to the church that raised me - on racism

To the Church that raised me,

Today, I joined a peaceful protest in my city. I know it was a small scale of what is happening in the large cities around America, but it was empowering. To see people support one another and stand by the pain of the Black community was beautiful.

My plea starts here. I wanted to hear your voices for the death of George Floyd, for Amaud Arbery, for Breonna Taylor, for the countless names that were silenced because of the color of their skin. I went to my social media, longing to see you share something, anything. But I only saw millennials who are sick and tired of this bullshit. So I sought your pages out. I thought maybe your content just wasn't popping up on my feed. Instead of outrage, I saw justification. I saw blame shifting - this can't be racism. I'm not racist, you said. My heart ached.

See, you raised me to love those around me. You taught me to listen closely to the voices of everyone. You said we are all equal, black, Asian, Native American, we shouldn't see color, we are all the same.  And yet, I looked back and realized there were few black people in our Church. I looked back and saw that we traveled to other places to commune with other cultures, but never did it happen within our walls. I realized your silence on this matter spoke louder than words.

I remember you taught us to respect the Native American tribe that we went to have missions trips -- but the goal was to share our beliefs, our worldview. I remember you boasted about the inner city kids you brought into the Church for AWANA programs. I didn't see the discrepancy with this at first. I didn't see the submerged privilege in these actions.

Recently, I have begun to do the work of identifying my white privilege, my submerged racist tendencies. I have learned that being non-racist isn't enough, we must be anti-racist (Angela Davis). I am nowhere near done and have so far to come being a young white American woman. I have begun to read resources that aren't by white people, but by those of color. I have started to ask questions of my friends of different races. This is only the beginning.

So today, I went to a Black Lives Matter protest for George Floyd. And it was there that I knew Jesus was. Somehow I think we lost him in the walls of our Churches that are built to keep people in and out. So, when you see my posts about going to this protest, I hope you don't look at me and think "she's gone off the deep end." I hope you take time to see how Jesus is here, in the protesting, in the riots, in the voices that shout black lives matter.

As a young Christian millennial, I implore you to do the work of undoing racism. I want to hear you admit to your white privilege, I want to know that you are working your hardest to undo racism in your own life. I want to know that you are actively fighting for our black brothers and sisters who have been oppressed for so long. Jesus is in the work of justice and mercy (Micah 6:8), let's find him here.

Yes, I am a millennial. Please don't write our voices off. The world is too loud and the evangelicals are even louder. This isn't just a phase. The millennials were teenagers once, but now we are adults, who have gone to college, seen a lot of things, learned a lot from people who were different than us. Our voices have meaning. Please hear us out.

From,

A millennial who is unlearning, seeking and finding and desperately wants justice.

learning

On my first cross-cultural trip as an adult that wasn't directly for the intention of missions, I learned a lot. I stepped foot in a Church that looked a whole lot like an American Church and I was angry. I met "short term missionaries" attempting to help long term missionaries. I watched them for the week, knowing that their savior mentality was something I had certainly fallen into before. One time, I was with my Romanian friend who I had been staying with. The white short term "missionary" was handing out Chapstick to the children of the village. My friend asked if she could have one as well. This white woman looked at my Romanian friend and had the audacity to 'teach' her how to put Chapstick on. My friend looked at me and rolled her eyes, nodded at the woman and took the Chapstick.

This story has stuck with me for the past several years. There was something that turned me off about this couple. However, instead of being angry, I asked a lot of questions to the Romanians there. I asked what it was like to have this couple come annually. Was it helpful? Or was is it a burden? I watched as my Romanian friends payed for meal after meal for this couple. I watched them complain about the living conditions (God forbid, they didn't have air conditioning in their room). They complained about the food made for them by the hands of the Romanians in kindness. I watched them talk about the Romanians as though they were less then. "These poor children," she would say, "they barely know English. They don't know what Chapstick is."

I was angry. And since that trip, I've been trying to figure out why I was so angry. What was it about this couple that was just so infuriating? I had done the very same thing in other countries, on other trips. I was ashamed to be attached to this mentality.

Recently, I've followed a lot of black activists on social media, I've been reading books by people of other cultures, I've been listening to things that aren't informed by a evangelical viewpoint. And my God, I have been learning so much.

I have immersed myself into a worldview that is different from my own. I am unlearning the harmful ideas that I grew up with. I am learning about the resiliency of people, the way people rise and survive. I am learning about privilege and the harm of the systems.

As I've been learning, I realized why this couple made me so angry. They came from an American Christian system that praises you for taking an annual pilgrimage to another country to serve. They came from a country that told them they are better because of the shade of their skin and the amount of money that they have.

I am less angry now and I am sad for them. There was so much they could have learned from the Romanians. They thought they were bringing Jesus, rather than seeing Jesus who is already there, in those people, in that culture. I met Jesus that week in a new way. I met him in the gentleness of the Romanian missionaries who took in the teenagers from the village and gave them a safe place to call home. I met him in the girl who didn't like me because she was wary of these Christian missionaries who came and took, rather than learn. The way she cared for the children was gentle and relentless. I met Jesus in the elderly couple who owned the Church down the street and sat and watched as the children played in their yard.

One day I hope to return to these countries where I tried to teach rather than to learn. I hope to return to India and ask more questions rather than share my own story so many times. I hope to go back to Nicaragua and see the beauty of children being raised by a village rather than think they would be better off with me in America. I hope to go back to Romania and ask a lot of questions, not just about missionaries, but about their culture.

Let us be gentle in learning before we try to Americanize a culture for the sake of the Gospel. Rather than pushing our culture on theirs, let us slow down enough to see how Jesus is already there, in these beautiful cultures and beautiful people.