Starting in December, the Lord repeatedly brought me to a passage in Ezekiel 9. The prophet was recounting a vision from God in which he was carried in the Spirit to Jerusalem.
Here in the holy city, Ezekiel witnessed something that would have horrified any devout Jew of his time: The glory of God lifted from the Temple and paused at its threshold. Then poof—it was gone.
Before the glory departed entirely, however, the prophet saw a “man clothed in linen” holding a writing kit. The Lord commanded this man to “Go throughout the city of Jerusalem and put a mark on the foreheads of those who grieve and lament over all the detestable things that are done in it.”
And where was he to start? “Begin at my sanctuary,” The Lord said.
Don’t look now, but the end wasn’t too pretty in Ezekiel 9 for those who didn’t bear that mark.
It wasn’t too hard for me to apply these verses to today. The Lord is taking note of those in the Church who are grieving and mourning over the state of affairs in our nation. Back in December, the few who were mourning were greatly outnumbered by those who were declaring their loyalty to President Donald Trump, telling us how put out they were to have to wear masks, and how their personal freedoms were being trampled upon.
At that time, only 260,000 people had died in the United States from COVID-19. (Did I just type the word “only?”) My Black friends were telling me how wounding it was to see that their white Christian friends cared so little about racial justice, as well as the disproportionate numbers of Black people dying from the virus.
Those who did care were definitely the outliers in our diverse charismatic churches, and, frankly, still are. We occasionally wondered, in fact, if there was something wrong with us because we didn’t feel right about going back to happy-clappy without addressing the deaths and racial divisions staring us in the face.
Now we have surpassed 500,000 deaths from COVID-19, and our white evangelical churches are already tired from the minute they spent talking about race. So I have a question for you:
Did your church grieve and lament?
I want to remind you that in Ezekiel, judgment began in the sanctuary.
Did anyone in your church bear the mark of mourning?
If the answer to this question isn’t a firm yes, perhaps because you discount anything coming from the Old Testament, consider these familiar verses in 1 Corinthians 12:
“…There should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.”
Here, then, is my New Testament version of the question:
Did you, your church, or your spiritual leaders suffer when Black, Hispanic, and Asian Christians suffered?
Or did you, your church, or your spiritual leaders spend more time and energy propping up Donald Trump and Trumpism, the latter of which involves minimizing the concerns of people of color as well as the significance of deaths from COVID-19?
This was supposed to be Part 2 of a deep look at a failed attempt at racial unity in a diverse Assemblies of God church in suburban Kansas City. Before I return to my thoughts on why it failed, I want to look at something that happened closer to home.
On Sunday, I listened to a sermon that managed to hit several of the major tenets of Trumpism, from mask-wearing to an arguably self-centered concept of personal freedom. Another takeaway was that Black people should forgive white people and move on, and if they haven’t, it could be that they’re offended and bitter, and therefore they are the ones at fault.
Part of me couldn’t believe I was still hearing this kind of stuff nearly two months after the Capitol riot, when the heart of Trump and Trumpism was exposed for what it really is.
A message like this reinforces divisiveness, enabling one political faction to feel right in their personal convictions while deepening the wounds of others, particularly African-American Christians. I have to ask, is this ideological double-down really worth it? Is this where God is going in 2021?
When I wrote Part 1 of this post, I remarked that what happened in City Center Church in Lenexa, Kansas—which saw an exodus of African-American members after one of the white pastors posted selfies from a pro-Trump rally in Washington, D.C., on the day of the Capitol riot—could have happened at just about any white charismatic church in the United States.
I stand by that statement. Let’s see what we can learn from the City Center Church debacle.
Conviction comes before courage. When white church leaders lack deep conviction about racial justice, they fail to act courageously. Conviction always precedes courage. That is why we see very little courage on the subject of race in white-led charismatic churches today. A little blowback from white church members, and efforts toward racial unity stall.
Conviction comes from identifying with people of color. You can’t get this from a book. Conviction comes from intimate peer relationships with people who are different from you, where you reach the point Ruth did when she spoke of her mother-in-law Naomi, “Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God.” When you have this kind of intimacy with a fellow believer, forged by the Holy Spirit, you will suffer with them, and you will fight for them.
My hunch is that City Center Church had a semblance of racial unity, but there wasn’t enough depth for it to hold up when challenged.
When conviction happens, it results in repentance, publicly and privately, personally and corporately. And repentance always produces fruit.
Real racial unity embraces truth, and truth gives voice to pain. If you won’t allow African-Americans to voice their pain and anger on your church’s journey to racial unity—meaning it isn’t continually stage-managed by white people—you don’t really want unity. You want a photo op. And it’s not your place, as a white person, to tell Black people when it’s time to move on.
Dr. Kenneth C. Ulmer, a Black racial reconciliation pioneer, puts it succinctly: “If I step on your foot, I can’t tell you when it stops hurting. Especially if you’re still standing on it.”
Remember that many white church members were taught a whitewashed version of our nation’s history, such as the leading Christian homeschool curriculum that stated that most slave owners in the South treated their slaves well, a laughable assertion that no responsible scholarship supports. Because white Americans, in my experience, are largely ignorant of our country’s history concerning race and tend to access media that reflect their prejudices, they will need to be re-taught.
White people will almost always dumb down the message, which is why Black Christians need to be equal partners in leading the conversation on race. White people dilute the message to protect themselves. Case in point: When City Center Church was faced with a backlash from people of color in their congregation, the leadership went silent. That was their way of handling the crisis: Shut down the conversation, thereby defaulting to white comfort. Sadly, I have seen this response again and again to the point where I would say it is characteristic of white evangelical churches.
By the way, I took the time to look up the leadership team at City Center Church. Let’s just say I was blinded by the white. I saw one Black pastor in an entry-level position. If senior leadership were relying on this one young man who draws his check from the church to represent the voices of all African-Americans in the congregation, that is unfair, and it won’t work.
Racial unity starts with deep conviction among white people, and particularly white church leaders—because we are the folks who’ve contented ourselves with a dismembered and divided body of Christ. We are the perpetrators, the perpetuators, and the enablers. We must therefore take big, bold steps to address our mess.
I, for one, will no longer be content with cheap attempts at unity that smother difference and herd people toward an empty “Kumbaya” chorus.
For many years I accepted a diet of crumbs concerning efforts toward racial unity, but I will no longer deceive myself into thinking that crumbs are a sumptuous meal.
No.
More.
Crumbs.
Here is a link to Part 3 of this post.
