The Clearing Gospel — No. 4

“Those who say that religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what religion means." (Mahatma Gandhi)

I sat dumbfounded at what my professor had just said. Among a class of mostly white men at a Reformed seminary, I now realize that I should not have been surprised. From this particular professor, I undeniably should have expected the words, even as I struggled to digest them. I was there by choice. My mainline, somewhat progressive seminary had made it a requirement for every student to enroll in at least one course at another seminary in our city’s broader theological consortium. Feeling the need to understand my early Christian formation, I had enrolled in one class already at Howard Divinity School, where I knew I could explore the mechanics of the Black preaching I had been immersed in as a child. The class had been satisfying and had reconnected me with parts of myself I thought I had lost during the decade I spent in white, evangelical spaces. 

Yet, a question lingered. Why had I ever wanted or maybe even needed to be in those spaces in the first place? What had drawn me there? What inside of me needed to understand what was beyond the black Eden of my youth? What had led me to reach for the fruit—pride, a headstrong desire to push limits, or a need to leave the cocoon and become a witness to my own awakening? Perhaps for all of those reasons or maybe even none of them—I had begun years of discipleship under the training of white men. On the other side, as a queer, Black, gender-nonconforming woman, I now needed to go back and see what had compelled me within the conservative, evangelical churches and theology which I had called home for nearly 15 years. It was a Sankofa moment in the oddest sense.

This was how I had found myself sitting in a class at Reformed Theological Seminary dumbstruck while taking my second course beyond the grounds of my own institution. What had left me wordless and in shock? The professor’s confident assertion that the connection of Black churches to the organizing of the Civil Rights Movement had been inappropriate. This professor, the same one who had refused to grade my papers on anything related to pastoral ministry because I was a woman, had a ready justification when my hand shot up in protest. “The gospel,” he said, “is not political.” 

The gospel is very much political. Not because it takes sides with any particular political party, but rather because it always calls the question about power.

This is a sentiment that I have overheard more times than I care to count. In my experience, it is always aimed at taking the strength out of a train of thought or a course of action that would inevitably end with greater justice. The line is also usually deployed when its speaker bears the risk of losing power, control, or any one of the many privileges of domination which invariably contract when greater justice is made reality. In short, it is a smokescreen used when there is an intense need not to upset the apple cart. 

Here’s the simple truth: The gospel is very much political. Not because it takes sides with any particular political party, but rather because it always calls the question about power. Who holds power and why? Who needs power, and how do we get it to them? How is creation’s flourishing being vandalized by the way we hold power? And why do we believe we need power over any part of God’s creation instead of power with and for it? Power is only evident when we observe how it flows in relationships. Politics, at the most basic level, is the organization of relationships of power.