[Read more of this blog conversation in response to the Sojourners article "Is the 'Emerging Church' for Whites Only?"]
It looks like folks are already talking about an upcoming Sojourners article on the emerging church that will be featured in the May issue of the magazine (you can subscribe and receive the May issue here). Though the article has not yet hit newsstands or the Web, popular emerging church leader Tony Jones took to his blog to respond to the cover image that we used in a promotional e-mail.
It certainly is a provocative cover and I look forward to reading the discussion that is to ensue (the May issue will go live online Friday, April 16).
I hope, though, that all sides will maintain civility and open hearts as we examine the important issue of race and the church. As a minority female, it's all too easy for me to become defensive, aggressive, and angry about some of the race and gender injustices that I experience every day, but that is no way to approach true reconciliation.
Yesterday I found myself on one side of a heated debate with my sister. I yelled, gesticulated, and argued 'til my face turned blue. She, on the other hand, remained calm, listened with an open heart, and then humbled me to oblivion by sending me this crucial Henri Nouwen passage from his text, Out of Solitude:
By the honest recognition and confession of our human sameness we can participate in the care of God who came, not to the powerful but powerless, not to be different but the same, not to take our pain away but to share it. Through this participation we can open our hearts to each other and form a new community.
Jeannie Choi is an assistant editor at Sojourners.
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