by Bryan Loritts
Hennepin County Library paperback 185 pages
Published: 2018
Genre: Non-fiction, Christianity, theology
This book was just what I needed to read right now. Faith, race, Trump, culture, Christianity. This was not always an easy book to read - some of the theology was "too deep" for me. At some point, I love clinging to the simplicity of a childlike faith in Jesus. That said, it was a worthwhile read and one I would seriously consider re-reading. I've been trying to think if people I'd like to recommend it to would be receptive to his message on race and faith.
Page 29 - He sets up his main argument about race and Evangelical Christianity by making a comparison with a marriage relationship and the #MeToo movement.
Imagine if your wife had previously been abused in such a way that impacted your intimacy with her. I don't think a simple "you should just get over it" approach would work. . . . . If you truly loved her and wanted to journey with her to health and intimacy, you would do all you could to understand her story and journey, to try in some way to incarnate her pain and pilgrimage. This is the way forward into oneness.
Page 39 - In a chapter titled "Bible School Initiation," Loritts talks about being a teenager at a friend's funeral. Powerful. (The rest of the chapter is quite good, too, with lots of observations and insights that are not part of my life experience.)
At seventeen, you never think about death. All thoughts and impulses are present or future. Where will I go to college? How did I do on the SAT? What will I major in? What will I do with my life? Will she say yes to me if I ask her to the prom? It's never, "Tomorrow is not promised to you." I made a decision as I sat at my departed friend's funeral to get serious about my faith.
If you tell black church folk you want to preach, they're going to want to know when you got the call. In my tribe, preaching is not something you decide to do - like which restaurant you'll eat at - but it is something you are mystically called to and compelled to do.
Page 62 - This paragraph almost perfectly conveys what I appreciate about Loritts' writing - an awareness of his own learning - with why I find it challenging - "orthodoxy and orthopraxy." It's not that I don't understand what he means. It's more that my brain sometimes has to work harder. He is very erudite and I appreciate that! He leaves college thinking he has all the answers and plans to "fix" the black church. He has more learning to do!
My three years at Faithful Central dismissed any messianic inclinations I maintained that the black church needed saving. Hearing Bishop Ulmer wear out the Greek syntax of a Pauline epistle and then scream, "Early Sunday," at the close heaped hot coals of shame on my head over my theological arrogance. Seeing Faithful Central feed the poor and provide free HIV/AIDS blood tests and counseling in the midst of the epidemic of the 1990s showed me it was possible to have a ministry philosophy that carried the twins of orthodoxy and orthopraxy in the womb of the local church. I was home.
Page 71 - This comment of his really resonated with me! Makes me think of Proverbs 19:21. "Many are the plans in a person's heart, but it is the Lord's purpose that prevails."
While my classmates were trying to figure out where they were going to work after graduation, I could relax, confident that I'd continue the ministry there in Inglewood among my people. Again, God loves it when you tell him what you'll do with your life. Little did I know that I was just weeks away from becoming the first African-American pastor to serve on staff at the historic Lake Avenue Church in Pasadena, California.
Page 85 - This paragraph will seem jarring to some, but in the context of what he is saying throughout the book it makes total sense! This is part of why I wanted to read about Evangelical Christianity from a black believer's perspective. There is a blindness to white privilege and I want to better see and understand.
This does lead to the question of fairness, which is beyond appropriate. Our white siblings weren't pulling aside the new minority family dressed in their suits and wing tips, whispering in their ears to stop dressing like that. Nor did they coach them on what to call the pastor. It's just another instance of our white friends not being aware of their ethnic accent and the power it wields. But none of this did anything to assuage the silent anger festering in my soul. I was becoming aware of an ugly reality. Though I was the lead pastor of this church, I was clearly sharecropping on land I didn't own - a land owned by white folks.
Page 86 - Chapter 16 "Under the Surface" starts here. It is followed by the chapter "Dedicating the Land Back to Jesus." The chapters are short and filled with ideas and examples that helped me see things differently. I couldn't help but think of my own church. We do not currently have any African Americans at all. We're a small country church in a predominantly white area. But I often brush up against an insular perspective toward black people . . . and I wonder if my thoughts and perspectives on race relations have any legitimacy. This book gave me lots and lots of food for thought.
White evangelicalism insists on normalizing her theological interpretations and erecting them as the standard by which Christianity is authenticated, preaching is evaluated, and church membership is vetted.
Because white evangelicalism is ignorant of her whiteness, her theology is seen as the standard bearer to which everyone must bow. A refusal to do so comes at your own peril. When white evangelicalism is through with you, she calls you a liberal - her version of some four-letter expletive - and sends you packing. We need white evangelicals; we don't need white evangelicalism. That thing must die.
Page 121 - This line made me think of recent conversations and messages we've had at Spirit of Life about being a church family.
Christian ministry is unique in that we believe the church is not merely an organization or a company, but a family. At least this is how Jesus, Paul, and the leaders of the early church saw things.
Page 123 - Loritts makes the connection between a marriage relationship and the mutuality of church relationships.
To get here we had to joyfully embrace three realities. The first is we are different, and the goal of marriage is never to clone one into the other's image. But we also had to abdicate any messianic delusions that somehow we were the fourth member of the Trinity called to change one another. That is an impossibility. We can't change the other person; we can't even change ourselves. Only God can. The sooner we arrive at this conclusion the better we will be for it.
Page 129 - There were so many places where I loved both his message and his language. The entire chapter "Real Talk about Politics and Power" was fantastic, but I put a post-it note on this line. The meaning, especially in light of recent MAGA support, should make all followers of Jesus Christ pause and consider. What are we truly passionate about?
I have often been overwhelmed with a godly jealousy for the sheep of my flock whose rivers of political zeal swell as I long to dam up these waters and reroute them toward the kingdom of heaven.
Page 133 - Loritts asks a question that has bothered me so much over the past four years!
How was it that Bible-believing, white evangelical Christians chose to vote for a man who has been married three times, has bragged about sexual assault, and is generally regarded as a man of low character?
The answer to this question is a lot more nuanced than meets the eye. To be fair, many white evangelicals went to the voting booth holding their noses as they made their selection, opting for party over person.
This bothers me so much! I love Jesus, and could not in any way, shape, or form translate that love into a vote for Donald Trump. I just can't understand how people who love Jesus can support him as a leader. He's so horrible! Coincidentally, I recently read a Vox article on this topic. (Vox.com: David French explains why Trump was a catastrophe for American evangelical Christianity. www.vox.com/22188646/
Page 147 - My post-it note says "copy this chapter." It's titled Let's Do Better Than "Love the Sinner, Hate the Sin." He shares about meeting a same sex couple while cheering on his son's basketball team. He talks about getting to know the parents as human beings and not judging them and rejecting them for their homosexuality. It's a powerful chapter.
Page 178 - Returning to race and culture, Loritts uses the Peter and James as an example.
These Jewish, Jesus-loving leaders made a decision that there was to be no ethnic home team when it came to Christianity. They carefully parsed out what was gospel and what was cultural, and they gave each other the space to express themselves redemptively in nonessential matters that did not do violence to their ethnicity and culture. Reading their conclusion carefully one readily sees that the emphasis is to be on holiness, on Christlikeness, and not on ethnic or cultural practices.
Page 179 - I love this part! He's not just talking to pastors.
If you're not a leader, you can still help people to see by creating what I call little awkward moments. So when that friend or family member says something racially insensitive around the dinner table, don't just be silent; call it out. It's not good enough to just not be racist; we must be aggressively antiracist.
Page 182 - After preaching at a church about forgiveness, a white man barrelled toward Loritts and wondered loudly why race was such a big deal to people like him. The man had no relationships with people of color.
His resistance to living in close communal proximity with the ethnically other had allowed his empathy muscles to atrophy. I need friendships with whites to keep me from getting bitter and cynical. And whites need minority friendships to help them understand such things as systemic injustice.
Wow. Though this book was less than 200 pages with short chapters, it was not an "easy" read. In a way, I'd love to do it as a book club study / discussion . . . but perhaps for now, I'll sift through some of the ideas in my head.
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