--- Sis D,
Our Lord is really using you in my behalf to bringing some things to calarity ... He popped what you'd said back up into my mind this weekend and these are some subsequent thoughts ---
Sis D you wrote;
"So you are black. Funny, I just assumed that you were white - fair-haired and blue-eyed to boot. (Ha!) So there - I just learned something about myself – I make assumptions. There are a lot of good lessons in that point alone."
--- MAJORITY THINKING;
Sis your assumption about my being white is actually normal, it's "majority thinking" ... Meaning that if you're part of a majority group (as Caucasian is in N. America), unless given any hint or clue to think otherwise it's just a normal assumption to think so of others (especially on a forum) ... If i wrote how i generally speak to others in my ethnic group you would probably pick it up right away, but i don't ... Minorities (blacks are 12% of US population) also "majority think", in that on SI i take for granted that the majority of my brothers and sisters here are (in the natural) white ...
i'll let you in on something you may not know about American Africans, but there used to be a time (especially amongst we that came out of the Civil Rights Movement) where we had "a black voice" and a "white voice" ... The former we used amongst ourselves, with a more lazy and truncated use of English, interspersed with slang ... But our "white voice" we'd use on the telephone/in person doing business, setting up job interviews, and on interviews, any area where we'd have to speak to white people ... The stories i could tell you about my setting up job interviews with white architects, and the shock i saw on there faces when i showed up being black :-P ...This is just one example of the many unfortunate by-products birthed from US history of slavery and discrimination :-( ...
Another horrible by-product is something that many Am/Af's subscribe to called "keepin-it-real" ... i really hate this one because the conotation is that being Am/Af i can't be real to a large portion of my ethnic group if i have an affinity towards anything that can be ascribed as my "trying to be like the white man" ... The former is usually aimed at any blacks who put a strong emphasis on education and are prone toward Eurocentric intellectualism and culture ... This pretty much describes me, besides the fact that my parents raised me from a standard of expectation far above the poor neighborhoods we lived in ... So i wound up pretty much getting this attitude from both white and black, "Who do you think you are"? ... Which equated to my being what was once called "an uppity Negro" (and that's putting it nicely) ...
Now the really weird part of this is that i also got this in "church" ... i believe that our Lord groomed me to be exactly as i am, for His use amongst the assignment and people group He's put me in, tho often i feel like Jeremiah amongst folk who just refuse to "get it" ...
i believe our Lord has shown me (to warn) that the great majority of the black church, at present is still stuck in a now archaic emotionally driven, still feeling oppresses for being black in America, music to make me feel good, type of worship culture that may have served a purpose then but is straight up crippling us now ... This along side the fact that even still we're trying to balance being relevant to Christ and what He requires, with ethnically and culturally trying to be relevant to being black and what it requires have in my opinion turned much of the black church into a schizophrenic mess ... We want to be of Christ in the super-natural, but we want to embrace our ethnic/cultural icons/achievments in the natural ... i can see where that may not be so bad in some arenas, but lets face it a lot of who and what's achieved under black enterprise today (music and sports paramount) ain't holy spiritual no way-no how! ... So a choice has to be made, will a black saint and the black church here in America continue to be double-minded? ... Will we continue to try to embrace Christ and His principles to the furtherence of His agenda, while yet at the same time attempt to hold on to our "keeping it real" with others just because they happen to be black, to the furtherance of agendas often times in direct conflict to Christ's?" ... Holy Ghost has shown me that once we come to Christ we ALL become one color in the eyesight of God the Father: RED (as in the color of the blood of His Lamb in which we've been washed clean), and i think the sooner in the Spirit we begin to view one another in this same color the less satan will be able to use our old ethnic strifes to divide us ...
i've given example here of some things i see that's hobbling the black church, but those of you who may be white (or another ethnic group) and attend a congregation predominantly white (or your own ethnic group) you see similar conflicts of agendas going on where you are too! ... So again what to do about it? ... i pray your answer be to earnestly seek God about it in prayer, and if (tho in my experience it's always when) He answers you, submit to His will, and in love do what He tells you ... The bottom line is this, no man can serve two agendas, he'll either love one or hate the other ... All saints, i don't care what color we are, when we come to Christ we become a new creation, all former things are brought to nill and non effect in light of our new agenda, His agenda---
Sis D you wrote:
"Funny, we whites assume that blacks are so passionate about their faith, and show it by the way they worship. We say, Why can’t we be more like them in our worship? Many a choir director has told his reserved choristers, “Hey, folks, you need to be more black!”
--- Ha ... ha ... Yes this is an irony ... i was raised JW, in an all black congregation, whose modus opperendi was strong on teaching and training, little emotionalism but a whole lot of evangelism ... Tho in this invironment also my intellectualism was frowned upon because "free thinking" (that being to question the accepted norm) was dangerous to what man had put together ... See in Christ i've learned that one can ask all the questions one wants to of God, and He'll answer us thru His Word (Bible), because God ain't afraid of none of our questions ... But when man comes along and creates his way of how things are supposed to be, folk who ask to many questions are quickly labeled trouble makers ---
Sis D you wrore;
"I recently chatted with a black cousin (by marriage). He shared with me that he left the black church – because he got tired of the emotionalism. It was pushed on him – like it was the only right way. So he defected to the CRC - a BIG contrast, as Dutch reformed people are not exactly emotive – again, an EXPECTED behavior. Nevertheless, the CRC was a breath of fresh air for my cousin. He said he could finally understand the preacher and he appreciated hearing content.
Incidently, his Dutch wife is now in a black church because she felt called to minister to black children. The word "scatter" comes to mind: God scatters his people so they learn to depend on him, not their religous/cultural/racial origions. Maybe bad music isn't all bad in the long run - it nudges you futher down the road."
--- CULTURAL RELEVANCY:
This is most interesting isn't it? ... i came to learn that in a great many white congregations (other than Pentecostal) it was said in black congregations that they were "to intellectual" in worship ... It was said that they had a tendency to experience God/Christ and His message with to much logic, as blacks from their view tend to experience Him with to much emotion ... Two extremes it seems here ... i often tell folk that i'm a "emotional intellectual", meaning that i believe He's groomed me to a good balance between the two ... But here's the rub, whether "emotional" or "intellectual" they're both arenas where we experience God in our souls/minds, when the Word says that we are to worship Him "in Spirit and in truth" ... Bro Mike struck a cord with me about this over on the "Sick Rap" thread where he calls it worshipping via "cultural relevance" ...
It seems that it would all work out OK if emotionally prone black saints and intellectually prone white saints could all get together in a perfect mix to even out one another, but that would't do it either ... This walk with/in Christ has to do with the Spirit bearing witness with our spirit, and our soulish extremes (with it's subsequent way of defining how we worship) often prove to be a huge hinderance to the movement of the Spirit ... We seem to eventually get stuck on/in ourselves ... This is another reason why our need for REVIVAL, for it seems to me crucial such a fresh movement of Holy Spirit amongst us to come along and bust up thru an elevation of our spirits, all the soulishness we tend to cover up the essence of His primal will and way for us, to make it easier on ourselves ... i believe the cross of Christ a tough pill to swallow, and so over time we sugar coat that pill in soulish ways that makes it more palatable to us ...
REVIVAL is the only thing that will/can throw the learned methods of the opposite extremes of intellectual and emotional worship right out the window, and bring them both into right mixture and stature below the predominance of Holy Spirit's lifting our spirits to worshipping Him in Spirit and in truth ... i believe that REVIVAL elevating our spirits to where we're supposed to be is what will/can turn any saint back to our first love and first work status where Holy Spirit will dictate our correct worship before Him ...
It's as you said sis D "As I implied earlier, you don’t need to have a Pope to squeeze religious expression into a small box. It seems to happen automatically in any religious culture." ... Amen, it's seems to be what the soul does, to elevate itself above the Spirit ... But just as true it takes Holy Spirit to release us ALL out of our small boxes of religious expression, into that of how it's supposed to be ... Many may see folk like myself as critical, legalistic, or some other negative, but i believe it's Holy Spirit who raises up the initial few who say His Church hasn't on any clothes (which is but a repeat of what He says about Laodicea), and that we ALL need to prayerfully seek Him towards that "white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear" ...
Both worship extremes of intellectallism surrounding many white saints, and emotionalism surrounding many black saints, or even in combination certainly ain't the answer when we look at the spiritual, moral and ethical condition of both groups ... It's obvious that somethings missing when it appears we got it all together on the outside, but our stats show that on the inside we're struggling spiritually - and if so many in the Church are still struggling within there can't even begin to be an effective witness to those who don't know Christ! ... The more i go on the more i can see why "correction" must first begin in His Church ... Whatever it takes is my prayer to our Lord ... whatever it takes! ---
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