If our idea of love and unity is dependent upon my silence and my oppression, then our unity is built to protect your power not to make us more equal. And that’s not love, that’s hate.

As many of you know, I was apart of the white evangelical tradition. I have talked about things I learned about being Black in white spaces. Now I want to say some things about what I learned about once being a Black evangelical returning back to the Black church.

A thread.

Spending years in white evangelical churches and schools, specifically from 2012-2018, shapes Black people in more ways than we would like to admit. It shapes us to diminish Blackness, devalue our people’s story, and always test what we have against the white logic and litmus.

This is particular reality for us Black men in that space. White Christians exploit our vulnerabilities, give us the room to speak, while simultaneously subverting and devaluing Black women and their struggles and their grievances. Opportunities abound for us and we take them.

We are invited into the meetings, we are given the mic, we are asked to lead groups on race, the Black church, etc. We are asked though often we actually haven’t read or thought deeply about each. We become a weapon. Profiting and policing/punishing those who get out of line.

All the while, white Christians feel good about themselves and other Black people are left to clean up the mess we’ve made, the ways we’ve made fools of Black folk, and the harmful ways we’ve learned to think, and to preach, and to be around us. It is profoundly depressing.

One of the dangers of Christian theology is that our frameworks we inherit will make us see life as an academic endeavor, neighbors as enemies to be conquer, and the life of faith as a battle to be won. Sadly, our journey with Jesus will be less about love and more about fear.

Christianity’s theological history is full of communities who tried to imagine better ways of loving, being together, and being human. Yet also at work in our history are traditions of faith that made Jesus the warrior of our dreams and the community foot soldiers of control.

An ironic thing is that much of this has been centered around ideas of “purity” and nostalgia that rarely takes the world live in seriously, or history honestly, or image-bearers around us truthfully. “Purity” and “orthodoxy” were convenient ways to hide arrogance and insecurity.

So hopefully the more we learn and the more we lean into Jesus and one another, we try to imagine better for ourselves and we give up our idealism and dishonesty and embrace better ways of being Christian, human, and neighbors. Truthfully, God really wants so much better for us.

Being Black and POC in white spaces do not simply form us to individualize our racial identity, not connected to our race while white people stay connected to theirs, but we take on the theological, political, and social commitments of white Christianity which re-enforces it.

Black people and people of color are told to give up their connection, all in the name of "unity" and the "gospel", and see symbols of their culture deeply steeped in whiteness while white Christians rarely give up anything. This is white supremacy. This is white Christianity.

Because of access to whiteness and connection to it, as social capital and meaning, Blacks and people of color become more distant, we learn to devalue our people, and decenter their stories, histories, and knowledge. It erases us. Literally. Erasure. Is that really good news?

Now, these churches appropriate non-white cultural practices and aesthetics while never centering the forms of knowledge, history, or concerns of non-whites. For example, Black culture is in the church but the church is doing nothing to change the world that Black people live.

I was reading in the gospels. Luke wrote about Jesus's and the women. Death has consumed him. Despair had consumed them. Yet, the women prepared spices. "On the sabbath," he writes, "they rested." The faith of the women teach us this: Hell is shaking. God is working. We can rest.

Their faith does not destroy death nor does their faith destroy despair. That is the paradox of faith: we don't have the right answers always nor can we always articulate what we know to be true and possible. We, like the women, can prepare and rest while Better is on the way.

Isn't it fitting that in a society where "men make the rules and rule the day" that Luke would dismantle the problematic patriarchy by pointing to women not simply as the embodiment of our faith but also as a witness to the power of our faith. They witness even in the worry.

He moves us from simply embracing the problematic patriarchy to embracing the women's prophetic performance. Though Word of God is not there, the word of God is still speaking. Even if the Lord is not present, in the women, the ways of the Lord are still powerful.

Black literature, Womanist, and Black theologies are not just an academic endeavor, a way of resisting whiteness, or reproductions of white theology. They are a way Black people show the deepest love, embrace God’s image on Black bodies, and say: the Black world is a real world.

Theologian James Cone said he didn’t discard white theology, "but black theology began with deconstruction—that is, dismantling the oppressive, white theologies I was taught.” These theologies not only ignored black people but “blinded me to the treasure in the black tradition."

Christians must take seriously the Black experience and make room for Black people to speak of and for God, and faith, and Jesus,and love, and hope out of our experience. Any theology that devalues, dismisses, or destroys the voice of Black people is not a theology of Jesus.

Christians, we have to liberate ourselves from the idea that those who are legitimate voices for faith and life are white Christian conservative men and that true Christian faith is simply about using their language and logic. These two realities have harmed us in so many ways.

Too many of us are thinking about faith and life as well as doing theology as ourselves but with language and histories and traditions that show that in practice we believe that orthodox = white Christian conservative man. We believe they are the final authority and goal.

My dad led an organization of over 300,000 employees.

When I took on my biggest marketing & events team to date (35 employees) I asked him how the *heck* he did it. Here's what he said and what helped me every day. 🧵

Remember you're leading all the employees under you, but you're not *managing* them all. You're managing your direct reports, which should be 5-7 individuals max. Focus on them.

When you interact with the employees you don't manage directly, get to know them as people first, that'll be the most valuable information in leading them. Remembering everything you learn about them is hard, but doing so will make you a superhero.

If you're not going to empower the managers under you, why do you have them? If you see room for improvement, let the manager know and let them make the change on their teams and come to you with questions/concerns. This will save you SO much time.

If you're the smartest person in any room - you're doing it wrong. As a leader, your job is bringing together the best people to get the job done - your skillset is identifying those people, not being one of them.

NARHARI AND BHAGWAN PANDURANG/VITTHAL

Once a goldsmith by the name of Narhari lived in Pandharpur. He excelled in his craft. He had vowed not to look at Pandurang or visit his mandir ever, as he was a Shiva Bhakt.
One day, a wealthy merchant visited him.

He wanted a gold girdle studded with precious gems, to be made for Prabhu Vitthal. Narhari refused to make it as it was for Vitthal.
After many requests, he agreed to make the girdle but asked the merchant to bring the measurement from the mandir as he himself would not go there

The measurement was given n he made the girdle. When the girdle was put on Vitthal, it was loose. Narhari had to shorten it. Now the girdle became tight. So Narhari was forced to take measurement on his own. He had to go to the mandir but went blindfolded to avoid seeing Vitthal

In the Mandir, when blindfolded Narhari touched Vitthal, he felt as if he was touching Shiva with matted hair, the moon, snake in His neck and Trishul in His hand. Ecstatic with joy, he removed the blindfold to see Shiva but he found the murti of Vitthal with Rukmini there.

He realised the truth that there was no difference between Vitthal and Shiva. Narhari at once fell at the feet of Panduranga. He then took the measurement of the waist of Vitthal and this time the ornament fit the Murti perfectly.

Narayan Hari🙏🏻

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