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I've been thinking about this day every day for 4 years and that is not hyperbole.
I keep remembering the a protest I went to in early 2017 when Trump announced his Muslim travel bans/shut down the refugee resettlement program. I was angry but hopeful. I made a punny sign ("put the protest back in protestant: evangelicals against the muslim travel ban")
I was so proud to go to the PDX airport and gather with a diverse crowd of people to stand up against draconian and cruel and immoral policies that affected my neighbors. But we were ambushed by some patriot prayer guys who came with bullhorns and screamed at us the entire time.
Me and my friend who had went there together were shocked by how this group of angry men with bullhorns kept invoking the name of Jesus as they screamed about how evil Muslims were, how America was full, how we needed to keep America great by closing our doors.
So we tried to put our bodies in-between these men and the crowd, especially the families of people who were immigrants because it wasn't a safe situation. I am sure it was less than an hour but it felt like a century of standing guard while being screamed at.
The past few years and months this type of engagement with my fellow neighbors has only accelerated. Tear gas, bear mace, screams, threats, seeing their angry faces with their pro-Trump, pro-Christian t-shirts . . . that is why so many of us are grieving today.
Of course I want Donald Trump to be defeated, and badly. But what has been revealed and embolden will not be unified any time soon, nor should it be.
Without lament, repatnace, and confession there is no moving forward in Christian unity.
Without lament, repatnace, and confession there is no moving forward in Christian unity.
I don't make funny or clever protest signs anymore. It is too real, too serious, and the truth of where dominant culture Christianity in the US has upheld violence, oppression, and dehumanization of God's beloved children cannot be ignored.
Anyways if you are like me you might have Christians telling you right now not to worry, to be of good cheer, that Jesus is king over everything so why worry?
And I will tell you why: we grieve because the name of Jesus has been used to oppress people and we refuse to accept it.
And I will tell you why: we grieve because the name of Jesus has been used to oppress people and we refuse to accept it.
I refuse to accept or forget or brush away the acceleration of the diseased white Christian imagination (thank you, Willie Jennings). I refuse to be unified until there is justice. I refuse to be at peace when my marginalized neighbors suffer at the hands of my fellow Christians.
I do think Biden will win and that's great and all but the work doesn't end there.
And if people telling you to cheer up/get over it/trust in God feels like a silencing tactic that's because it IS. You don't have to explain your grief to those who don't get it. But God knows.
And if people telling you to cheer up/get over it/trust in God feels like a silencing tactic that's because it IS. You don't have to explain your grief to those who don't get it. But God knows.
