I attended seminary at Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary in South Hamilton, Massachusetts. Set a few miles from where my mom grew up, the campus is absolutely majestic. You enter through large pillars with beautiful signs showing its early historical roots. The winding road to the main part of campus takes you along well-manicured lawns, past a peaceful pond and up a hill where you literally feel on top of the world. While there was a diversity of ages and backgrounds, the vast majority of the student body around me was male and white. Most of the student body was there for full-time study.
Thirty miles south of this glorious campus, in the city of Boston, Gordon Conwell had another “campus.” It was called CUME (Center for Urban Ministerial Education.) At that point in time it was a new campus that had no buildings. Rather, Gordon Conwell Professors taught Gordon Conwell classes in various partner churches throughout the city. This population was very different from the one I was living in. While I don’t know the particular demographics, it appeared that there were more women, more black and Hispanic students, and most of the students were working slowly through their programs as they continued to work full-time jobs.
The collision of these two worlds is where my journey began.
To complete my Masters of Divinity degree I needed to take an ethics class. I had taken an ethics class in college and while the idea of ethics had sounded very interesting to me back then, the class ended up being incredibly boring. I had no interest in repeating that. Luckily, at Gordon Conwell, there were a few other options beyond the basic “Christian Ethics” course. And the one that stood out to me was “Christianity and the Problem of Racism.”
I was intrigued by this class for two reasons: 1) I had always been passionate about issues of justice and equality. I was naturally drawn to spaces of disparity. And 2) I didn’t really get the title: how was there a problem of racism within Christianity? Do you see the beginnings of my journey?
Clay and I were newly married and on the same MDiv track so we decided together that we would take this class. We recognized it would be a lot more demanding that any other ethics course. Normally CUME classes were held for three weekends—a Friday evening and a full Saturday in Boston. This one, was four weekends. I laugh now thinking about how we though logistics would be the biggest challenge with this course. We had no idea what we were getting ourselves into.
The course was taught by Dean Borgman. Dean was an older, white episcopal priest who taught most of the youth ministry courses at Gordon Conwell. Dean and I were connected in that we had both done parachurch ministry in the same very white Connecticut town many years apart from one another. His stories there were legendary. It was clear he never “fit in” in to that environment, I believe in the best of ways. After his years in Connecticut, Dean spent many of his years in inner city ministry, which must have been the birthplace of his heart for this course.
While we had taken CUME classes in the past, when we walked into that church basement that first Friday night, the air was definitely different. The class was not “majority South Hamilton” but a real mix or urban and suburban. About half the room was black and half the room was white, with a couple people who would identify with some other racial/ethnic distinction. I immediately felt uncomfortable. At this point, 14 years later, I am not sure exactly why it felt so uncomfortable. Was it because I wasn’t used to that much diversity? Or was it because of the topic we were getting ready to dive into? If I am honest, it was probably both.
Whatever it was, in that moment I could sense that this was not a class I had signed up for, but an experience that would forever change me.
As we sat down at tables throughout the room, you could feel the tension and anxiety that hung over the room. It was palpable. Dean introduced himself, and as he passed out the syllabus, he talked more about why we were there. I wish I could recall the exact words he said. From what I recall, he assured us this was important. He warned us this would be hard. He implored us to hang in there and listen to one another. And he gave us a hope for the good that could come through the “really tough.”
As I looked down at the paper in front of me, frankly happy to have something to look at, other than the people I did not know who I sensed saw me as the reason this course needed to exist in the first place, I read these sentences. They were sentences I had never heard, and they were sentences I did not yet fully believe. I mean, I believed them in my head. But, my heart…? I’m not so sure.
RATIONALE FOR THE COURSE
Of all of America’s problems, there is perhaps none older and none more morally troubling than the problem of racism. Since racism is a belief that suggests idolatry and negates the Christian view of human beings, the Christian cannot adopt a neutral posture but must seek to understand its nature and be actively involved in working towards a solution.
“… let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.” Amos 5:24
This was the journey I was embarking on. It was a journey of understanding the history of racial discrimination and oppression in our nation, that shocking to me, did not end with the passing of the Equal Rights Amendment of 1971. It was a journey of coming to see and acknowledge my own part in the mess and to understand what it would look like for me to take a non-neutral posture in working towards change.
But, as I said, I was just on the beginning of my journey. I wasn’t there yet. I was a toddler in a swimming pool who still had my water wings on.
Why do I tell you all this? I tell you this, because where I stand now is VERY different from where I stood that day, as a 25-year old seminary student. I would not be where I am today, had I not been in that classroom, walking through the things I would walk through in the weekends to come.
If I am being honest, which I hope you all know by now, I always try to be, I have had a hard time being patient with people in this moment in history. For me, this issue seems far more clearly black and white than almost any other I can think of. My gut reaction is shock when I hear certain perspectives: “did they really say that?” “How can they not get this?” In my work of self-awareness through the years, I have learned that one of my habitual sins is that of judgment. I feel like I see things so clearly, and so I have the horrible tendency to vilify, dehumanize and dismiss those who disagree with me. I know this about myself. It is something that I battle daily.
So, in the weeks that followed the death of George Floyd, what I did more than anything else, was pray. I probed my heart and asked for a whole lot of forgiveness (for myself) and empathy (for others). And as I sat, I realized that this issue is so clear to me, only because of the journey God took me on that began in that church basement 14 years ago. And I realized that I could very easily be in a different place today, had I not chosen to take a course that would change my life.
So, as a practice in empathy I revisited “2004 Allie.”
I went back to the girl who was passionate about MLK and all things racial equality; to the one who wrote her papers about E.B. Dubois, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Ladysmith Black Mambaso and the Freedom Riders. I went back to the girl who believed she didn’t have a racist bone in her body.
And yet…
I also remembered that that girl did not believe in affirmative action. She was offended by the notion of “white privilege.” If she were honest, and she trusted you, she might even admit that she believed that if a disproportionate number of black people were in prison was because a disproportionate number of black people committed crimes. She most definitely believed that systemic racism died when “segregation ended.”
And yes, “she” was “me.” And yes, even today, fourteen years later, writing those honest truths hurts my soul. Knowing what I know now, tempts me to hate that girl. But here is the thing. And please don’t miss this:
I was NOT a bad a person. I was a good person, with a good heart, who was asleep to the reality around me. It was not that I was evil or that I had seen the truth clearly and decided to stay ignorant and remain part of the problem. It was just that I was an ordinary sinner who had not yet put myself in a place to be awakened.
When this hit me, it led me to have compassion for the people who I wanted to vilify and write off in this moment. It gave me the empathy to understand that these weren’t all “bad people” who had no moral compasses or true relationships with Jesus. They were just people who had never let anyone wake them up. They were people who had not yet embarked on a journey. So, as I asked God how I could best speak to these people, I heard the words:
“Tell them about your journey.”
I wish each one of you could experience what I experienced in that church basement those four weekends in 2006. But since you can’t, I want to take you there. I want to tell you what it felt like. I want to tell you what was said. I want to tell you what God did in my heart and I want to tell you what God did in that room.
Opening up the words of the personal journal I wrote as I walked through this class is truly like exposing the very surface of my heart—and in many cases, some of the ugliest parts of that surface. I don’t do this because I am a masochist. I do this because I believe it may echo the hearts of others. It may ask the questions that you may be too afraid to ask. I do this because I hope it could put you on a journey.
So, as we go on this journey together, I would just ask a few things of you. First, please be kind. This is not easy, and it is not perfect, but it is my truth. Second, please respect the journey. You may be in a different place. Heck, I am in a different place. But each step of the journey matters. And finally, my prayer is that my vulnerability might lead you to be able to be vulnerable. Ultimately, racism begins and persists as a heart issue. Let’s together be honest with our hearts and ask God to do the transformation there that only He can.
And so, I invite you to my journey….