Crawling Out of Quarantine

Last year, Covid-19 forced us indoors and stripped away the rhythm and predictability of our day-to-day lives. People lost jobs or were forced to take on more work than they could manage. Many faced housing instability and food insecurity. We spent unhealthy amounts of time on video calls. Parents became exhausted trying to strike a balance between constructing productive educational and play schedules for our children…eventually feeling defeated as we acquiesced to requests for more screen time.

Coronavirus imposed many changes and challenges on my family and it has been important for me to acknowledge to God and others that I am struggling. I feel unmotivated, stressed, wearied by social gatherings, and I rarely sleep through the night. My anxiety creates facial tension, jaw clinching, and head aches. And, far too often, I finish my time in prayer feeling unrefreshed and frustrated.

It has also been important for me to acknowledge that, as a white man, I’ve been insulated from much of the pain that has impacted many people from my church family, neighborhood and country.

While the pandemic was unfolding, people of color endured compounding traumas. Black people had to process the quick succession of the Ahmaud Arbery (February 23, 2020), Breonna Taylor (March 13, 2020) and George Floyd (May 25, 2020) murders, all while continuing to hold their historical trauma narrative. In our country’s 16 largest cities, Asian hate crimes increased by 164% and government efforts to build a more effective wall along the Mexico border signaled to our Latino citizens that they are unwanted. It has felt like the country is falling apart as the fault lines of racism in our society have become more exposed.

And now, as we all crawl out of quarantine, those attending racially diverse churches will need to do what the Church in the West has never done well. We will need to love one another. We will be facing a steep learning curve so we will fatigue easily and likely discover that the process will be slow and difficult.

The Bible has been most helpful to me in this season because I have needed to be reminded that God bestows his best blessings on those who faithfully wait on him while enduring difficulty (2 Corinthians 4:16-18; James 1:2-4; 1 Peter 5:10, et al).

In the Old Testament, God had Abram and Sarai wait a lifetime before giving them a son (Genesis 21:1-2) . God promised to give liberation and land to Israel. He then turned a journey that should have taken a few weeks into a circuitous forty year walk before he allowed them to taste their milk and honey. Generation after generation, Israel suffered under the weight of their own unfaithfulness, but God eventually sent his Son to turn a chapter in their historical narrative. Our slow-coming Savior arrived after God’s people labored centuries, often as slaves and exiles, to walk from town to town at a pace that often pained his followers. Jesus stopped to talk with a lady, while a fearful father waited. He let Jairus’ discover that his daughter was dead before he was ready to restore her life (Mark 5:21-43). Jesus did not hurry when he was told of Lazarus’ failing health. Instead he arrived later than expected to weep with Martha and Mary before resurrecting their brother (John 11:1-44).

And, most remarkably, the Son of God did not exclude himself from the Father’s maturing methods (Hebrews 5:8). The suffering Servant’s life ended in betrayal and unimaginable torment (Matthew 26:47-50; 27:27-50), but, once again, resurrection was around the corner.

So now, as we lean in to love one another at in person gatherings, it may not be easy. We will be holding different degrees and types of pain and these differences will often be invisible. There will be moments of awkwardness as we try to navigate each other’s emotional realities. There will be times we say nothing and times we say the wrong thing and our growing pains will come at each other’s expense.

And God will bless his people as he always has…slowly but surely.

On Earth as it is in Heaven

On this day in 1865, federal orders were read in Galveston, Texas to free all slaves. The Emancipation Proclamation had outlawed slavery two and a half years prior, but slave release had not yet been enforced in Texas due to the limited reach of Union troops. One hundred and fifty-five years later and the video recorded over reach of law enforcement is pointing more and more people to the reality that the legal mandate of racial equality continues to go unenforced.

Black lives in the United States have always suffered under the oppressive violence of a racial caste order. No one denies that there have been great advances in civil rights reform and social practice over the past century and a half. To anyone paying attention, however, it is painfully clear that racism persists as a lethal, modern problem.

The practice of lynching African-Americans did not end with the Jim Crow era, it merely adapted to the dominant culture’s shifting socio-political landscape. Lynchings are no longer carried out by men wearing sheets over their heads, but by civilians who assume taking a black life falls under a state’s citizen’s arrest statute or by police officers conducting a sanctioned carotid restraint.

In Letter from Birmingham Jail, Martin Luther King Jr. wrote, “Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever. The yearning for freedom eventually manifests itself.” Our country is experiencing, once again, an oppressed people’s overflowing desire for liberation and equality.

King also expressed that “white moderates [are the] greatest stumbling block in [black people’s] stride toward freedom.” To be a moderate is to avoid extremes of behavior and expression, which is an untenable disposition for any Christian witnessing injustice.

Right now is a time to hate the abhor the evil of racism and it has been this time for a very long time.

We also need to be grieving the deaths of Amadou Diallo, Patrick Dorismond, Ousmane Zongo, Timothy Stansbury, Sean Bell, Oscar Grant, Aiyana Stanley-Jones, Ramarley Graham, Trayvon Martin, Tamon Robinson, Rekia Boyd, Kimani Grey, Sam Dubose, Freddie Gray, Terence Crutcher, Alton Sterling, Jamar Clark, Jeremy McDole, William Chapman II, Walter Scott, Eric Harris, Tamir Rice, Akai Gurley, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, John Crawford III, Ezell Ford, Dante Parker, Michelle Cusseaux, Laquan McDonald, George Mann, Tanisha Anderson, Akai Gurley, Rumain Brisbon, Jerame Reid, Matthew Ajibade, Frank Smart, Natasha McKenna, Tony Robinson, Anthony Hill, Mya Hall, Phillip White, Eric Harris, Alexia Christian, Brendon Glenn, Victor Manuel Larosa, Jonathan Sanders, Joseph Mann, Salvado Ellswood, Sandra Bland, Albert Joseph Davis, Darrius Stewart, Billy Ray Davis, Samuel Dubose, Michael Sabbie, Brian Keith Day, Christian Taylor, Troy Robinson, Asshams Pharaoh Manley, Felix Kumi, Keith Harrison McLeod, Junior Prosper, Lamontez Jones, Paterson Brown, Dominic Hutchinson, Anthony Ashford, Alonzo Smith, Tyree Crawford, India Kager, La’Vante Biggs, Michael Lee Marshall, Jamar Clark, Richard Perkins, Nathaniel Harris Pickett, Benni Lee Signor, Miguel Espinal, Michael Noel, Kevin Matthews, Bettie Jones, Quintonio Legrier, Keith Childress Jr., Janet Wilson, Randy Nelson, Antoine Scott, Wendell Celestine, David Joseph, Calin Roquemore, Dyzhawn Perkins, Christopher Davis, Marco Loud, Peter Gaines, Torrey Robinson, Darius Robinson, Kevin Hicks, Mary Truxillo, Demarcus Semer, Willie Tillman, Terrill Thomas, Sylville Smith, Alton Sterling, Philando Castile, Terence Crutcher, Paul O’Neal, Alteria Woods, Jordan Edwards, Aaron Bailey, Ronell Foster, Stephon Clark, Antwon Rose II, Bothan Jean, Pamela Turner, Dominique Clayton, Atatiana Jefferson, Christopher Whitfield, Christopher Whitfield, Christopher McCorvey, Eric Reason, Michael Lorenzo Dean, Ahmed Arbery, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd…………………………………………………………………………..

And our grief must produce action as well as tears. In a recent NPR article entitled, Evangelicals Grapple with Racism as Sin, Trillia Newbell expressed how she believed the Church needs to be responding to racism, “I want to hear that we are mourning and weeping, that we are active in our community, that we are going to work to love our neighbor as ourselves…” As we weep with those who weep we must also go to work!

Racism must move Christians to not only lament with the psalmist who asks God to tear out the fangs of the wicked (Psalm 58:6), but to go to work, like Job, to break the oppressor’s fangs (Job 29:17). The Church must be a grieving and active protest to injustice and to be this we will need to be dressed to the hilt in God’s love for he alone is able to harmonize grief with hatred of evil and make it virtuous (Colossians 3:14).

If you aren’t protesting the fist of racism as it shakes in the face of God and strikes his Black image bearers then ask God and others to help you get there.

But the Church is to be more than prayerful protestors. We are to be God’s active agents who are passionately and creatively administering love so that his kingdom spreads throughout our communities. John Perkins writes,

I am all for churches being a part of the nonviolent marches and protests that have happened in the wake of violent killings, but these protests happen only after a tragic event has taken place. I want the church to be what prevents these acts from ever happening. I want the church to be the community that is so dedicated to loving our neighbors, to caring for the poor and neglected, and to living out true reconciliation that these killings do not even take place…God has always wanted the vulnerable in society to be cared for. He never intended for them to languish in poverty, abuse, slavery, homelessness, or other types of devastation. When we care for individuals who are trapped in these ways, when we show them love and help them move toward freedom and wholeness, we participate in bringing a little part of God's Kingdom back into alignment with His greater plan.

Injustice and oppression must break the Church’s heart so much that we are stirred up to love and good works until our prayers and actions declare in unison “God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10-11).

*A prejudiced criminal justice system is only one of the burdens oppressing African-Americans. Voter suppression, restricted access to housing and educational resources, a historical trauma narrative, etc. are not shocking enough to garner media coverage, but the Church needs to become educated on the oppression facing people of color. The following books will provide a good introduction to the issue of racial injustice: Dream with Me, Divided by Faith, Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria, The New Jim Crow and The Color of Compromise. If you are a parent to young children here are some book recommendations that you can use to spark ongoing discussion.

Article Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash

On Earth as it is in Heaven

On this day in 1865, federal orders were read in Galveston, Texas to free all slaves. The Emancipation Proclamation had outlawed slavery two and a half years prior, but slave release had not yet been enforced in Texas due to the limited reach of Union troops. One hundred and fifty-five years later and the video recorded over reach of law enforcement is pointing more and more people to the reality that the legal mandate of racial equality continues to go unenforced.

Black lives in the United States have always suffered under the oppressive violence of a racial caste order. No one denies that there have been great advances in civil rights reform and social practice over the past century and a half. To anyone paying attention, however, it is painfully clear that racism persists as a lethal, modern problem.

The practice of lynching African-Americans did not end with the Jim Crow era, it merely adapted to the dominant culture’s shifting socio-political landscape. Lynchings are no longer carried out by men wearing sheets over their heads, but by civilians who assume taking a black life falls under a state’s citizen’s arrest statute or by police officers conducting a sanctioned carotid restraint.

In Letter from Birmingham Jail, Martin Luther King Jr. wrote, “Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever. The yearning for freedom eventually manifests itself.” Our country is experiencing, once again, an oppressed people’s overflowing desire for liberation and equality.

King also expressed that “white moderates [are the] greatest stumbling block in [black people’s] stride toward freedom.” To be a moderate is to avoid extremes of behavior and expression, which is an untenable disposition for any Christian witnessing injustice.

Right now is a time to abhor the evil of racism and it has been this time for a very long time.

We also need to be grieving the deaths of Amadou Diallo, Patrick Dorismond, Ousmane Zongo, Timothy Stansbury, Sean Bell, Oscar Grant, Aiyana Stanley-Jones, Ramarley Graham, Trayvon Martin, Tamon Robinson, Rekia Boyd, Kimani Grey, Sam Dubose, Freddie Gray, Terence Crutcher, Alton Sterling, Jamar Clark, Jeremy McDole, William Chapman II, Walter Scott, Eric Harris, Tamir Rice, Akai Gurley, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, John Crawford III, Ezell Ford, Dante Parker, Michelle Cusseaux, Laquan McDonald, George Mann, Tanisha Anderson, Akai Gurley, Rumain Brisbon, Jerame Reid, Matthew Ajibade, Frank Smart, Natasha McKenna, Tony Robinson, Anthony Hill, Mya Hall, Phillip White, Eric Harris, Alexia Christian, Brendon Glenn, Victor Manuel Larosa, Jonathan Sanders, Joseph Mann, Salvado Ellswood, Sandra Bland, Albert Joseph Davis, Darrius Stewart, Billy Ray Davis, Samuel Dubose, Michael Sabbie, Brian Keith Day, Christian Taylor, Troy Robinson, Asshams Pharaoh Manley, Felix Kumi, Keith Harrison McLeod, Junior Prosper, Lamontez Jones, Paterson Brown, Dominic Hutchinson, Anthony Ashford, Alonzo Smith, Tyree Crawford, India Kager, La’Vante Biggs, Michael Lee Marshall, Jamar Clark, Richard Perkins, Nathaniel Harris Pickett, Benni Lee Signor, Miguel Espinal, Michael Noel, Kevin Matthews, Bettie Jones, Quintonio Legrier, Keith Childress Jr., Janet Wilson, Randy Nelson, Antoine Scott, Wendell Celestine, David Joseph, Calin Roquemore, Dyzhawn Perkins, Christopher Davis, Marco Loud, Peter Gaines, Torrey Robinson, Darius Robinson, Kevin Hicks, Mary Truxillo, Demarcus Semer, Willie Tillman, Terrill Thomas, Sylville Smith, Alton Sterling, Philando Castile, Terence Crutcher, Paul O’Neal, Alteria Woods, Jordan Edwards, Aaron Bailey, Ronell Foster, Stephon Clark, Antwon Rose II, Bothan Jean, Pamela Turner, Dominique Clayton, Atatiana Jefferson, Christopher Whitfield, Christopher Whitfield, Christopher McCorvey, Eric Reason, Michael Lorenzo Dean, Ahmed Arbery, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd…………………………………………………………………………..

And our grief must produce action as well as tears. In a recent NPR article entitled, Evangelicals Grapple with Racism as Sin, Trillia Newbell expressed how she believed the Church needs to be responding to racism, “I want to hear that we are mourning and weeping, that we are active in our community, that we are going to work to love our neighbor as ourselves…” As we weep with those who weep we must also go to work!

Racism must move Christians to not only lament with the psalmist who asks God to tear out the fangs of the wicked (Psalm 58:6), but to go to work, like Job, to break the oppressor’s fangs (Job 29:17). The Church must be a grieving and active protest to injustice and to be this we will need to be dressed to the hilt in God’s love for he alone is able to harmonize grief with hatred of evil and make it virtuous (Colossians 3:14).

If you aren’t protesting the fist of racism as it shakes in the face of God and strikes his Black image bearers then ask God and others to help you get there.

But the Church is to be more than prayerful protestors. We are to be God’s active agents who are passionately and creatively administering love so that his kingdom spreads throughout our communities. John Perkins writes,

I am all for churches being a part of the nonviolent marches and protests that have happened in the wake of violent killings, but these protests happen only after a tragic event has taken place. I want the church to be what prevents these acts from ever happening. I want the church to be the community that is so dedicated to loving our neighbors, to caring for the poor and neglected, and to living out true reconciliation that these killings do not even take place…God has always wanted the vulnerable in society to be cared for. He never intended for them to languish in poverty, abuse, slavery, homelessness, or other types of devastation. When we care for individuals who are trapped in these ways, when we show them love and help them move toward freedom and wholeness, we participate in bringing a little part of God's Kingdom back into alignment with His greater plan.

Injustice and oppression must break the Church’s heart so much that we are stirred up to love and good works until our prayers and actions declare in unison “God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10-11).

*A prejudiced criminal justice system is only one of the burdens oppressing African-Americans. Voter suppression, restricted access to housing and educational resources, a historical trauma narrative, etc. are not shocking enough to garner media coverage, but the Church needs to become educated on the oppression facing people of color. The following books will provide a good introduction to the issue of racial injustice: Dream with Me, Divided by Faith, Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria, The New Jim Crow and The Color of Compromise. If you are a parent to young children here are some book recommendations that you can use to spark ongoing discussion.

Article Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash

Sexual Abuse Care: A Resource for Local Churches

A recent study estimates that 50% of the U.S. population suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).  A significant portion of sufferers are survivors of sexual abuse. Statistics show that 81% of women and 43% of men in America experience some form of sexual harassment and/or assault and 1 in 5 women experience completed or attempted rape during their lifetime. Commenting on the impact of trauma, Bessel van der Kolk writes, “Such experiences inevitably leave traces on minds, emotions, and even on biology. Sadly, trauma sufferers frequently pass on their stress to their partners and children.”  Traumatic experiences are revisited in conscious and subconscious memories that disturb sleep, deplete motivation, disorder emotions and negatively reshape how people relate to those around them.

Those who have not suffered sexual trauma cannot fully comprehend what it means to be physically and emotionally violated. This is one of the reasons why the abused tend to be guarded. Many do not talk to others about their pain and distress because they do not expect to be understood. Others are silent for fear of being disbelieved or blamed. Abusers tend to hold a lot of power at individual and/or institutional levels, which has long been used for protection against sexual allegations.

Silence, however, deepens the effect of the trauma and exacerbates the symptoms. Those who have successfully helped trauma survivors universally agree that there is a common path to recovery. Sufferers must experience a recurring sense of safety, reconstruct the traumatic event/s and reconnect with their community.

Christians who need help, however, often do not know where to turn. Local church communities have too often been the place where their abuse has occurred and even healthy churches are rarely equipped to care for those holding layered, hidden and evasive abuse wounds.

In an effort to help equip local churches, the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) has created Caring Well, an initiative designed to educate local churches on abuse prevention and care. The free Introductory Guide and 12 week curriculum will help church leaders implement best practices as well as protective policies (access the ebook and videos here). As an additional resource, the main stage sessions from 2019’s Caring Well conference are available for viewing here.

Article Photo by Susan Wilkinson on Unsplash

Sexual Abuse Care: A Resource for Local Churches

A recent study estimates that 50% of the U.S. population suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).  A significant portion of sufferers are survivors of sexual abuse. Statistics show that 81% of women and 43% of men in America experience some form of sexual harassment and/or assault and 1 in 5 women experience completed or attempted rape during their lifetime. Commenting on the impact of trauma, Bessel van der Kolk writes, “Such experiences inevitably leave traces on minds, emotions, and even on biology. Sadly, trauma sufferers frequently pass on their stress to their partners and children.”  Traumatic experiences are revisited in conscious and subconscious memories that disturb sleep, deplete motivation, disorder emotions and negatively reshape how people relate to those around them.

Those who have not suffered sexual trauma cannot fully comprehend what it means to be physically and emotionally violated. This is one of the reasons why the abused tend to be guarded. Many do not talk to others about their pain and distress because they do not expect to be understood. Others are silent for fear of being disbelieved or blamed. Abusers tend to hold a lot of power at individual and/or institutional levels, which has long been used for protection against sexual allegations.

Silence, however, deepens the effect of the trauma and exacerbates the symptoms. Those who have successfully helped trauma survivors universally agree that there is a common path to recovery. Sufferers must experience a recurring sense of safety, reconstruct the traumatic event/s and reconnect with their community.

Christians who need help, however, often do not know where to turn. Local church communities have too often been the place where their abuse has occurred and even healthy churches are rarely equipped to care for those holding layered, hidden and evasive abuse wounds.

In an effort to help equip local churches, the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) has created Caring Well, an initiative designed to educate local churches on abuse prevention and care. The free Introductory Guide and 12 week curriculum will help church leaders implement best practices as well as protective policies (access the ebook and videos here). As an additional resource, the main stage sessions from 2019’s Caring Well conference are available for viewing here.

Article Photo by Susan Wilkinson on Unsplash