I recently listened to the most eye opening lecture I have ever heard on the issues of race and racial marginalization. In this post I want to distill one part of the lecture which explained why minorities continually level the charge of racism against the dominant culture of white Americans.
Just Thinking
Tid-bits and Trifles on Faith, Culture, and Church from Whitney Clayton
The Reality of Oppression
In the past month, God has awakened me to my failure as Christian in issues of race and oppression. White people, hear me out. I think we have reached a point where we have to open ourselves to some very uncomfortable conversations. I am totally unqualified to speak well on this topic, so listen to the voices of wiser and more articulate men than me.
My only suggestion is that you take these voices seriously. Listen with ears willing to hear hard truths. In the safety of your home, at your computer, hear these voices crying out for justice, but listen more intently to the still small voice in your spirit. Ask God to search you, and show you any evil ways in you. I did. And I am still reeling from the violent shift I have experienced in my perception of my world.
What follows is probably the most eye opening thing I have ever heard or seen on the issue of power structure, systemic oppression, and the role of Christ in those issues.
You can download the audio here if you want to listen to it on the go.
These are posts from Thabiti Anyabwile, a pastor at Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, DC. The first provides some rejoinders to the most common reactions of the white community to issues like Ferguson.
Four Common But Misleading Themes in Ferguson-Like Times
The second clarifies what justice really looks like, and begs the question of whether habitual police violence serves as an intensional definition.
One Man’s Justice Another Man’s Nightmare: It Really Could Have Been Me
Voddie Baucham does an excellent job of speaking as a black man, to the black community, which is to say that white people should be very cautious to repeat his arguments. You can laugh at your dad, but when someone else does, we come in swinging. So hear the voices of the black community without repeating their words.
Read this post from Russel Moore about Garner in New York. No matter what issues are brought up, a man holding up his hands and asking for mercy should never die over selling a pack of cigarettes. Watching the video of his death made one thing undeniable to me; race relations cannot be written off any longer.
Eric Garner and the Call for Justice
Lastly, I want to leave you with a personal story.
When Barack Obama was running for President in ’08, I was attending a Bible college in Louisville, Kentucky. I had a conversation with an African American student in my class, a man in his mid 40’s who told me he was voting for Obama, because being black meant more than voting for Christian values. When I challenged that idea, his response rocked my world.
He told me that I could never understand what it was like to see a man with dark skin leading our country. I pretty much ignored that statement, having heard it a thousand times before, but what he said next was a first for me. He told me that I could never understand him, because I never had a grandfather who was lynched on the Valhalla Golf Course, about thirty minutes away from where we stood.
He was right. I could not understand that. I had gone to that golf course for recreation, watching a Major tournament not long before.
My recreation spot was his grandfather’s instrument of torture and death.
The majority cannot understand the minority, but frequently the minority knows all too well the workings of the majority. And it hurts to hear the truth.
The Restorative Power of Relationships
I am an introvert. This means that being around people feels like performing, and performances are draining. I am also a pastor, which means people are also my job/passion/calling. Therefore, I do a lot of draining things involving people.
And make no mistake, people drain my energy.
But there are some times where people are my restoration. And I think introverts everywhere need to hear this truth. Sometimes, when you have spent yourself in the daily pursuits of life – work relationships, family interactions, other parents at after school activities, your talkative cashier when the self checkout lanes are closed, that annoying neighbor who waits to pounce on you as soon as you open the door – you still need people.
You just need the right people.
You need intentional relationships, not just circumstantial relationships.
One of the worst decisions introverts can make is to sequester themselves from intentional relationships because circumstantial relationships drain them.
Last night I was reminded of the restorative power of people when my wife and I entertained 8 adults and 6 children in our little house. 14 people in a small space for three hours – an introvert’s worst nightmare! Especially when the previous two days were filled with phone calls and conversations with a lot of people. But the people coming over were not circumstantial relationships; they are my intentional circle. And God used them to restore my energy, not drain it.
Introverts, hear me, the right relationships have the ability to recharge you more than any amount of alone time could. Just make sure they are the right relationships.
We’re Planting a Church
For the past 9 months, my wife and I have been exploring what we believed to be a call from God to plant a church. For the past four months, we have known where and a general when. But it is only since yesterday that we can speak openly and confidently about it. That is because yesterday, we went public. Yesterday, my sermon, to the church I have known and loved for the last half decade, was a testimony of God’s plan for my family to leave our church family.
It is a strange thing to look at a group of people you have prayed for, served, and loved for 5 years and tell them God has called you elsewhere. It feels almost like abandonment. I feel like a bad parent. I am telling my kids I have loved them, but God has given me a greater love somewhere else. It just feels like I should feel bad, but I don’t.
I know that God has called us forward. I also know that God will call others forward in our absence. This is how God’s kingdom works. God is the only irreplaceable person in any church.
SO in our movement forward, God is already moving behind us. He is good.
Suffering and the Weight of Glory
I have been reflecting for the last few days on the issue of suffering. This is due in large part to a tragic, viral article about a young woman named Brittany Maynard. She is a beautiful young woman dying of cancer. In response to Brittany’s story, another young woman, Kara Tippetts, wrote a letter explaining her similarly tragic story of an impossible fight against a cancer that she will not win.
Both stories are heartbreaking. In reading both, I see the power of worldview at play. Both women see the battle with death looming in their future, but their responses could scarcely be more different.
Living in Light of Eternity
My life does not end at my death. That is the glorious reality of the Christian faith. Adam brought death into this world, and Jesus, the second Adam, absorbed death into himself, offering eternal life to all who find their hope in him. He is my only hope, and I therefore have the promise of life everlasting.
Eternal life is truth, and death stands as a small barrier over which we all climb into eternity.
Almost all people fear death, the great equalizer of all men, the fight no mere man can win, the great destroyer of hope, health, and happiness, the unspoken motivation for much of our world’s workings, the most certain end to the life which every man shares. Death. Death is the enemy of mankind. But he is an enemy on the long slow walk to his own death at the hands of the life of all men, Christ.
If this is true, what then should I fear in this world?
I think the only logical answer is that I should fear God. And my fear should be empowering. It should empower me to live a life marked by fearlessness of all lesser things than God. Which equals everything.
Should I fear failure? No, fear God.
Should I fear ridicule? No, fear God.
Should I fear disappointing those around me? No, fear God.
Putting fear in its rightful place propels me to try something new. I can let go of my fear, and when I let go, I am free to grasp tightly onto God. I am free to try things others deem risky. I am free to follow wherever my shepherd leads. I am free to run as fast as I can into the darkness of uncertainty with confidence in my stride.
Christian, Christ has taken your greatest danger and has made it into a door to your greatest good. Run towards that door with abandon. Cover as much ground as you possibly can, and try something great for God.
What is the worst that could happen?
Thinking It Through: Death by Living, Chapter 1
In this series of Thinking It Through, we will be thinking through the book Death By Living, by N.D. Wilson. This series is meant to share what has shaped me and influence your future shape as well.
One Sentence Theme of Chapter 1: Life is a story, but the story is bigger than you think, which makes God both bigger and smaller than you’d expect.
Explanation: One of Wilson’s most consistent themes throughout Death By Living is reading your story in context with the stories which led to your story. Wilson traces this theme through the narratives of his grandparents and the crucial points at which various people and events radically altered their fate (and his, by extension). In the opening chapter, it seems Wilson’s aims to shake the dust off of Story, our banner-worthy buzzword, and examine it with fresh eyes.
“Story, story, my life is a story,” says the hipster to his Twitter feed.
Right. Narrative. Story. Boy, it sounds nice and groovy, but it’s coming from someone who barely has enough of an attention span to get through a Web clip of over four minutes, and may the postmodern gods show their mercy if the atmospheric WiFi wanes or his little browser starts buffering.
Thinking It Through: N.D. Wilson’s book, Death by Living
I read a lot of books. I am almost embarrassed to buy new books for the incredulous tone I will hear in my wife’s voice as she exclaims “more books!?!”
Almost.
Not quite. So, I go on with my buying. Now I have encountered many great books throughout my life. Here is a brief list of the ones that stand out in my mind.
- A Severe Mercy by Sheldon Vanauken for the beauty of his writing and the profundity both of his life experience and his correspondence with C.S. Lewis.
- The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis for the joy of discovering allegory as a little child.
- Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis for introducing me to the intellectual rigor supporting the Christian faith.
- 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Steven Covey for helping me learn to handle responsibilities as a leader.
- Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand for exposing my 15 year old self to the power of story in promoting philosophy.
- The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis and Anthem by Ayn Rand for showing how perspective and language can engage a reader.
- Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card for giving me my first grasp of pluralism, long before pluralism was cool.
- The Harry Potter Series by J.K. Rowling for awakening me to the incredible, world building power of imagination.
- John Grisham for thrilling me, and Dean Koontz for scaring me.
- Desiring God by John Piper for redirecting my perception of God, and forever changing my pursuit of him (this one is a must read if you have not).
- The myriad of classics and all the virtues, counter-virtues, and character traits they teach: 1984, Lord of the Flies, Dracula, The Odyssey, Edith Hamilton’s Greek Mythology, Pilgrim’s Progress, and more.
These are just the ones that popped into my mind as I wrote. The list could go on and on and on. The books we read become part of our lives, and I want my life to be as big as I can make it! So I read.
A number of years ago, I stumbled upon a Christian writer by the name of G.K. Chesterton who introduced me to something I had not experienced before – the power of artful prose. Chesterton was a master of blending humor with profound insight through witty and winsome turns of phrase. His writing was artful. It was delightful. Chesterton gave me an appreciation for the unique voice of a truly gifted writer. It was a step that led me to appreciate the book I will be writing about for the next few posts: Death By Living.
N.D. Wilson, the author of Death By Living, has the most unique voice I have ever read. I am no literary critic, so I don’t even know how to categorize his writing style other than to say it is a precisely directed stream of conscious poem written in prose. His flow of thought shifts from the present to the past, from philosophy to storytelling, from somber reflection to hilarious irony. It is one of the truly unique books I have ever read.
Aside from his writing, which is worth reading regardless of the content, the content is dumbfounding. What I mean is that Wilson walks you through the story of his life and invites you to consider your own. He sets his story firmly in the squishy middle of a much bigger story involving illiterate farm boys, WWII bomber raids, and children engrossed in Lego wars. His story also includes death, as all of ours will. He invites you to join him in considering the implications of living a life worth dying for.
In short, this book made me feel inspiration, wonder, and whimsy unlike any other book I have read. As such, I want to go back and think my way through it, which is to say, I want to write my way through it. If you have not read it, I hope my thoughts can inspire you to buy it and put it on your list.
I will leave you with an exhortation/warning of Wilson’s from his introduction to Death By Living:
Grab a rented raft, hop in the rinkiest-dinkiest sea kayak you can find. Pull on a puffy orange life vest and buckle it (rather awkwardly) between your legs. Brandish your paddle. Ignore all sunscreen. By the time we’re done, you’ll be chafed in such new and innovative ways that the familiarity of a sunburn just might be a comfort, a little tingling reassurance that you are still you.
Focus as You Fast
Today, the youth ministry at my church is fasting all day in preparation for an event tonight that involves 6 hours of INTENSE bible study known as Secret Church, led by Birmingham pastor David Platt. A number of adults in our church have also committed to fast today, praying for our students. It is a beautiful thing to see students denying themselves in pursuit of God, and even more beautiful to hear of others who are denying themselves on the behalf of those students. I am praying for both the students and those joining them today, and I thought of a passage from C.S. Lewis that applies to the spiritual practice of fasting. I want to share it with you to keep you focused as you fast.
Leadership Issues: Delegation
I am not a big military buff. It just isn’t an interest of mine. But I remember hearing a few years ago about some missiles our military uses that have the accuracy to be fired one after the other, hitting successive targets within a building. Meaning, the first missile hits the outer door and the second enters the door and hits the next target. I don’t know much about weaponry, but that is cool.
It must make warfare much easier to be able to push a button and have your enemy blown up.
As a leader, I have a tendency to treat my coworkers and direct reports like those missiles. I point you in the right direction, push you off, and never look back. It is a fire and forget strategy.
It is definitely the easiest way to delegate, but there is one problem. Fire and forget delegation works a lot like fire and forget missiles: both of them blow stuff up.
Just Thinking 