This was a good article. I think the hardest thing (at first) is just to *listen*. Not listen-and-wait-for-my-chance-to-respond. Not listen, hoping to find out where you went *wrong* and therefore can be dismissed. Not listen and grow increasingly angry on how you are dismissing obvious truths that we all accept.

Just listening.

In time comes the deciding and the doing.

For now, there is listening, and hearing, and thinking, and trying to put the pieces together, and seeing the person speaking, and trying to find the connections.

That’s listening.

I am truly sorry for your experience. I was raised in the Reformed tradition (PCUSA and PCA), and now find myself in the Christian & Missionary Alliance denomination, which is, of course, an outgrowth of the Presbyterian Church. I honestly cannot imagine what it would feel like to have my faith tradition and my own body-of-Christ reject me, even if they found what I was saying to be extremely uncomfortable.

I hope you will be finding your right place in the church, which comprises so many unexpected members and so many surprising experiences.

I’m stunned at the way you were treated; as a Presbyterian (albeit a Canadian one) I’m shocked that due process wasn’t followed in bringing forward the complaint about you. There is so much wrong with what happened to you that I can hardly fathom what you must have felt. I can only offer you my prayers and my promise to do my part to treat everyone equally, respectfully and lovingly, regardless of gender, race or any other identifier that we might use to mark one another. I also pray that you find healing and wholeness, and that you only give up your struggle when we all see each other as nothing more or less than God’s equally beloved children.

A couple of things: First, it is unfortunate that an elder in your church (or anyone else for that matter) would come out and say that they hated the black race. There is no place for blatant racism. That being said, you opened yourself up for a lot of criticism when you made the decision to preach a sermon on the Trayvon Martin case. As far as I know, you were not there when the incident happened, and you have no right to second guess the jury in this case. You did not hear all the evidence that the jury heard, and for you to pontificate about the unjust nature of the verdict is not appropriate to say the least. More broadly, many of us Presbyterians are getting really tired of the left wing social activism that continues to pour out of Louisville. Our church leaders wonder why our membership is dropping faster than Marco Rubio’s poll numbers. If they continue on their course of forcing this liberal rubbish down people’s throats, it’s only going to get worse…

I am just heart-sick to hear what happened to you, Rev. Kerri. I am so, so sorry. And I am angry that such racism is allowed to persist in our churches. We need voices like yours to reveal to us what we are not seeing on our own, that lives are at risk, that lives are being lost, that #BlackLivesMatter . The lives that are being lost are reminiscent of the lynchings of decades past. The senior minister should have exercised some leadership on this issue and defended you and required an apology from those who made such outrageous claims. If we aren’t willing to “go to the mat” on such a fundamental issue as the personal and structural racism that is prevalent in our society, we have abrogated our right to call ourselves Christians. I want you to come and preach that sermon again at my church, preach it not to comfort the afflicted but to afflict the comfortable.
God help us,
Rev. Geoff Browning

Pastor, preacher, prophet…Kerri,

I add my expressions of frustration and disappointment to those that have already been expressed in the sad and shameful things done to you. As a white pastor serving a congregation of white members, I have been scolded for quoting too many non-white theologians, writers, artists, and social-political activists. Choosing to meet people where they are, I became more careful about the sources of the quotes I used. It is a choice I regret. My complicit silence has kept the peace but has taken its toll on my conscience and my faith and has, in all honesty, most likely done a grave disservice to my parishioners.

Thank you for sharing your experiences and for issuing your prayer and your challenge. May the Spirit sustain you as you continue the good work that God has begun in you.

Penitently yours in Christ,
Debra

An Obituary for Colorblindness

On July 13th, 2013, when George Zimmerman was found not guilty of murdering Trayvon Benjamin Martin, the theory of racial color blindness in the United States died on the courtroom floor from a massive heart attack.

The racial color blindness theory had grown up quite a bit since it was born out the civil rights era of the 1960’s. It was a well behaved, gently intentioned theory with a great philosophical ancestry. It proposed to judge people only on their individual merit, on “The content of their character” rather than “The color of their skin.” The theory of color blindness insisted that it “Did not see color” and that it “treated everyone the same.”

What Americans did not acknowledge was that the theory of racial color blindness had a huge birth defect: the people in our country actually live and act very differently. We have no common culture in how we treat others. Many people grew up not only with broken sidewalks, but with twisted families. Some people had learned to live with an attitude of suspicion. They understood personal protection as a fully loaded weapon rather than the sense of security that comes from knowing all of your neighbors names. They were taught to follow people in order to appear threatening, and to never trust or to follow the instructions of a police officer. –Not everyone follows the golden rule and treats others as they want to be treated. Instead many people were taught to skew that rule and treat others just as they have been treated: badly.

With all of these differences in actual culture and behavior, we should not be surprised when our theory of American racial colorblindness crumples at our feet. Without an over arching principle of some sort of commonly held belief, there is absolutely no way to overcome our fear of others who are different than we are. Without something bigger than the American freedom to become who we want to be and the liberty to do whatever we want that is legal, there can be no cure for this deadly disease that shows up with its terrible symptoms of racism and intolerance.

What is needed, more than anything else, is a good old fashioned dose of love. –The self sacrificial kind that loves your neighbor while also loving yourself. The kind of love that Jesus showed by having long conversations with the despised and the outcasts, the forgotten sick and the poor. The kind of love that sees the systemic poverty and the broken schools, the lack of healthcare and the chronic unemployment in our country as the cancer that guns all of us of us down, no matter what our zip code is.

While our racial colorblindness may now be dead on arrival, this opens up the opportunity for us to look around us and to open up our hearts to meet people where they are, to find out who they really are as individuals. To get a sense of how they think, how they interact with others and how they have been hurt and broken just like the rest of us. It gives us an opportunity for us to practice what we preach and to show love and to build true relationships in the world, everyday. I hope and pray that we will.

Rev. Karen Fitz La Barge,
ThoughtfulBoldness.com

The above was published as a Letter to the Editor in the Allegan County Newspaper, August 8, 2013, and also printed in the church newsletter. I also preached about Trayvon in a sermon on 4/22/2012 in our PCUSA congregation, First Presbyterian Church of Allegan.

While I did not get the same backlash response as you did Kerri, it certainly did “afflict the comfortable” with the evidence of the disease of racism that is still alive and well in our country. We are indeed broken and in need of the Savior. Hugs and peace.