On Tuesday, February 16, tomorrow The Black Church is airing on PBS.
This film releases as we are becoming less and less of a monolith in the Black community. Recently, someone asked me if the Black community exists. They thought I lost my mind when I said, "Not really. We have been culled together by the attack of systemic racism."
In reality, the Black community is the remnant of the original people of the earth except many of us don't know that because the truth has been hidden and destroyed by western "civilization". Our persisting Black excellence is a sign of our resilience and who we are.
The Black church has been the ship many of us took to this place, enduring the trauma and terror in western culture. Some are choosing other places of worship and some are not choosing organized religion at all. Whatever we do, I hope we honor the Black church as an institution of our history during this season of humanity.
I don't personally believe that Jesus came to inspire us to build buildings and cull people together in this western model of church some of us follow. I think that speaks for itself if you reflect on what the Bible shows of his earthly ministry. Imitating someone else's culture in patriarchy and greed, some have abused their position and power depicted in this video. Part of the blame rests with those of us who "celebritize" people (no matter the size of the following); we need to cut it out.
Wherever you stand about the church, I pray we exercise honor in all the ways we engage each other.
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