Sharing our Stories: Living on the Southside

The following is adapted from a BTSF article that originally appeared on the blog of IVCF's The Well.

Many of our colleagues and mentors wince when they learn where my husband and I live. They assume it was our only choice on grad students’ stipends.

We came to Columbus to pursue doctoral degrees, but moved into one of the city’s blighted neighborhoods to build relationships with sisters and brothers in Christ. We believe that to draw nearer to God’s grace requires falling in love with His children. And it’s hard to fall in love from arm’s length. In the process, we’ve learned just how abundant this life can really be.

We joined a neighborhood church that ministers to underprivileged folks in our area, building a community that desires radical fellowship across established lines of division. Together, we share meals, birthdays, burdens, and joys. The richness of the Kingdom is lived out in the beautiful mix of people learning to embrace one another.

My Sunday mornings are shared with many races, languages, and cultures; the very wealthy and the destitute, high school dropouts and tenured professors, mental illness and academic genius. We have found that as we draw near in friendship to those we might otherwise ignore, we enter into a more intimate relationship with the Body of Christ. We begin to understand His Kingdom more clearly, both as it is, and how it could be.

And yet such diversity is often hard to come by in the very institution that professes holy community and unity. The Church struggles to reflect the fully diverse image of Christ. In particular, racial and socioeconomic diversity is disproportionately low in our churches. We sometimes feel helpless to combat it, or are too unfamiliar with the injustices that contribute to it. Too often, outreach to marginalized populations becomes tokenized, treated as the “pet projects” of a few invested leaders.

If we become too entrenched in our own work and fail to pay forward our blessings, we all miss out on the opportunities God has for us. What insights into God’s creation are we missing because the best-suited person isn’t in the sanctuary to share it with us? We need engaged minds tackling humanity’s questions from a wide range of perspectives. When we are surrounded by homogeneity we stifle ourselves, both in our witness and our personal spiritual growth.

At the moment, my husband and I find ourselves in a very fortunate position. We have few responsibilities, no dependents, and the freedom to live where we choose. We are in a unique time of our lives: we enjoy many privileges, but also are not yet so financially advantaged as to become isolated from the rest of the world.

Ministry 'with', not just 'for' or 'to'

As we grow in our careers, hopefully one day gaining professional positions, children, and other responsibilities, we may not be so willing to live as we do now. The temptation to sequester ourselves will become stronger. We will be more inclined to engage in charity rather than to invest in relationships and mutual edification. My prayer is that we will remain intentional and intimately engaged with the pursuit of God’s Kingdom both within and apart from the university.

If you have a personal story or testimony about your journey with racial justice and reconciliation, share with us below, or as a BTSF submission!

See Also:
Church for All People

The Friends Jesus Invited

They Will Know We Are Christians

Friday Fruit (07/13/12)

On Fridays, BTSF posts links to some of the week's happenings. 

It's an opportunity for you to read about racial justice & Christianity from other folks, and for me to give props to the shoulders on which I stand...

Weekly Round Up:

• On doing multi-ethnic worship: When Taco Night becomes Taco Worship

• Beyond the ‘Single Story’: African Lit Into Crowdsourced Comics

• Including Racial History in School: Good ideas....and not so good ones

• Awol Erizku's beautiful photography

• Celebrate Inter-dependence Day

These are some of BTSF's links of interest this week. What are yours?

Feel free to contribute your own links in the comments section, or submit items you feel should be included during the week. Self-promotion is encouraged. 

See Also:
Reclaiming Patriotism
What is a post-9/11 American?
Immigration: Stranger in a Strange Land

"Whites Only"

Each year over the 4th of July holiday, Pastor William J. Collier and the Church of God's Chosen host a Christian conference and retreat--for white people only.

Our knee-jerk reaction is to declare how crazy and misguided they are, to denounce them as Christians. We want to brush them aside as an anomaly. But are they?

Much has been written about the obvious appalling nature of such an event being held in today's world. Clearly, none of us would make statements like this group has.

But what if they are simply saying with their lips what we say every day with our actions? "Whites only." Do the demographics of your church match those of your city? Why or why not might that be?



What kind of music is your church's worship?
What faces are represented on your website and powerpoint slides?
How does your church take up the offering?
How are the sermons structured?
What do your leaders look like?
How are your social gatherings conducted?
What are the topics of conversation after the service, and what issues get ignored?

These factors that make up a church's culture. That culture may be sending a message of "white only." Though we may intend to be welcoming, our awkward questions, ignorant statements, and sideways glances make the truth all too clear.

When our behavior 'otherizes' newcomers, we maintain an environment of segregation. Our intent may be different from that of the Church of God's Chosen, but the net effect is the same. If we say with our lips that the Church is open to all, but take no actions to make it true, we make liars of ourselves and of the Gospel.

To be clear, there is an important place for race- and ethnicity-specific worship and fellowship. Understanding one's own identity in Christ and in the context of one's ethnicity is a central part of the process of spiritual growth (including for those in the majority position). It can also be exhausting to maintain an attitude of worship when you feel you are sticking out from the crowd. So, when it comes to worshiping God, sometimes it is helpful to remove that burden when we can. Likewise, it is important for folks in the majority to explore their identity and what that means for the modern Church. But in either case, such moments should never promote exclusivity, isolation, or stratification of the Body of Christ.

When confronted about their 'whites only' conference, the folks at the Church of God's Chosen were quick to respond with a couple of tired arguments that are, unfortunately, all too common among more mainstream churches:

"We didn't mean to offend anyone"This statement is often the first line of defense for indignant offenders. But, though we don't always intend to sin against one another, the consequences are real all the same. Even if the cross-burning at Collier's conference were some 'sacred ritual,' Christians have an obligation to be knowledgeable and sensitive to the things that cause pain for our siblings in Christ. Singing about 'whiteness' in conjunction with 'goodness' and 'purity' might feel innocuous, but what message does it send? When we say ignorant comments in making conversation, when we "appreciate" someone's culture by caricaturing it, when we touch someone's hair because it's different from our own--we don't mean to be offensive, but sometimes simply being oblivious to the context and the potential for offense, is hurtful enough.

"It's our right to worship the way we want" It is true that the US Constitution grants freedom of religion and freedom of speech, but the Bible grants no such things--quite the opposite! We know that "if anyone considers himself religious and yet does not keep a tight rein on his tongue, he deceives himself and his religion is worthless" (James 1:26). Nor do we as Christians have the freedom to worship as we please. Worship is not about pleasing ourselves. It's it for God's glory. And how can a divided church be for God?

Don't just roll your eyes at Collier's conference. Don't just suck your teeth at his ignorance. This is the Christ that is getting the publicity. This is the stereotype that is being reinforced. This is our responsibly.

Folks like Collier offer us the opportunity to shake our heads and externalize bigotry, without fully examining our own exclusivity. However, Jesus told us that although murder is a sin, so is harboring anger. He said that adultery is a sin, but so is lust in one's mind. If a "whites only" conference is a sin, what does that say about a "whites only" heart?

See Also:
We are Gulnare Free Will Baptist 
I am George Zimmerman
Inclusivity in Campus Ministry

Friday Fruit (07/05/12)

On Fridays, BTSF posts links to some of the week's happenings. 

It's an opportunity for you to read about racial justice & Christianity from other folks, and for me to give props to the shoulders on which I stand...

Weekly Round Up:

• Chris Rock Criticized: “White People's Independence Day”

• The Cultural Imperialism Bingo Card: BINGO!

• Christianity's Strange Fruit: Alabama 'Whites Only' Christian Conference
• We may discuss this more in its own post this week. Thanks for the heads up, Dan. 

• WWII Editorial Cartoons in the Black Press

These are some of BTSF's links of interest this week. What are yours?

Feel free to contribute your own links in the comments section, or submit items you feel should be included during the week. Self-promotion is encouraged. 

See Also:
Reclaiming Patriotism
What is a post-9/11 American?
Immigration: Stranger in a Strange Land

Reclaiming Patriotism

What is patriotism? Who loves America?

Millions of patriots wave the flag and declare that they love USA. But which USA? Sometimes it seems we love a country that never existed, and despise the country we actually have. Do we really mean 'God bless America'? Or just God bless myself?

The reality is we do a poor job of loving most of America.  We love the declaration of independence, but continue to live as though much of it is a lie. We do not believe we are all "created equal," but instead that some of us are just plain lazy, stupid, ill-fit, and unworthy. We value 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness' but deny it to the 49 million Americans living below the poverty line.

We rally around the Constitution but ignore its very first sentence, "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility." Have we forgotten this founding mission, even as we make false idols of our founders?

The same revered document admonishes us to 'provide for the general Welfare,' yet we despise families that are in need of such support. 

We fight to keep the Pledge of Allegiance intact in our schools, but ignore the words "and justice for all"--we like to pretend that it just says "with liberty." We behave as though 'liberty' and 'justice' are opposing forces, forgetting that they have always been, and must remain, inextricable allies. We pride ourselves on our freedom, while maintaining the highest incarceration rate in the world (we hold ~25% of the world's prisoners in our cells).

We laud Independence Day 1776, knowing that millions did not gain freedom for another century, and that millions more remain in bondage today. We celebrate July 4th, knowing that in the creation of one nation, hundreds of others lost their sovereignty.

We wear t-shirts with the Statue of Liberty, but bare our teeth at the immigrants she was erected to welcome. We love her flame held high, but spit at the plaque at her base: "Give me your tired, your poor/Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free." But given our history, you cannot be a patriot of this country and a bigot toward our immigrants at the same time.

We declare 'support our troops!'  But if you 'support our troops' that means you must support our young, our poor, our people of color-- the populations that are fighting our wars. But we cheer our troops while maintaining the systems of injustice that oppress the soldiers fighting on our behalf. 

If you 'support our troops,' it means you keep their streets at home just as safe as they have kept the streets abroad. It means you give them access to the homes and jobs that they have kept secure. It means you provide the healthcare that keeps their families healthy. It means if they are legal to fight, they are legal to attend school, and that you admit them into your colleges. 

We wage war against those that killed ~3000 on September 11th, but turn a blind eye to the 245,000 poverty-related deaths that occur every year. Is our reaction different because of the identity of the victims, or that of the aggressors?  

You say you are afraid of those that want to destroy our country. But so am I. I love the USA. So much so that I will not stand for the bigots, the oppressors, and the fear mongers who try to destroy it. We need to understand that our 'American values' are meaningless if they apply only to the privileged. We need to make clear everything that is anti-American about hate.

We need to reframe what it means to love America and who gets to be the patriots. It is patriotic to care for our neighbors. It is patriotic to educate our children, feed our hungry, and clothe our naked. We need to reclaim patriotism for the Americans.