
Today is Spiritual Journey Thursday, and Bob Hamera is hosting. Bob asked some interesting questions about opening and closing doors. They brought to mind a time 12 years ago when God surprisingly opened a new door. We went to Bahrain to live and work. I taught English to Arabic-speaking children, and my husband was a hospital chaplain. Before moving there, we had never ventured out of North America. We got our first passport the same year we moved there, and I quit my teaching job and committed to move there before we had even visited. God opened the door wide open and confirmed with everything that happened in our lives. How did my life change? I learned so much about the world and the variety of people in this big world of ours. I learned how God works through everyone and every situation. I met amazing people of different religions and different kinds of Christians too. It was transformational living, and we got to do it for eight years.
Lately, there are faith doors closing and new ones opening. Christian Nationalism is a big slamming door as far as I’m concerned. I don’t want anything to do with that faithless “faith.”
I just finished reading How to Fight Racism by Jemar Tisby. I realized that I have learned Christianity from pastors and books who overtly or inadvertently practiced “theological racism.” Over my lifetime, I have read and heard more from theologians who believed in slavery, like George Whitefield and Jonathan Edwards, than from theologians who had been enslaved or were descendents of enslaved people. I can’t even name any Black theologians off the top of my head.
I’m closing the door on faith that would judge Jemar Tisby, as reported in this article: How evangelical Christian writer Jemar Tisby became a radioactive symbol of ‘wokeness’. I am attempting to walk through the Courageous Christianity door that Tisby writes about in How to Fight Racism. I have lots more to learn. He speaks of the ARC of Racial Justice–Awareness, Relationships, and Commitment. I highly recommend his book full of things you can do today to begin to bring about racial justice in your community.