Respectability politics are all over the place without understanding that it has never really been about the law as much as it has been about the person that the law is targeting. If we were step back in time, say several centuries, we would realize that this way of constructing laws isn’t new. Many empires throughout the history of our world have approached the law-making process with the aim of horrifying their subjects into submission, silencing them, or obliterating them altogether.
Saying No to Pharaoh and Our Slavery to Work
We live in a society that demands constant production. Similarly to the Israelites when they were slaves in Egypt, we are expected, no coerced, to keep turning out profit so that Pharaoh/America, can build a bigger empire.
Rejecting Anti-Black Theology, Embracing the Kingdom of God
Initially, the ideas which gave rise to racism were upheld by the Doctrine of Discovery and Manifest Destiny – two documents which the Church signed off on which made it theologically permissible for whites to exploit others. While we are centuries away from these blatant acts, Western (American) theology has been thoroughly shaped by them.
Does The Church Really Want Diversity?
I have seen the American church try trend after trend to grow the church. We’ve updated our churches with the latest technology, we’ve built bigger buildings, we’ve shortened our services, we’ve create in-house coffee shops. And the latest of all of the trends appears to be diversity.