This story needed and needs to be told, big time. Took my breath away at points, made me laugh with joy at points, and brought me to tears. Your integrity and courage is remarkable. God bless you in every way.
As someone who was comfortably white in the PCA out west for about a decade, that pod ep was sooo good and necessary and painful for me to hear, and I'm sharing it with my friends who are still there... thinking a lot especially about how you can be in a "good" congregation that you love ("but my congregation isn't like this!") and yet still be part of a system that's harmful. Having a deeper understanding of the systemic nature of things was what took longest for me to get, and I couldn't (or didn't, anyway) leave until I got that. Also, I'm 100% sure every other church I've been a part of, regardless of denom) had the same issues, maybe presented differently, so the system in question is white American Christianity kind of as a whole. And I've realized (ever since...oh, fall 2016) I can't just hop to some other denomination and let myself become comfortable again. Anyway, thanks for your vulnerability and clarity. White Christians like me who have seen ourselves as the good guys in all this really need to listen.
This story needed and needs to be told, big time. Took my breath away at points, made me laugh with joy at points, and brought me to tears. Your integrity and courage is remarkable. God bless you in every way.
As someone who was comfortably white in the PCA out west for about a decade, that pod ep was sooo good and necessary and painful for me to hear, and I'm sharing it with my friends who are still there... thinking a lot especially about how you can be in a "good" congregation that you love ("but my congregation isn't like this!") and yet still be part of a system that's harmful. Having a deeper understanding of the systemic nature of things was what took longest for me to get, and I couldn't (or didn't, anyway) leave until I got that. Also, I'm 100% sure every other church I've been a part of, regardless of denom) had the same issues, maybe presented differently, so the system in question is white American Christianity kind of as a whole. And I've realized (ever since...oh, fall 2016) I can't just hop to some other denomination and let myself become comfortable again. Anyway, thanks for your vulnerability and clarity. White Christians like me who have seen ourselves as the good guys in all this really need to listen.