The Shack and a God of Color

When God was portrayed in William P. Young’s bestselling novel The Shack as a black woman it got some white conservatives upset. The same thing happened again last month when the film adaptation was released starring Octavia Spencer (The Help, Hidden Figures) as God, or “Papa” as she is referred to in the Shack. Apparently when God is portrayed as a lion, that’s totally fine, but when God is portrayed as a black woman this gets some people quite offended. Color me unsurprised.

I haven’t seen the movie yet, and I’m a little bit afraid that it will be a bit too sappy and on the nose for my own personal taste. But I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the idea of depicting God as a black woman, and I’m convinced there is something quite profound there, if we are willing to look past the “offense of the cross” to see it.

Of course historically, Jesus was unquestionably a person of color, despite the many depictions of him as a blond-haired blue-eyed white man. But there is something much deeper going on than skin color. Jesus explicitly chose to associate with those who were at the bottom of society, those who were considered the “least of these.” To proclaim Jesus as Lord is to say that the Caesar is not. It means the dethroning of the god of empire, dominance, force, wealth. As Jürgen Moltmann put it,

“For Christ's sake I am an atheist, an atheist in respect to the gods of the world and world history, the Caesars and the political demigods who follow them. Only a Christian can be a good atheist.” (The Crucified God, p. 195)

I own a great debt to what I have learned from white male theologians like Moltmann. But I feel compelled to go in a more radical direction. When I look at how white evangelicals in America have abandoned Jesus to follow empire, mammon, hatred, and state violence, I feel tempted to become an atheist, and I certainly do declare with Moltmann my categorical rejection of their false gospel. While in the past I could think that these “hyper-Calvinists” where perhaps a loud and angry minority, I cannot ignore that 80% of evangelicals voted for Trump. 

For decades I have, like many others, attempted to walk a middle ground, stressing that liberals and conservatives both have valid perspectives, and also both have some big blind spots. However, there has been a major shift within conservative Republicanism over the last several years culminating in the most recent political election.  This shift is characterized by a movement away from compassion towards an outright fostering of hatred and fear, seeing those from other races, other countries, other religions as the “enemy.” Really it is a move away from democracy towards something more akin to dictatorship. In light of this, I simply cannot in good conscience maintain a position of being “in the radical middle” politically and socially. I feel that I have a moral obligation to categorically name that movement as representing the polar opposite of Christ and his kingdom values, and openly opposing it in Jesus' name. I refuse to normalize this by acting as if voting for Trump was a legitimate choice for followers of Jesus to make. This is not politics as usual where there is room to be neutral. There is no place to watch from the sidelines, as if I were morally above it all. If I care for the least, as Jesus does, I must stand with them. With the incarnation Jesus shows that holiness does not remain separate, detached and above it all, rather purity requires getting dirty.

Because of this decline of conservative politics into moral bankruptcy, and the evangelical church's blindly following them into this seemingly bottomless pit, I find myself often exclaiming in disbelief, “What is wrong with the church?!” But as I ask this, I have to stop and wonder why it is that I assume that this is the church? As you may be aware, when national statistics refer to “evangelicals,” they exclusively mean white evangelicals. Black evangelicals are not counted. So when I exclaim, “What’s wrong with the church?” or “Why does the church not care about social justice?” there are plenty of people of color who could answer back “Excuse me? What church are you talking about?”

To put things in the starkest of terms, it’s clear that when slave owners worshiped God in their Christian churches, they saw a very different God, a very different Jesus, than their slaves did when they worshiped God in their churches. For those slaves, Jesus was the one who had come to set the captives free. Knowing what I do about the historical Jesus as well as the Jesus of the New Testament, I can say unequivocally that the slaves were much more in line with the real Jesus.

We don’t have institutional slavery anymore in America, and I used to think that racism was a thing of the past, too. Something that we fixed back in the 1960s. Or at least it was something you could only still find in the deep south. I was so very wrong. Michelle Alexander opened my eyes to see the extent of how profoundly broken our criminal justice system is, as well as how wide-spread systemic racism is within our nation’s police force. I’ve learned that nearly all black parents need to talk to their children about how not to get killed by police. As a parent myself that really hit me hard.

While I have just woken up to this disturbing reality, it’s something African Americans have been living with for... well, for my entire life. I see the angry white atheists, and believe me, I understand their righteous anger. But I don’t want to be like that. I don’t want to convert to atheism, even in a Moltmannian “Christian atheist” way. I’m convinced that’s a very “white guy” thing to do. I want to do something more radical, and I hope more life-giving. I want to convert and become a black Christian. In fact, I’d like to become a black female Christian. Can I do that? Well, I’m just going to.

Of course I can’t change my skin color (I can’t even get a tan). But I do want to sit at the feet of people of color, and especially of women, and learn from their faith. I’ve done that already in an intellectual way over the years, having read lots of feminist and black liberation theology, and have found this to be tremendously rewarding to learn from this “theology from the margins.” But I want to take that to a deeper place. I feel honestly like my own faith depends on it. 

My faith in the “church” I have known as a white evangelical has been shattered. I no longer believe in that religion. But I see hope in another church. I want to learn how they can hold on to hope in the face of so much injustice. I want to learn to see through their eyes, to learn how to channel this anger and hurt and fear into action for good in the face of an empire that calls itself “Christian” when it is clearly not. I want to worship and trust in the God they have seen all along. 

I am not talking about theology here, about something I can do in my head and in isolation. I am talking about church, about community, about learning from the lived example of others who have been walking for a long time in the place where I have only begun to walk.

Doing Easter as a "Done"

All across the progressive Christian Twitterverse I see happy tweets of folks anticipating Easter. But I have very mixed feelings about it all. Holidays like Easter and Christmas always leave me feeling that way. I know I’m supposed to really be into it. But sometimes it feels more like opening an old wound. It feels disconnected rather than joyous.

That’s because I am what is known as a “Done.” We are the legions of people who went to church for decades, faithfully attending every service, home group, Bible study, and members meeting. But now we are just done with it. We are not done with God or Jesus mind you. But we are definitely done with church.

It’s a lonely place to be because I find that even my progressive Christian friends feel a need to “re-church” me. What they don’t seem to get is that the reason I don’t go is not because I am bitter or backslidden. It’s not because I think I’m superior, or that I don’t need community. It’s because I deeply believe in community and in church. It's a long story, but it comes down to looking for all the things that church is supposed to be, looking for community, looking for Koinonea, and not finding it. 

After years and years of looking for that, what I am "done" with is, I'm done with pretending. I'm done with settling for the fake and the hollow. That's a hard choice I made after lots of struggle and prayer. That kind of choice feels is especially hard on times like Easter.

There’s not much talk about this among progressive Christians. I remember being really excited to read Rachel Held Evan’s new book Searching for Sunday, thinking that maybe she was going through the same things I was. But in the end ... warning: spoiler alert ... she ends up deciding that she wants to go to a Mainline church instead of her Evangelical one.

I just can’t do that. 

Believe me, I’ve tried... and tried and tried and tried. But I feel completely out of place there, like a fish out of water. Same thing goes for Orthodox churches. I just can’t. I'm honestly glad Rachel found her Sunday, but I never did.

Let me stress that I know that lots of folks have found homes in these churches like Rachel has. If that's your story then that’s great. Really, it is. But it just does not work for me, and does not work for a lot of us. So I’m homeless. I’m a “Done.” 

Most of the time that’s okay. But Easter is one of the times in the year where all those longings get stirred up. Listening to all the happy tweets, it can feel sort of like I’m the Grinch sitting on Mt. Crumpit listening to all the little Whos singing their happy carols.

Go ahead little Whos, and keep singing. I like your songs. 

But I’m writing just in case maybe there’s someone else out there who feels the same. I'm writing to all the other "Dones" this Easter. I don’t have a solution for you, but I can tell you that you are not alone. I want to say to all of us that if the risen Jesus could come and find Thomas, that same risen Jesus can find you and me wherever we are at, too. Here’s hoping.

What church do you go to?

Every so often I get an email with someone asking what church I go to. That is, they want to know where they can find a church that teaches the kind of stuff I do on this blog so that they can go there. So I thought I'd try and address that.

I'll start with the quick answer: the denomination that I feel most at home in is the Vineyard since it is charismatic like me, but with a real focus on grace and caring for people. If I had to pick one church that really gets grace more than any other, it would be Jay Baker's Revolution NYC. Jay is kind of a hero to me because he is able to be so open, real, and always focused on grace.

Now let me make two points. First, I don't go to either of these churches. I don't go to Revolution NYC because it is on the other side of the country. I don't go to a Vineyard church either because while there a lot of them, there are none in the city I live in. Second, I really don't know if Jay or the Vineyard teach Christus Victor as opposed to Penal Substitution. I'm not sure that's so important. What they do teach is grace, grace, grace. So what I would recommend to folks looking for a church is not to try and find one that teaches all the "right" stuff (isn't that focus part of the problem?) but rather to find a church that knows about grace. That is, a church where you can be real, where you can ask questions, where you can struggle, where they know we are all messed up and all need God's amazing transforming love.

Right now I'm going to a Presbyterian church. The pastor of that church happens to agree with me on being opposed to penal substitution, (which is kind of surprising since Presbyterians are Calvinist!) but that is not really why I go there. I go there because of the focus on grace. There are folks who believe in penal substitutions who are totally focused on grace (John Wesley and Charles Spurgeon come to mind for me), and then there are folks who instead have a gospel of fear, guilt, and legalism. It's the fruits that matter here, not the doctrinal statements. Or perhaps more accurately, its not what you say so much as it is how you walk that out that matters. So that's my advice for people looking for a chruch: find a church where you can be real and honest that is focused on grace. Don't focus so much on the Sunday sermon (not that it doesn't matter!) as you do on having real relationships with people in that church (small groups are often a good way to do that).

Before I started going to my current church we were going to a Baptist church. The pastor there was this wonderful loving guy, but he died sadly, and they brought in a new guy. This new guy believed all the same things, but he was angry, arrogant, uncompassionate, and preached that message of condemnation every week. It was the classic "God hates you and has a wonderful plan for your life" alter call to a religion of fear. Yuck.

Now, there are a lot of things that I did not agree with in that Baptist church with the loving pastor, and there are a lot I don't agree with in the church I go to now. If you can find a church that "gets it all right" that's great, but I never have. What I try to do instead is find a place that has the fruits of grace. A place that is imperfect (like I am!), but where we can all come and be real and show grace and love to each other as we work to grow closer to Jesus and love others like he loves us.

Now I'm sure I'm oversimplifying things somewhat. After all, if doctrine did not matter I guess I would not spend so much time talking about it on this blog. I also don't want to imply that we should just go to churches that are "nice". That's not what grace is about because that's fake. The point I'm trying to make is you really can't judge a church by their denominational badge, or statement of faith, or compelling web page, or innovative worship service. You need to get to know a community of people who, like a family, will be imperfect, but hopefully, like a family, will also really love each other.

I wish I could give a more straightforward answer. Maybe a couple links to some awesome churches right by where you live. But the reality is that I don't have some super fantastic church over here where the grass is greener. I struggle with this just like you do. I'm pretty sure we all do. It's really pretty simple: love God with all your heart, and love your neighbor like you love yourself. But that's so hard to find. It seems that most churches either are good at being compassionate, but leave out the focus on a close relationship with God (most mainline churches); or they are good at that, but then get too legalistic (most Evangelical churches). Can't we do both?

The good news is I do see a real move towards that. Robert Webber has identified this as the Younger Evangelicals, but it is still very grass roots. You need to look between the lines to find it by really getting to know the people in the pews next to you. But we're out there.