Minorities must contextualize the richness of the gospel in ethnically specific ways.
LaVar Ball is onto something. It’s time for Jesus-loving minorities to stop begging for a seat at white folks’ tables. Like the Big Baller Brand, which was founded by basketball players Lonzo, LiAngelo, and LaMelo Ball, we need to establish our own tables. Unlike its loquacious CEO, our tables need to be open and we need to invite our white siblings to sit at them and to be guests in our homes.
Ray Chang’s open letter to John Piper and white evangelicalism is one of the most moving, courageous, and prophetic pieces of prose I’ve read on this subject in some time. His definitions, diagnosis, and insights are spot on. What he has penned is a must read.
My only pushback would be the posture of his letter. I don’t know y’all, but at the age of 44, and having spent over half my life as a guest in the white evangelical world, I’m tired of begging to be noticed, considered, and invited.
I’m tired of begging white evangelical academics to include people of color on their required reading lists.
I’m tired of begging white homiletics professors to lengthen their references of good preachers to preachers of color.
I’m tired of urban hipster church planters, planting churches in gentrifying neighborhoods never once considering existing minority churches in those neighborhoods as ones to learn from and partner with.
I’m tired of recommending young minority leaders to serve on white church staffs, and watching them get used as tokens to show how “serious” the church is about diversity, only to see it end very badly.
I’m tired of the silence of other minority leaders who, in their pursuit of climbing Mount Significance, are scared to speak the truth for fear of ...
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