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My entire career: when I critiqued James Cone (all good) “Yay Bradley!! We’re so glad you’re here”) when I pointed out historical Presbyterian & Reformed racist history, I literally got a phone call from PCA offices in Atlanta asking me about my mental health. True story. https://twitter.com/kylejameshoward/status/1249692546953031681
The call ended with this: “people are wondering if you love the PCA or not.” Apparently, I have failed to publicly expresss my love & so I was being called a “traitor,” “angry,” a rejector “warm & winsome,” heavily slandered, etc. Many have since apologized, many have not.
B/c I was talking about these issues back when no one really was, it’s cool to be an anti-racist Reformed evangelical now, I was, as one large-church PCA pastor said to me, “blackballed.” I was also recently told by another that, since I’m non-tribal, people won’t you to things.
It’s been interesting to watch people get celebrated for the same things I was attacked for 10+ years ago & sadly seeing the same attacks when black & brown people finally see what what we spoke about in 1999 in Miami is actually true. We weren’t lying, race baitors, nor angry.
I’ve tried to protect as many as possible from the pain of discovering the “family secrets,” but I’ve since learned that many of the young black and brown folks were told not to listen to me & others on race issues. This book won’t be on the table : https://www.amazon.com/Aliens-Promised-Land-Leadership-Institutions/dp/1596382341
The expected formula is this phrase: “the gospel is the solution” even though church history proves over & over again that “the gospel” does not make people non-racist. But that’s what people want to hear b/c people are taught that racial sin disappears with gospel-centericity.
I’ve realized over the years that what people really want, in the Reformed world, is for leaders to repeat back to them the history, theology, & aphorisms to which they’ve already pledged allegiance. Saying what people already want to hear makes you a Christian celebrity fast!
