The Clearing Gospel — No. 1

Toni Cade Bambara once wrote, “‘The role of the artist is to make the revolution irresistible.’ On the other hand, she said that ‘Writing is one of the ways I participate in transformation.’ From this wisdom combination, I see that I am charged to write about the revolutions I long for, and that any writing I do, even if it isn’t explicitly political, is still a transformative act. I apply this [...] understanding that when a Black, queer, thick artist woman intentionally takes up space, it creates a new world.” (Adrienne Maree Brown)¹

I am not very good at taking up space. My parents tell me that I was a shy child prone to hiding behind my mother’s legs and, in most ways, I can see that I was groomed to be just that. I can remember as a teenager being enthralled by friends and family members that were in no way hesitant to talk—to share their thoughts about the world, silly or serious. But I was not like any of them. I was silent, content to be something only slightly more than a shadow in other people’s worlds. Along with the confidence of my friends and family, the images I encountered of black women on television were those of people at ease with themselves. Often loud, often funny, sometimes defiant. But rarely quiet. Rarely studious. And certainly not more intrigued by ideas than material reality.

Years later and I am a pastor—a black, queer, gender-nonconforming, woman pastor to be precise—and I still feel in myself a hesitation to take up space. Despite the fact that I stand before my congregation multiple times a month to lead and speak, it all still feels to me like borrowed clothes. Yet, I can’t shake the reality and the tension that every time I stand up, I am participating in something that just a few decades ago was thought impossible. I am in some way living in a manner that my ancestors would have considered science fiction², as Walidah Imarisha points out—creating a world by sheer existence. 

I can’t shake the reality and the tension that every time I stand up, I am participating in something that just a few decades ago was thought impossible.

So I am beginning to be converted to the idea that I need to take up more space. To write and to dream aloud even though those things scare the hell out of me. Because, like so many others, I long for revolution. And I’m convinced that unless the revolution scorches to dust the roots of colonial Christianity on this so-called Christian continent that any genuine revolution will be impossible. Until Christianity ceases to be a religion of power seeking domination and becomes again a religion of love seeking the flourishing of all, I am doubtful that the depth of change our best movements for liberation desire can take root. I’m aware that as a pastor I may be overstating the case. Our society is only more and more becoming secular at least as concerns any organized church attendance and affiliation. Yet, ideas shaped by the Bible, Christian theology, and church practice continue to powerfully shape our world. 

I once visited a wonderful United Methodist Church that was hosting Bishop Gene Robinson, the first openly gay bishop in the Episcopal Church. The details are blurry now, but at one point, he spoke about once having been called an “abomination” because of his sexual orientation. He then expressed the firm conviction that the people who had called him such a thing likely had no conscious allegiance to Christianity. Still, their viewpoint was shaped by a Leviticus reference that they would not have been able to cite, let alone explain. 

Colonizing Christianity is bound to the legacies of domination that are so much a part of our world. Until we further interrogate the faith of Jesus and allow that interrogation to shape our actual practices, then I am convinced that movements for liberation can make only limited cultural inroads. 

The thing that both strikes and excites me is that so many movements for liberation are refreshing, however unintentionally, Christian ideas that have been long buried. One of the clearest examples is the decades-long push for abolition of the current, so-called, criminal justice system which has received new attention in recent years. Abolition fundamentally assumes that no life is disposable and that accountability should always be transformative instead of punitive. Yet, it was not until I began reading the work of activists such as Mariam Kaba that I could sense the shared undercurrent with Christianity. Movements of liberation contain ideas that can help us decolonize our Christianity precisely because they often draw us back down into the faith of Jesus. Conversely, a decolonized Christianity can shore up movements for liberation and help them make further inroads into a culture still deeply influenced by ideas that issue from churches. 

I want to help make the revolution irresistible.

I am not brave. I am not particularly good at taking up space. But I do want to help make the revolution irresistible. I do want to help chart the new world with my imagination and through my body. And I do hope, for a little while at least, to write about the call of the American church to decolonial transformation. Where so much of that dream seems to me like brittle bone, I hope to add sinew and muscle, sometimes hinting at ways forward and even, at times, following the wrong path, but learning all the same. I am a pastor. In the trenches of the best and worst of humanity everyday, I don’t have the privilege of distance.  So, if nothing else, I hope to say something that rings true for you. And which begins to spur more excursions off the plantation. I hope to take up just a little more space there myself as well.

¹ Emergent Strategy by Adrienne Maree Brown

² Octavia’s Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements by Adrienne Marie Brown and Walidah Imarisha