Friends,
I wrote this letter on the evening before the Biden/Harris inauguration, and I imagine you will be reading it sometime after all the pomp and circumstance has come and gone. This means that you know the content of Biden’s inaugural address far better than I do: you’ve heard it and I’ve only heard rumors, but if those rumors are true, then unity and healing where important themes in proceedings of January 20.
I think unity and healing are really good ideas, and like many people in the MPC family I have been trying seek unity and healing, in part, by reading books about race in America. In particular, I’ve been trying to read books about race in America that were written by people who aren’t white. I have also taken the extra step of reading these books with a group of mega-Church attending Evangelicals from Southern California.
And it has been wonderful.
I got invited to attend this group because the leader of the group–a guy named Glenn Peterson– once reviewed a book I wrote and over the years we have become friendly on Facebook. Glen is on the pastoral staff of a church called “Whittier Area Community Church” or “WACC” (Pronounced “Whack”), and the dozen or so people who participate in the group simply do not conform to the stereotypes we progressive Christians sometimes assign to our more traditionalist siblings in Christ. This Zoom gathering is racially diverse, well-educated, and passionate about the place where faith and justice intersect.
Together we have discussed books MPC folks probably know well such as How to Be an Anti-Racist by Ibrahim X. Kendi (One World, 2019), and we also read and discussed Martin Luther King’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”; but we also have read books to which MPC folks might not be exposed because they are published and promoted in the Evangelical subculture. So far, my favorite of these “Evangelical” books are Brown Church by Robert Chao Romero (IVP Academic, 2020), which is a marvelous celebration of Latin American and immigrant spirituality, and Prophetic Lament by Soong-Cha Rah (Inter Varsity Press, 2015), a study of the book of Lamentations that is set in the context of working to confront racism and White supremacy.
These are both wonderful books, and I am grateful to have read them alongside people whose spiritual outlook challenges my assumptions, invites me to reserve judgements and to listen. These things don’t necessarily come easy for me.
As the Trump family decamps to Florida, leaving a divided and broken nation in their wake, I–like many of you–am committed to working for unity and healing by trying to participate in efforts to dismantle systemic racism and white supremacy. I’m grateful for the companionship of my Evangelical friends from Whittier who remind me that the racism dismantling crew is bigger and broader and more diverse than I imagined.
Thanks be to God for that!
God’s Peace,
Ben
P.S. OK, so I watched the inauguration before I sent this off to be published in Contact. I am relieved, overwhelmed with emotion, and I am so looking forward to the reemergence of decency in America’s highest office. I am so happy I got to see a woman sworn in as Vice President and I look forward to the day when the United States has a First Gentleman (either because his wife won the Presidential election or because his husband did; both scenarios are attractive to me and, suddenly, the future looks bright enough that I can imagine both things happening before I go on to my reward).
Also, I loved how Lady Gaga honored Freida Kahlo with her coiffe, and I was thrilled when Jennifer Lopez sang a song written by a socialist, and I thought Garth Brooks’ attempt to channel Pete Seeger by getting everyone to sing along to Amazing Grace was sweet (even if it didn’t go all that well).
And I sincerely hope that in the near future my friends from Whittier Area Community Church will meet up on Zoom to read and discuss Amanda Gorman’s amazing poem.