Who Am I? | Courageous Conversations 2024

Panelist: Well, good morning, everyone. Good morning. And welcome to the DMV. We’re excited that you all are here with us this weekend and for this conference. My name is Perron Rogers. I get to pastor a church locally here called the Triumphant Church, and I get to moderate this panel that I’m super excited about. So to get us started, I’m just gonna ask all of you to give us your name and a little bit about yourself, so that we can just gather ourselves for this time of discussion. Starting with you, doctor Malik. Good morning. Good morning. Is something good? Okay. My name is, doctor Malik Blade. I am the CEO of the Whole Brother Mission, filling in for doctor Otis Moss. Big shoes to fill, but I’ll you’ll see me, throughout the conference on some other panels as well. I’ll be moderating, but I’m glad to be here. I’ve been here each year and past three, four, five years. But I manage the Whole Brother Mission. It’s a nonprofit that connects men with mental health professionals nationwide. Hi, guys. I am Kobe Campbell. I’m a licensed clinical mental health counselor. I specialize in trauma and the intersection of faith. I’m from Charlotte, North Carolina, and I’m excited to be here. Good morning. My name is Vince Bontu, and, I direct the Mecham School of High Minote. And I also teach at Fuller Theological Seminary, and I’m one of the pastors at Beloved Community Church in Saint Louis. Good morning. My name is Christie Adams. I’m the author of three books, parable of the brown girl, book called unbossed, and a recent book that came out last week called womanish theology. Also thank you. Wow. Okay. I’m also the, executive director of community and belonging for the Saint Paul schools in Brooklyn, Will, Maryland. Thank you. So to get our discussion started today, I hope that many of you have already gotten your book. My wife and I, we’ve purchased our book. And, the first pain point that Lisa speaks about in the book is personhood. And she frames it with the discussion that she had, with this young guy, college student, who was really wrestling with the Christianity faith and whether or not Christianity was for black people or not, or if it was just a tool of oppression for white people. And, she realized that what he really was struggling with was his own value and worth as a person and this idea around identity. There’s this one line that I wanna read. It says personhood has been a pain point in the black community for generations. From before setting foot on the shores of America until today, people of African descent have received false narratives about their identity. Not knowing who you are is disorienting, and that pain only intensifies when those who claim to know God treat you like you aren’t created in his in his image. And so I want us to, start our conversation. We wanna begin with this quest this question as it as we got deal with and wrestle with this idea of personhood. How can a person how can we know who we are as people? How can a person know who they are? And anyone can jump in and take a grab at this one. Well, I I may I start us off with a few thoughts. I I would say that we know who we are in in terms of how we relate to God. That who we are has to start with who God is. Everything starts with who God is. And, even God starts with who God is. I would say that, God is eternally triune. God is father, son, and holy spirit. The father, the son, and the spirit all relate to each other. They exist. Their identity is framed by their proximity to one another. A father is a father because there’s a son. The son is a son because there’s a father. The spirit is the spirit of God. And so God is a relational God, and we also are relational people. And so I would say we know who we are in terms of how we relate to others. And this is a a part of our ancestry as people of African descent, because y’all are probably familiar with the concept of Ubuntu. But this is a, Zulu, in a closer concept. There’s a closer, proverb that goes with it as, ubuntu, which means a person is a person through other people. And so we are defined relationally and we can not only be defined as individuals, or I cannot just define myself, or I can’t understand my identity as an isolated entity, but I am who I am in relation to other people, in relation to the creation, the land itself, and how I stand in right relationship with that creation. And first and foremost, I am who I am because of who I am in standing with God. Yeah. You wanna add to that? Sure. You just make eye contact. Now I gotta answer. You know, I I wrestle with this question. I was up at 3AM, and I was like, am I having an existential crisis? How do we like, how do we answer this? And I felt really similarly in that space. They’re like, okay. I am when God describes himself, when God reveals his identity, I know we love to say, like, God, even if you did nothing for me, he’d still be good, But we would never know he was good if he never did anything for us. Right? They’re like, who got it is is is demonstrated in his relationship to us, which means that maybe who I am maybe the call to the great commission is an opportunity for me to find out who I am. That, like, we find out who we are as we love and as we allow ourselves to receive love. And I think that we are ever developing our awareness of who we are by relationship. And so I think that a lot of us have been kind of coaxed into trying to define ourselves in a silo and then engage in community. Whereas the reality is I think when we are in community, we get to experience the reality of who we are. Right? That we I am beloved and everything flows from that, but I would never know I was beloved if God had not encountered me, which means I only have access to the reality of my identity because I was in relationship with someone other than me. So, that felt like a big round circle, but I love that that there’s no way to know who you are without being connected to someone outside of who you are. That’s good. Can I, make something explicit that I think that you, doctor Manchu, made implicit? But first of all, I love this idea of framing this around our relational aspect, but also how what does our faith inform, how we think about our identity and our personhood? Can either of you touch on that? I wanna go back to just go back a little bit too. Absolutely. Because I think there’s a spiritual component to who we are, and then there’s also sort of like a cultural component to who we are. I used to always wonder why my dad was so into history. Like he he was always like, oh, I found out who our great great great grandfather, you know, and I’d be like, okay, boring. Right? But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve been wanting to look back more. I’ve been like, I wanna take that ancestry DNA. Oh, my family is from this part. Right? I spent a month in Ghana and changed my life. Right? Because some of my ancestry goes back to West Africa. Finding out, you know, that my grandmother was, you know, had, like, a little, like, stick on her shoulder. You know what I mean? That she had an attitude a lot, you know, made me feel like, oh, that’s why I get upset at certain things. I mean, I think it’s important to sort of look back, and to do the research and to discover sort of, like, you know because we we we need to be able to know our stories and know where we came from. So I’ve just recently been asking my parents or asking my family, like, tell me a little bit more about my grandfather. Tell me a little bit more about these things. And I think it’s made me a bit more of a whole person, and really more connected to who I am we haven’t had that history that’s naturally been passed down to us. So we need to almost go back and seek that out. Yes. And I would just add that it’s important to you mentioned considering this answer in light of our faith. Depending on who you ask, the question will be answered very differently. But I would say for Christians answering that question, who am I as a person, what’s important is to understand, our our role in terms of the things or people that exist. And by that, I mean understanding that we are created beings rather than the creator. So when we talk about God, big G, versus God, little g, one of the ways we misunderstand who we are is attempting to take full control of and orchestrate our lives. And in that way, we’re not functioning as creative beings, but we’re attempting to be gods of our own lives. So in one sense, while we do have free will, it’s important for us to understand our placement in this whole cosmos, which is creative beings. That’s good. Moving on from that, I also wanna ask a question. Even for yourself, has there been moments when you have wrestled with your identity, even coming to grips with how it may inform, that is informed by your faith? Have you had moments where you’ve had to grapple with, wrestle with your own personhood, your own identity, your own self worth and value? Yes. Good. Yesterday. You know? I had, you know, I I’ve in an, I work at an, an institution where I’m the only black woman in that building. Wow. That’s that visible. And, and I was talking to the president of the school about, we had a difficult conversation about, you know, my, my calling and my platform that I feel like is to empowering Black women and girls and faith development in Black women and girls and our con there’s a, there’s this small conservative base. Right. That posted me on their social media this week. Right. And my position at that school. And he was saying, you know, there’s a fine line here between the institution, and what might be coming at you and what it is that you feel like you’re called to do in your, your line of work. And we’re, we’re here to protect you. But at the same time, you know, as an executive director, I mean, you know, are, is this something that, you know, make sure that you’re aware, fully aware? I said, I will never do anything to to compromise the the institution, but I will really never do anything to compromise my call. Mhmm. And so I needed to be reminded in that moment. It was a great difficult conversation to have because I said at the end of the day, this is what God has called me to do. And if it doesn’t align, which I feel like it does align with the institution, but if the fear is that this conservative base is, you know, going to sort of drive me away or or you all lose money, then I’m going to have to go. But it was really good. It was a good test for me in that moment because I was like, man, you know, do I stay silent? Do I not post anymore? You know? Do I just, like, leave it alone so that I don’t risk my job? But at the end of the day, this is my calling. And sometimes it’s we have to sort of be reminded in these moments of what are we willing to sacrifice. And I would sacrifice the institution or any person before I would sacrifice what God called me to. Yeah. That’s right. Anyone else? Yeah. I I, look at the definition of what identity was. This is the Oxford definition. It says, the unique set of characteristics that can be used to identify a person as themself and no one else. And I think to speak on what my sister said over here that, like, you know, there’s a cultural identity. There’s an identity as Christians, like, the we what who we are called to be as a people. But then there also is, like, a personal identity, and I think I have wrestled with that as a Christian. And I was speaking to my friend, Yana, about this. That, like, sometimes I feel out of place in Christianity in black Christianity because I feel like what I experience of God in my, personal sacred time is so sweet and tender. And and, like, I just feel like I’d be just all I do is cry. Like like, God is just so sweet to me. Oh, why am I about to cry? That Yes. Okay. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. This doesn’t sound oh, thank you. This doesn’t sound like the same God that when I when I go into churches, like and when I read my word and I pray, like, it’s just God is so good. Yes, he is. He’s so good. He’s so good and so kind. And, I’m gonna look back at his little laugh. He’s so kind. And sometimes I don’t now if I get excited, I got a little, like, sponge rod meet me pop, you know, but, like, I’m not the I’m not the runner or the shouter. And so sometimes I can feel out of place, like, man, like God doesn’t when God convicts to me convicts me, God doesn’t scream at me and God doesn’t threaten me. He he like speaks me with such kindness and says like, girl, you know, you have to do this. And my surrender has always come from the sweetness of God and rarely from the wrath of God, rarely from God saying, I’m gonna take this away. And so sometimes I feel like I come into these spaces and I’m grateful I get to be myself here. But sometimes I come into spaces and it can feel out of place because it can feel like what’s communicated of God only has one voice or one tone. And that tone often seems like a mirror of the the things that have traumatized us as a people, you know. And so sometimes I feel like, like if I think and what I’m trying to say is sometimes I feel like I don’t belong because, when I speak about the kindness and the sweetness and the love of God, the response can sometimes be like, oh, you’re just not serious about your faith. You’re not serious enough. Like, if if what drives your relationship with God is love and sweetness and pleasure in his presence, then you just not serious enough, you know? And so sometimes as a black woman, I’m like, oh man, Where do I fit in as a Christian? And it can kind of feel like my relationship with God is siloed off, and I’ve had to come to the reality. And I’m still wrestling with the fact that, like, I experienced God this way. We have not exhausted all the ways an infinite God can be experienced. An infinite God can be experienced infinitely. And so just having to be okay with that because sometimes you just wanna fit in. You know what I’m saying? Sometimes you just wanna fit in. And and I think that that’s where I wrestle with my identity. Mhmm. It’s like, I’m a crier. Who? Like, I’m not I’m all like, you know what I’m saying? Like, God is just so sweet. He’s like, oh, he just is so nice to me. You know? And, and that matters that, like, black women need to know a God who’s nice to them. Yeah. Like, the world is mean and sometimes it’s hard to differentiate the voice between the voice of God by other people and the world when they just are always screaming at us. It’s not good for my nervous system. We can talk. We can really talk. You know what I’m saying? And so that that’s where I wrestle. And I think, a lot of people, not just black women, silently wrestle. I think sometimes we wanna fit into the culture of Christianity, but sometimes we feel like we have to abandon the reality of our experience with Christ. Yeah. That’s so good. Can I? I’m coming to you next, Doctor. Malik, but I just wanna on behalf of everybody who would agree with me, I wanna say you do belong in this space. And particularly, I I grew up in a black church. I love the black church. Yeah. And so the black church is not monolithic. And so we need the varying perspectives. And so on behalf of, like I said, everyone who would agree with me, and then those who are listening and even watching online who can resonate with your story to let you all know that definitely you belong. Doctor Malik? I promise. I told Lisa before. I said, we were praying about this year’s conference, and I said, somebody gonna cry this year. I promise you. I didn’t know. I wasn’t gonna be on this panel and I didn’t know, but I’m just saying, spirit. So, I feel the need to kind of address something specific that has kind of come up. And, I think each of our answers in one way or another. And, it’s not to call anybody out or be combative. But, I do think when we address things from historical and a cultural perspective, it’s important to kind of address these things. So, I’m not trying to hurt anybody’s feelings. But, I do think as black people in general, it really is important for us to understand just how effective white supremacy has been in terms of the shaping of America and the American church. And in many different ways, we find ourselves struggling with identity and personhood because we were dehumanized. But then also the loudest voices on behalf of God have presented Christianity in such a way where where some of the things being presented weren’t necessarily biblical they were cultural. And by that I speak I can specifically reference you know I’ve counseled married couples and I remember specifically a black couple that was attending a white evangelical church and the wife was struggling and as we talk through it what we realize is she didn’t have peace because she was comparing herself as a wife and mom to the white women in the church. And by virtue of a variety of historical factors I can’t address right now it looks different. I had the opportunity to serve in PWIs, Christian institutions. I was raised in Washington DC by a black single mom. She didn’t have the option to be a stay at home mom. Whereas when I go to seminary in North Carolina, a lot of these white women had that option and that was the setup. It’s not to say one is right or wrong, but there are cultural differences. And in sometimes those cultural differences get presented as the biblical standard. And that is why she was stressing. So I do think those things play a part for us, and we need to understand the differences between what God said and what they said. Yeah. I would just say real quick, little bit just about my backstory. I would say that the time that I struggled or a time that I struggled with my identity probably the most acutely was when I was growing up and, as a teenager in the North Side Of St. Louis in the inner city, and I really wrestled my identity. Not not in the way that a lot of times people might think, because I’m a biracial person. And a lot of times you hear, like, kind of sometimes biracial people have the struggle of, I don’t know if I’m black or white, and I don’t know who I am. And that’s that’s actually never been my story or my process. I’ve always identified as black, and that’s just how I was always treated and how I and I did didn’t have nothing to say be having any negative feelings from my mom. I used to that that’d be the number of reason I’d be squabbing growing up so much up with my mom. And so, but it’s just that I had just just always identified that way, but my identity crisis was more so identifying and understanding and having the experience again, growing up, you know, being, you know, harassed by police and all that kind of stuff, identifying as a black man. But I didn’t, it was the intersectionality of being not only in a black community, but also in a very poor, high crime, very under resourced community. And for my in that context, my context of Christianity, my question was not understanding who I am, but it was more dealing with is who I am welcome in Christianity. Wow. Is who I am reflected in Christianity? Is who I am acceptable before God? Because my context of Christianity was either white Christians coming in to help my community Yep. Or it was black Christians coming in to meet in my community and then leave at 12:00 on Sunday and not come back to the next Sunday morning. Right. And so that was that was my context of Christianity, is that, it was the intersectionality of race and class is that either I was too hood for the church or I was too black and too hood for the church. And and I think something that really ministered to me that helped me come out of that identity crisis and really, I mean, again, going back to the question of how does faith play a role. Faith is the center of it. For me, I cannot know who I am if I don’t know who God is because I was made in the image of God. We are all made in the image of God. So, therefore, I can’t know who I am until I know whose image I made. And God really spoke to me through the passage in Acts chapter 10 where the Lord was giving Peter a vision and he said, kill and eat. And he was trying to change Peter’s heart in terms of how he viewed gentiles. And and Peter said, I’ve never touched anything unclean. And in verse 15, God said, don’t call unclean what God has made clean. And I think I realized that it was really it’s not not only black, but in a particular hood context, I felt and I and and I think a lot of people in that context even still feel that who I am is just unacceptable before God, that I have to change who I am before I even step into a church. I have to change how I dress. I have to change how I talk. I have to change how I look. I have to assimilate into some black middle class version of acceptability or into some white middle class acceptability. And and I and I would give a shout out to Cross Movement because that was the first time that I had seen people who love the Lord, who not only looked like me, but also talked, dressed, acted, walked like me. And I that blew my mind because I didn’t think that was possible. And and also when I was discipled, when I was in college by a brother who had a similar story and who had walked me through a lot of that. And then also when I joined a church, that was in the West Side Of Chicago while I was in college that we had a had a ministry model of really empowering the most marginalized in that particular context. And so I think through that church experience, through seeing models and through discipleship and through the word, that was what really ministered to me in my identity crisis. Wow. That’s really good. Can I say one thing real quick? Absolutely. My my my my my. I feel like between both of what they said, I’m like I think we also like, I just wanna say the quiet part out loud that, like, your your identity, you discovering your identity in Christ does not mean you become more, close to the culture of whiteness. That, like, I just remember it was last year. I don’t know if y’all remember this, but a lot of people were doing, like, their before and after in Christ. And their before was them wearing culturally black things, and their after was them wearing finance bro outfits. And I’m like and they’re like, I was ratchet. I was low down. I was a thug. And then it’s like, and then God cleaned me up and now you have, Sperry’s on? Like, well, help me understand. Help me understand why why like even like the imagery, like the imagery is communicating that like the closer you get to God, the closer you will get to the appearance and to the stature and to the socioeconomic status of a middle aged white man, and that is not true. God’s not gonna clean like, you you having a clean heart does not mean that you are gonna let go of your AAVE. You having a clean heart does not mean that you’re gonna let go of your pigeon. Doesn’t mean that you’re gonna lose the who you are culturally because that matters. And I think that sometimes people think that and I’ll say one more thing. I’m sorry, y’all. I really wanted to say it, but I wanted to honor time. I think it is okay for us to look back and learn about the people who came before us. I think that in, in white culture and, even in scripture, it’s celebrated to look back at your history, to learn about your ancestors. But then, yes, divination is a real thing, but also how come every time black people try to look back and understand where they came from and who they came from, it’s demonic. There’s a reason why people don’t want us to look back. Let’s talk about the the neurological reality, the biological reality. Epigenetics says that the experiences of the people who came before us were encoded in their DNA and that DNA resides in us. There’s a reason why scripture refers back to the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob. We’re looking at back at these people’s experiences to help us understand the where we’ve been postured and positioned in history. And it’s okay for us to do that too. But I just wanna say, like, you becoming Christian does not mean that you lose your identity as a black person. Yeah. That’s really, really good. I’m so appreciative that you brought out two points, but, particularly this idea of looking back Yeah. And knowing the rich history that we have of people who were discriminated against, marginalized, and yet they still understood their personal worth, value, and significance. Yeah. And so speak to how we can use those narratives to help people who are perhaps struggling with the notion of being marginalized, being discriminated against, and still finding how do I see myself, see my image, see my worth and value, even in places where we feel like we’re being marginalized and discriminated against? It’s important. One way is just recognizing the importance of of understanding that God is the God of the universe and not just America. So Say that louder for the people in the back. God is the God of the universe, not just America. And I will go further to say that America isn’t inherently a Christian nation either. That’s right. Because and I I do think those things are important to say not to be salacious, but those assumptions are why we get to the issues that we were just talking about. Right. And it couples Christianity with the average American, which is a straight white male. So a lot of times those things are coupled together, and we do need to divorce them to understand the bigness of God, and not truncate him to conservative ideology. So even I can even say, you know, even in this political season, we some people tend to look at it as Republicans being the Christian party and Democrats being the others. That’s that’s the way that some people view it. And those mentalities again are what push and truncate our understanding of God. So we have to understand God outside of America, outside of politics, and understand him again as the creator and we are the created things. And then understanding also how how we read scripture. So oftentimes how we read is informed by our culture here. So we may interpret a text and make it make sense for America. But if you then have someone in Egypt or South Africa or or East Asia read that, that wouldn’t make sense for them and how you’re interpreting that. So again, the lens to which we view it, can affect how we then then live. So, understanding how big our god is and not truncating him to our context. Now, scripture and God’s directives have cultural implications, but he comes before the culture and then influences the culture rather than the culture influencing how we understand him. That’s good. Yeah. I would say that, how do we understand our identity when we’re experiencing marginalization? To me, the scriptures are clear that God identifies with the oppressed. That God is near to the brokenhearted. That he said, blessed are those who are poor. He says, woe to those who are rich. And so, now I I do take issue with theological perspective that sometimes tend to demonize the oppressed, as in the liberation of the oppressed as an end goal in and of itself, which I would say it is not. But that our starting point for theology is God. And the end point of theology is God. That what we we exist to bring glory to God and not to ourselves. And even when Moses told Pharaoh, let my people go, it was let my people go so that they may worship me. Not anybody or themselves, but me, Yahweh. And so, having said that, though, I do think that there is a preferential option for the marginalized in the sense that the way that God constructs the church in the New Testament clearly has a priority on the most marginalized, the orphans, the widows, the sojourners, the lepers, the infirm, you know, and and and there is a way in which we also as a church need to when we’re experiencing marginalization, that we we as a church need to be leaning into that, and we need to be celebrating. First Corinthians 12 says that we need to give greater honor to the parts of the body that have lacked it. And then it says our more presentable parts don’t need any special treatment. Right. The literal Greek says they don’t have need. And so, again, that doesn’t mean God doesn’t love people who are of privilege of certain swords because we see people in scriptures that are of privilege. But every time we see someone in the New Testament who is some some sort of privilege, you see them divesting that privilege. You see them walking away from it. You see them giving it and laying it at the feet and getting behind the leadership of the church, which was marginalized, which is people like Peter and John, which acts four says were unschooled ordinary people. They was from the hood. And the rich people like Gamaliel, like Barnabas, they were following those people. And so but I think a lot of times, we have self hatred. We kinda have this Clark doll experiment thing in us where, you know, the the the experiment with the dolls and the kids, like, which one is the good one, which one is the bad one, and they’re pointing at the white one is the good one, the pretty one, the one do you wanna play with. And then they say, which one looks like you? And then they slowly point at the black one. A lot of times, we in Christendom, black folks, we do the same thing where we think white institutions, white schools, white seminaries, white publishers, white money, white denominations is where we need to be. We need to be in the margins, and we need to be supporting institutions in the margins and be working in that context. That’s good. I would say growing up, I actually didn’t know I was marginalized. And and a lot of that was because of my church, the protection of my church. I grew up in New Jersey, Church First Baptist, and my mentor’s names was Buster Stories. Oh, yeah. And he his whole philosophy, our whole church community was it didn’t matter what was happening outside. We were going to provide the spiritual sustenance, the the education, the vacation bible school, the cultural sustenance, all of that. There was a time where our churches were, like, protect protecting our identities and things like that came sort of from within. And And so I feel like I was shielded a lot growing up. It wasn’t until I, like, got to seminary. It wasn’t until I went to, you know, college and all that that I was like, oh, wow. Women can’t preach. Like, there were so many it it wasn’t really until I left the confines of of because it may have been that way outside of the church home. Right? But our executive pastor was a woman growing up in the nineties. I didn’t know it was a thing outside. Right? And not to say that I didn’t struggle, continue to struggle. But, you know, our tutoring services, we had a foster care agency. You know, we we had job readiness programs. All of the things that we needed came from within, and we were the village that provided what we needed for our people. And so the emphasis wasn’t on what they were doing on the outside. Oh, we’re so we’re so we’re suffering, and we’re marginalized and all that. And all that was true, but the emphasis was so much so on providing what we needed from the inside so that the outside didn’t really affect us and bother us. And I’d like for us to get back to that place where we’re sort of wrapping our arms around our community so that we are protecting ourselves from what’s going on from the outside because the narrative so much is what’s happening on the outside and the racism and Donald Trump and all this other stuff. And it’s like, we can protect ourselves so much where where all of that is just white noise. Where all of that no pun intended. Where all of that is just like it’s just background. Right? I was just talking to Courtney. Where are you? Where’s my girl? Reverend Courtney. I’m like, homegirl up there. And I’m not gonna tell her idea, but she’s so she’s so focused on when it comes to her pastoring, not just on the church, but on providing for the community, right, and providing for our people where we can’t just say, oh, well, they’re not handing it to us. And they’re racist, and they’re that. No. No. No. No. We’ll provide it for ourselves. Right? And so I think that’s where our our ancestry that’s where my my upbringing sort of came from that mentality, and I miss that so much because we’re so focused on what they’re saying about us from the outside and what they’re doing. We’re getting to the last, portion of this time. We’re gonna open up for q and a. And so they’re going to put a QR code on the screen that you can scan. And even if you’re watching online, we encourage you to put a submit a question, through the QR using this QR code, and you can go on a scan. And at the end of this discussion, we will go to these questions that have been submitted. So, yeah, go ahead and take a moment to do that. As people are doing that, I wanna ask you all, and you kinda touched on this earlier, Christy, when you’re talking about how you go back to your call when it feels like people are trying to put you on blast or put you in your place or what have you. What are some of the practices that you all use to ground yourself and to ground you in your self worth and value, when you are wrestling with identity personhood? So I’ll say at my institution or institutions that I’ve been at that have get been, again, been majority. I’ve been the the only one, but there might be another one there. Right? Like there’s another sister. She just texts me like, girl, you in your office? You know, like we we I have we have to find each other. Wow. Because we have to get the energy and the love and the that’s why I don’t like it when we’re in spaces and we’re competing. That’s also, you know, based in white supremacy too because it’s meant that’s meant to divide us talking about all this divisiveness. Right? We get our energy, our spirituality. We get what we need from each other. And so what I do is, like, it’s it’s a spiritual practice to me, is to sort of bind together with my sisters or my brothers. You know what I mean? On campus and when I’m in those spaces, because we need each other so that when we go out into the world, just so that when we going out on campus or wherever we’re at, that we’re able to have that love that we need from one another. So I pull from my people. That’s good. I have a a complex answer to that so hopefully you can bear with me. So you’re asking what can we do to to ground ourselves right? I do think there are there is a space for that and there are a variety of things that can be done to kind of ground ourselves but in addition to steps that can be taken to ground ourselves, I do want to think about the other side of this and kind of thinking about it from a 10,000 foot perspective. So, I know that there may be some white people listening to this conversation that feel authorized or feel as though, okay, all these black people are sitting on stage pointing their finger at us. That’s how some interpret it what just happened to you, right? And I do think that because the focus may be on grounding ourselves or recovering from what happened there is space for that sometimes we can stay in that space and it turns into a us versus them thing And that’s not healthy either. I remember this statement that I made years ago rubbed some of my more progressive friends the wrong way but I’ll say it again. Are you correct? I said that I’m from Chocolate City Southeast Washington DC I have no problem talking about being black right? But I did say personhood I understand and again y’all can argue with me about this after but my blackness comes second to my Christianity. So I can speak about these racial dynamics I don’t mind going there but it’s my belief we can you know talk about it that if we lean too much into that then these conversations turn into pointing the finger at them and it legitimizes the people that are sitting on the edge of their seat concerned with this conversation. So I would say one white people there’s no reason to be alarmed but two I do think that understand where you are in your journey so you may be falling back in the moment leaning into other black people in the community and there’s a space for for that. But there are some of us who I do think can be equipped to be the go in between or the roles because again I’m looking at it as a global church right so we’re all the body of Christ the different colors and shades. So what can we do to to fracture to break to to mend the fractures that are there? Does this mean tap dancing for white people? No. But I do think there are there is a space where we can move from just focusing on us to saying okay what can we do to to explain what the issue is? And this requires some give and say so it requires us to lean into the conversation but it also requires white people to not check out and say oh here they go talking about us again. Well there are years and years and years and years of mess that took place so there’s no way to skip over that and you can’t ban history whether you ban the books or not history still happened. So I I just wanted to put that out there, especially in this space that while we can have these conversations, we want to look at what can we do to unify everyone. And unifying everyone does start with telling the truth about what happened. Yeah. That’s good. And I just wanna say, what’s your Twitter, handle or x so that people don’t at Oh, yeah. Courageous conversation. They at you. You can at a league play, a director. I’m zugging. I’m zugging. I’m zugging. Thank Thank you for being courageous to say that, though it the scripture implores us to look back, at who we are. It says, Hebrews thirteen seven, remember it doesn’t say you can. It says, remember your leaders, those who have come before you. And this is a part of our our ancestry, you know, talking about going to Ghana. Well, we know the Sankofa adinkra symbol, right, that is that you have to look back. And even this concept of sankofa, which sankofa, in the Akan language means go back and get it. And and it’s visualized by a bird looking back at an egg that’s on its back. And so we have to go back to understand who we are. And I and I would say we have to do that unapologetically. I do I do agree that we, that God’s goal is unity. But again, I wanna go back first Corinthians 12. Paul says, in verse 26 that so that there may be no division in the body. Right? So god Paul’s goal there is unity, but it’s interesting that the recipe, the formula for unity is actually justice. The recipe to get to reconciliation is actually redistribution of resources. And so, personally, I’m not that concerned about what people in privilege think or their hurt feelings when people who are marginalized start telling the truth about their feelings. And the word of God actually calls us to live and be in the margins. Now, again, we have to say that in love absolutely and with grace. But at the same time, I think that when we are following God, when we’re following Christ, we’re following, the God of the oppressed that that’s gonna lean us more into the stories of the oppressed. If you say black lives matter, that doesn’t mean, oh, does that mean white lives? We didn’t nobody said that. It just it’s it’s simply affirming a reality. The Bible says black is beautiful. It does we wanna know who our identity is. Again, and I agree with the sentiment that if we I I might prefer to word it as I don’t like to think of my blackness and my Christianity as somehow opposites or intention with each other, but I would say my blackness comes out of my Christianity. That I have to understand who I am, in all the complexities of who I am by only understanding who I am in Christ. Because God is the one who made black, and he made white and brown and yellow and red and every other color. And so, as the sister said earlier, as I go deeper into my relationship with Christ, it doesn’t take me further away from my culture. It actually brings me deeper into my culture. So in a way, the only way to fully be black is by being made right with God by grace through faith in Jesus Christ because God is the one who made black. And so the only way to fully be black is to be made right with the one who made black in the first place and said in song of songs one and five that it’s beautiful. But I would just add there are agreed completely. There are some aspects though of black culture or any culture that come more from the world than God. So as we’re growing closer to God in some instances there are some aspects of black culture that we may need to share. All the people in our community that look like us might say I support that. But depending on what it is as a Christian I may need to say no. Absolutely. And that’s why being made right through Jesus Christ that we are able to understand what it means to truly be black. Because a lot of times, how what has been defined as being black, I would say that’s not blackness at all. That’s actually of the enemy. And sometimes the enemy is trying to tell us what we what it means to be black. And some people will say, are you acting white? No. I’m not acting white. I have ancestors that are engaged in scholarship and doing all these things that sometimes in our community say, well, that’s, you know, that’s just how we are as a people. No. That’s how oppression and sin has made us to be. And so, yes, absolutely. There are some of these lies that we have embraced of who we are that through Christ, we can begin to get away from and, again, do a true Sankofa of going back to who God made us to be in the garden. Amen. Yeah. I I agree with you both. I agree with you both. But, you know, I think one of the things that actually grounds me is God designed me to experience Christianity and him as a black woman. That, like, he literally he he chose me to like, I really had to process that. God, he he chose me to experience Christianity through the lens of being a Ghanaian woman with dark skin and kinky hair and, like, all the characteristics, like, God knew the cultural lens through which I would need to learn about who he was. You know? And I and that’s something that’s grounding to me. And I also think that’s you know, I love what you said is true. Like, we there’s there’s nothing that defines us more than being God’s children. And I think that I don’t think we make the same demand of other people to say, well, you know, you have to put your whiteness a second to this. I’m not saying that they don’t have to do that. They do. But I think sometimes we have to be careful about in a roundabout way using Christianity to rescue people who don’t need to be rescued. Like, we don’t like like, I the it’s not the job of the oppressed to go convince oppressors that they should stop oppressing. Actually, I think that what’s so interesting about the gospel is we serve a God who does things with an invert way. Like, God blesses those who are marginalized to the point that the the those with privilege wants to put down their privilege to go get the things that look worthless to the world, but are are so worthy in their presence of God. And I think that, you know, I’m a be honest with y’all. We it says we got a minute and thirty seconds. Let me hurry up. I’m a be honest. I let go of the idea of of being the go between person. I used to be the go between person. Not my job. My job is to be the beloved and and to love God. And and those who there’s there’s no words, there’s no clothes, there’s no hairstyle, there’s no, there’s no posture, there is no there’s no way for you to show up in the world to convince someone to put down their privilege when they simply don’t want to. If they don’t want to do it, they won’t do it. Right? Like Jesus Jesus died that we might have everlasting life for the choice and the option. Those who want to put down their privilege will. They will. Even when it hurts, they will. And and I think that, you know, being grounded in in who I am, God designed me to experience him as a black woman. And I have to ask myself, what is it about being a black woman that God thought was the best context for me to know him? That’s good. So moving to the q and a section, I am struggling about which one to read first. And, also, if you can, in the app or in the, where you submit the question, there’s an opportunity for you to upvote something. So if you give it more votes, I will see that up here so that I’ll know that that’s one of the pressing questions that you would like to have asked. So the one that has the most, votes right now, is this question. If you’re supposed to know who you are through who God is, but you’ve been discipled by institutions that center God around whiteness or power, how do you reconcile that with your identity? Get out. So and again, I do I do think sometimes it’s hard to understand how both of these views can be in the same person. But as someone who went through higher ed and white evangelical institutions I’ve seen the cycle. This is the cycle that I saw. Two things. A black person that came from a black context began to have some issues with that black church. You go to this white institution and you think that you found the real Christianity, the real gospel. Right. Right. And, you think you’ve arrived. And then, them white people remind you that you’re black and then, they come back disappointed. It’s a cycle. And, the other version of that that I’ve seen is black person that’s always been in a white context. White people have always been there to save the day and that kind of white savior thing kind of comes up. Those are two ways I’ve seen it as far as black summonerians and either way it ends up leading to some level of disappointment because unfortunately for many of them their understanding of Christianity is not just tied to the bible but it’s also tied to cultural whiteness. And that’s where the disappointment comes in and then I see people having to pick up the pieces of I passed through those institutions but being again, being from Chocolate City, being from DC, I knew who I was. I went in, I said what I had to say, and I left. And I wasn’t worried about trying to make sure that white people were always comfortable with me. So that worked for me. But what I noticed is for a lot of people, that was not their experience. So they pass through and then when they felt disowned by white people, they also felt disowned by God because those cult that culture was so closely tied together. So I do think in a way that disappointing or hurtful experience is a wake up call for us to divorce our understanding of God through white expressions of Christianity. And then, God is able to rebuild you back up through that. The goal I would say from that point moving forward or the the things that’ll be helpful for you to to to rebuild your understanding in a more balanced way is, community, with black people that don’t hate white people because we don’t want to go to the other extreme. We’re not getting anywhere if we keep going to the extremes. So that cultural community is helpful to help you understand some things that are unique to you but also I would say a way to kind of rebuild after having an experience like that is also that personal time with God and understanding okay this is who I am uniquely and these things that made me different from them although they responded negatively to it, God doesn’t necessarily respond negatively to it. So if I’m more outspoken, if like I mentioned the wife, if it’s a wife that works rather than a wife that stays at home, all these things that may have been shunned or kind of looked at with a side eye in white culture, looking at those having a fresh view of those things so that we aren’t looking at them as negatives just because a certain community weren’t comfortable with it. That’s good. I’m gonna go to this next question because I think it piggybacks on that first question, and it’s gotten a whole bunch of votes. So they obviously want us to have some fun. Speaking of white culture not being the Christian standard, how do you feel about how sanitized music is becoming in the church, particularly the black church? We left Mahalia Jackson Jackson behind for Bethel. So how do you feel about that? Oh, man. I told you they wanted to have some fun. Man. I will I’ll respond to that. Do I feel equipped? I don’t know. We’ll we’ll find out. We’ll see what happens. We’ll find out. I you know, one, I think that, we forget, and I’ll I’ll share a little bit more about my background. So, my practice provides therapy to what we call PFPs, public facing professions. People that can’t just go into a normal place and get therapy because they’re too recognizable. And so I I have a little bit of insight on on not like, oh, the industry side. But sometimes we forget that, like, music is a business. Yeah. For some people, music is a ministry, but for many people, it is a business. Right? And so we have to, separate that, a little bit. But then also, I think that, I think Orlando, are you in here? Hi. That’s Orlando over there, and that’s his beautiful wife, Doe. Doe Jones over there. And, they’re incredible artists, and what I love about them You gotta give a stage name so people know what it’s Oh, I am Sun and Doe, capital d o e. What what I love about them is that they have maintained the integrity of what it means to be them as black people, but they have expressed their blackness in their music in a way that is authentic to them and still holds true to, like, the reality of them being black. That they’re like, there’s a spectrum of blackness, and, like, not all black music needs to be expressed the exact same way. And so I think it’s important for us to know that there’s black black music that’ll shout you down. There’s that Shekinah glory. Yes. You know what I’m saying? Like there’s we we have range, and I think that we have to be okay with that range. Now also, I do think that part of the business is that, a lot of white artists and white institutions have the money to push their music. You know? And that’s why it’s important for us, again, to develop community so that we can learn and hear worship from other people and other contexts so that we can listen to worship music that aligns with what draws us closest to God. It’s not about whose music is most popular. It’s about does this music put in my mouth? I love Do said this to me one time. She said, I love music because we can put words in people’s mouths. Does this music put in my mouth the worship that I wanna give to God right now? You know what I’m saying? And so I think that you’re right. Sometimes the music has become I don’t want to say sanitized. I think that sometimes we prioritize white worship as more authentic, but I think that we have to recognize that worship is simply existing as God has created you to exist. Right? That is worship. The sun worships as long as it’s it’s in its sky. All of creation worships. Right? As long as the moon comes out at night, the moon is worshiping. Right? And I think that there’s a reality that we have to not just create this dichotomy because I listen to all types of music, by people who are black and people who are not black. Right? So I think that we have to remember that there’s not only one type of black worship. There is a range of black worship, and all of it is valid, and all of it, has space in the kingdom of God, but also, and I say this with all the love in my heart because someone had to ask me this, Why are you in spaces that prioritizes things that you don’t want to be a priority? Alright. You know what I’m saying? That’s something someone had to ask me because I was like, oh, these people, they and they’re like, well, then why are you there? Either you’re there to just like low key be a hater or you’re there because God’s called you to be there. And if God’s called you to be there, then there’s a resource God’s gonna give you to endure in that space. And if God’s not giving you a resource to endure in that space, then maybe you should ask him if you can leave and go to a church that plays the music that you like. Thank you. You said you weren’t an expert, but you answered that question really well. Christy, I wanna come back to you, in regards to this question because of your background. But what wisdom and everyone can chime in on this. But what wisdom would you all share for developing personhood for young people? Thank you. First off, we have to acknowledge the agency and personhood of young people. I think a lot of times we approach them as though we are the wisdom givers and we are the ones that, you know, are shaping their identities only. And, and because of that, when they have things to say, opinions, or, when they try to sort of work out that agency and live their lives, then it’s difficult for them to do so when they think, well, you just stay in a child’s place, which I agree with. Don’t get me wrong. But I when I’m working with young people, I really want to know what your opinion is. I really want to know what you have to say. Like, I think seeing them as another human being in this earth that has wisdom and things to share and, you know, identity and all of that, that actually helps them. And we’ve seen that from young, young kids when you’ve hear about babies and it’s like, don’t when people have the approach of, like, not doing baby talk with young like, with babies, right, on purpose because they’re like, no. They can understand you. Right? And I I feel like the same way, and I think that that helps. So I think we need to take the approach of when we’re working with young people. You know, the a big thing for us growing up with pastor Sorey, he was always like, alright. We’re gonna do, we wanna youth service. We wanna start a youth service at church. Alright. Y’all plan it. Y’all do it. You do the you be preacher. You play the piano. Right? We go home after service. Enjoy the church. You know? And we were like, you know? But we really grew from that. We were given responsibility. Right? We were seen as, like, having our own, like, sense of being able to lead. We were given the space in order to do that. So I think we need to give young people the space in order to find their find themselves, live out that personhood as opposed to sort of just approaching them as, like, let me tell you why, you know, like, let me tell you what my wisdom is and, you know, like, what I have to share with you is important and you need to listen and stay where you’re at. I think young people need to be able to evolve and to make decisions and think through things on their own, and I think that helps them come into their own selves. That’s good. I also think that as we care for children, shepherd children, we need to understand, like, what their social and emotional developmental milestones are. Like, at a very foundation, we need to understand child and adolescent development because sometimes we get so impatient with the process of development in which really God designed that we would rather someone mirror someone else’s identity than embody their own. Like, hurry up and get there because this is too much. Why are you still struggling with it? They’re struggling with it because they’re nine, and this is what nine year old struggle with. You know what I’m saying? Like, they struggle with this because they’re 17, and, like, they they are on par with all the other 17 year olds. And their, development is in stages because each stage sets the foundation for what you need in the next phase of life. Right? A child doesn’t learn how to walk without first being able to stabilize their body and sit up to stabilize their neck. A child doesn’t learn how to stand up until they learn how to crawl. A child doesn’t learn how to run until they learn how to walk. And so I think that there’s just a reality that sometimes we want people to hurry up and get there because we don’t have this thing called distress tolerance. I cannot watch you experience something that I was not allowed to experience with grace. You’re making mistakes that I was not allowed to make. So hurry up and get over those mistakes because there’s a thing called brain to brain neurocoupling, which is when when you hear and see other people’s experiences, your body reacts as if you’re experiencing it. Who has experienced secondhand embarrassment? Can’t even watch comedy. Can’t do it. If you joke, don’t land. Why am I suffering? I paid to be here. You know what I’m saying? And there’s just a reality that, like, when when we don’t know how to experience, difficult emotions, when we don’t have emotional intelligence and emotional regulation, seeing someone else suffer tries to make us over mentor them to actually as a way to serve our own regulation. You get better so I can feel better. You you hurt get over this thing because I can’t watch you experience this because it’s bringing up the stuff that I haven’t yet dealt with. And so I think that at the very core, we need to understand childhood development, because they, you know, they they meet a milestone, they master it, and then they move on. That’s what it is. And sometimes we want people to go from, you know, being born to leading the nations and they can’t even hold their neck up, you know, which means we have to be okay with watching people suffer and letting our presence be enough and not always having to direct other people’s lives. Thank you for that. We just have a few minutes left, but this one actually got a lot of votes, and it probably won’t take a well, I don’t know. It shouldn’t take a whole bunch of time. But to the two ladies on stage, what are some books you recommend on how to navigate being a black woman in majority white faith spaces professionally? And, there’s another question about just resources in general that you would be able to, offer for everyone on the stage. But but first, to the ladies. I mean, I wrote a book. You better go ahead and talk about it. I mean, where’s my girls at? Truth’s Table has a book, Akemi and Christina, Black Faces and White Spaces. Didn’t that just come out by, Latasha Yeah. Morrison, is she here? Doctor. Serena. Yeah. Doctor. Serena Alliance, her book. Yep. Doctor. Serena Alliance, her book just came out. Mhmm. I think she’s sung. Yep. Yep. Church Girl just came out. That was the one. Absolutely. I’m so sorry. I wish I would’ve gotten this question in advance Cause I like, I’m looking at my bookshelf right now and I’m like, I got so many, Candace Bimbo’s book, Red Lip Theology. Yeah. It’s my home girl. While you’re thinking gentlemen, do you have any book recommendations and we’ll come back to you all ladies. Yeah. Just in in terms of, dealing with the crisis of identity and helping you helping us work through that personally. Yeah. So I I was thinking about this coming in, how a lot of books are coming out. So we got Womanish Theology by Kristen. Thank you. Thank you. Church Girl by doctor Sarita Lyons, When Faith Disappoints by Lisa Fields. And then also, we have it available for you today at the Whole Brother Mission Table, but also, coming out on September 3, Whole Man, 40 Spiritual Reflections, for the head heart and soul by black men for black men and that’s available at the hope or the mission table it’s through our daily bread ministries and it’s quite a few black men speaking to the wholeness of our identity beyond just through the spiritual lens. So all these great resources are coming out around the same time but I would also say so since we’re doing books my first book that came out in 2020 was called Debunking the Mist to Break the Black Family. And that’s available at the whole brother mission table as well. But it spoke specifically to family dynamics and how those things play a part in identity specifically for black men. How a father’s role specifically if he shows up this way the son typically shows up this way. Some of you may identify with having a father that was physically present in the home but emotionally distant. That has implications for how that man grows up. So that’s kinda what that resource addresses. Thank you. Yeah. I I would throw in, to the question, you know, about, you know, just being a black woman in a larger space, Shanika Walker Barnes book, Too Heavy a Burden Yes. Would be a really good one as well. And then just broader in terms of identity and identity in Christ and especially, you know, from my perspective looking at it from a cultural standpoint, I would throw in people who have been really influential for me. I mean, anything written by Kwame Bediako, but I’m thinking especially, like, Jesus and the gospel in Africa. And then also anything written by Richard Twist, but I would also specifically highlight, the, the book One Church, Many Tribes. Thank you. Anything else, ladies, that you would like to add to that? What did you say? Oh, my book, Why Am I Like This? Yes. My I was like, nope. We’re all good. Let’s move on. My book, Why Am I Like This? But I I will say this, the book is not necessarily gonna shepherd you through, how to navigate white spaces. It might ask you why you’re in the white spaces in the first place. It might help you ask questions about, you know, again, am I here because I feel like I have to be here, or am I here because I’m called here? And if I’m called here, what are the resources? I would say also connect to black women who’ve navigated those spaces and listen to those stories. Story is is powerful. Listen to the story of black women who’ve been in those spaces before, but, I was when you first asked the question about this, you say, I don’t know. I divested. I divested years ago, and I’ve I’ve enjoyed, I’ve enjoyed experiencing the pleasure of my people and not having to constantly fight fights that our guide was no longer gracing me to fight anymore. Yeah. Sister Citizen by Melissa Harris Perry is a good one. Okay. We thank you, thank these panelists for this discussion. I believe that this has been great. A great start to our day. Thank you.