I am Black. I am Christian. Until recently, I have never viewed those two states of being to be in conflict with each other.
One is a made up social category that doesn’t really exist, and the other is... oh wait... yeah, I guess they both are.
One makes me feel a part of a collective struggle for the greater good, and the other leaves me shaking my head in frustration.
The struggle is blackness. The frustration is faith.
My Christian heart reads Genesis 1:27 and knows that all men are equal, all men are divine. My Black soul reminds me that The Garden was in Africa, and dirt is brown.
My black soul reads a book about Africans and Arabs and, sitting in church on Sunday, whispers: “Where did all these white folk come from?”
She forces me online late at night and laughs with self righteous glee when I discover that the image of Jesus used in most churches today was modeled after Cesare Borgia, son of the first Pope.
She rolls her eyes at bible verses like 1 John 3:17, John 8:32, Mark 12:31. She knows white Christians don’t really mean that. Especially when it comes to her people.
She is building a case, her evidence compelling and sound. She is trying to convict my faith.
My Christian heart tells me to turn the other cheek. She kindly mentions that I love my black brothers and sisters, even in their ignorance. Surely I can do the same for whites?
My Black soul flashes me an image of black bodies hanging from rafters built by black hands, put there by white Christians.
My Black soul is angry, at myself, at America, but mostly at Christians. She sees conspiracy before charity in every situation. When a white sister at my church suggests we seek out fair trade vendors for our holiday bazaar, she hears:
“Black people just trying to earn a living aren’t good enough for us to spend our Christian money with. Good works and charity apply to Libya, but not East Cleveland.”
When another group plans an activity during black history month, she says:
“See? We black folk can’t have nothing! ‘The man’ takes everything, even our time slot!”
When the Tamir Rice judgement is released at 8 PM on a Saturday night, at the end of a three week spree of gang violence, and no one bats an eye she scoffs:
“How convenient. They cointelpro’d us into silence, and now another killer cop is running free.”
My Christian heart hangs in like a champ. She, the eternal believer says that surely a man that risks his lives to protect others did not volunteer for the job because he likes to kill blacks.
My black soul objects, loudly and often. She claims the single greatest paradox in American Christianity is receiving the titular of ‘good’ while committing, through commission or omission, sins against black and brown bodies.
She wanted me to know that she can use my pretty words to communicate just as well as the brashness her own. Then she shows me, in the words of others, exactly what she means:
“ They do not bear arms, and do not know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge and cut themselves out of ignorance. They have no iron. Their spears are made of cane... . They would make fine servants.... With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want.” -Christopher Columbus
“Irish and French Catholics have argued that Columbus, who “brought the Christian faith to half the world,” should be named a saint.” - Christianity Today
“Slaveholders hide themselves behind the church. A more praying, preaching, psalm-singing people cannot be found than the slaveholders at the south.” - William Wells Brown
“...moral or social equality between the different races...does not in fact exist, and never can. The God of nature made it otherwise, and no human law can produce it, and no human tribunal can enforce it. There are gradations and classes throughout the universe. From the tallest archangel in Heaven, down to the meanest reptile on earth, moral and social inequalities exist, and must continue to exist throughout all eternity." - GA Supreme Court, 1869
“Our puny sentimentalism has caused us to forget that a human life is sacred only when it may be of some use to itself and to the world.” - Helen Keller
And with the blind woman’s revelation, I finally begin to see. Christianity’s central truth has become a festering wound to black America: All (wo)men are equal in Christ, but in America, you have to do some good to matter.
The same excuse that a Christian ‘Miracle Worker’ used to justify her defense of the medical practice that forcibly sterilized over sixty thousand black, brown, and mentally challenged Americans is what white Christians use today to turn a blind eye to a blatantly white supremacist society.
So when my Black soul shouts says “BLACK LIVES MATTER”, my Christian heart auto-corrects:
“All lives matter.”
Which is really just code for: “Prove it.”
If black neighborhoods are the most dangerous ones, and black schools are the worst, and black people kill other black people, isn’t that all more important than the few ‘bad’ cops that kill black people?
Nope.
Because at the end of the day, police officers have taken up a sworn duty to protect and serve, like Christians have been charged with loving and uniting.
I’m calling my Christianity on the carpet and challenging Christians to flip the burden of proof from the outside world to ourselves.
Yes, even me.
We have to start being as concerned about our local impact as our global impact.
We have to stop asking why is it like that and start asking how can we change it?
We have to stop looking for conspiracies and start looking for co-conspirators.
I go to church because I believe in what Margaret Mead so famously stated: “a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.”
People of faith acting in concert (plus a miracle or two) are the only force strong enough to defeat racism. I know this, heart and soul.
And that’s why my Christian heart was never worried. She knew all along her way was the only one that would work. She understands that my Black soul is only angry because of the depth of my faith, in humanity, in divinity. She gets that we were never separate, always one.
She’s deep like that.
Mostly, she’s practical, and she knows that imperfect beings can’t follow a perfect law perfectly, all the time. But we can keep trying to prove ourselves, always remembering where we came from:
“And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.” - Genesis 1:31
