,
13 tweets,
11 min read
Read on Twitter
@andrewfooshay @pastoremase @drantbradley Okay. Here’s my attempt at a gracious response. Oreos are cookies. They have two white outer cookies and vanilla cream in the middle. Now, from a Christian perspective... 1/
@andrewfooshay @pastoremase @drantbradley Jesus approached the fig tree on his way to the Temple. From far away, he could see that the tree was in bloom; signaling that there should be fruit. But when he got up close, there was no fruit. The tree presented one way; but it wasn’t what it claimed to be.
@andrewfooshay @pastoremase @drantbradley Right after the fig tree, Jesus goes to the Temple and finds that while it looked beautiful from afar, it was rank as hell on the inside. And the heart of Jesus complaint was that they had excluded the Gentiles from worship. #houseforallnations 3/
@andrewfooshay @pastoremase @drantbradley Sociologists have found that black people in majority white contexts MUST reject blackness (black worldview, black families, black politics, black music, black art, black wisdom, etc.) inorder to be welcomed in the space. 4/
@andrewfooshay @pastoremase @drantbradley It is a benefit to the white community to have people with black skin tones in their community, but internal blackness is perceived as a threat to the community and pushed out or marginalized. This is true of all churches/orgs with even a marginal white majority. 5/
@andrewfooshay @pastoremase @drantbradley Hence, the #Oreo reference. Many Black evangelicals can relate to the experience of taking in and learning from white evangelical leaders. What we were also taking in is the white imagination of the world. We learned to consider the white imagination as the RIGHT imagination. 6/
@andrewfooshay @pastoremase @drantbradley Deep in the heart of the unconscious white imagination is anti-blackness. We took that in too. Until we didn’t. We rejected it. Full force. Full stop. We held on to Jesus while embracing blackness. Then we were pushed out or marginalized by our white evangelical communities. 7/
@andrewfooshay @pastoremase @drantbradley Then, standing outside the white church, we were able to see what we could not see before. Jesus was and is a brown man with feet like bronze and hair like wool, according to the scripture. He was an oppressed, colonized man from an oppressed and colonized people. 8/
@andrewfooshay @pastoremase @drantbradley Jesus is not anti-black. Jesus is black. He was a brown man whose social location was at the bottom of empire’s human hierarchy. This is not black theology. This is for real for real reality—Reality still hidden in anti-black white and multiethnic churches. 9/
@andrewfooshay @pastoremase @drantbradley Multiethnic church look beautiful from far away, but, upon closer examination, most will find rank anti-blackness at work in everything from the sermons to the music to the politics (thoughts about how we should live together in society) to its very depictions of Jesus. 10/
@andrewfooshay @pastoremase @drantbradley So, the black people who choose to stay in majority white/multiethnic spaces must reject blackness to survive. They present black; like the fig tree presents like it has fruit. But up close, they have internalized anti-blackness. Hence, #Oreo. 11/11
@andrewfooshay @pastoremase @drantbradley Lots of great questions stemming from this thread. If you are truly interested in working to be an anti-racist church, I have a team of consultants; among the best in the world. We welcome consulting relationship with you @FreedomRoadus. Email your inquiry to info@freedomroad.us.
