Few years Back, a pastor reached out to my pastor about doin some stuff together.

My church is mostly Black. Theirs is mostly White & White Hispanic.

It was cool at first.

Til we saw the pastor posting “I stand for the flag” memes & graduating to Trump propaganda. 1/7

Many of us were conditioned to believe that unity meant we’d look past this.

So we did.

Then we noticed him getting bolder. Posting Islamaphobic memes about sharia law coming to the US & stuff.

And I recognized that just about everything he shared was harmful to someone. 2/7

At first, I got to a point where I was no longer comfortable dealing with that particular pastor and his ministry.

Because if literally *everything* you say is harmful to *someone*, eventually people draw conclusions about the gospel you supposedly affirm. 3/7

But we got to a point where my pastor saw where I was coming from and ended up at the same place. And he taught me a valuable lesson at that point.

Witness matters.

A lot.

And we don’t have to affirm or even tolerate that which is not gospel when it damages our witness. 4/7

What I came to understand was, that pastor had the luxury of bein a whole clown on issues like the national anthem and generally being a bigot. If/when a Black person came around, it was a win for them and they felt all “unified” n stuff. 5/7

We didn’t have that luxury. We were intentionally placed in a Black community and had to be sensible to that. He did not.

And our witness and credibility was giving him shelter to be a bigot.

And that was whack. So we stopped. At the expense of “unity” 6/7

I say all of that to say this:

Witness is important. Very much so.

And when you feel pressured to maintain “unity” at the sake of your witness, you can be sure someone is trying to block transformation.

And you don’t have to allow that. Cuz that’s whack. So don’t.

K bye. 7/7