The Disconnect.

I’ve been reading Dr. Brenda Salter McNeil’s new book, Roadmap to Reconciliation, and it has been rocking my world. I came across one thing she said and it made me stop, "What we believe about God will tell us what we believe about people, and what we believe about people will tell us what kinds of communities and societies we believe we should strive to create."

This is it. This truth is why I get so passionate about justice issues, about equity, about any situation where someone's treated like their life is valued less. This is why it’s hard for me to understand why we don’t talk about the hard things and stand up for the right things in church. This is why it’s hard for me to believe someone who professes to follow Jesus can be racist, homophobic or turn a blind eye to such broken systems like our education and criminal justice systems.

Our theology informs everything we do, how we view people, the decisions we make, the causes we take up. Theology is just what we believe about God. If we really believe everyone was created in God's image then we would treat them like they did. If we really believed that God meant it when he said to love our neighbors and even our enemies...it would change how we treated others. If we really believed God meant it when he said to take care of widows and orphans or that he's on the side of justice...wouldn't we care more about justice? Wouldn't we believe we should be doing everything we can to bring more love into the world and help create a place that affirms that image of God in others? If we believed God created the earth and all that inhabits it and declared it good, why wouldn’t we help steward that and care for it well?

I think we’ve allowed a disconnect to happen between what we believe about God, what we believe about people and what kind of communities we should strive to create. We don’t see how they’re connected. We lose sight of how our theology should shape how we treat people and if your theology involves following Jesus it should be rooted in one thing…love.

This is why it matters that we stand and declare that #blacklivesmatter because we recognize that for too long they’ve been treated like they don’t. Because my theology professes that each human is stamped with the image of God and that no life matters more than another. So I should be outraged and broken over the fact that there are too many examples of how white lives matter more. I can't turn a blind eye to that.

This is why it matters that we stand and declare that refugees should be welcome here or that our goal isn't to isolate ourselves from "outsiders." No amount of American exceptionalism should trump our theology. Because what we believe about God will tell us what we believe about people  and what we believe about people will tell us about what kinds of communities we believe we should create…and I’m pretty sure Jesus said to welcome the stranger and to not neglect showing hospitality to strangers. If we believe everything else he says…we can’t ignore the things that make us uncomfortable.

I’m tired of living in a world of disconnect. I ache over the lack of shalom in our world, but I believe there’s a better way. I believe God is love. I believe God created each of us in his image, therefore declaring that we have value, worth and that we belong. Everyone. No questions. No exceptions. I believe God is on the side of the oppressed and on the side of justice. I believe God has shown us what kinds of communities and societies we should strive to create when we pray your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. We should strive to create communities and societies where everyone is welcome and loved. Where grace is shown and kindness is a universal language. Where the table is big enough for everyone. Where we are peacemakers and we remember that we belong to each other. Where we live into the truth that God loves us and out of the overflow of that love we are able to love each other.

I believe in a world built on connection, where the disconnect is no longer present because we remember that what we believe about God tells us what we believe about people and what we believe about people tells us what kind of communities we should strive to create.

And if it all starts with what we believe about God well...God is love.

It's About More...

A few months ago, I went to a church that was holding a panel on racial reconciliation. The pastor asked the panel, why should Christians care about this talk of race, reconciliation and justice? One individual responded about how we have to because it's what we should be about. He talked about how we too often take the pieces of God that we like, people cling to the piece that has the most in it for them and what they like the most, the salvation piece. We take the piece of God we like...the salvation piece. Too many people's version of Christianity is just concerned with our souls. It's all about going to heaven. I remember spending many days and nights worried as a kid that if I sinned, wasn't able to ask for forgiveness and then died, I would go to hell because I didn't ask for forgiveness and my soul wouldn't be clean because my Sunday School teacher told me that was true. This is just really bad theology in my opinion, made me live in fear for a long time and totally made me miss out on the beauty of the gospel. (and makes me realize that I was way too worried about deep things at a young age...these were my thoughts as an eight year old. Anyway...).

Our souls are very important...obviously. Salvation is important...but God has so much more for us. We don't get to just decide "we want to go to heaven" and take that piece of God and leave it at that. God is so much bigger than that. People ask me why I care so much about justice and equality and I honestly, truly think it's because we're supposed to. As people who believe in this great big God and claim to follow Jesus, we have to care about justice and equality. We have to care about our neighbors and what is happening to them. We have to remember that every single person is created in God's image and we are called to love each other well. We have to remember that when we claim to follow Jesus, we committed to be a part of a bigger story, that we decided to be a part of God's Kingdom coming here on Earth as it is in Heaven.

Many people have said about me before, "Abby...justice and loving and caring too much is her 'thing'", but it shouldn't just be my "thing". It should be all of our "things". (And you know I'm no expert or that great at it, so we all need to be in this together!)

I was at the Justice Conference last weekend and got to hear Dr. Cornel West speak and one thing he said really stuck out to me...he said, as people who say they follow Jesus, we have to be about love and justice. They're not equal, but their indivisible. If our faith and beliefs are rooted and all about love, with that comes justice. To me, it just makes sense, that's what my theology is about.

We can't just take the pieces of God we like.  We can't ignore the injustices that happen around us. We can't think that the goal in life is just to make it to heaven. It's about so much more than that.

"The gospel at its best deals with the whole man, not only his soul but his body, not only his spiritual well-being, but his material well being. Any religion that professes to be concerned about the souls of men and is not concerned about the slums that damn them, the economic conditions that strangle them and the social conditions that cripple them is a spiritually moribund religion awaiting burial." - MLK Jr.

O Holy Night.

I've been working on a lot of papers these days with the semester winding down, which means I've been listening to a lot of Christmas music to accompany me...John Legend Holiday Radio on Pandora to be exact. I really love Christmas music...within the time frame of Thanksgiving and Christmas. :) Every time I've been writing or working on an assignment whenever my favorite Christmas song comes on, O Holy Night, I just stop and listen to it. I think about all that is happening in our world and in this season of Advent, this season of waiting and anticipation of what is to come and this song shines a little light into the darkness and brings a little hope to the hopeless. It's a beautiful reminder about why this season matters so much.

My favorite part says this:

Truly He taught us to love one another His law is love and His gospel is peace Chains shall He break for the slave is our brother And in His name all oppression shall cease Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we, Let all within us praise His holy name

Because this is what Jesus is about...to be about love and peace. Not to get caught up in legalities and arguments and I am right and you are wrong, but to love one another no matter how we differ from each other. Jesus came to show us His love so we can love each other. Jesus is also about justice and equality and about those on the margins and the oppressed experiencing freedom, justice and peace. I'm thankful for a song that reminds us of that. It also has an interesting history if you're interested in reading about it, find it here. (a good reminder to people that just because something is not created by people labeled as "Christians" doesn't mean it isn't Truth)

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2X8XucSMyc?rel=0]

Justice Matters.

I've written and rewritten my thoughts about all of this. I've read more articles than I can count and had many discussions with those close to me. I wasn't sure how to articulate everything that I've been thinking and feeling these last few months. Hearing the latest news though has done me in and I can't be silent even if my words don't make sense. Because when I saw the officer was not indicted for choking Eric Garner to death, I was furious and felt like I was going to throw up. I haven't been able to sleep because I keep thinking about it so I decided to write. Every time I saw another article posted about it, every time I saw someone write #blacklivesmatter, every time I heard someone say "people are over reacting" or "we don't have a race issue", I want to throw up.  I'm not going to claim I even know all the details about these particular cases or argue the particulars because this is SO MUCH MORE than that. This is about something bigger. This is about a system of injustice and oppression that has roots so deep people can live in ignorance to the issues because it's what they've always known. This is about the fact that there even needs to be a hashtag that says black lives matter. No one should have to campaign for that because everyone should know their lives matter. But in our society that's not the case.

I know this post won't do much in the grand scheme of things, but I cannot be silent about this. America does have a race issue. It's rooted in years of oppression that created unjust systems that are still in practice today. Systems that benefit those in power, those with the same skin color as me. It's not fair. It's not fair that I've never been pulled over for no reason at all while my black friends have been too often to even keep track of. It's not fair that my parents never had to talk to my brother about how to be polite and act around police officers for his own personal safety, but those are conversations every black man I know received from their parents. It's not justice that five times as many Whites are using drugs as African Americans, yet African Americans are sent to prison for drug offenses at 10 times the rate of Whites. It's not justice that there are countless examples of how white people get away with the same crimes that people of color get put away for, just look up the hashtags #crimingwhilewhite and #alivewhileblack.  It's not justice that someone can be killed on video and they're treated like their life doesn't matter and that it does not even deserve a trial.

You better believe we still have a race issue. It's just getting exposed and national attention recently and for people who can't acknowledge that, live in ignorance. Ignorance to the fact that the color of your skin still does matter and injustice abounds in our world today. The fact that white people can ignore this issue or have the choice to tune it out attests to the privilege we have.

I believe that the world is not supposed to be this way and that there's hope for a better story, although it's hard to envision that better story these days it seems. But we know to hope for a story of justice and equality...that we can be a society where justice rolls down and every single human being's value and worth is known. But it starts with change...deep change.

For those of us that claim to follow Jesus, this matters. This matters because our brothers and sisters are hurting, mourning and have injustices laid upon them day after day. This matters because every person was made in the image of God and every single person's life matters. This matters because we are called to love each other and to enter into the pain of our neighbors. This matters because peace, justice and equality is not present and that is what we are supposed to be about. I pray that justice will roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream because something has got to change.

I'm not saying anything new...so many others say things way better than I do, but with my little fraction of the interwebs I had to get it out there. Here are some others who say it better:

I highly recommend this video.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_98ojjIZDI?rel=0&w=560&h=315]

Here are some other articles to read:

http://www.relevantmagazine.com/current/nation/justice-black-lives-must-begin-us-part-1 http://www.relevantmagazine.com/current/nation/justice-black-lives-must-begin-us-part-2

http://www.upworthy.com/chris-rocks-epic-truth-bomb-about-how-its-white-people-that-have-progressed-not-black-people

http://www.awesomelyluvvie.com/2014/12/stages-injustice-against-black-people.html http://qz.com/251570/now-you-know-what-i-always-have-america-does-not-value-black-lives/

And for one final thought.

Some MLK Day Thoughts...

Today is a day where we remember Martin Luther King Jr. and all of the good that he did. I am thankful that there is a day to honor a great man who fought hard for justice. One thing I do often is revisit different things Martin Luther King Jr. has said and I thought it would be timely to share them here!

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”

“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy”

 “…I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word”

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere”

“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.”

It’s nice to read quotes and memorialize a man who did such great work, but it can’t just stop at that and I think we forget that too easily. In an interesting article about streets named after MLK it says this, “There’s a way in which the process of memorialization is sometimes the first step in collective forgetting. We name our monuments, we name our streets, and they’re meant to do the work of memory for us.” That's not how it should be.

I think this is a great day to remember a great man, but also a day to remember how much work we still have to do. How much work we still have to do in bringing about economic justice, racial justice and equality. People say it’s gone and that we’re all equal, but we’re not..just take a stroll through your city, talk to a teacher about the roadblocks in the education system, ask an undocumented teenager about their dream to go to college and how it may never happen, think about how I can get pulled over in my community and asked, “why are you in this neighborhood” but my African-American friends seem to get pulled over for no reason at all, read the news to hear about things like how Philadelphia choose to close 23 public schools, but build a $400 million prison, read The New Jim Crow…the list could go on and on. The world is broken, we are broken and it can be hard not to get overwhelmed by it all, but we have to keep moving forward. Keep moving forward on a road towards justice, peace, reconciliation, restoration and equality.

Like Martin Luther King Jr. said, “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” So don’t stay silent. Remember to take a stand for what is right, dare to dream the world can be a better place and do your damndest to make it happen.