Lands of the Bible Cruise- 2022
Join Drs. Bryan Loritts, Albert Tate, and Eric Mason on a 14-day teaching cruise through the holy lands. Click on the flyer for registration information. Register by July 3, 2021 to receive a $200 discount.
Prophets AND Pastors
A Pastoral Word in a Prophetically Dominated Conversation on Race:
One of the challenges of recent discussions regarding race is that we are hearing more from prophets than we are from pastors, and there is a world of difference. Prophets care more about the what. They speak to the issue. The prophet’s wardrobe has historically been monochromatic, allowing little room for variation. And please don’t misunderstand me, we need prophets. Prophets tell it like it t-i-is. Prophets make us squirm. Prophets tend to talk and tweet with their outside voice. Prophets tell us to #leaveloud, call out white supremacy and white privilege, then exit stage right, heading out to the next event.
But when the event is over and you are sitting in a multiethnic room for the debrief, among people who go to your church where you have not been called to leave (or #leaveloud for that matter), what then? It’s here where you need a pastor.
Writing to the Colossians, Paul said something interesting regarding his aim as a pastor: “Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ” (Colossians 1:28). In essence, Paul is working under the pastoral assumption of immaturity. Like a parent, Paul takes it for granted that his people just won’t get it, and so should we as pastors. Every day our people are being formed away from God’s vision for sexuality and generosity (to mention just a couple examples), so of course they won’t get it when we call them to steward their bodies and money God’s way.
The same holds true when it comes to matters of race and ethnic unity. For four hundred years in America, we have been shaped by a system that seeks to extend value to one group of people based on the color of their skin and extract value from other people groups based on the color of their skin. So when they show up to our churches, we likewise must assume immaturity in matters of race and ethnic unity. The prophet points this out, while the pastor must patiently walk this out.
It was the great African American pastor, A. Louis Patterson who said there are three qualities for the pastor:
1. Patience with people.
2. Patience with people.
3. Patience with people.
While prophets care about the what, pastors care about the who and the how. While prophets point to the desired destination, pastors join with the people on the journey. While prophets are blunt with their language, pastors are careful with their language. Prophets have a low threshold for pain; pastors have a much higher threshold.
So what does this mean for us on a real practical level? Several things. First, you have to know your calling and function accordingly. We need both prophets and pastors. But if you try to function as a prophet while wearing the title of “pastor” in a multiethnic church setting, you will not last long. You can’t retweet prophetically true, yet abrasive statements while wearing the mantle of pastor or leader in a multiethnic church. I can’t tell you the amount of times I’ve found myself nodding my head over the prophet’s social media post, while resting my thumbs.
Second, as pastors we must be careful with language, especially in a multiethnic church setting. Truth is uncomfortable. I get that. When talking about matters of race and ethnic unity, you can say things as carefully as you can, while injecting a lot of levity, and people will still send the nasty email—and even leave. Understood. I am not asking us to water down the truth. However, the multiethnic pastor is keenly aware of how people will hear things, and will not unnecessarily trigger. After all, they are dealing with immature people, shaped by four hundred years of racism. The pastor, in talking about race, will always ask, “Is there a way to faithfully deal with the text, exegete the culture, and call out the sin, without unnecessarily alienating people?”
Prophets are needed, and so are pastors. Prophets are like doctors who diagnose and necessarily inflict pain during surgery. Pastors are the physical therapists who encourage their patient to push through the pain. Prophets, like doctors, are there for a moment, while physical therapists show up over and over again, coming alongside their patient in their journey into wholeness.
We need both.
We don’t need pastors who ignore the prophets.
We don’t need prophets tearing down pastors.
We need both.
We need to work together.
The Kainos Cohort
Kainos Ministry exists to see the multiethnic church become the new normal in our country.
The Kainos Cohort is an opportunity to equip leaders in how to lead multiethnic churches and movements.
This year’s Fall Kainos Cohort will take place virtually on October 26th-28th, 2020. The cohort will include the following teaching schedule and faculty:
Dr. Bryan Loritts, Dr. Curtiss DeYoung, Dr. Larry Acosta, Pastor Marcos Canales
October 26
1PM The Gospel and Multiethnic Movements, Dr. Bryan Loritts
2PM Practicing Biblical Reconciliation in 21st Century Congregations (and Para Church Organizations), Dr. Curtiss DeYoung
3PM Cultural Competence and Multiethnic Movements, Dr. Bryan Loritts
4PM Q&A
October 27
1PM Devotional, Dr. Bryan Loritts
2PM Before Jesus was White: Deconstructing the Whiteness of U.S. Christianity, Dr. Curtiss DeYoung
3PM Trends and Tools for Mulitethnic Congregations and Organizations, Dr. Curtiss DeYoung
4PM Navigating Racial Trauma in Multiethnic Movements, Dr. Bryan Loritts
October 28
1PM Developing Next Gen. Multiethnic Leaders, Dr. Larry Acosta
2PM Understanding and Reaching Latino Millennials, Pastor Marcos Canales
3PM Leading Beyond Fumes: YOU…Better, Healthier, Stronger, Dr. Larry Acosta
4PM Q&A
Dr. Bryan Loritts is the privileged husband of Korie, and the graced father of three sons—Quentin, Myles, and Jaden. He serves as a teaching pastor at The Summit Church in North Carolina. He is the award-winning author of seven books including Saving the Saved: How Jesus Saves us From Try-Harder Christianity into Performance-Free Love, which was given the Christianity Today Award of Merit, and his latest release, The Dad Difference. Dr. Loritts co-founded Fellowship Memphis in 2003, and later founded The Kainos Movement, an organization committed to seeing the multiethnic church become the new normal in our world, where he serves as president. In addition to his responsibilities as a pastor, Dr. Loritts travels extensively throughout the world preaching the Good News of Jesus Christ at conferences and events, as well as serving on the board of trustees for Biola University and Pine Cove Christian Camps.
Dr. Curtiss DeYoung is the CEO of the Minnesota Council of Churches. Previously he was the Executive Director of the historic racial justice organization Community Renewal Society in Chicago and the inaugural Professor of Reconciliation Studies at Bethel University in St. Paul. He is ordained in the Church of God (Anderson) where he served in local congregations in Minneapolis, New York City, and Washington, DC. DeYoung earned degrees from the University of St. Thomas, Howard University School of Divinity, and Anderson University. He has written and edited twelve books including Radical Reconciliation: Beyond Political Pietism and Christian Quietism, co-authored with Allan Boesak; United by Faith: The Multiracial Congregation as an Answer to the Problem of Race, co-authored with Michael Emerson, George Yancey, and Karen Chai Kim; and Coming Together in the 21st Century: The Bible’s Message in an Age of Diversity.
Dr. Larry Acosta is the Founder of the Urban Youth Workers Institute and KIDWORKS and has been training next gen. pastors and leaders for over 25 years. Larry is currently the Executive Director and Multiethnic Church Planting Catalyst for City to City Los Angeles. His vision is to train, mentor and mobilize 100 healthy missional leaders to plant 100 missional churches that will change the trajectory of darkness in the city by 2030 or sooner. Larry’s claim to fame however, is that he is married to Jayme, his bride of 29 years and they have four children- Brock (24), Karis (22), Malia (18) and Diego (16).
Pastor Marcos Canales, originally from Costa Rica, has been pastoring amongst the Latina community of the greater Los Angeles area for more than a decade. During this time, he has also worked with non-profit community organizations in the areas of youth development, mentoring, and immigration advocacy. He has also been a leading strategist for the Center for the Study of Hispanic Church and Community (Centro Latino) at Fuller Theological Seminary and an adjunct professor at various theological institutions. He received his Master’s of Divinity degree from Fuller Theological Seminary and he loves to integrate Christian discipleship, social justice and Latina theology. Currently, Marcos is the pastor of La Fuente Ministries- a bilingual, intercultural, and intergenerational congregation of Pasadena First Church of the Nazarene. He is married to Andrea, who is a clinical psychologist, and they are raising Elias, their son, in the city of Pasadena, California.
A Happy Few
“Show me your friends and I’ll show you your future,” was one of the first things I told my son Myles over breakfast the other day. It’s his senior year, and with his aspirations to go to some faraway place for college, I am already feeling sad. He doesn’t quite grasp how much things are about to change, but I do, and I want to make the most of what will probably be his last season in our home. So every week I’m giving him some parting shots. It’s my attempt to reinforce lessons I’ve tried to teach him along the way.
The most recent lesson is on friendship, and how our friends often are a good forecast for our future.
In between bites of Myles’ usual- chocolate chip pancakes- I asked him to tell me what he knew about Samson and David? What did they have in common? Both were leaders. Both were killers. And both had a weakness for women, a weakness which lead both to failure. Yet David is able to arise from his failure with Bathsheeba, while Samson is made a spectacle by his enemies, and ultimately dies in captivity.
“Tell me the difference, Myles? Why did one come out of it, and the other die in it?”
After a few moments of silence, I answered my own question with another:
“Tell me about David’s male friends.”
Myles spoke of Jonathan, and we talked about all the men David hung with in caves, war, expeditions and on the run.
“And who were Samson’s male friends?”
Silence.
I’ve seen a lot of men wreck their lives. It’s heartbreaking, and it’s scary because I am no better. I’ve seen many pastors even, allow a pattern of sin to stain a lifetime worth of work. If you were to ask me what the common denominator was to just about all of these failures, especially among leaders, I’d say without hesitation they had no friends. Oh sure, they talked about their “friends”. And I’ve been introduced as their “friend” only to think, “No we’re not. We talk maybe once a year.” Too many times I’ve found myself thinking on my way to the stage right after they’d introduced me as their friend, “If that’s friendship you’re in bad shape.”
In his book, A Resilient Life, Gordon MacDonald talks a lot about friendship, or what he calls a, “happy few”:
“The older we get, the more we come to understand the inestimable value of the ‘happy few,’ that inner circle of intimate friends who will always be there long after the lights of the fast and glamorous life have been extinguished. The ‘happy few’ may be the most important treasure one will ever possess this side of heaven. Resilient people know this from experience.”
If the bible, prayer, God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit were all we needed in life, then why did God look at Adam and say it’s not good for him to be alone, and then create Eve to be his companion? Why do we read in the Scriptures that to isolate ourselves is equivalent to foolishness? Tell me why are there over a hundred “one another” verses in the New Testament? And why did Jesus have his happy few of Peter, James and John?
Friendship is one of the deepest and most pervasive longings of our hearts. Maintaining friendships can be one of the deepest and most pervasive frustrations of our hearts.
Over the years with my happy few I’ve found the following to be helpful in nurturing friendships:
1. Fish in the right pond. Most of my friendships were found in church or Christian environments. We met in places like small groups, Sunday school classes and retreats. Friendships rally around the deepest bonds, and there is no bond deeper than faith in Jesus.
2. Be slow to enter into friendships, and even slower to exit.
3. Don’t keep score, but don’t take a beating. Of course there will be many stretches in friendship where I’ve had to give more than I received, but in the overall picture, my friends have been life giving, and not life taking.
4. Realize most friendships are but for a season. Your happy few are friends who transcend moves, job transitions, geography and seasons of life. They’re called a “happy few,” for a reason.
5. Make more deposits than withdrawals.
I pray God gifts Myles (along with my other sons) great friends…life-giving friends. His future counts on it, and so does yours.
The Perpetual Foreigner: Encouragement for Minorities in Majority Spaces
The work of reconciliation as minorities in majority spaces can be lonely and exhausting. In fact, if we only see this as “work,” chances are we won’t make it to the finish line, but instead will flame out in a fit of (understandable) bitterness like the prophet Jonah. Over the years I’ve often referred to this as the call for minorities to serve as missionaries, seeing the mission field as our white brothers and sisters. My decades long exchanges with people of color trying to live incarnationally among our white siblings, has lead me to conclude the missionary metaphor is inadequate. Sure, there are aspects to the imagery which fit: Cross ethnic/cultural exchanges. Having to learn a new language. Modifying one’s customs. Always having to dial back who you are. But what are we to do when the mission field is supposed to be our home- a place which has been historically formed to be hostile to people of color? A place where we continue to feel the subtle drips of long ago firehoses? As the Asian scholar, Amos Young, frames it- to be a person of color called to the work of reconciliation can induce a prevailing sense of being the “perpetual foreigner”.
I guess I could pull you into my own journey, and inundate you with a litany of sleepless nights, obscene moments where I have been the recipient of overt racism in churches I’ve served, and long walks in the valley of loneliness. But in some ways I’ve already done this in my book Insider/Outsider. Instead, I want to give you some hope. Effective leadership demands a positive attitude. And our attitudes are merely the thermometers of our emotional health. Minority brother or sister, hear me: The effectiveness and longevity of your ministry will depend on you fighting for your emotional well being. As the writer of Proverbs says, we must guard our hearts.
In my decades served as a reconciler, I have found these three things to be absolute non-negotiable’s in nurturing emotional health:
Boundaries:
Missionaries get furloughs- times where they must leave the field and come back to what’s familiar. As minorities we need to take emotional furlough’s. Daily. Some of you are expected to make your church diverse, and to be the answer to the ethnic and cultural ill’s in your community. Listen to me. Have John the Baptist’s words plastered on the walls of your mind, “I am not the Christ.” Stop right now, and say that to yourselves. Say it again. And again. Once you embrace this, you can now put healthy emotional boundaries in place. As a matter of soul care, you have to get away from it. Put the book on race down, and read something else, something mindless. Stop wracking your brain over whether you are a critical race theorist. Stop brooding over the email you received chastising you for paying tribute to John Lewis because he was pro-choice. In fact, delete the email. Jesus didn’t heal everyone, and neither can you. It’s not your calling. Set boundaries.
Permission to Play:
While you’re on emotional furlough, give yourself permission to play. You know what kept me sane twelve years in Memphis, and what keeps me sane today? Jesus and golf! I know you were looking for something more spiritual, but that’s all I got. I never would have made it without these two. In fact, I’m convinced Jesus gave me golf to aid in my emotional well-being. Never confuse hobby with optional. Hobbies are essential. Some of my heroes and mentors in the faith do consistent spa days (you know who you are!), get dirt under their nails gardening, are so good at naps it’s become a sport, vacation well, or attend movies by themselves. They play well, and decades later they are doing well in ministry. This is exponentially more so for we perpetual foreigners.
Homogenous Enclaves:
You also need to give yourself permission to spend time with people who look like you. No, this doesn’t need to be your exclusive community. And of course, one of the most biblical and redemptive things God has done to form me is to experience rich, vibrant community with people who don’t look like me. But the work of reconciliation is beyond tiring. Always having to explain what you meant. Always needing to restrain dimensions of who you are to not offend. I guess what I’m saying is to be a perpetual foreigner is to have a perpetual filter. Well, we need moments to put the filter down. My golf group in Memphis were mostly black deacons. I didn’t have to be culturally measured with them. I didn’t have to tiptoe around them. I could also vent. A four hour unfiltered round of golf, gave me the emotional bandwidth to go back to the office measured. We minorities must have moments where we are unfiltered so we can be filtered.
It’s been said the most important thing a leader can do is to stay encouraged. Do these three things and you will be encouraged, ready to engage our white siblings with great joy.
Let me go. My tee time is soon.
On Color-blindness: A Quick Response to a Well-Intentioned White Brother
Recently, I received a note from a white brother, saying that in light of these tumultuous times, he does not see me as black. While I do not respond many times to notes like these, I felt prompted to issue the following:
Thanks for reaching out dear brother, and sharing your honest thoughts.
Your sentiments are not new to me (color-blindness), and in some ways I really get what you are saying. I believe what you are attempting to express is that you do not value me more or less, or treat me any different based on the color of my skin. Because surely you can’t physically deny a difference in skin tone/ethnicity.
Reading Revelation 5 and 7, we are forced to conclude that ethnicity will be a part of our future eternal reality. Therefore, ethnicity is not a fruit of the fall (even though man’s construction of a race based value system is).
Reading John 4 and Jesus’ conversation with the Samaritan woman helps us to see that the Scriptures do see differences in ethnicity. She is known by her ethnicity. So is the Ethiopian Eunuch in Acts 8, along with a myriad of other examples. So it is both okay, and right to see ethnicity.
The problem also is, we live in what’s been called a racialized society where implicit bias abounds, and often times expresses itself in very de-humanizing ways. For example, even though African American’s make up less than 15% of Minneapolis’ population (Where our brother, George Floyd was murdered), over 60% of incidents of police brutality are directed at African American’s.
I once went to take out a lease from an apartment that happened to be owned by a white woman. She demanded I give her six months in advance. But then when I sent my wife (who looks white) to the same lady to lease the same apartment, she was only asked to give first and last months. These are but a few scant examples undergirding the truth that we live in a racialized society that very clearly sees, and limits opportunities (and even lives) for people of color.
Also, numerous sociologist's point out that whites do not see themselves as whites. One sociologist, Dr. Korie Edwards (Ohio State University) explains it this way. Right now just about all of us in this world have two arms. We do not consciously see ourselves as having two arms. But if you had one arm in a two arm society you will be constantly aware of your limitations. This is the black experience in America.
If we are going to move forward in true ethnic unity we must name these things, acknowledge them, confess and intentionally move forward. Isn’t this the general sentiment of I John 1? We cannot have true fellowship with God without first acknowledging the truth of our sins. Color blindness gets us nowhere.
I love my white brothers and sisters, but I cannot have true fellowship unless you see a significant part of who I am- a black man- acknowledge, and dialog with me about it.
Yes my relationship with Christ is the epicenter of who I am, but following Christ does not eradicate my blackness.
I hope this helps.
Yours in the struggle for true ethnic unity,
Bryan
Offensive Eldering
When it comes to the personal care and shepherding of the local pastor, we need elders who will play offense and not defense. Elders lead, and not just react. It’s been my experience based on numerous conversations with pastors across the country, that most elder boards are filled with leaders- godly leaders- who can become so focused on the needs of the congregation they neglect to proactively care for the needs of their pastor. If you are an elder, or aspire to be an elder, there are at least five ways you can offensively elder your pastor:
Don’t burden pastors with expectations of omnicompetence. The average pastor is expected to be a great preacher, great leader, great counselor, great people person, great administrator, have a great bedside manner, be a great visionary, and at the same time have a great marriage, great family, great personal life, great walk with the Lord…just be great, great, great, great, great. Well, that person doesn’t exist, and to expect omnicompetence is a form of pastoral abuse, because it pushes the pastor to attempt to be something his humanity will never let him be. As John the Baptist once said, “I am not the Christ”. These five words need to be the mantra of pastors, and that of elders in thinking about their pastor.
Initiate intimate conversations with your pastor. Ask us in a non-suspicious way how we’re doing in our marriages and with our children. Ask us about our walk with the Lord. Ask us about our emotional health. Ask us about our physical health. Don’t assume we have it all together, and everything is okay, and then when the bottom falls out the elders put on a full court press to clean up the mess. Who knows, many elder boards would never have to go into a defensive frenzy, if they played a bit of offense by just simply showing an interest and asking questions about the various venues of our lives.
Pray with us. Here I’m not talking about the prayer that begins and ends the elders meeting, or the times when the agenda is pushed to the side and we pray for the church. Instead, I’m thinking of an elder playing offense by approaching the pastor and just caring for them off the cuff with prayer. I can only think of one occasion in almost twenty years as a Lead Pastor where I had an elder initiate non-emergency prayer with me. He invited me to his home, sat me down, asked me questions and then we prayed for about a half hour. The wind that put in my soul was enough to push me along for the next season of ministry.
Initiate compensation discussions. We need offensive elders in the area of the pastor’s personal compensation. A pastor shouldn’t have to come and ask for a cost of living increase or a raise. It’s a shame the marketplace does a better job at this with their employees than the church of Jesus Christ does with their pastors. I’ll let you in on a little secret: Most pastors either initiate these types of conversations, risking the appearance of greed, or they say nothing at all, while they inwardly wish someone around the table would. Too many pastors are not prepared for retirement, and die with far less than what they should have because the churches they served didn’t step up. Of course I could disclaimer this point to death with talks of churches who don’t have it and bivocational pastors, but I trust you understand where I’m coming from.
Play offense when it comes to our rest. Did you know the FAA demands that airline pilots and crew get a certain amount of rest before they fly? Do you know how many flights have been delayed because the crew didn’t have sufficient rest? Why does the FAA initiate and demand this? Because the lives of hundreds of passengers are at stake. What the FAA is to pilots and crew, elders must be to the pastor. Why? Because something more important is at stake than just bodies, it’s souls, which, as the Bible says, we leaders give watch over. The work of pastoring is constant, because the needs of people are constant. Plus, we need to consider that the average person’s down time is the pastor’s peak time when it comes to the work week. While our people are off enjoying their Saturday’s and Sunday’s, your pastor is putting the finishing touches on and preaching the sermon. David said of the LORD that He makes him lie down in green pastures. The LORD played offense when it came to David’s rest, and so should elders. A pastor shouldn’t have to initiate a sabbatical policy; elders need to be planning that out. Elders shouldn’t nickel and dime their pastor when it comes to vacation days, but should consider a responsible vacation policy that provides ample rest….and make the pastor stick to it.
I bet we would have less cases of pastoral trauma, burnout and failure if we had more offensive minded elders. May the Lord grant us wisdom.
Dr. King and The Not-So-Straight-Line of Racial Revolutions
When I first read Dr. King’s observation of, “…when you look at a revolution you must always realize that the line of progress is never a straight line” (At Canaan’s Edge, page 554), something in me cringed and rejoiced all at once.
On the one hand King’s words expose and attack my adolescent impatience where I want all of the problems of race in America (and in the world for that matter) to be settled immediately. These last few years filled with people of color being killed at the hands of mostly white cops, and our brown siblings thrown in cages separated from families, has induced in me more than a deep sadness, but at times a hopelessness in which it’s easy to think there’s been no progress. Just the other day I sat in a meeting in which the topic of diversity was brought up yet again in a primarily white setting, and I had to fight voices of cynicism whispering in my head that this was indeed just talk, and nothing would change.
I’ve had to remind myself that revolutions are never photographs but movies, filled with scenes of tragedy and regression, but ultimately triumph and victory. Yet it’s human nature to walk through these “scenes” of regression and conclude all has been wasted.
On the other side, King’s comments about the crooked line of revolution, brings joy to my soul. Stepping back to catch a sense of the not-so-straight-line of revolution over the last sixty plus years in America there’s hope. Schools have been integrated. Segregation has been legislatively ended. Voting rights have been secured and multiethnic churches are on the rise. Oh, and a black president of the United States has been elected. No, we have not yet arrived at the mountaintop King spoke of on the eve of his assassination, but we are climbing higher and higher.
Finally, King’s remarks on revolutions makes me think of the gospel, and my own walk with Jesus. For followers of the Way, our journey is never a straight line. There are seasons of defeat and victory, tours of duty in the valley and on the mountaintop. Like the story of race in America, following Jesus is not a photograph, but a movie, where we are never to cast a verdict based on one scene of our lives, but when we stand back and look at the whole graph of that not-so-straight-line, may we see an upward trajectory, granting us confidence that we really have been redeemed by the blood of the Lamb.
The "Bi-Racial" Jesus
There exists a pervasive loneliness to those of us busy about the work of what’s been called racial reconciliation. This is what I believe Edward Gilbreath was alluding to when he likened us to bridges, and exhaled how it is the nature of bridges to be stepped on.
James Baldwin, the pen of the civil right’s movement, discovered this on the evening of July 16th, 1961. Seated to the left of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad in the leaders Chicago mansion, Baldwin reflected on how he had to endure a dinner filled with venomous references to our anglo siblings as “white devils”. For Muhammad and his thousands of followers known as the Nation of Islam, there was but one alternative to the legacy of racism exacted upon the Negro- rejection and separation. Elijah’s “white devil” laced conclusions were met with a chorus of amen’s by all but one at the crowded dinner table. The lone voice of silence that evening was ironically Baldwins, the famous soon to be author of, The Fire Next Time. Even though James had received more than his share of hate from whites in response to his many writings and public speeches, he held out hope that there were whites who could be redeemed; whites, “who were struggling as hard as they knew how, and with great effort and sweat and risk, to make the world more human” (James Baldwin, see, The Fire is Upon Us, page 144).
Standing on the steps of that Chicago mansion post dinner, Baldwin had to have felt a loneliness, an I-can’t-win-for losing sense of hope-filled despair.
There are several things that Chicago dinner table teaches us, and one lesson is for those of us engaged in the work of reconciliation there is the constancy of loneliness, of never feeling totally at home. Oh yes, I along with an army of racial reconcilers know that feeling all too well. Among one group we push too hard; and among another we don’t push hard enough. One ethnicity deems us to be liberals, and the other sell-outs. All at once we are considered gospel heretics, and not gospel enough. We are too theologically dark skinned for one crowd, and too theologically light skinned to another. How can one person be both sociologically and theologically black and white all at the same time?
Jesus had to have experienced this. His was a theological and sociological “bi-racial” ethic; and by bi-racial I am not positing some new theory of his ethnicity. Nor am I being glib with my language, since I am the father of “tri-racial” children. Instead what I mean is this sense that wherever Jesus went, the setting did not reflect the totality of who he was. He was too conservative for the Zealots, and too liberal for the Pharisees. The crowds rushed to crown him king, while others sought to kill him because he threatened their kingship. And to be an instrument of reconciliation is to follow in the footsteps of this “bi-racial” Jesus, where no one setting encompasses the totality of our aspirations or call.
Like Jesus, I too have caught it from both sides. Every time I’ve preached on race some of my white brothers and sisters have walked out over the perception of me being too radical. And when I have called out the lack of love which exists among some of my ethnic kin, I’ve been dismissed, raked over the coals and have had the veracity of my blackness questioned and even attacked. Like Baldwin, I’ve sat silently in private settings where “grilled white devils,” have been served for dinner, trying my hardest not to join in on the festivities.
To catch it on both sides…to be theologically and sociologically “bi-racial,” is to be like Jesus.
And yet, what kept Baldwin from participating in the hate that Chicago evening? Love. For Baldwin, love refuses to stay in what he called, “social ease”. This higher ethic of love, among other things, is to be wielded in such a way that it disturbs the southern white contemporary who was comfortable with Jim Crow, as well as the leader of the Nation of Islam and his followers who had chosen the path of rejection and separation. In his famous Christian inspired essay, Down at the Cross, Baldwin wrote of the importance of love and race relations, “Everything now, we must assume, is in our hands; we have no right to assume otherwise. If we- and now I mean the relatively conscious whites and the relatively conscious blacks, who must, like lovers, insist on, or create the consciousness of the others- do not falter in our duty now, we may be able, handful that we are, to end the racial nightmare, and achieve our country, and change the history of the world”.
Amidst the racial turmoil of his milieu, Baldwin held onto love, and this love filled him with hope even on lonely Chicago nights.
But the Chicago table also cautions us against the septic nature of bitterness. Homogenous settings like that July table tend to expose the rancor in our hearts. Those of us in the lonely work of racial reconciliation must not give into bitterness, for bitterness is what happens when the spirit loses hope and love. Bitterness joins in the chorus of look-alike dinner tables spewing epithets of our oppressors. Bitterness is what contaminated Jonah’s spirit as he preached to the ethnically other people of Nineveh, and then sulked when God loved them to himself. Jonah shows us it’s possible to challenge the status quo and not truly love.
What we are in need of is a prophetic, “bi racial” kind of love, the kind seen in Jesus. This kind of love is equitable in its scope, calling out homogenous dinner tables in inner city settings, as well as those found in gated communities. Love doesn’t laugh at the awkward racial joke, but chooses instead to create an awkward moment of its own by calling it out. Yes, Baldwin, love jolts people out of their social ease, the same way the Messiah- an incarnated Jew- jolted the Samaritan woman out of her moral ease by calling out her immorality.
And when we do this, we will catch it from both sides. But take heart, this is a sign we are following in the lineage of Jesus.
Can We Please Stop Saying, "White Privilege"
White is the new four letter word, in the same lineage of expletives whose origins were well intentioned but given the cruelty of time have devolved into dehumanizing adverbs. To dance white, talk white or look white is not so subtle innuendo all done to communicate one is not with it, out of fashion and touch.
Following closely behind in this same stream is the phrase white privilege.
Now we all know to be white in 2020 still carries meaning and advantage. Just a few years ago, I remember stepping off the one train in the middle of Harlem and seeing a Whole Foods. Huh? Looking around, I noticed young white couples pushing baby strollers, and to my surprise, the next morning white women joggers going up and down the same streets Malcolm X once walked. Their presence meant healthy food options, higher real estate values and a dissipating minority community, once known as the largest black community in America. There exists no stronger visual in modern America that to be white is to enjoy privilege, and a kind of privilege which means pushing others out, than twenty-first century Harlem.
My problem with white privilege is not so much the ugly, truthful realities the phrase conveys, but how it is said. White privilege is said by many the same way a frustrated mother refers to one of her brood who has disappointed her and she is forced to make an appeal to their father to step in and do something: “Sammy, come get your son.” Your son. Yes, that child does share DNA with Sammy, but this mother was not underscoring a biological truth, but attaching a sense of displeasure. That’s how I hear white privilege. It has a ring of displeasure, a note of attack and sourness. White privilege. Your son. Neither conveys love, and love is the insignia of the Christ follower.
Many are misinformed when they say white privilege, demonizing privilege for the sake of privilege. When we do this we need to be wary of hypocrisy. Just about all of humanity has received a portion of privilege (some more than others of course). The fact you’re reading this from a device suggests you are privileged in some way. My parents will celebrate fifty years of marriage next year. Think of that: I, a black man, have my two biological parents who are still together, love Jesus and have given me a good name. That’s a measure of privilege, while not on par with whiteness, which still sets me at an advantage.
And more importantly, if privilege was sinful then Jesus Christ was sinful. Philippians 2:1-11 argues that Jesus was the most privileged person ever to live, who in his status was God. But what did Jesus do with his privilege? He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross (Philippians 2:8).
Does white privilege exist? Absolutely. Should our white brothers and sisters feel guilty about their privilege? Let me ask it this way- Did Jesus feel guilty about his? No. Neither should our white siblings. So the real issue isn’t privilege- because we all have a measure of it- it’s the stewardship of privilege. In humility, Jesus used his privilege to die on the cross for us, so that we may have eternal life. Here he shows us the potency of privilege stewarded well. When we use the advantages God has blessed us with not for self promotion, but for the benefit of others, we look like Jesus and bless our world. Show me anyone who is white, who is not humbly seeking ways to disadvantage themselves for the advantage of others, and I will show you someone who does not truly get the messianic lineage they have supposedly inherited.
To read more on this, pick up my book, Insider/Outsider.