4. Weeping Responsibly: 3 Ways White Women Can Learn to Grieve, Heal, and Stand Without Harm
Much has been said over the past couple of weeks about the impact of white women’s tears. Here, the author unpacks that and offers ways to stand strong in a misogynistic culture without harming others.
If mayors can pull Confederate generals from their perches, surely, we can pull idolatrous pledges from our liturgies. Surely, we can pull imperial patriotism out of our own hearts.
What is an “evangelical” is a question now at stake on a global level. Last week at Wheaton College, a historic evangelical site, 50 fairly diverse leaders met to pray and discern together the future of evangelicalism in the U.S. When Fox News, Breitbart, and CBN (Christian Broadcasting Network) launched coordinated coverage of the meeting as “ Trump bashing,” featuring the Trump evangelical advisers to the president, you knew the meeting hit a nerve.
A former administrator for the women's basketball team at Temple University, Cosby's alma mater, Constand is one of about 50 women who have accused him of sexual assault. All of the other allegations are believed to be too old to be prosecuted.
The #MeToo hashtag has revealed horrific stories of sexual abuse around the world. The #ChurchToo hashtag has done the same, in the context of the church. As a marriage counselor and pastor, I’ve seen cases of sexual abuse that would make your skin crawl. They’re evil, inhumane, and an abomination to God. But I’ve also encountered another kind of abuse that is equally appalling to God. It isn’t necessarily sexual in nature. It probably won’t gain a famous hashtag. It has become disturbingly prevalent in our culture — and yet it remains largely hidden. It’s called domestic spiritual abuse.
R. Marie Griffith, director of the John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics at Washington University in St. Louis, said that the Assemblies of God, founded in 1914, has had a “fascinating history” of women’s leadership, with women leading congregations and speaking from pulpits in its early days and later often finding their roles restricted.
As we approach Pentecost Sunday, it is fitting to recall the fear and trepidation early Christians felt after the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ. Acts 2 sets the scene for us: 120 followers of Jesus were hiding in an upper room afraid to proclaim their faith publicly. It is an unfortunate parallel to our current times.
For a country that so often claims to purport liberty and democracy, the displacement of 400,000 people in Marawi and the 20,000 killings under Duterte’s drug war should concern the United States. But in the treatment of Jerome Aba, U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents enacted an ideology of scarcity, Islamaphobia, and “America First.” It is an ideology that carries international U.S. military intervention and control as the key to safety. And as a Muslim and peace advocate, Aba was a threat to that and treated as an “enemy combatant”.
While it is still dark, Easter happens. Because if the message is that Easter only happens in the light, when we feel strong and certain, when suffering and death hasn’t touched our lives, when the powers of empire have been defeated and justice is consistently done — if that’s the only context where Easter happens, then our celebration of Easter would be a farce.
In much of the last century, American Evangelicalism has had a complex relationship with power. On one hand, it has felt itself marginalized and repudiated, defeated, and silenced. On the other, it has often seemed to seek — even fawn over — worldly power, mimicking in the church forms of power evident in our culture. (I remember being at a conference where it was announced we should all be back after dinner for “an evening of star-studded worship.”) An evangelical dance with political power has been going on from the time of Billy Graham, through the Moral Majority and the religious right, to the Tea Party, and most recently with the white evangelical vote—the result being, as honorary Chairman of the Lausanne Movement Doug Birdsall has said, “When you Google ‘evangelical,’ you get Trump.”