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Thread- 1. I appreciate the length and effort made in your apology. Much better than 2013. I am no longer a Christian, but I see the importance of the church dealing with its racist heritage, and your church could help make the world a better place. But... https://twitter.com/Saddleback/status/1356074307311394816
2. That said, let me be blunt. Your church will never be part of the solution. The responses of your flock show a majority of people at your church are somewhere on the racist spectrum with many POC’s supporting them.
3. These people didn’t become what they are overnight. They’ve attended your church and others like it for decades. Something about your teaching and your interpretations of the bible has at best ignored racism, or at worst made them what they are.
4. Regardless of what you might preach once or twice, you have created a culture of white-centric Christianity made up of people who love and adore Trump. And after you ride out the criticism for your apology, you can go back to being loved and adored by your people.
5. Your people will remain who they are.
6. You mention thousands of Asian American kids at your church and schools. It breaks my heart that they and their parents sit in pews and tables at your coffee shop next to racist assholes who would tell them they are weak for being angry at racism.
7. And most Asian Americans who attend a church like Saddleback are people who range from being ambivalent about their identities to hating their racial and ethnic identities. Some are proud of their race, but they desire proximity to whiteness.
8. I grew up at Lake Ave church, and I stayed through college because I hated being Japanese American. Had I lived in the OC, I would have attended Saddleback. I even visited a few times.
9. Many Asian Americans who attend churches like Saddleback aspire to whiteness. Obviously, they can’t be white, but they can be white-adjacent.
10. This is what evangelical culture asks of POCs. Must put down your heritage and perform whiteness to fit in. Again, I grew up this way. I was awesome at it. I even became a worship leader.
11. And anyone who gets too “ethnic” gets put down and hit with “In christ there is no jew or gentile…”
12. I don’t know what an “All Nations” church is, but I hope your plan works. I am part of a growing community of Ex-evangelicals who know the church is not equipped to end racism because the church in America is founded upon racism.
13. If it can’t even acknowledge this, there is no moving forward. There is also patriarchy, misogyny, and anti LGBTQ values, but those are other problems for another thread.
14. In your pews and in your schools, you have children and people who don’t like their race, their gender, or their sexual identity. They go to Saddleback and ascribe to evangelicalism because it both enables and soothes this self-hatred.
15. In the threads on facebook there are a precious few who thanked you for addressing the issue. Their voices and hearts could lead the way, if given the chance. But as long as they are sitting comfortably next to racists, they, too, are part of the problem.
16. The fact that you have secret BLM meetings tells me you care about the issue. Let them guide you.
17. Again, racism has a home in evangelical churches. POC’s at Saddleback know this, but they are willing to endure racism to fit in with whiteness. This is why your church will always be part of the problem and not the solution. Unless…
