The Tower - August 29

The Color of Compromise
By: Pastor Mary Alice Birdwhistell

Last week marked the 400th anniversary of the arrival of enslaved people into the United States. At CBF this summer, we acknowledged the painful truths of this anniversary by gathering at the historic Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, where 4 young girls were killed in a church bombing in 1963.

There was a palpable discomfort in the room for us to be worshipping in the physical space where people had experienced such radical hatred and injustice, and yet worshipping in this physical space was also deeply compelling. Our guest preacher was Carolyn McKinstry, who grew up at Sixteenth Street and survived the bombing. As she shared in her sermon, “Crisis kept me spellbound for twenty years, but I made up for lost time when I got out...I heard God telling me, ‘I am with you, and you can walk this walk.’”

I returned from CBF convicted that both I as your pastor and we as Calvary have much work to do to “make up for lost time.” This summer, I put together a team of people from Calvary to explore how we as a predominantly white church might begin to talk about race and racism in ways that are honest, meaningful, and transformative. Each person on this team had approached me at some point over the past year to share about work they had been doing related to racial equity or with ideas about how we as a church might respond. This time around the table with Josh Caballero, Geneece Goertzen, John Hunt, Bobby Martinez, Jon Singletary, Doug Weaver, and Elaine White has been sacred space; our conversations have been vulnerable, challenging, uncomfortable, and holy.

We sat in painful silence the Sunday night after the horrific racially-motivated shooting in El Paso, convicted that this is work we must be doing as the Church. We quickly began to ask ourselves, “What do we do?” and “How do we fix this?” However, as we listened to the collective wisdom around the table, we discerned that as a predominantly white congregation, our work must begin by looking at ourselves. It’s not until we truly begin to see the problem of unrecognized racism within each of us that we can become agents of change who act against it. We believe that our work begins with asking ourselves hard questions, sitting with truths that make us uncomfortable, and listening to the stories of our brothers and sisters of color. All of this work is grounded in our sincere desire to follow in the ways Jesus, who calls us to love our neighbors as ourselves.

As a starting point, we will be offering two, ten-week small group opportunities this fall based on Jemar Tisby’s book The Color of Compromise: The Truth about the American Church’s Complicity in Racism. Tisby has spoken on campus at Baylor several times over the past year, and he was a keynote speaker at CBF this summer as well. His work is both challenging and accessible, painful and inspirational. Jon Singletary will lead one group starting on Wednesday, September 18 from 6:00-7:00 PM, and Josh Caballero will lead another group starting on Sunday, September 22 from 9:30-10:30 AM. Books cost $12 each, and you can order a copy by contacting John Hunt (jhunt@cbcwaco.net). If you can’t participate in a group, you’re welcome to read the book with us. There will also be more opportunities to engage this spring if you can’t participate in the fall.

As Bobby Martinez shared in our last meeting, we often want to move too quickly to the work of reconciliation, but the hard work of realization must come first. Our collective hope for this time together is that we might approach these conversations from a place of humility, with a sincere desire to grow in self-awareness, and ultimately that all of us might be transformed by the Spirit of God at work among us.