Roots: A Communal Journal

Last month, in an attempt to explain white evangelical support for President Trump, Brit Hume of Fox News wrote the following: " And he's willing to fight ."  I have been thinking about this tweet for weeks now. It's become a kind of magnet for many of my wayward reflections on race, politics, faith, and my own white American evangelical culture. That is, at least in part, because I believe Hume unwittingly identified the central deception which has captured the imagination of white American evangelicals: they regard their place in the wider American culture in terms of combat . It is this error which has led the vast majority of white American evangelicals to believe that the POTUS is fighting alongside them. For some time now, I have been reflecting on evangelicalism—the culture of evangelicals—and white American evangelicalism in particular. I grew up in a white evangelical home. We were homeschooled, watched Veggie Tales , attended non-denomin...

This week, a few others and I, somewhat spontaneously, started sharing with each other about our experiences with race. It was humbling and somber, yet encouraging and hopeful. Our shared experiences created a foundation for us to work with a common understanding and commitment to learning what we don't know, and responding to what we now know. For me, it was liberating - to know that I was joined by a community that not only will share with me in pain and sorrow, but to celebrate our joys and join together in hope for what can be. Most importantly, however, I was taught an important lesson about our sheer humanity. In our conversation, I was reminded by one of the group that what binds us together in our journey for justice and liberation aren't common frameworks or theories of change. Our identities are not abstractions or theories because they are the result of lived experiences. What connects us is far greater, and yet far simpler, than can be intellectualized - our s...