Last week, my friend and former colleague, the Reverend Dr. Michael Bledsoe, texted me: “I am stuck praying ‘hallowed be thy name on earth as in heaven.’ I can’t move past it. I’m so grateful for your hallowing of all people and your prophetic voice.”
We don’t text often but when we do, it is deep and true messaging. Unsurprisingly, he offers a beautiful way to frame my work and witness. Hallowing.
I think I’ll add it to my job description. It makes sense, as I was introduced to the Christian faith at Bibleway Holiness Church #3 in Foley, Alabama.
In a shotgun church with no air conditioning save the fan in the window assisted by the fan that advertised the local funeral home in our hands, we were taught about belief and behavior. We had to behave differently now that we were Christians. If not, then there would be eternal damnation.
My grandmother, Sister Eva Mae, would often begin her testimony, a communal sharing of one’s relationship with God, with a call and response song that included the words: “Love over here/ On the Lord’s side, Love over here/ On the Lord’s side.” She would switch out love for peace and joy with the congregation affirming her experience by replying: “On the Lord’s side!”
She sang about the difference made when one crossed over to the Lord’s side. It was also an evangelistic appeal: “Come on over/ On the Lord’s side, Come on over/ On the Lord’s side.”
What we could not find in the world—love, peace and joy—could be found on the Lord’s side. We just needed to “come on over.”
Tied to her vocal cords, my grandmother pulled the congregation in. She called for witnesses to testify, to give a review of their experience of being on the Lord’s side. “Ain’t you glad?” she asked.
And I was, for a while. That is, until I was old enough to notice the inconsistencies, the discrepancies, the hypocrisies.
We were supposed to be walking with Jesus on the straight and narrow path. So how did the church in North America lose its way?
When it comes to the sociopolitical construct of race, the church in North America takes sides. We, American Christians, are not always on the same side when it comes to much of anything—not even for the sake of love, peace, or joy.
Consequently, my faith led me to seek understanding about how race captured the Christian imagination. Because why else would the Christian God come in colors? Why would we dismember Christ’s body by segregating on Sunday mornings at 11 a.m. sharp?
Though it went against my religious conditioning, I had so many questions including: Why is the face of God colored in? Who saw the God that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob didn’t?
Who commissioned this picture of the Imago Dei? Who needs to see it?
Who is doing the painting? Who is holding the ladder? Who is in charge of lighting?
Where do you go to frame it? How heavy are the nails that hang it?
Who is the curator? Who advertises it? Who puts its keychain version in the gift shop?
Who is mass-producing it so that it hangs in homes and sanctuaries? Who is collecting a commission? And how is this image paying off?
Because some, who claim to be on the Lord’s side, are wreaking havoc throughout the country. They are calling holy people profane and I won’t have it.
Today and all the days thereafter, I am stuck praying, “Hallowed be all human beings.” Amen.
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Director of The Raceless Gospel Initiative, an associate editor, host of the Good Faith Media podcast, “The Raceless Gospel” and author of Take Me to the Water: The Raceless Gospel as Baptismal Pedagogy for a Desegregated Church.
