial crisis that continues to claim the lives of Black people in America. It would be against their religion to do so. But don’t take my word for it. Listen to white Christians tell you about their religion in their own words.”

“Just then, the Exodus story began to race through my head. I remembered that God cared about the social misery of the Hebrews in that story, considered the Egyptians in that story responsible for the Hebrew’s social misery, and did something to intervene. And it couldn’t be clearer to me that the One I call ‘God’ is apparently not the same Being that white evangelicals worship. Their God is white. I pulled out my phone and began to type: If your ‘gospel’ does not counter the visions of modern-day Pharoahs and Caesars, if it paints no damning portraits (even subtly) of oppressive political systems, if it is unconcerned with the welfare of the marginalized and underprivileged within the bookends of human history, then it is no good news to me. If your God is apathetic about violence against human bodies, and cares not for the groanings of the poor, if your God is dead to the cries of the needy and oppressed, then I do not know your God, and I'd like to keep it that way.”

This was the first piece written by Andre Henry that I read, and I needed to read his words. I needed to sit in lament, repent where I needed to repent for the ways I have upheld the idea of white supremacy, and set about repairing individual and institutional damage done against black people. Rather than getting defensive, I decided to be grateful for Andre Henry’s prophetic voice and change where I needed to in order to better love my neighbors.

 

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