February is Black history month and I want to take an active approach in celebrating Black history. Not simple recognition that lasts for a month, but allowing myself to engage in deeper understanding and celebration that brings forth important personal change. I need Black history month not just to remember what was, but to give me hope for what can be. Not at a token toward “racial reconciliation” but rather as a tool for “racial reconstruction” in myself and in our communities.
In preparing for this month I was encouraged by friends to dig deeper into the Church’s relationship with Black history in the US. I have always been under the impression that persecution in the American Church was minimal at most and very difficult to identify. That when we line up what the Church in America experiences to what the early Church experienced under Rome, or even the Church today experiences in other places and countries around the world that our complaints hold little merit. That is until I start reading about the Black Church. What became clear is that I haven’t viewed persecution of the Black Church as persecution of the Church.
I have become amazed at how enslaved people in the Americas often adopted the faith of their oppressors. I can’t imagine how difficult it would have been to reconcile the Jesus I know with the actual ownership and the mistreatment of so many who were…
