Rhetoric Race and Religion
by Earle Fisher
R3 Contributor
*This is the second of a two part post. Read Part 1 here
In my last post, I shared that I have refrained from commentating on The Preachers of LA show because a) there are enough perspectives being offered in response to it and b) most of the responses are opportunistic and/or hypo-anti-critical so I said I would wait until the entire “buzz” died down (which sadly still has not). Nevertheless, my fortuitous take on the show is the same as my take on the current condition of people who seek to honor and claim relationship with a loving and liberating God but yet feel that this relationship comes through a cross-less Christ and a death-less resurrection. We have become both vicarious and voyeuristic! Most of us have seen the presumed “progress and advancement” of the people that have acquired material prosperity through their “faith.” It looks appealing. We want to be like and live vicariously through “them.” Even if this means to worship in a way that is inconsistent with our socio-political and religious reality (pun intended) we are willing to ignore our experience for social and spiritual affirmation. On the other hand we are voyeuristically “getting off” on the craziness and calamity of it all. We want to use other people’s seemingly unethical methods of personal “improvement” as justification for our disdain and distrust of the ministerial system that we support directly or indirectly.
Therefore, 21st Century ministry is currently compiled of ecclesiastical entertainment, divine drama and dogma, traditional strongholds, the reality of human hope and despair, as well as a thirst for theological truth grounded in social justice…but very little personal responsibility!!! In response, we are currently entertaining ourselves into irrelevance and death all the while creating and supporting conditions that make this entertainment detrimental and desirous at the same damn time!
Part of what goes unchecked is that perspective and platform that the student interviewer lifted up while standing on in the interview. The student presumed that she could critique the church for its lack of relevance and authoritative power to speak to her experience but also use it to forward her parental desire of childrearing, all the while not feeling compelled to change the culture and system of ministerial methodology. This is classic apathy! It takes a peculiar type of ministerial leader to provide a platform of oppression in the name of a liberating Lord and Savior. Yet, it also takes a particularly passive type of “person of faith” to support the religious and oppressive buffoonery in the name of “godliness.”
We have legitimately critiqued our religious institutions. But yet, at our core it seems we have not abandoned the faith. As a public theologian I think that this is not only a good thing, but I also think it’s nearly impossible to abandon faith once one has had a divine encounter. We have just created a condition that requires more ministerial and clergymatic creativity for a liberating and divine encounter to be more probable. I have often said that creativity is the church’s defibrillator that is needed to bring ministry out of the coma of complacency, conformity and cowardice that has sacrificed our people on the offer of irrelevance for far too long. My prayer is that we can foster a climate that grounds our ministerial and theological expressions in ways that are consistent with our experience and communal needs for love and justice. I believe a partnership between critical and analytical thinkers, artists, academics, activists and “everyday people” can redefine what it means to be “Church” today. In doing so we can corner the ministerial market and stop producing and promoting the things that are often times the most regressive and damning in our communities.
But in the meantime, as we are watching what we watch, wearing what we wear and worshiping who and how we worship….. Be careful what you pray for…and who you prey on!!!
Follow Earle on Twitter @pastor_earle
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